Page 23

Twenty-Three

Ayna

It could have been my idea that there is only one place relevant to any Crow in this fairy realm. They don’t care much for fairy culture or the fairies themselves—at least, not the traitors Ephegos brought along. So when we scout the western district half an hour later, Recienne staying behind with Sanja to send another letter to the rulers of Cezux, it’s only Kaira, the Crows, and me.

The males are walking in their fae forms, Kaira wedged between Herinor and Silas, Myron taking the lead and Royad, the rear, while I fly ahead, eyes and ears on the deathly silent allies beneath. Most of the corpses have been cleared away, but the lingering absence of noise bears witness to what happened here.

“Not far,” I hear Myron say to the others as he turns into the side street where I usually watch him disappear into the temple from the roofs above. Today, I dive right for the entrance, landing on his shoulder as he crosses the threshold through the damaged double doors he splintered at our last visit, sword drawn and silver power crackling in his palm like lightning spilling from his fingertips.

“Clever little crow,” he huffs, tilting his head toward me until his cheek brushes mine. I don’t know how I feel about the gesture, about the gentle contact that seems to happen without him taking notice, instincts driving him rather than his usual control.

It’s a brief moment, but it means everything. My heart speeds in my chest at a phantom memory—what it felt like to feel his stubbled cheek against my human skin.

Before I can relish the moment, Myron freezes, and I turn my gaze to follow his to the altar at the center of the main room where carvings of symbols adorn the top of the walls, spreading along the high ceiling, and behind the altar?—

“Fuck—” Royad exclaims, and I swear I couldn’t say it any better.

Kaira squeezes past Herinor and Myron to assess what we’re all staring at.

The carving of the humanoid form has vanished from the wall behind the altar, and the candles are no longer burning. Smoke lingers in the air like a reminder of what occurred.

“Where did it go?” I ask through Kaira’s mind link.

“Where did what go?” Herinor and Silas ask in unison.

They weren’t here with us the last time, neither did they accompany Myron on his secret temple visits, so they wouldn’t know about the carving of the God of Darkness that likes to come to life when I visit this ancient prayer hall.

What I told them of my encounter with Shaelak didn’t include he stepped out of a fucking carving.

Myron explains with a few efficient words while I flutter to the closest candle, digging my claws into the still-warm wax, Kaira following me around the room. “They can’t have left too long ago,” I conclude even when I know nothing of why the image of Shaelak is missing and why the candles stopped burning.

“Or the candles slowly burned out after the god left,” Royad supplies.

“Why would he leave?” Kaira objects. “Besides, who says he left? He could be lingering anywhere in this temple.” Her voice turns into a whisper as she figures she might very well be right.

“It’s not that large of a temple,” Silas notes quietly, rounding the altar to join me by the candles and tracing the leftover carvings with cautious fingers. In the temple of the Brother Guardian, even this ancient male seems to be humbled into deep respect. “Don’t you think we would see him if he were here, or at least sense him?”

None of us has a response, so the silence trickles past as the wind picks up outside, turning into low howls reminding me of the moans of the dying on a battlefield.

“What did they want here?” I try not to miss any detail.

The carving, the candles…

“ If they ever were here,” Myron says, doubt thick in his tone, but Herinor comes up beside Myron, staring at the altar instead of at the walls.

“They were here. Their blood is fresh on the altar. Can’t you smell it?” He sniffs the air, and so do the others, nostrils flaring as they scent traces of their kin. So I do, too.

It’s barely there, not more than a hint of fresh iron, copper, and salt. I didn’t pay it any heed with all of us still caked in the blood of our enemies. But now that I turn my attention toward the smells in this room, I can distinguish it like a clear, bright bell in a sea of deep, dull ones.

“Someone made a blood sacrifice,” I realize, and Herinor’s bobbing head makes me dread the whys he’s about to explain.

Myron steps around the altar, instantly at my side as if to shield me from an invisible threat, and I can sense the bond between us flare at the flash of fear in his eyes. “What day is it?” he asks Silas, who has taken a pace back from the wall to have a better overview of the carvings.

The look on Silas’s face promises nothing good. “Night before Sauin.”

Royad curses softly, eyes darting around the room as if wary of the god presiding over this temple smiting him for his choice of words.

I flutter back onto Myron’s shoulder as if he could save me from whatever truth is about to be spoken. “What’s Sauin?”

“End of harvest season,” Silas says with a shrug. “But it’s also the night where the realms of the living and the dead come closest.”

“Never heard of it,” Kaira comments, coming close to Silas’s side as if she feels it too, that hint of darkness and tightness creeping in from the edges of the temple as we all gather around the altar on which new specks of dried blood have joined Myron’s faded ones.

“I don’t think you celebrate it in Eherea,” Herinor explains, green eyes alight when Kaira meets his gaze. “It’s something even Myron and Royad barely know since it’s a tradition of the ancient Neredynian people; perhaps us Crows are the only ones still remembering.”

“Why are Traitor Crows coming to the Fairy capital to do a blood sacrifice on this night?” Kaira demands, and I’m glad I don’t need to because even my mental voice would have been shaking.

“It’s not only the night where the realms of the living and the dead become closest but all realms, known and unknown. And those of the gods.”

“Shaelak,” Myron explains. “They came here to make a sacrifice to Shaelak himself, not just any god. Why?” His eyes pin Herinor, the male squinting into the half-light. Silver sparks are dancing at Silas’s and Royad’s fingertips now, too, bathing the old rocks in what appears like shimmering stars.

Herinor’s throat bobs.

“Why, Herinor.” When the male doesn’t answer immediately, Myron’s magic springs loose, wrapping around Herinor’s neck, ready to snap. “They could have spilled their blood on any rock in the woods. Could have prayed in any temple. They staged an attack in the north to lure us out of the city then slayed half a district only to get to this temple. I want to know why.”

Herinor shakes his head, not in defiance but in resignation. “I can only guess.”

“Guess then,” Royad hisses, his blade flashing silver at Herinor’s throat an inch above Myron’s magic. “I am not as patient as our king, so you better be quick.”

My heart pounds in my chest like a hammer on an anvil, the pulse ringing in my ears, but I try to listen, try to grasp whatever they say in words or between the lines.

Herinor’s eyes fill with genuine fear as he opens his mouth to speak, as he halts before the first word forms. A droplet of crimson appears on his lower lip as he blows out a breath, starting over.

I’m not the only one noticing, and it’s Kaira, who steps in front of the warrior Crow, shoving Royad’s blade aside as she shields him with her body. “Can’t you see it’s hurting him?”

We all see it, but Kaira seems to be the only one who cares because we need the truth he’s guarding more than we need him right now. Ephegos and Erina are plotting the demise of this realm and that of all Crows who aren’t following him. If this holiday has anything to do with it, we need to know.

“It’s all right, Kaira.” Herinor’s murmur is nothing like the male I’ve come to know. Something broken, resigned, and self- loathing flickers through the facade he’s been wearing, and I know that he’s ready to risk it.

With a gentle hand, he grabs Kaira’s shoulder, squeezing once before he shoves her out of the way, and nods, ignoring the fear tightening her features.

“Because they needed a temple dedicated to Shaelak and no one else, and this is the only temple left in Eherea. People have long forgotten in the human realms there is a Brother Guardian and a Sister Guardian, their temples dedicated to both. Even in Askarea, people pray to the Guardians , not one of them individually the way they used to in the old days.” The drop on Herinor’s lip hasn’t grown, a sign he hasn’t given any vital information Ephegos forbade him to share, but by the tremble in his voice, I know he’s about to spill something that could kill him. “Ephegos knows the way we all did that this temple exists because we used to hunt in this city at every Ret Relah. He must have learned about who the Brother Guardian really is and decided to take a leap of faith.”

“Get to the point,” Myron growls, and I’m inclined to second his words of impatience.

None of this matters unless he tells us the why . And we’re back at the beginning, at those weeks and weeks of asking questions no one gave me answers to, all of them bound by Vala’s curse.

“Only this night they could reach between realms for the god who’s hidden his answer to Vala’s curse in the human realms for centuries,” Herinor continues, a sheen of crimson now covering half of his lower lip and part of his upper lip. The horror on Kaira’s face is nothing compared to the guilt pooling in my stomach as I push for more information.

“What do you mean, his answer to Vala’s curse ?” My breath catches in my throat even before Herinor speaks again.

“Shaelak made all the Crows. His creation. But he only ever sired two children, Ayna. One of them in Neredyn, and one of them in Eherea. He did it to ensure there would be descendants of his blood with powers strong enough to break his sister’s curse.” His gaze falls upon me like he’s already given all the answers and more, and a breath rattles out of him when Kaira turns away from him, stepping closer to Silas.

He lowers his head, not in defeat but bowing to his queen. “If I’m guessing right, you are a descendant of the God of Darkness, Ayna, his blood passed down through your father’s line. Every other generation there was a female child, not often enough to increase chances by much that they’d ever cross the Crow King’s path—or any Crow’s whatsoever, but it was his loophole to Vala’s curse. A key to unlock us all and buy us freedom.”

Silence falls over the temple, thicker than that in my head.

Shaelak’s descendant.

I wish he could lie so I could pass it all for a bad joke, for a deceit so he doesn’t need to speak the real reason, but Crows can’t lie, and the fresh blood trickling from the corner of his mouth is proof he’s breaking through an invisible gag-order.

“Did you know this before Ayna broke the curse?” Myron asks through gritted teeth, barely restrained rage flaring through the bond in a flash that makes me almost feel human again. But my claws remain on Myron’s shoulder, my feathered form light and small.

“I didn’t. I don’t truly know. It’s all guesses and deductions. But what Ephegos told me in Meer long after Erina forced that ring onto Ayna’s finger… Combined with what happened today… It all makes sense now.”

The reminder of Erina’s decision to make me his bride makes bile rise in my throat, and a shudder runs through Myron. That ring now lies discarded somewhere at the bottom of a stream where I cast it after my escape.

“Whether it was facts or guesses, you should have told us,” prompts Royad, sword still in hand and ready to strike should Myron give the order, but the Crow King still has his own power wrapped tightly around the male’s neck.

“Ephegos forbade me under threat of the bargain to share it. And I didn’t think it held any relevance when you already had broken the curse. Even if I’m right and Shaelak’s blood flows in your veins, does it matter if the bargain broke because Vala willed it or because Shaelak’s descendant fell in love with the Crow King? You saved us either way.” He pauses for a deep breath, and the honesty of his words hits me. He truly didn’t mean any harm, didn’t even consider that it might have made a difference if I’d known.

“You naive, stupid, ignorant male,” Kaira hisses, and I could swear fire dances in her brown eyes, ready to spill into the world.

“Perhaps I deserve this,” he admits.

“Perhaps? You deserve all of it and more.”

Myron doesn’t object.

Herinor’s chest heaves as he waits for us to push for more, to rage at him or damn him, but Silas and Royad stand dumbstruck while Myron merely stares at the male who so desperately wishes to be part of this court yet can’t free himself of all the constraints making him a liability, who’s made things far too easy for himself, and judging by his expression, he knows it.

“Since you’re so great at guessing, what did they want from Shaelak?” Kaira’s voice is soft but edged with a sharpness that makes my feathers stand up on the back of my neck. “And don’t even try to talk your way around it.” I don’t care if you bleed to death , is what she doesn’t need to say because it’s bluntly on her face—the anger, the betrayal. Herinor flinches as the Flame takes another step closer to Silas as if the male granted protection from the pain of his deceit.

“I suppose to offer him a bargain he mentioned a long time ago, before Ayna broke the curse. A bargain I’d forgotten about since I no longer saw the relevance of it with the curse broken: His protection of Shaelak’s bloodline in exchange for Myron’s death.”

My blood freezes—literally freezes —in my veins, and for a few, shallow breaths, I can’t think.

“I didn’t understand it back then, believed he meant the Crows, and his idea was to become King of Crows after Myron’s death.” Helplessness slackens Herinor’s features. “I didn’t know he meant a literal bargain with the God of Darkness.”

“And you’ve carried this with you all this time and never thought to warn any of us?” Kaira whispers, close to tears as the first drop of Herinor’s blood hits the cracked stones beneath his feet.

I don’t dare breathe as Myron’s power releases Herinor’s throat, not because he’s done with the male but because his strength fails him for a heartbeat, the ripple of withdrawing magic running through him like a violent shiver, almost dislodging me from his shoulder, but his hand snaps to my claws, securing them in place.

Nothing is going to separate us, not even the God of Darkness. The maker of Crows . His message is loud and clear even when he doesn’t turn his gaze from Herinor.

“I told you, I didn’t understand it for what it was back then: the idea of a real bargain with a real god. One we can only summon on Sauin, once a year. Silas knows it. He’s familiar with the traditions of the ancient Crows.” His eyes dart to Silas, who confirms with a curt nod, not at all happy about it as Herinor continues, “This is the first Sauin since he mentioned it, and had I known he meant what he said, I would have alerted you.” Licking the blood from his lips, Herinor sucks in a slow, controlled breath, holding Myron’s gaze, remorse lining his eyes. “I didn’t know he meant Ayna. I didn’t know this bargain was even a real possibility. That Ayna truly is Shealak’s descendant. But—” His gaze falls upon the altar, the missing relief of the god. “It makes sense now. It makes so much fucking sense.” A desperate chuckle tears his voice.

Excuses, explanations that don’t change anything.

Kaira shakes her head. “You should have told us anyway.”

Because I wanted to live , his eyes seem to say, and I almost feel pity for him as Silas steps up to him, punching him in the face so hard his jaw cracks.

“Even if these are all wild guesses and we have no shred of proof other than Ephegos’s blood on the altar, you’re still a piece of shit and deserve what you signed up for by making that bargain with him. You two deserve each other.”

Herinor doesn’t fight back.