Page 26

Twenty-Six

Ayna

“You couldn’t have kept the Queen of Askarea’s armor on while shifting back, could you?” Myron huffs, his teeth a slash of white as I open my eyes to gray morning light.

He’s lying on his side, head propped on a silk-covered pillow, peering down at me like he can’t believe I’m truly here and is afraid I might disappear if he as much as blinks. The familiar scent of the room tells me where I am without taking my gaze off him, but I force myself to roll my head to the side, force my hands and feet to move under the covers. Hands and feet.

My human body is heavy compared to my bird one, but I savor the weight—every last inch of it where my back and hips dig into the soft mattress beneath me.

“I shifted back.” I still marvel at the fact that I have a voice, even this weak, dry thing barely leaving my throat.

Myron reaches behind him for a glass of water he must have prepared on the nightstand and sits up to help me lift my head, leading the water to my mouth.

I let him—not because I need the help but because I luxuriate in the feel of his calloused fingers scraping against the sensitive skin of my neck, the tips sliding against my scalp. Greedily, I gulp the water down, the clear, fresh taste of it so new that I wonder if this is a special type of water or if my human senses are so much sharper than the bird ones.

When I’m done, Myron merely puts the glass back on the nightstand, but his other hand remains behind my neck, even when he rests it back on the pillow. His eyes linger on me, two diamonds set in his handsome face, but the wariness of his expression is enough to clench my stomach.

“Are you all right?” His scent is the same as I remember, but so much more detail, more depth calls to me in hues of forest and the sea. I can taste the wind on my tongue, the wildness and power surrounding him even when he stoically lies beside me.

Instead of responding, I inhale deeply, closing my eyes as I let his scent settle within me, savoring the familiarity yet novelty of all the facets I’ve never noticed before. Beckoned by the calling of that scent, I carefully pull up my legs, rolling to the side. Silk slides against the length of my legs, a touch so smooth and gentle I nearly moan. For weeks, I haven’t felt anything against my skin other than heat and cold and the sensation of the wind on my feathers, and this... This simple sensation is enough to send tears to my eyes.

“What’s wrong, little crow?” Myron’s forehead creases as I lean my cheek into his palm, savoring the brush of his skin against mine.

“I’m human again.” The word coils from my tongue like a lie, leaving a bitter aftertaste.

Myron barely shakes his head. “Not human, Ayna. No longer.”

To accept your bloodline. Only when you do that will you be able to save my creation from itself. Shaelak’s words echo in my mind.

In a phantom touch, his power slides against my face, tracing my cheek, my nose, then my ear. I arch into the touch at the unfamiliar sensitivity of my ear, and my hand darts to my face, tracing the warm lines Myron’s power leaves on my skin.

I let out a shriek as I notice the pointed arch at the top of my ear, and when I leap out of bed, adrenaline flooding my veins, and realize I’m wholly naked, I don’t bring myself to care. I don’t stop until I reach the bathing room and the gold-framed, square mirror above the sink.

Blowing out a breath, I brace my hands on the edge of the basin.

Two points peek through my near-white hair. It takes me a heartbeat to notice my hair isn’t the only thing that has changed. Ignoring the unfamiliar color, I brush my tresses back, exposing my unmistakable fae ears.

Before I can panic, Myron comes up behind me, placing his hands on my shoulders in what should have been a calming gesture, but I stumble back, colliding with his hard chest. The buttons of his black shirt dig into my spine where I press against him like I could disappear into the darkness leaking from his fingertips, his magic clearly responding to my fear.

My eyes dart up and down my reflection, my skin so pale, paler than I remember even after the months at Fort Perenis; my torso and arms are slightly longer, slimmer, the chain tattoo around my wrist gone as is the stiffness of my old injury. I flex my right hand a few times, watching my fingers close and extend. Not a single grain of pain. Not even the slightest sense of discomfort where I once winced at every movement. Dropping my hand, I assess the dip of my waist and sweep of my hips. I can’t see any lower in the mirror, but I assume my legs are longer, too, because Myron doesn’t tower over me the way he used to. His chin is just above my head, his eyes following mine along my body.

Not one scar shines on this new, immortal skin, not one hint of ink, as if I was born anew, taken from the flesh of human and bird and made into this form humming with life, with power. I’m not sure whether I want to bemoan the loss of all the marks my human life left on me, proof of the hardship I’ve endured, the battles I’ve won. Then, the most important mark has been gone for weeks—the bird mid-flight that was once inked on my shoulder. My mate mark.

“You’re beautiful,” Myron whispers, noticing the flawless skin where the chain tattoo once identified me as an inmate of Fort Perenis. The little scars scattered along my forearms and hands—gone.

I still look like myself, kind of, but those ears, the hair, my new height…

“I’m fae,” I mutter. And this time, the bitter aftertaste of the lie doesn’t coat my tongue.

“Crow Fae,” Myron adds, and where shock is defining my own face, Myron’s eyes gleam with near reverence as he trails the length of my arm, brushing the waves of white blonde falling over my shoulders, rubbing a strand of hair between his fingers, tangible proof of my change. But his gaze meets mine in the mirror, boring straight into my soul. “Immortal, Ayna. You’re immortal.” Just like him, like all the Crows. And Kaira?—

The creature of shadows and feathers, starlight and power hovering over me in the temple flashes in my mind, his threat to destroy Kaira if she fails to protect me. His threat to give me to Ephegos as the traitor’s mate if he manages to kill Myron. Myron’s attack, the power building in my veins an unmanageable force burning through the shell encasing me, my form blasting through feathers and claws, through wings and beak as I shifted back into my human form… No. Not my human form. I didn’t shift. I turned. Into something entirely different.

Where before I merely held the senses of a Crow—or a fraction of it, I realize as I marvel at the colors of the light breaking along the edges of the mirror—I have now turned into a Crow completely. A Crow with Shaelak’s blood in her veins.

“What do you remember?” Myron’s face is unreadable as he takes a casual step back, depriving me of his warmth, the sensation of his shirt sliding against my skin as he pulls away leaving a tingle across my back.

I don’t need to think. Everything is bright and prominent in my mind. Every word Shaelak spoke.

“All of it.”

Myron studies me with guarded eyes. “Would you like to talk about it?” Careful. He’s so careful I wonder if he believes I’m made of glass. The soft glow coming to life beneath my skin surely suggests I’m something other, so very different from even the Crows and fairies I’ve encountered.

A god’s descendant.

That blast of radiating light at the temple sure proves my power has vastly changed, no longer a droplet of silver, no longer contained in a weak, mortal body. Strength hums through my limbs despite the oddness of this new form—not wrongness because I chose this. I chose immortality the way Shaelak demanded. In that moment, when the God of Darkness directed his power at my mate, I chose it, if only to destroy him.

“Is he gone?” I whisper, the light fading from my skin once more, like a beast closing its eyes.

Myron understands without explanation. “I don’t know,” he admits, watching me brace my hands on the edge of the sink once more, my hair flowing over my shoulders to cover almost the entirety of my torso. I don’t even wonder about my nakedness; it merely gives me a chance to quickly assess what I’ve become. Fae. A real Crow. And the God of Darkness’s power is now plowing through my body, ready to be used at a whim. I can’t think it often enough. Maybe, at some point, it will feel real. Maybe, one day, I’ll be able to look in the mirror and come to terms with what I’ve gained.

“Tori and Royad went back to the temple to check for any signs of his return, but he seems to be gone. Not that there’s a carving that could confirm he’s back where he was before.” Myron’s mouth quirks as he forces humor into his voice, but I see it for what it is. See the worry buried beneath the facade he’s fighting to keep in place. For me. So I don’t lose it.

“I’m all right, Myron. I really am.” Meeting his gaze in the mirror for a heartbeat, I turn around, leaning against the sink.

A brief nod as his eyes flash up and down my bare body.

So quickly my human eyes would never have caught the motion, Myron reaches behind him and hands me one of his spare shirts from the stack on the chair next to the bathtub. The chair where he’d once knelt between my legs.

I swallow the lump in my throat, pulling the soft, black cotton over my head and letting it hide my form all the way to mid-thigh.

“Just like old times.” I gesture at my body, at where his gaze lingers on my legs where his shirt doesn’t reach.

A wry smile graces his mouth. “I remember you wearing my shirts at the palace in the Seeing Forest.”

“I remember you staring at me the same way.” That brings his gaze back to mine, not because I caught him studying my form the way he didn’t even do when I was naked but because of words unspoken. Words he must have been working up the courage to speak.

But his throat bobs above the unbuttoned collar of his black shirt as if he’s swallowing away his thoughts. I can’t help noticing the revealed sliver of skin, a hint of those muscles honed over centuries and centuries. Shoving his hands into the pockets in his leather pants, the same ones he wore to battle, but the dirt and blood have been cleared away, Myron leans against the door, keeping a few feet distance between us. “You slept a full day and night. Samuin is over. If the God of Darkness is still around, he can’t do much.”

The space between us makes my stomach fold into itself, unacceptable, yet I can’t bring myself to move from the white porcelain behind me even when my gaze doesn’t fail to follow the powerful lines of his body before landing back on those handsome features.

Not yet. I will allow myself to leap at him, but not before I know what we’re dealing with, if the danger is over, what happened to the others.

“He spoke to me before Samuin. Vala did, too,” I remind him of the countless times the two deities whispered to me their encouragement and their warnings, their demands and their displeasure. “How come they speak to me and no one else? How come they do so outside of that one night of the year? Herinor said it’s only Samuin when we can summon Shaelak, yet I summoned him before when I visited the temple.”

A long silence fills the room as Myron ponders my questions. From the flasks propped on the edge of the bathtub, the scent of lavender and orange coils into the air, and through the small windows high up in the room, the first rays of sun are pouring across the tiles covering the walls and floor.

“It should have been a hint that you’re different.” Myron stops himself as if reconsidering his answer. “Vala spoke to you as my Crow bride; you’re not related to her. I’ve heard of brides hearing her before during my father’s days, even when nothing ever came of it. But Shaelak… It must be because you descend from his child. His blood flows through your veins—if gods even have blood.”

I chuckle at the thought of crimson liquid pulsing through the body of that mighty creature of darkness, feathers, and stars, but the amusement is short-lived.

“I tried to summon him to beg him to shift you back,” Myron admits without apology.

“I know.” I’ve known since I found his blood on the altar in the temple.

“He never answered me because it wasn’t Samuin, but I couldn’t wait, not that long, without at least trying.”

“He responded to Ephegos,” I muse. “On Samuin, but he responded.” I’m not ready to discuss the bargain Ephegos proposed or Shaelak’s response to it, so I roll on. “Ephegos must have been in Aceleau that day. He knew when to come and where to find the temple. He knew that we were in Aceleau, that we had been for a while.”

Myron pulls his hands from his pockets, folding his arms over his chest, one of his sleeves sliding up a few inches, exposing part of his forearm, the cords of muscle flexing with each movement. “Crows are good at unweaving wards. He likely snuck a spy or two into the city. Perhaps he had Crows witness the battle against the Flames.” His brows crease as he finally sheds his unreadable expression, true worry crossing his features. “I wouldn’t put it past him to order them to stand down and watch an army being slaughtered just so he can gain information on our whereabouts and plans.”

I don’t want to imagine what else Ephegos is capable of, but somehow, I’m not surprised he’d do such a despicable thing. A deep sigh escapes my lungs. “We need to find a way to best him before he makes good on his bargain.” It doesn’t matter whether I’m ready to talk about it or not.

Pursing his lips, Myron studies me, eyes creeping along my features as if he can’t believe I’m truly here in this body, that my voice sounds on the air instead of in his mind through Kaira’s help. After a long, thick silence, he shakes his head. “Not a chance in Hel’s realm Ephegos will succeed.” Determination shines clear beyond the ocean depths of his irises.

I want to believe him, and it’s enough for now, for the determination turns to heat as the sun bathes the room in the pale pink-and-gold light of a new day, and a spool of power tugs on my chest that has nothing to do with my new body but with the promise I made. The promise I fulfilled by shifting into this body.