Page 31

Thirty-One

Herinor

Like a treasure hunter, Kaira has dug up my worst moments. She’s found my past of carelessly fucking my way through the world; she’s found my moments of doubting Myron. At least, she hasn’t found the day of the Flame attack when all went to shit.

“Myron hasn’t broken the curse,” Ephegos’s words of that day echo through my mind, and trust Kaira to latch onto my thoughts like a bloodhound.

“Will you stay true to your word, Herinor?” with the blade in his hand, he points at the back door where a few other Crows are already sneaking from the palace. It would be easy for me to do the same.

“He hasn’t,” I confirm.

“Time to fulfill your bargain?” He doesn’t push for it, simply asks, and it’s the diplomatic courtier’s approach that makes me leap at this thread of hope. The hope of freedom. Myron hasn’t broken the bargain. Ayna has survived months as a bride, but she won’t last much longer. All the others died sooner or later. She might have gotten closer to the king, but so did Sariell. And she died anyway. They all die eventually. And none of them breaks the curse.

“A stronger court, Herinor,” Ephegos reminds me. “One with you in a position of power rather than a simple guard.” Ephegos holds out his free hand. An offer.

Call it pride; call it weakness. I don’t care as I take and shake it in confirmation. My loyalty is now his, not because I believe in everything he says, but I won’t wait for Myron to doom us all. And if he does break the curse after all, maybe Ephegos will return to his king.

“Very well, Herinor. Welcome to my court.” Ephegos smirks, that charming grin gone as the magic of bargains snaps into place. “My first order to you: Don’t help Ayna. You are not allowed to help her.”

The order wraps around me, weaving into my skin and bones as I try to understand what he’s planning to do.

“Do you remember Sarielle?” Like he heard my earlier thoughts, he brings up the pretty female who fawned over the Crow King before she died.

“What about her?”

Ephegos’s grin turns bitter. “Sarielle was my blood. My sister, if only half a Crow. And Myron is responsible for her death.”

Like ice, his words slide through my veins. Ephegos’s sister. One of the many halflings created by Crows undoing the wards on this forest and having their fun with the females in the bordering regions. A half-Crow. And she died anyway. Myron didn’t break the curse with her either.

“Myron would never purposefully kill a bride.” The words are out before I can consider my loyalties, but Ephegos waves them away with a casual hand.

“Don’t waste your breath, Herinor. This place is about to go up in flames, and you’ll be standing guard while I let our allies into your former home. If anyone tries to escape, slaughter them. If your former king summons you… Well, he is no longer your king, is he?”

I know then that I’ve made a grave mistake. And there is nothing I can do about it.

“I’m no longer that male,” I grind out as the pressure in my head builds with every second of the memory. “I have sworn my loyalty to King Myron and Queen Ayna.” Except for that kernel bound by Ephegos’s deal. There’s no breaking free of it. “I promise.”

My eyes fly open, finding Kaira’s warm brown ones lingering, probing, piercing. Her unreadable gaze is only bearable because her fingers brush over my temple in a nearly soothing gesture. Intentional or not, my rising panic drops into a low, swaying wave no longer threatening to swallow me whole.

“Look for more recent memories,” I urge her. “Look for the day Ephegos ordered me to torture Ayna.”

Kaira flinches so hard I want to throw my arms around her to hold her together, but I remain still as a rock, unwilling to give anyone a reason to use their magic or blades on me. I was a fool to believe Ephegos meant well for his people in the first place, and I’ve been paying for my stupidity ever since. I’m not dying because of a mistake I made—one I’ve been fighting to rectify since the moment I sealed that damn bargain with Ephegos. And I’m most certainly not losing Kaira over it—even when I’ve never truly had her.

Whether she read those thoughts or not, she doesn’t show, face expressionless as she dives deeper into my mind, combing through the moments I’m offering up.

Like a bundle of misery, Ayna is slouching in her chair. Guilt doesn’t even begin to describe the knot building in my chest as I ponder what I need to do.

Hurt her.

How can I hurt her when she’s done nothing to me? She hasn’t lifted a finger against me. Has never spoken an ill word all those weeks in the palace. If anything, I’ve always liked her spirited nature, the defiance in every word and step as she wound the Crow King around her little finger. Intentional or not.

She looks tired—so, so tired. And the fear in her eyes pains me almost as much as the knowledge that I could simply grab her and run. Return her to Myron, who survived Ephegos’s attack. Shaelak knows he deserves it after so many decades of suffering. After watching one potential love after the other wither away. He deserves to be happy, just as we all deserve to be free.

I don’t realize it before I speak the words, but… “I have a plan. One where I don’t need to break my bargain and where the pain will benefit you.”

Ayna’s shoulders quiver as if she already knows this won’t be easy. But there is no way I can help her without risking my own life and so much more.

Her lips part in a grimace, teeth bared against the oncoming pain as I ponder the risks of doing something that will actually help her ? —

No, I can’t think of helping her, or I’ll be crumbling into ashes within moments. Myron. I’m helping Myron. It’s a small mercy, Ephegos never included him in his order not to help. He wants the Crow King to live so he’ll suffer as Ayna is being sold off to Tavras.

How I wish I could speak a word of what’s in store for her.

“And what plan would that be?”

I can’t look at her without that guilt gobbling me up, so I turn and step around her, letting my magic do the work to secure her in place. The less she can move, the less likely she’ll hurt herself by cringing and twisting when I slice into her skin. Careful not to cut her just yet, I move my blade to the back of her neck. “I cannot tell you, Ayna. The bargain with Ephegos forbids it. But if there has ever been a time in your life where you needed to trust someone unconditionally, now is the moment.”

I know she doesn’t even consider trusting me, and I don’t expect her to. The less she does—the more she believes this is the torture Ephegos intended for her—the better for all of us. But there’s a part of me that wants her to know the real me. The male who is fighting to keep on the right side of a line he carelessly drew in the sand.

Holding my breath, I shove my knife through the sheer sleeve of her dress, cutting deep enough to open her skin. Like a punishment, her cry of pain sears through me, but I hold my hand steady, carving my path all the way to her bicep, straight through the mate mark telling me Myron is indeed alive. It’s the drug sedating her powers that prevents her from feeling him through the connection, and I’m the last person who may speak to her those words of hope. I may only inflict pain. The story of my life. Even when once I’d enjoyed a good torture, this isn’t right. Ayna isn’t the enemy. Neither is Myron. Ephegos is wrong. Sariell died because of the curse, not because of Myron. And letting Ayna suffer for it… Not right. None of this is right.

Keeping my thoughts to myself, I ignore Ayna’s pleas and screams. Only when I’m close to tears myself do I bite back all the apologies building in my throat, lowering my voice to a whisper so I don’t give away how much I’m hating myself for what I have to do right now. “Be brave for him, Ayna. He gave everything for you. Don’t let him down.”

I keep carving, carving, until her sleeve is drenched in blood and her hatred for me is believable. Until the guards outside have heard enough proof of her pain to carry word to Ephegos I’ve done my job.

Her body is shaking, barely keeping upright from how weak the potion Ephegos keeps feeding her makes her. So thin. So powerless. Nothing left of the defiant queen who wielded water and ire against the Flames. Binding her tighter with my magic is all I can do to keep her in the chair, but I make myself believe it’s part of the torture not to release her.

When I step around her, not even remotely strong enough to face her after what I have done, what I’ll yet have to do to her, her gaze snaps to mine, hatred and defeat battling in those big gray eyes.

Grabbing for her other sleeve, I lean over her, whispering the only apology I can truly speak.

“Hate me if you must, Ayna. But this is the best I can do.” To help not you but Myron. But I don’t add that to protect us all from the vengeance of ancient magic or Ephegos’s retaliation should he ever learn what I did.

Summon my true king to find his mate. Slice into the mate mark strongly enough to send a message. Pain. It might be the only sensation piercing through the dulled magic slumbering within the Crow Queen before me. How I hope I’m right.

I don’t wait for her to try to break free. She’d only hurt herself more. Instead, I offer some consolation, not that it makes any difference with what I’ve already done.

“I’ll make it look like I cut both sides.” She flinches, and my heart breaks. It fucking breaks, even though I never cared for any of the brides suffering and dying. I only cared about my freedom. But this woman gave me freedom. She found Myron worthy of her love. “If I smear enough blood and etch a thin line on your skin—nothing as deep as on the other side.” It’s a small reassurance, but it’s more than I believed I could speak without upsetting the deal with Ephegos. “I can make it look like I partly healed you, and no one will question why I carved the line on your other shoulder.”

I’m not helping her, I keep telling myself. Not her. I’m helping Myron.

“Why?” Her voice is half wince, half defeat. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Because you saved us all, and I owe you the same thing you gave to me—freedom. I can never speak those words, so I say the next best thing—something that has nothing to do with her. “Because I did wrong by Myron. I didn’t trust him enough to believe when he said he knew what he was doing by bargaining away the right for new brides in exchange for the fairy princess’s help with your magic. ” The way she looks at me, trying to decipher all the words unspoken… I’m so close to letting it all go to shit, bargain and all, when I remember that, if I don’t do this, nobody will. I can’t give myself up by laying bare all the emotions of conflict within me. Nothing will change if I die. Ephegos will roll on. Chances to stop him are better if I play along.

My chest tightens, air coming more heavily at the thought of betraying the Crow I swore loyalty to, and the familiar tang of iron coats my tongue at my traitorous thoughts.

I shut them down. Ephegos. I’m fulfilling Ephegos’s order, torturing Ayna.

With practiced ease, I shut down all emotions, turning to her forearm.

“I need more blood.”

The cut I make into her wrist is deeper than I intended, but at least, the magic of bargains will be satisfied. He said hurt her. He never said I couldn’t ease the pain. It only has to be for a reason serving Ephegos’s purpose… To be able to hurt her more later… More intact skin to slice open again.

The taste of blood disappears from my mouth, so I send healing magic after my blade as I paint her arm and shoulder crimson. There is no fight left in Ayna, and the image is killing me, even when I can’t allow it to.

Convincing myself it is to humiliate her more, I loosen my magic on her, watching her slump in the chair, but I wipe away a strand of hair, wanting to see her face as I tell her , “I’m sorry, Ayna. It’s the best I can do for you. I’m your ally. Probably the only one you have in this place, so play along. Pretend to hate me and curse me to your Guardians and back, to Eroth and Shaelak and even Vala. Just don’t be stupid enough to tell a soul I spared you.”

I wait for my mouth to fill with blood, to choke on it as I test the boundaries of the bargain.

Nothing happens.

But Ayna opens her mouth in a disgusted chuckle. “I wouldn’t call carving me open sparing me.”

Because I didn’t spare her the pain. I didn’t spare her the suffering. I merely used it to help Myron find her. If anyone can save her, it’s the king who saved us all by falling for this creature before me.

“It doesn’t matter what you’d call it. If I did everything right, you’ll understand soon enough.” I sit her back in her chair, unable to watch her nearly tumble off it. “Just trust me. Trust me like you trusted Myron.”

I never actually expect her to when I open the door to let in the guards who’ll report the state I left her in to Ephegos the moment they dropped her off in her quarters.

When I dive out of the memory, Kaira’s blinking away tears.