Page 44

Forty-Four

Myron

Dawn has barely broken, its watery grays and yellows washing out the stars from the firmament as Kaira and I leave the rebels’ safe house, bundled up in extra cloaks we found hanging in the bedroom where we’d curled up for the night. Our powers haven’t fully returned, but we have a modicum of them at our disposal. My wound hasn’t sealed entirely with the lack of full access to that magic usually flowing in my veins, but it’s getting there. A few more hours and all that will be left of that gash in my cheek will be a pink line ready to fade into murky memories.

Soft thuds give away that we’re moving through the half-light as we cross the meadow leading to the forest, the same path we took the day before, and each stride tightens my chest a little further as I wonder which of the freshly frosted bootprints belongs to Ayna. A glance at the horizon confirms the absence of crows in the sky, the hoot of an owl the only indication there are birds in the woods at all. If Ephegos brought more Crows to take down Silas and Herinor, they most likely wouldn’t be hunting for us, especially since the two males have already disappeared.

The bitter taste of guilt coats my tongue at the thought of all the people who have suffered on my behalf, Ayna being the pinnacle of the group. Her most recent sacrifice should bring anger to my veins, should make me want to destroy the world, yet all I can think of is that this can’t be the truth, that I missed some minor detail in their deal, and she’ll walk from the darkness between the trees, a broad smile on her face and mischief in her eyes as she slings her arms around my neck and kisses the ache in my heart away.

Apparently, lying to myself is something I can do without combusting into dust.

“You thinking about her again?” Kaira prompts through the mind link she’s reestablished. It’s a strange feeling, having her in my head without Ayna nearby, not wrong, but strangely intimate in a way I haven’t even experienced with my cousin whom I’ve trusted for millennia. Rather than like an invasion of my thoughts, her presence is oddly comforting because this conversation won’t be disturbing the winter morning layering the world with silence.

“I try not to.” Truth. And not even one twisted to make it sound acceptable. “We have other things to deal with.” When Kaira doesn’t respond, I slow my pace so she catches up with me. “Your sister didn’t strike this deal for us to sit in a corner and whine. She bought us freedom so we can do something about this war.” Stop Erina. Save Askarea and Cezux. And if we’re lucky… If we’re lucky, we’ll win against Erina’s armies and face Ephegos again one day. And then, I’ll be ready.

“Ready for what?”

I wasn’t aware I’d allowed my thoughts to slip through the link, so I tighten the shield protecting my mind, allowing only the thoughts consciously directed at her to pass through the connection.

“To kill Ephegos.”

Kaira’s responding silence allows for me to direct my mind toward the tasks at hand, my attention returning to the tracks marking our path. None of them are fresh, which means that at least no one snuck up to the house during the night to spy on us. Unless, of course, it was Crows, and they flew in and out in their bird form. The unease in my stomach reminds me the drug is still circulating in my blood. If I could shift into my crow form, I’d cover more ground in a shorter period of time. I could scout ahead while Kaira follows an extrapolated route toward the location where Silas and Herinor must have crashed.

“If my powers keep recovering at this rate, I’ll be able to siphon at least small amounts of magic soon. ” Kaira tears me from my thoughts, her voice remaining firmly in my head.

Nodding my agreement, I let my eyes adjust to the half-light between the trees as we step into the forest. “They must have used a relatively small dosage if it’s fading this fast.” A small mercy.

Kaira’s thought bolts into my mind, full of doubt. “Do you think something is wrong with the drug? Did they change it? Or do they want us in good enough shape to fight?”

It makes an odd lot of sense that they’d want us able to defend ourselves just enough to squash our spirits alongside our bodies. Its own sort of torture. Shaking my head at Kaira, I reason, “Perhaps it’s the improved version of the drug that’s less aggressive in its side effects. Maybe they got the dosage wrong, who knows with those bastards.” I force a tiny grin. “ I can already sense a ghost of my own powers, and I’m not feeling nauseous at all. If we’re lucky, this—” I pat the sword strapped to my hip— “won’t be the only thing to rely on if we run into any problems.” I purposefully leave out what sorts of problems those might be—Crows, Flames, human soldiers, or all of them.

Of course, Kaira understands anyway. “Realistically, Ephegos took Ayna far away so we can’t try anything.”

“He knows I would never be stupid enough to follow them.” The words hurt like a betrayal of their own as they slide off my tongue, and trust Kaira to know.

“You’re not giving up on her, Myron. You won’t ever give up on her because that’s not who you are. Even if you know you can’t save her right now, it doesn’t mean you’ll ever stop looking for a way to get her back. You didn’t give up when you were still under Vala’s curse, and you won’t give up now.”

Forcing a smile, I pick up pace, following the scent of blood and scorched leather to the clearing of doom where all our fates changed not even a day ago. Kaira is right that I won’t ever give up on my mate, but she’s wrong about the rest: I had given up on breaking the curse before the moment Ayna came into my life. I’d resigned myself to spending all of eternity as a cursed monster unworthy of love or freedom, and I can sense that creature bucking and thrashing inside me now as I think of what succumbing to hope will do to me. That it would be so much easier to shut down all emotions and become the heartless, vile monster once more.

As if in answer, darkness shades my vision, and the skin around my eyes tingles. Catching up with me once more, Kaira eyes me from the side, a deep frown furrowing her brow.

“You know you’ll need to talk to someone about this at some point.” Pulling a hand from her cloak, she gestures at my face.

“There is nothing to talk about.”

An eye roll followed by a huff of fogging air is all the response I get, and the gesture reminds me of Ayna so much I immediately feel guilty.

My mate hasn’t confronted me about the monster pushing to the surface at every other occasion, and I’ve gladly avoided thinking about the meaning of it because I couldn’t handle any more bad news. But this isn’t Ayna, and whatever this magic inside of me is, it won’t change anything about the situation, so I gather my courage and face the part-Flame still frowning at me.

“It’s been happening since Erina had the mate mark burned out of Ayna’s shoulder,” I admit, eyes on the path ahead instead of her reaction. “I’m not sure what it means or where it comes from, but it’s not the usual power of Crows.”

“You’re not the usual Crow,” Kaira notes, a warmth in her voice making me turn my head after all to find her smiling.

“What’s so funny?”

She shakes her head. “By falling in love with you, Ayna really signed up for an eternity of interesting turns.”

Raising a brow in question, I stop at the edge of the clearing, trying not to notice Ayna’s scent clinging to the frosty ground.

“She fell in love with a cursed king, and since then, she’s been kidnapped, twice, she’s been drugged and tortured, locked into her bird form by the gods who should have been supporting her. Don’t forget becoming immortal.”

“I wouldn’t call that interesting ,” I point out, scanning the treeline across the clearing for signs of enemies.

Nothing.

“What would you call it, King of Crows?” Kaira’s tone is patronizing, like she knows something I don’t and she can’t wait to rub it in my face.

With a shrug, I start walking, waving her along. “We should focus on finding Herinor and Silas instead of musing about the miserable consequences of Ayna’s gracious choices.” What I don’t say is that sometimes I wonder if Ayna would have been better off hating me after all, to die from the effects of the curse and leave us Crows locked in our misery. She’d never have suffered Ephegos’s vengeance or Erina’s desire for her bloodline.

She’d never have become your mate either, something whispers at the back of my head, and I’m not proud to recognize it as the voice of my selfishness.

We march through the forest for a while, our attention on the bootprints of the Flames that took Ayna away. The scent of her blood is coating the air as we follow the trail a short distance south before turning east to where Herinor and Silas must have hit the trees. Ignoring the twinge of pain in my chest as I leave the proof of Ayna’s existence behind, I scan the firs for signs of two fae males having come by. Naturally, there are none. If they had to resort to walking, footprints would be all over the place—that would also mean that they were injured to a degree that doesn’t allow them to shift into their bird form and take off. A small relief that we don’t stumble upon more blood and uneven prints in the hoarfrost.

“We can’t be far.” Kaira has been walking parallel to me, a few tree rows south so we cover more ground. Her idea. With the mind link, communication over such a short distance is possible without drawing attention to us by needing to speak up.

I only wish Kaira understood Crows well enough to know we become untraceable if we choose to. So, unless Silas and Herinor crashed through the trees in their fae form, there will be little proof they fell from the sky at all. Picking up my pace, I examine the narrow space ahead.

It’s too small to be called a clearing but wide enough to see the long, broken branches hanging high up in the firs—and the imprint of two long bodies in the soil at the foot of the trunk. My heart beats faster at the pair of bootprints leading between the trees on the other side of the space.

“Found them,” I report, refraining from admonishing Kaira for making too much noise as she bounds through the thicket to get here faster.

Eyes wide with fear and hope, she searches the space for the two males until she finds the dent by the tallest fir. “Where are they?” In her excitement, she forgets to use the mind link, her voice bouncing off the trees. Her eyes grow even wider as she realizes she practically shouted out our location for any enemy close by, and flaps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, ” she whispers through the mind link. “I hope I didn’t just alert Ephegos’s men of our presence.”

In response, I shake my head at her. “Chances are equally high we alerted Silas and Herinor of our presence and they’ll come to us before we need to go looking for them.”

Kaira does an excellent job at pretending she isn’t struggling to stop herself from shouting Herinor’s name into the forest as she observes the footprints leading away. “These tell me they both walked out of here alive.” The relief in her tone is so pronounced I feel it wash through my body for a moment. “And no blood ? —”

Before her impatience can get the best of her, I gesture at the tracks. “Let’s go find them, shall we?”

Kaira is jogging ahead before I can finish my sentence, and I follow, my Crow senses taking in our surroundings for any hints of danger. Even with the sun fully risen, its pale light catching in the ice crystals on the trees casting little rainbows into the bleak, gray world, the forest is still too quiet. Not the gentlest of breezes stirs the air, like the forest is holding its breath so as not to draw the attention of a predator eyeing it from a distance.

“They didn’t shift into their bird form,” Kaira narrates as we follow the winding tracks beneath naked oaks and sad evergreens. “That means they were either injured or preferred to remain on the ground.”

“They have access to their weapons and magic in their fae form while they are faster and more agile in their bird form,” I explain as we turn hard east, Kaira ducking into a thicket blocking our path and picking aside the already bent and broken branches where the two males must have passed through. I follow, one hand on my sword while the other is shoving aside the twigs assaulting my face. “There are valid reasons for choosing either form independent of injuries.”

The look Kaira throws me suggests she’d prefer I stop talking, even if it’s only through the mind link. But when I exit the cluster of young firs, neither of us remembers to speak because the clearing we step into is drenched with blood and scattered with corpses.

While I’m making a quick tally in my mind—seventeen bodies—and assessing their armor (all gray and nondescript), Kaira is covering her mouth with both hands, smothering a scream as her eyes dart from body to body on the search for the black leathers of the two males we know walked onto this killing field.

“They’re not here.” I loose a breath, bracing for the assault of iron and salt coming with the next inhale. So much blood. “Whatever happened here, Silas and Herinor didn’t fall in this battle.”

“Or someone dragged their bodies away.” Sadly, Kaira’s horrified tone is fully justified. It wouldn’t be the first time soldiers brought back the corpses of their enemies as a token to their generals and kings.

Before she can spiral into a place so dark there’s no coming back from it, I grab her hand and squeeze gently while I send out the feelers of my recovering magic to assess the space ahead. “They might as well have slaughtered all their opponents and walked away.” When she gives me a doubtful glance, I add, “Both Silas and Herinor are seasoned warriors. Even before the Crow Wars here in Eherea, they stood on the battlefields of Neredyn. They know how to handle themselves in an attack.”

“The same way we handled ourselves?” The fear shines through in every word, and I’m not proud to admit that she’s right. The day before, we’d been a group of four magically gifted creatures and two human rebels, and had it not been for Ayna’s sacrifice, none of us would have walked away from that clearing.

Listening to the silence of the forest, I make my way around the edges of the bloodied area, pulling Kaira along as I look for signs of magic involved in the battle that obviously took place. A battle very different from the one we fought.

“No burn marks,” I comment as I step past a female soldier whose arm has been chopped off, the crimson puddle beneath her shoulder and head frozen. Her unseeing eyes stare up at the treetops from a bluish-tinted face. “These corpses have been lying here for hours. Probably through the night.”

Kaira withdraws her hand from mine to pat my shoulder, a gesture so familiar it could have been Royad, whose presence used to be my biggest comfort for all those cursed centuries. Now I have a family so much bigger than just my cousin. A family worth fighting for.

It’s that thought that has me crouching low to examine the human-made blade still clutched in the hand on the detached arm, but before I can touch it, something else catches my interest.

“Careful with the armor. If it’s coated in the serum, you might lose what little of your powers you have back when you touch it,” Kaira warns as I reach for the leathers covering the forearm, for the long, thin vial strapped to the inside just beneath the elbow.

“What’s this?” Instead of picking the vial from the arm with my bare hands, I slice through the leather strings holding it in place with the tip of my sword and toe it away from the dangerous clothing with the tip of my boot.

“If you have me guess, I’ll say magic-nullifying serum.”

And despite the picture of violence and death spreading at our feet, when our gazes meet, a grin spreads on both Kaira’s and my faces.