Page 53

Fifty-Three

Myron

In the past few hours since being reunited with my cousins and sharing the horrors of the past day with the few people left I care about, I’ve been checked over by Rogue’s healers about five times. They all saw my fingers bleeding black smoke and my eyes turning to inky orbs, and, honest to Shaelak, I’m surprised no one has run from me. On the contrary. Kaira insisted on joining me to see the healers, using the excuse of needing more of the herbal potion she has been sipping at since we arrived. At least, her cheeks are rosy again while I’m still the same, eyes of a monster and power leaking from my fingertips like a youngling losing control.

Before I wandered into the ground level of the palace to see the healers, at least Rogue and I agreed on postponing the issue of punishing Tata. As the Fairy King’s subject, it’s his call how to exact vengeance, but I’m not all against his idea of interrogating any information we can get out of her before she meets her fate.

That’s for later, though. For now, the traitor is locked up in the dungeon, and Clio and Tori are checking in every other hour to see if Tata has a wish to unburden her soul. So far, no news.

I’m not surprised.

Clio is checking up on the traitor right now. That’s the reason she wasn’t present when Tori site-hopped us in. Royad told me as much when I took him aside for a moment to briefly talk about what happened here after Clio arrived with Andraya and Pouly. At least, now I know why even the Fairy Queen is wearing armor: When Tata showed up at the palace before Clio could warn them, Tata got close enough to the pregnant queen to land a blow on her shoulder that drew blood. Thanks to Royad’s prompt reaction, Tata went down quickly, but the lingering fear of someone else in the palace turning on them has put our friends on edge so much Rogue has dismissed the guards Tata trained over the past months and replaced them with hand-selected men from Tori’s trusted legions. I don’t even want to think about the fear and fury raging inside the Fairy King at the sight of both his mate and unborn child in such danger.

After catching up, Royad left to inform Clio of our return and retrieve the latest news from her session with Tata. My pulse still pounds in my ears merely imagining what else Tata might have set in motion if she betrayed our secrets to Ephegos himself.

We’ll need any advantage we can get in the battles to come.

The bag holding the vials of magic-sedating drug still sits in the throne room, right under the chair I left. Silas and Herinor were assigned the task of guarding it until Kaira and I return.

I shrug off the gentle touch of the fifth healer tracing the black veins along my cheeks, the spreading lines no longer retreating when I calm down. Or perhaps I haven’t calmed down since I realized what Ayna truly did. That, if I’m right, and the gods aren’t mocking all of us, she tricked Ephegos into a bargain that is more beneficial to us than to him.

“How long has this been happening?” The young healer, a male of average height with forest green eyes and a shorn head asks.

Measuring his tawny face, I give him the same answer I gave the healers before him. “For a while. I can’t tell the exact day they first appeared. And before you ask, I don’t know if it has anything to do with the God of Darkness. I’m not really on speaking terms with him.”

“God of Darkness?” the healer stammers, obviously intimidated by my harsh tone, my impatience getting the best of me even when those people are trying to understand what’s happening with my power.

“You call him the Brother Guardian.” I let some of the darkness dripping from my palms collect in the folds of the gray woolen blanket folded up beside me on the cot I’m sitting on. “The power hasn’t hurt me or anyone else who wasn’t meant to get hurt so far, so I wouldn’t be too worried about it.”

I am worried. About the fact that it’s not disappearing even when I’m calming my heartbeat and my breathing. It’s not uncontrollable, not attacking anyone, but the darkness keeps leaking from my hands like the spark of hope seeping through the layers and layers of sorrow stacked inside my chest.

With a glance around the long, simple room, I take another deep breath. A row of cots is set up against one side, curtains half-drawn between empty beds. Tools sit neat and clean in boxes on shelves on the other side, a wash basin built into alcoves in the gray stone every ten feet, like this place is meant to host an armada of healers when all cots are occupied.

Kaira sits on the cot next to me, her presence a reassurance, the way she’s been since the moment Ayna was dragged off.

“You all right?” her voice echoes in my mind, and I nearly jump off the hard mattress.

With a shrug, I turn toward her. “You look better, though. And the fact that you can use the mind link again…”

“Only shows that we made the right call to rest before searching for the others. And rested more before making a choice to head back here.”

A small smile appears on her lips that warms my chest where darkness is collecting, attempting to smother the hope gasping for breath.

Heavy brows raised, the healer waits for me to continue. When I don’t speak, he sits at the foot of my cot, lacing his fingers together in his lap. His eyes are cautious as he scans me head to toe like an experiment gone wrong, and I want to slash at him with the black ink now following me everywhere. At least it dissolves after a while when not used. Otherwise, I’d create an unsightly mess in this glimmering palace.

“Have you ever thought that this”—he points at my face, the area around my eyes in specific—“might come not from your magic but might be an expression of your emotions?”

“Interesting thought,” Kaira narrates in my head while I growl at the healer to get lost and hop off the bed.

I throw a glare at the male. “Does it matter as long as it knows how to kill the right people?”

The healer shrinks back at my bared teeth, the violence slumbering just beneath my skin, and I turn on the spot, already walking as Kaira jumps up from her cot, running after me.

When I head for the stairs back to the throne room, a trail of black ink follows in my wake.

The others are sitting in the throne room when we return, including Clio, who must have finished her interrogations, all eyes snapping up as we enter the glimmering hall. The Fairy Princess’s features brighten for a brief moment at the sight of me, but when she notices the black veins and black eyes, the smoke coiling around my hands, billowing behind me like ribbons, her mouth settles into a tight line. The others must have caught her up because she doesn’t ask any questions, merely waits for Kaira and me to take our seats.

Rogue and Sanja eye me with concern and compassion, two visionary leaders who will do anything to protect their realm and their people, and most of all, their family. Andraya and Pouly are sitting closer to the other three rebels now, their murmured conversation stopping the moment they lay eyes on me, on the lack of change in my appearance.

“The healers say it’s nothing to worry about,” Kaira chirps, looping her arm through mine as if to show the others I’m not going to destroy the world with my leaking power.

“For now,” I add, my gaze meeting Rogue and Sanja’s in emphasis that I won’t harm them or anyone in this palace. Least of all their unborn child.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Sanja who responds first. “I never doubted you had it under control, Myron.”

The trust and faith in her expression shame me into silence. Because I have lost control multiple times, that darkness ripping out throats. The day Erina tried to un-mate Ayna and me?—

“It never harmed anyone you cared about,” Kaira reassures me in my mind, reading my concern from my gaze or my thoughts, I don’t care. “Whatever it is might make you our strongest weapon yet.”

“Right after you,” I note through the mind link, and Kaira gives my arm a squeeze.

Together, we cross the room, sitting down in two chairs next to each other. Herinor and Silas exchange a look before Silas picks up the bag of vials and holds it out for me. “Care to share what this is now?”

Tori bobs his head, auburn eyes wandering back to the blackness dripping from my hands and pooling at the bottom of my chair. “I enjoy a mystery like the next fairy, but it’s time you told us what is important enough to risk all our necks to pick up from a remote killing field.”

The silence in the room becomes tangible, thick enough to clog my throat as I wonder what the others see when they look at my face—the Crow or the monster.

Apparently, they don’t care because even the humans scoot closer to the edge of their seats, waiting for me to reveal the secret. A secret that might not mean anything but, if used right, could level the playing field.

With a light nudge of her elbow, Kaira tells me it’s time to share.

“When we stumbled upon the slaughtered soldiers of Ephegos’s legions while looking for Herinor and Silas, Kaira and I found vials strapped to the soldiers’ arms and hidden in their pockets. We can’t be entirely sure it’s the magic-nullifying potion, but chances are high it is, especially after using one of them on the shield when we broke you out of the camp.” I glance at Herinor, who nods, eyes lighting up with understanding as I bend forward, carefully pouring out the contents of the bag onto the stone floor. The vials roll across the stone, clinking together in a melody of hope while the faces of fairies, Crows, and humans in the room brighten.

“It’s not enough to bring down an army,” Kaira adds, “but it’s enough to strategically take out a few key players in a battle.”

With a quick hand, Tori plucks a slender, corked vial from the floor and twists it between his fingers. “We’ll have the healers compare it to the other one we already have. If you’re right…” his voice trails away as his mind goes into the strategizing mode of the general.

“If he’s right,” Clio finishes the thought, “we can give that monster of a Crow, Ephegos, a taste of his own medicine.” Vengeance shimmers in her jade eyes, a sight so fierce I can see why Tori fell for her all those centuries ago and is still madly in love.

A pang of pain surges through my chest at the thought that I might never see my own mate again, her beautiful face, but more than that, the spark in her eyes, proof of that unbreakable spirit her breathtaking sight provides a host for.

“If only we knew where the bastard will strike next.” Silas tilts his head, staring past the vials at the map. One of the glass tubes rolled all the way to a figurine representing Erina’s armies in the borderlands. A black X marks the spot where Kaira’s power destroyed the camp. Who knows how many more units are sitting closely, only waiting for an order from their king or general to attack?

All immortal eyes dart to Herinor while the humans seem to wonder what response we expect from the male or why. They have no idea of his history with Ephegos.

“You know him best.” I incline my head at him. “He has Ayna. He has the magic-nullifying serum. He has Erina’s troops at his disposal. What keeps him from attacking us right away?”

The warrior shakes his golden-blond hair out of his face, light green eyes searching the map like a drowning man would for a straw. “He doesn’t trust Erina. And the King of Tavras doesn’t trust him either. Both of them are tyrants ready to grab all the power for themselves and sitting out their partnership until the moment they no longer have need of each other, but for now, Erina needs Ephegos’s command over the magic-wielders, and the Flames’ aid to produce more of the serum. He needs the advantage of speed and strength of the Crows following Ephegos into battle and the protection the drug provides to his human soldiers.” One by one, he meets the rebels’ gazes. “More now than ever, he needs to protect his own legions with the rebels coming out of hiding and the alliance building in the north.”

“There is no alliance,” Rochus grumbles, but he can’t get out the last word before Gabrilla and Ed both protest.

“We’re lost without an alliance .” Andraya agrees with the too-young human, much to Pouly’s dismay. They have both spent enough time with Crows and fairies to understand what partnering up with our kinds means. “By now, Erina must have decimated the rebels by one-third. Every day, new reports of rebels captured, tortured, killed reached the farmhouse. It was a matter of time until they found us there.” And killed us. She doesn’t need to say that. “Tata checked in on us regularly. We believed it was to keep us up to date about developments in Askarea and what our queen is up to, but we understand now that the traitor must have given us false information. We would have fled days ago had she not told us that Erina’s spies gave up on finding us in the borderlands.”

The hatred for the fairy female boils beneath my skin, making the stream of black ink falling from my fingertips thicken, covering the vials and my boots up to my ankles.

No one comments even though Rochus and Ed shift uncomfortably in their chairs at the sight.

Herinor is balling his hands into fists, a sign he’s struggling to keep his calm. “Tata is an … unfortunate development.” The way he phrases it tells me he’s wondering what choice Tata had to make when allying with Ephegos. If she, too, knows she made a mistake. I can’t wait to go down to her cell and squeeze every last drop of information out of her myself as soon as we’ve settled on a strategy not to lose this war. “That, however, doesn’t change that we need to consider any allies we can get. The Queen of Tavras— your queen”—he gestures at the rebels—“is also my queen. The Queen of Crows. Ayna made a choice to go with Ephegos so the Crow King can live to fight another day. She knows Ephegos would have killed Myron had she not proposed an offer Ephegos craves more than to kill him.”

I swallow, knowing what exactly it is he craves.

“Seeing him suffer.” Herinor gestures in the air as if his hands could describe better the dimension of evil Ephegos represents. “Knowing Myron is fully aware of what torture she will be going through.”

Herinor doesn’t check for my reaction. We all know this is what it’s all about for Ephegos. Taking what I love and destroying it. Bonus points if he can watch me suffer. The deal with Shaelak was a backup plan. If he got his hands on me before her, he’d have killed me so he can have what’s mine after all, but as long as he has the chance to keep me alive while having Ayna, he’ll always choose that.

“Ephegos is probably taking her to Meer as we speak. Odds are he’s traveling by carriage or on horseback, which has given him a head start we can only catch up with if we shift and fly—or site-hop.” His eyes dart to Tori, who nods his agreement. “But we can’t go after her to save her. Her bargain states clearly she’ll go with Ephegos if he lets Myron live. She swore not to try to return to Myron’s Crow Court if Ephegos let Kaira go as well. We can’t mess with a bargain like this. If we bring the Crow Court close to her, the bargain might interpret that as her trying.” Before any of us can question him, he amends, “And trust me. I would know. I’ve been working around foolish oaths long enough to know when bending rules could cause a drama of epic proportions.”

Rogue cuts me a glance that is half pity, half the determined king I respect and have learned to call friend.

“So what do you suggest we do?” Tori prompts, shifting a carved, black crow on the map.

Royad takes the word. “We work with the rebels to keep Tavras occupied in their own territory while we convince Cezux to work with us to smother the enemy legions stationed near the Askarean border.”

Even with the vials of magic-sedating serum, we won’t stand a chance without the support of the rebels; he’s right. And Cezux would give us the numbers needed to engage the northern legions in combat long enough to wear them down.

“We fight for the Queen of Tavras, not for Askarea,” Andraya clarifies, but she doesn’t dismiss Royad’s idea either. “Not for the Crow King or the Fairy King.”

All four remaining rebels nod their agreement.

“I couldn’t care less about your rogue Crow.” Rochus runs two fingers along the side of his jaw, probing the salt-and-pepper scruff growing there. “It’s only that he’s involved in Tavras’s politics that puts him on our map.”

“Literally,” Gabrilla amends with dark humor impressing even Silas, waving a calloused hand at the Crow figurine sitting on the path to Meer alongside a carriage and a horse.

No one laughs.

“We never intended to get caught in a war between immortal creatures. But I believe it was clear the day our queen fell in love with a Crow that our rebellion wouldn’t involve only the human lands,” Pouly says, his tone so calm and serene I barely believe he’s human, but when I study him, I see the leader hiding deep down beneath the facade of the guard taking orders. He’s been building this rebellion for decades, has been keeping it alive for the generations serving before him and the generations who will outlive him. And he sees that the war they are fighting is entwined with ours as much as Ayna’s life is with Shaelak’s bloodline.

“We’ll all die fighting battles between fairies and Crows, between Flames and the Guardians know what else.” Rochus sounds more scared than upset, so I don’t growl at him or pick him up by his collar to shake some sense into him. I’m scary enough merely glaring at him.

“There is no escaping an alliance,” Pouly rolls on. “Freeing Tavras from the Jelnedyn king means freeing Tavras from the traitor Crow who now commands his armies.” His expression hardens with determination as he stares down one after the other rebel until even Rochus lowers his head in submission. “We’ll team up with Askarea, but we’ll fight our battles on Tavrasian soil.” His gaze is on Rogue now. “We’re most effective where we know our surroundings. Only there can we wage guerrilla attacks to bind Tavras’s attention.”

No one challenges him. Clio’s eyes shine a bright jade as a feral grin stretches on her lips. Tori squares his shoulders, ready to leap into battle himself, and Rogue and Sanja nod at each other, pleased with the rebels’ commitment.

“We’ll weaken Tavras from within while you batter their forces from the borders. They won’t know what’s coming for them.” Andraya’s smile is a dangerous blend of victorious and bloodthirsty, but I can see the one thing uniting us all—hope for freedom. Hope for a better world.

And there it is: with the supply of magic-nullifying potion and the rebels’ aid—a path for us to forge through legions of human men and ranks of magical soldiers when we are forced to fight without our powers and, if used right and the gods don’t throw any more boulders in that path, a chance at victory.

“Now all we need is for Cezux to fight at our side.”

At my comment, Clio clears her throat, giving me one of the smiles that aren’t of the Fairy Queen but of my friend before she turns to Andraya, the smile turning conspiratorial and dangerous. “Lady Andraya already agreed she’d help us with that.”