Page 54

Fifty-Four

Ayna

Watery winter sun pours in through the carriage window, warming my cheek as I chew on a slice of salty cheese while I stash bits of the bread they gave me in my boot and the pockets of my stinking leathers. They haven’t given me a chance to clean up, but at least, my clothes are now dry. The tea they brought in an hour ago has gone cold. I haven’t touched it for fear it could be laced with the drug. Now that my strength is slowly returning, I need to be careful what I ingest.

The bread is what I suspect has the drug baked into it like it had at Erina’s palace, so I’ve hidden it in my clothes for the past two days and dumped it in the bushes when they allowed me to take care of my needs. Instead of drinking the water they provide, I scrape hoarfrost off twigs before I return from the bushes and lick the melting ice off my fingers. It’s not enough to quench my thirst, but it’s enough to keep my strength without compromising my powers. So far, I’ve been getting better by the hour, my powers simmering at my disposal, and my wounds have completely sealed.

During the few minutes a day Ephegos has kept me company, he hasn’t checked beneath the layer of blood caked on my clothes and face for bruises or an actual injury, so I’ve managed to fool him by whimpering when moving and pretending to have dizzy spells or nausea. Today, I even put my finger down my throat to make myself vomit up part of the breakfast when I was alone in the carriage. When the guards returned, a mixture of disgust and pleasant surprise crossed their faces. I’m sure they reported back to their master the drug is developing its full effect.

We’ve left the Plithian Plains, slight hills replacing the flat lands. At least, the landscape provides better hiding places than the endless plains.

This morning, I reached out through the bond, checking in on Myron with the effect of a surge of heat flashing through my palm, up my arm, and right to my heart. It’s enough for me to know he’s alive and well. I can even tell he’s north-west, the bond working like a compass. Convenient.

At least, now I understand how Myron found me when I was a captive in Erina’s palace before I knew we were mates.

The carriage halts and heavy footsteps are the only warning before the door opens and a tall, broad guard pops in his head to see if I’m done. It’s the same man every day. From the pointed ears and the way he never seems to be cold, I guess he’s a Flame, but I can’t be entirely sure. He might as well be a Crow. I never ask, saving my energy for the conversations that matter.

“Finished?” he asks when I shove the final piece of cheese into my mouth. He eyes the untouched tea and shrugs. “The drug isn’t in the tea, you know? At least, not today.”

I give him a weak grin, showing a hint of teeth. “Not that it matters. I can barely keep the food down as is. I thought Erina improved the side effects.” At least, that’s what his projection told Myron when he tried to un-mate us.

The guard laughs. “You’re not getting the improved stuff. Ephegos seems to be interested in seeing you in as bad a shape as possible that isn’t unconscious on this journey.”

Well, that explains a lot.

“How long until we get to Meer?” I haven’t breached the topic of where we’re headed with any of the guards before, but I feel lucky today, my head clear for once. “We are going to Meer, aren’t we?”

“We’re going to see the King of Tavras. That’s all you need to know.”

Interesting. So perhaps Erina isn’t in Meer after all.

“How is King Erina?” Throwing all of my hatred into my words, I need to keep myself from leaping at the guard to shake information out of him. No one can know I’m actually in nearly full possession of my strength, or I’ll lose the momentum of surprise. “Is he shitting his royal pants in fear of his Crow general? Is he aware he’s in over his head?”

The guard merely laughs.

Again—interesting. It seems the guard couldn’t care less about the Jelnedyn king.

“So you’re one of Ephegos’s puppets?” I fake a cough to keep it convincing.

The guard picks up the cold tea and pours it over my head before I can cringe back, shutting the door in my face. Before I can speak a word, the carriage is rolling again.

The next time we stop, the moon is glaring down at the world like a silver eye, the air frosty despite being headed south, and I’ve been shivering from the wet mop on my head that is my hair. The guard was right; the drug wasn’t in the tea or I’d be suffering at least some effects of it from what I accidentally got into my mouth before I could spit.

Someone shouts an order outside. “Make camp for the night.” It’s the first time we’re stopping for a night that I’m aware of. Perhaps the horses were finally used up and collapsed under the burden of the carriage, or we’ve reached our destination.

Before I can make up my mind about what terrifies me more—being trapped in the wilderness with a bunch of enemies when they are not occupied with walking or riding, or being dragged from the carriage into a room with Erina, the door flies open, and Ephegos climbs into the cabin, sitting down in his usual spot across from me.

I curl up more tightly on the bench, allowing for the shivers to rake through me. Let Ephegos see how weak I am.

“Good evening, Ayna.” He unsheathes his sword and lays it across his knees, keeping one hand on the hilt as if expecting me to lean at him any moment.

The thought he’s afraid of me, even in my supposedly drugged state, gives me more satisfaction than I should care for.

“What do you want this time?” I don’t try to sound pleasant. Let the bastard see what he’s done. Let him see what he wants to see. A drugged, helpless female unable to keep her bearings. I go as far as to leave the bite out of my words for the sake of my performance.

Ephegos grins down at me, his expression warm and nauseatingly normal like all those times he fooled Myron and Royad at the place in the Seeing Forest. “Just checking in on my favorite Crow female.”

“I’m the only Crow female,” I remind him.

Ephegos’s grin twists into something terrifying. “Doesn’t mean you’re not my favorite after all.” The fact he doesn’t specify what that entails is perhaps the scariest part. I’ve watched him hurt others, have been on the receiving end of his torture. But something tells me that what he’s got planned for me is a million times worse.

I suck in a shuddering breath.

Keep your head clear. Don’t let fear take you. Again, it’s my own voice rather than one of the deities who have shoved my life off trajectory over the past months.

“Don’t worry, Ayna.” Ephegos leans forward the way he always does when he pretends to be sharing a secret. “Now that you have chosen to join me instead of your joke of a mate.”

A flame of ire licking up my spine makes me spit in his face. Ephegos pulls back with a laugh. “You’ll learn the benefits of being my pet in time.”

The fact that it sounds more like a threat than a reassurance freezes the anger down to my bones, and I shrink back another inch, steeling myself for what’s to come.

Nothing. Nothing happens.

Ephegos merely stares into my eyes, drinking in my terror. If I didn’t know any better, I’d believe he can digest it like food.

“Rest while you can, Ayna.” He huffs a laugh, a melody reminding me of days when I considered him my friend. What a farce.

With an elegant movement, he sheathes his sword and scoots toward the door, already reaching for the brass handle.

“Wait.” I don’t know what I want to say to him, but I need to get information out of him before he can drag me to Erina. Who knows how much time I have left to attempt my escape? After being too weak to try to run before we left the edge of the borderland forests, stalling until we got out of the Plithian Plains was torture in itself.

Rye-blond hair swinging around, Ephegos turns his head, fingers holding firm on the molded brass. “You found your voice again?” There is no courtesy or warmth in his tone now, only the stone-cold traitor, the torture master he’s become, as he pins me with his deep brown eyes.

One breath. Two. Ask him something, I tell myself. Get him to spill his plans.

“Why take me to Erina when you don’t need him for your grander plan?” It’s the first question I can think of, but the flare of anger in Ephegos’s gaze tells me I hit a nerve.

Great.

“None of your concern.”

Before he can push down the door handle, I sit up a tad straighter, allowing my voice to turn raspy as I force more faked weakness into it, like it costs me all my strength to defy him when, in reality, I could leap at him and try to pull his blade from its sheath. I just wouldn’t survive it.

“Kill him now, if you dare. ” This time, the voice in my head is definitely not myself trying to talk me into a foolish act. “Hello, Ayna,” the God of Darkness amends in my head, a soft chuckle of fluid night leaking from each word.

Swallowing the knot in my throat, I focus to calm my pulse. It’s not helping much, though, and Shaelak’s sudden reappearance is only part of it. The other part is me holding my breath for Ephegos’s answer while I try not to let show that I’m hearing his creator’s voice in my head.

“Erina”—Ephegos smirks, sitting back on the bench and drawing a hunting knife from his other hip—“is a pawn in my grand plan, you already figured that out. What you didn’t figure out is that you are mine to do with whatever I want now.” I curl my fingers around the edge of the bench, holding onto the wood for support. “And what I want is for you to serve as payment for Erina’s armies until I return to collect you.”

The wood groans as I grasp it too tightly, catching Ephegos’s attention, but I bury the sound in a cough, laying it on thick to appear even weaker.

“You’re a real monster.”

Ephegos’s face lights up. “Thank you, Ayna. I’m doing my best to keep things interesting.” Before I can vomit for real, he rolls on, “You know, I had different plans. Kill Myron to make you mine. I would have sacrificed my vengeance on him to get my hands on the first Crow female in millennia. A gift from Shaelak himself. But since we’re both immortal, Erina is only a road stop on my quest. You’re mine with or without the God of Darkness’s aid.” He pauses, measuring my expression for any hint of understanding.

“Oh, I know about your deal with the Bastard of Darkness.” I don’t care about the angry rumble in my head. If Shaelak was on my side, he would never have put me through this. He would never have made a deal with this piece of vermin.

“Why did you make that deal again?” I shout at Shaelak in my head. “To make the species you created stronger? Survival of the fittest. Or better, survival of the most ruthless?”

“You aren’t so different from him, Ayna,” Shaelak whispers in my mind, and my hair stands on my neck at the icy touch of darkness caressing my shoulder.

“I’m nothing like that monster.” My objection echoes into the void that is the space between the realms of mortals and fae, and that of deities.

“But you are. You would do anything to protect the ones you love. If someone took Kaira from you, wouldn’t you go to incredible lengths to avenge her? And for Myron?”

In my head, his presence builds like a thundercloud laced with silver light and black feathers.

“I wouldn’t damn an entire continent to suffer tyranny only so I could get my revenge.” But I’d lay waste to the world if that was the only way to get that vengeance, he’s right about that. And as I think, Shaelak’s power tingling beneath my skin, I realize why he did it. “This isn’t about survival of the strongest or that Ephegos might be your favorite over Myron.” I’m panting now, and thank Vala Ephegos believes this is all part of me fighting the effects of his drug. “You don’t merely want to create chaos. You want to prove a point.”

“And what point would that be, child?” The danger in his tone makes my pulse spike, pressure building in my chest like a void of power has opened up and is pushing its path toward the surface.

“That I’m no better than Ephegos. That I’m just as evil and ruthless.”

“Wrong.” Laughter of silver and black curdles my blood. “You are immortal now, Ayna. You can play the games of immortality.”

My mind is spinning, vision blurring. I need to focus, keep Ephegos engaged in our conversation before he can leave the carriage, but I can’t breathe with Shaelak pressing down on my consciousness. It doesn’t matter.

For weeks, the God of Darkness disappeared. Now that he’s returned, I need answers from him just as desperately as I need answers from the traitor Crow.

“Left one little detail open.” It takes all out of me to think that at him, but I manage to face the sliver-sprinkled blackness in my head.

“And what detail is that?”

A smirk forms on my own lips, keeping Ephegos’s attention on me as I struggle to remember what he and I were talking about.

“Myron has been your pawn since the curse fell upon the Crows. I have been your pawn since I was conceived. Whose pawn is Ephegos?”

Thunder claps in the skies above as Shaelak growls inside my head.

Just like that, he’s gone.

I don’t have time to consider whether the silence in my skull is creepier than housing the thoughts of a god; Ephegos is still staring at me.

Erina. The deal with Shaelak. Trying to find out why Ephegos is humoring Erina when he could merely seize power for himself… I snap back into reality, locking my eyes on Ephegos’s as I still gasp for air.

“So you’re just going to sell me to Erina all over again?”

“And watch you suffer until the King of Tavras dies. And then, I’ll take you back, Ayna. You’ll be mine for all eternity, and Myron will be forced to watch from afar as you slowly turn into a husk used however I see fit. Whenever I see fit. By whomever I see fit.”

I should kill him now. Should risk it. Dying in the process is a fate less grueling than what he’s concocted for me. One glance at Ephegos’s knife, and he knows. A laugh spills from his mouth, and he crinkles his nose as if amusement and disgust are melding.

“Don’t even think about trying, Ayna. I’ll just pin you by the shoulder to the bench and wait until the double dosage of the drug I’ve coated my armor and all my weapons with sets in.” He slides back to the door, and this time, he doesn’t hesitate before he opens it. “It won’t change a thing about your fate. Only that you might not be awake to experience the first time your future husband takes his pleasure from you.”

Without another word, he hops out the door, shutting it behind him with a bang, and I crumble into a heap of tears.