Page 10 of Realm of Crows (Wings of Ink #5)

Eight

Ayna

“Are any bones broken?”

“Her heart’s beating too fast.”

“Take her to the healers.”

“Let me take her.”

A multitude of feet shuffle across stone, disrupting the voices all speaking over each other like there is no time to be lost.

“At least, she didn’t shift on the windowsill. That might have been her end if she’d fallen off.”

A pair of arms pushes against my shoulders, but that’s about all I can feel of my body. I’m too dazed to make any sense of it, but I try to orient myself anyway.

“You would have caught her with your power.” I recognize that voice first. Kaira. And she’s scolding one of the males.

I made it. I made it to the palace.

“You overestimate me,” Herinor replies, that dark tone heavy in his words.

Herinor is alive and here. Whatever happened to them in the forest, he made it out alive. My breathing eases, as does the guilt that has been following me everywhere, even when I barely recognized it, too busy getting myself out of this mess.

“I don’t think I do. It’s not that you don’t want to help her; it’s only the curse preventing you.”

Kaira is right. Herinor could never help me, no matter how much he wants to.

“Then why did you pick her from the windowsill?” Sanja demands.

Sanja is here. If only I could open my eyes, I’d find the fierce female staring down the warrior like he’s an insect beneath her boots. But I need a moment to come around. Everything hurts from the impact that knocked me out, and I’m not sure I’m ready to open my eyes.

“I picked her up so I could drop her on the floor.” Herinor’s reasoning doesn’t make sense, unless I recognize it as a response to a question no one asked out loud. How could he justify saving me from the windowsill when the bargain demands he should have let me fall to my death?

“That’s exactly what you did, you fucker.” Silas! Silas is here, too. His voice is rumbling against my cheek, so I assume he’s the one carrying me .

“Well, thank Eroth you were fast enough to catch her, then.”

“Stop…” I force down a steadying breath while the others fall silent. “Stop bickering,” I manage in a whisper. “It’s an order from your queen.”

Kaira’s chuckle is like a melody of honey and fire, so beautiful and welcome after two days of flying without a break after I nearly drained myself at the rebel camp with the huge shield I conjured and all the strength that went into healing Meralis’s injuries.

“Ayna.” A gentle touch on my shoulder. “You’re awake.”

“Mostly.” Blinking my eyes open, I take in the swimming faces welcoming me back.

First, Kaira’s a foot away. Behind her, Herinor is looming like vengeance incarnate. To his right, Rogue and Sanja are smiling at me, but their faces are strained like they aren’t yet certain my arrival is a good thing.

Silas’s face is the last one I see, even though he’s the one carrying me. “I’m taking you to the healers, Ayna.”

“Is something wrong with me?” Taking inventory of my body, I realize that something is indeed off.

I didn’t pay it any heed earlier, but now, it’s beyond alarming that I can’t feel where I see Silas’s second arm wrapped under my knees.

Fuck—

“I can’t feel my legs.” The mild panic in my voice has everything to do with my fear that it’s the revenge of the magic of bargains preventing me from sensing anything below my navel, like my body just ends there .

“You hit the window mid-flight, Ayna. Rogue and I healed you as best we could to repair the injury in your spine, but it might take more than a Crow and a Fairy King to get you back to normal. You might need time.”

Time we don’t have in this war.

“The healers have been informed of your arrival.” Tori pops up beside me, inclining his head before he plucks me from Silas’s arms, and together, we melt into time and space as he pulls us through them.

My head swims a little when we materialize in a large room with a row of cots lining each wall. A fairy with lavender hair and piercing green eyes gestures for Tori to lay me down on the nearest cot, her hands reaching for my abdomen the moment I’m flat on my back.

I see her touch my stomach, but I can’t feel it.

Please-please-please. Don’t let this be permanent. Don’t let this be the vengeance of the magic of bargains. I didn’t make it all the way here, only to break the bargain at the last minute.

“The injury runs deep,” the healer says with a low, soothing voice. “She’ll need a few days of rest so her own healing powers can take care of what’s left of the damage.”

“So it’s reversible?” I squeak, half-relieved, half-suspicious of the hope flaring in my chest. “It’s not the bargain?”

The healer gives me a confused look while Tori shakes his head.

“If you break a bargain, something much worse would happen.” I’m glad he doesn’t give any specifics because this is already bad enough.

“Viola here will give you something that helps you sleep, and when you wake up, you’ll be as good as new. ”

He gestures at the female, who promptly picks a vial filled with a swirling green liquid from the shelf beside the bed and leads it to my mouth. “Drink up, Crow Queen.”

I do as I’m told, swallowing the bitter fluid with a grimace. “Where’s Myron?”

He wasn’t with us when I woke, and I can’t sense a tug through the bond the way I usually can, my body too exhausted to feel anything but a bone-deep tiredness that will drag me under any moment. “I need to see him.”

Tori purses his lips. “He went to Cezux with Royad, Clio, and Andraya to convince King Dimar to aid us in this war.”

He isn’t here. But he’s fine. He got away after Ephegos knocked me out on the battlefield, and he found his way back to Aceleau. He’s safe. He’s on a mission of his own.

“When is he coming back?”

I don’t hear Tori’s response as an inky darkness falls over my mind, swallowing all worries, all thoughts, and I fall into a deep sleep.

The taste of the green liquid still lingers on my tongue when I wake up, shivering head to toe, but my body feels clean, and I’m wearing fresh clothes.

I’ll need to thank Viola for that later.

I don’t mind the sensation of ice coating my body; I can feel my toes again, which means the healer was right and I’m recovering.

My calves are cramping, and my hips feel like someone is tearing on my muscles and ligaments, but what’s worse is the sting in my right palm. A few deep breaths help relax my legs, but the shivers and the sting in my palm remain.

“Myron?” It’s the only explanation for the sensation where my mate mark sits invisible on my skin.

With unstable fingers, I pull the covers someone placed on top of me higher around my body. Something falls off the edge of my bed in the process, and a pair of feet hurry toward me.

“I’m coming, Queen of Crows.” My heart wants to leap with joy, but it’s not Myron’s voice; it’s Viola’s.

Within heartbeats, the healer appears at my bedside, carrying a glass of water in her hand. “Here, drink this.”

Her free hand slides beneath my shoulder, helping me lift my head enough to sip from the glass. “The aftereffects of the sleeping draught are ugly, but you’ll feel fine soon.”

“Is he back?” It’s all I can think of, now that my mate mark is flaring with heat. “He has to be back.” I turn my head away from the glass, trying to roll out of bed. “Please.”

Viola doesn’t hold me back as I stagger from the mattress and make a step toward the door maybe twenty feet from my bed. One step. That’s as far as I get before my strength fails and I collapse.

“There-there.” Viola is right behind me, pulling me up and dragging me back onto the bed with ease, her delicate form disguising her fairy strength. “It will be a few hours before you can properly move. Promise me you’ll stay in bed, and I’ll go inquire if the Crow King has returned.”

I nod because it’s the only thing I can really do.

Viola hands me the glass. “Drink,” she says as she heads for the door herself, her long, beige skirts billowing in her wake. “It will make the aftereffects fade faster. ”

Then she’s gone, and the heat in my palm is the only thing I can think about.

In the hope of getting my body to obey me faster, I follow Viola’s advice and take a long drink from the glass, nearly spilling it all over my shirt as I lift it to my mouth with a shaky hand.

My legs work. I will recover. And Myron must be nearby if I can feel him this intensely, almost as if the mating bond wants to show me his frantic state of mind. As frantic as my own, I suppose.

Counting my heartbeats, I study my surroundings, the empty cots to my left and right and across the room, the plain, beige door leaving visible a fraction of the corridor leading to wherever Myron is in this palace.

I can almost taste his presence in the air, almost hear his voice in the silence, but when I listen closer, that silence is all that remains.

“I’m here, Myron.” Not that he can hear me, but it feels right to speak the words. “I have come back to you.”

“And I to you.”

My heart stops as he appears on the threshold, stepping out of the shadows behind the door, tall, taller even than I remember him, hair wind-torn and palms spilling inky smoke as he runs a quick gaze along my form as if to mark injuries and come up with adequate punishments for anyone responsible for them.

When he finds not a scratch on me, he closes his eyes, lowering his hands to his sides, his chest heaving as he inhales a long, deep breath .

“I didn’t believe it when Rogue told me upon my return that you were back.” His voice is midnight and shadows and the stars who live inside the night.

“Because fairies can lie.” It’s a guess, but Myron’s head dips into a nod.

Slowly, he steps into the room as if he still can’t believe he isn’t hallucinating.

“So I searched the grounds for Silas first. I couldn’t bear the thought of hoping, only to find out I was lied to and find my heart shattered all over again.”

“Silas can’ t lie.” I explain his choice to myself aloud. “He’s a Crow.”

“As are you.” He’s two steps from the bed, his presence filling the air I breathe, his scent of earth and moss and the salty tang of a coastal brine laced with a foreign smell—a wild one of spices and blossoms that have no place in the winter months.

My heart stutters as I meet his gaze, the ocean blue of his irises clear despite the black veins creeping around his eyes.

I don’t care about the darkness spilling from his fingers onto the covers, gliding up my arm, caressing my shoulder as if he’s anxious to feel me yet doesn’t dare touch me with his hands.

“Tell me this isn’t just one of Ephegos’s tricks. Tell me he didn’t send you here, that you found a loophole in the bargain, and that you’re free. Truly free.”

I can’t find my voice as his worries fall from his tongue with such ease, no longer the contained, brooding male I once got to know but the mate I entrusted my heart with .

“Ayna,” he lowers himself to his knees, bracing his hands on the edge of the mattress, an expression of torment distorting his beautiful features. “Please, say something.”

“I didn’t find one,” I breathe.

Myron shakes his head as if he doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to. “You didn’t find a loophole—” he repeats, and it breaks my heart to see him like this.

My hand shakes, palm burning as I place it on top of Myron’s. “I didn’t find a loophole, Myron. I created one.”

He’s so still he could have been a statue made of hopes and dreams, of sleepless nights and endless bliss veiled in anguish.

“ I’ll be yours if you let him live. I swear not to try to return to his Crow Court if you let Kaira go as well.

Alive, ” I quote the exact words of my bargain with Ephegos to him, waiting for him to understand.

“I didn’t try, Myron. I did return. I came back to my Crow Court.

There is nothing the magic of bargains can do. ”

Another deep breath moves Myron’s chest as he pulls one of his hands from under mine and stacks it upon our hands. “You returned to your court.” A pained smile grazes his lips as I lean forward, ready to finally, finally kiss him again. “But the rest of the bargain remains untouched as well.”

Now it’s me who doesn’t understand.

His gaze holds mine, the black from the veins surrounding his eyes creeping into his irises. “You’re still his because he let me live.”

The realization hits me like a boulder to the head. I hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t had the need to think of anything but returning to this court, to return to Myron .

Thankfully, my nature has always been a stubborn one, and I rely on it to back me now as I dig deep, deep, deeper for any thread of hope.

“I might be his .” I pull my hand from between Myron’s, placing it against his cheek instead.

“But that doesn’t define in what capacity.

I don’t care what he thinks I am to him as long as I remain to you what I was before I made that bargain.

” Leaning into the touch, Myron inhales greedily, any caution fading from his features as he closes his eyes.

I shudder at the sensation of his stubbled cheek scraping against my fingers, his breath along the inside of my wrist, and the endless flow of emotions swirling through the bond connecting us.

“My mate,” Myron murmurs against my skin. “You’ll always be my mate.”