Page 27 of Realm of Crows (Wings of Ink #5)

Nineteen

Ayna

It’s nearly midnight when the music stops and Myron pulls me in for a kiss as we come to a halt near the statue of the fairy minstrels.

Rogue and Sanja are still chatting with Royad and Rochus.

Ed has joined them and is sitting on the edge of the granite foundation, cloak drawn tightly around his shoulders.

When I take a good look around, I note that Andraya and Pouly are walking over side by side, discussing animatedly, and Tori and Clio spin out of their last turn around the fire, arms slung around each other’s waist, Clio’s head resting on Tori’s shoulder, Tori’s head stacked atop hers.

The scents of smoke and fire twine with the icy breeze carrying across the gardens, the lights from the palace windows throwing a soft glow along the frozen meadows.

Ice crystals glimmer on the gravel along the paths, and the statues are covered in a layer of them like they are made of snow and ice. It’s a beautiful picture. Peaceful.

“Perfect night for a solstice ritual,” Silas notes as he joins us from the side, gaze following Gabrilla, who settles next to her brother.

She is wearing her cloak half open, a pretty russet and green satin dress peeking through the heavy wool.

I’m not surprised Kaira didn’t stuff the human woman into a wardrobe as revealing as our fairy dresses. That reminds me, where is Kaira?

The last time I saw her was when Herinor half-floated around the fire with her, both their faces set in a blend of annoyance and anticipation that could have ignited a bonfire of its own.

“Time for the big moment,” Clio says with a grin, flicking her fingers. A flurry of snow falls from the cloudless sky, settling on her dress and filling in the gaps between the lace patterns. Some of them land on Tori’s head, making the male shake out his hair with a half-laugh, half-protest.

“Shall we start?” Rogue gestures at the bonfire like he is expecting all of us to step into it, but when we all glance around, Kaira is still missing.

So is Herinor, I notice with no small amount of surprise.

“Time for the ritual ,” Silas says loud enough to alert the palace guards surely standing watch somewhere between the fire and the building. “Unless Kaira found something better to do.”

For about five heartbeats, everyone listens to the silence following Silas’s words, then to the hushed curses coming from the statue halfway around the fire.

Another few heartbeats later, Kaira emerges from the shadows, tugging on the shoulder of her dress with one hand and smoothing back her hair with the other.

An awkward grin defines her expression, and her steps are slightly unbalanced as she hurries over.

“I’m here. I’m—” A glance at the fire now illuminating her outline. “I was?—”

Beside me, Myron raises a brow at her while Silas gives her a wide grin.

“Did you eat Herinor alive?” I ask into her mind when she rushes to stand next to me and I catch a whiff of the male’s scent on her.

“I didn’t eat him.” Even her mental tone is flooded with embarrassment, and thank the firelight, her blush vanishes almost entirely in the glow of the flames.

“What then? Did you tie him to a tree and leave him for the wildlife?” I’m having so much fun teasing her I almost miss when Herinor emerges from the other side of the fire, cloak wrapped around his shoulders and hair tied back the way it was at the beginning of the night.

His expression is unreadable, but when he spots Kaira next to me, a wicked grin crosses his features for a split second.

“Not the wildlife then,” I note, turning toward my sister just in time to watch another flash of heat flare on her skin. “Was it at least good?”

“No comment.” Kaira’s lips curl as she takes a sure step toward the fire.

Out loud, she says, “Thank you all for celebrating this Winter Solstice with me. Dancing and celebrating is what make this night so important for a community, but for me, as a Flame, this night has an additional meaning. Only tonight may I beg the Guardians to give me the long life they have given my ancestors. And only tonight may I step into the fire without burning.”

She strides closer to the fire, one palm open toward the dancing heat.

My stomach clenches as the flames part, and she lifts a foot to step into the flames. “Are you sure you want to risk it?”

Apparently, I’m not the only one harboring concerns.

Next to Rogue, where he has halted, Herinor has lowered his center of gravity a few inches, knees bent and one arm half-lifted in front of him, like he’s prepared to leap after Kaira and rescue her from the all-consuming heat.

As he catches me staring, he brings his hand to his head, brushing back a few loose strands of hair.

The movement makes his cloak slide back over his shoulder, exposing his painted chest. The black whorls and curls are smudged and smeared into near-undefinable patterns all the way to where the cloak covers his neck.

A glimpse is all I get before Herinor lowers his arm and the fabric falls back into place, but it’s enough to know, if I take a closer look at Kaira’s hands, I’ll find whatever paint is missing on Herinor’s skin.

“It’s not a risk when you’re a Flame.” She doesn’t look back as she marches into the fire while the rest of us collectively hold our breath.

Sparks of orange and gold spray into the air as Kaira becomes part of the fire. As if flames were burning hot inside of her, the darker shades of her outline melt away, until all I can see of her is a column of glimmering embers .

“She’ll die in there,” Andraya hisses in accusation. I’m not sure at whom it is directed, but I feel guilty all the same. This is my sister. The only person alive who shares my blood—and I can’t let anything happen to her.

The moment I want to take a step toward the fire, Myron’s fingers lock around my arm.

“Don’t even think about going in there.” I don’t think I imagine the mild panic in his tone, but I can’t tear my eyes off my sister, who has angled her arms sideways above her head, forming a burning Y.

I’m half-ready to beg Clio to freeze over the fire so I can get her out of there when, from between the cracking and whizzing of the fire, Kaira’s voice emerges, a chant in a tongue I’ve never heard before.

“Guardians help us,” Rochus murmurs as the fire seems to be responding with a buzz and a whisper sounding like a language of its own.

“Is that normal?” Herinor has filed into our line of spectators between Royad and Silas, gaze not slipping from Kaira’s glowing form.

“Let’s hope it is.” Royad folds his arms over his chest, a panicked expression on his face that tells me he is already considering multiple outcomes of this situation.

He might be a less outspoken Crow than Silas or Herinor, but what he says holds weight.

So the doubt in his tone unnerves me more than Herinor’s male worry that the object of his desire may literally go up in flames—not that she hasn’t already become part of the fire.

Snowflakes are dancing at the tip of Clio’s fingers, ready to be unleashed on the flames, and Tori stands tense like a coil. Even the rebels appear ready to throw themselves at the flames to get Kaira out should one of us speak the word.

But Kaira hasn’t shown a single sign of pain since she merged with the fire, and none of us is ready to force her from whatever is happening in there. I just pray to the only two deities who’ve ever responded to me to make sure she comes out alive.

“As if I wouldn’t watch over the creatures who faithfully pray to me,” Shaelak answers in my head, startling me into a cringe.

“Don’t act so surprised, Ayna. You of all people should know I am always listening, even when I don’t respond.

I know what is going on in this realm.” He lets the words settle before amending in a whisper, “ I know what is going on in any realm.”

Before I can ask what he means by that, Kaira falls silent, and so do the voices of the fire.

No one speaks a word as she turns around to face us, eyes aglow with the heat of the flames, and steps from the burning orange waves licking up and down her body.

The dress has burned off her, but the patterns of the lace flames remain on her bare skin like streaks of smoldering embers.

I don’t know who moves first, Herinor or me, but when we arrive at her side, both ready to catch her should she stumble, Kaira meets us with a smile. “It is done.”

I’m still scanning her for any sign of burns, but the pattern is fading, and her skin remains smooth cream scattered with a few freckles here and there, and Herinor is already tugging off his cloak and slinging it around her shoulders, hands gentle as he makes sure she’s all bundled up .

“Are you all right?” I finally manage when she does sway, and I grab for her elbow to stabilize her.

With a nod, Kaira confirms. “I just need to rest. It’s a taxing process that takes every last ounce of my magic.” She heaves a deep breath. “Since I’m not as powerful as the average Flame, it’s more tiring to me.”

What she doesn’t need to say is that it’s also more dangerous. Yet, she walked into that fire like it was nothing.

“I’ll take you to your room,” I offer and start to wrap my arm around her to help her walk, but Herinor is faster.

With an efficient movement, he puts himself between us, collecting Kaira into his arms while he gives me a long, begging look that tells me he’d do anything to be the one to be there for her right now.

Since Kaira isn’t protesting, I incline my head at him.

“If you do anything but be a perfect gentleman, this will be the last time you go near her.” I hiss the warning into his ear so Kaira can’t hear as he turns to walk away, and Herinor bows his head an inch in submission.

“If I can’t do that, I have no business being near her anyway. ”

As I watch them march off and the music starts playing in the background again, a Crow I have avoided speaking to since this morning comes to my side, jerking his chin at the two disappearing shapes.

“He won’t try anything Kaira doesn’t consent to,” he says like he’s talking about the weather and he didn’t just read my fears from my face.

“Are you sure?” I don’t take my eyes off them until the palace door swallows them.

“Herinor might consider following my order to be helping me, and that would lead him to do the opposite.” I don’t want to go into all the ways this male couldn’t be fully trusted and that trusting him with my sister is even harder than testing my luck by trusting him with my life.

“He’s a good male at heart, and Kaira can decide for herself if she wants him to simply carry her up the stairs or keep her company or more.” He gives me a sideways glance. “In case you didn’t smell it on them, they already have done more. ”

The others are chatting nearby the statue, Rochus and Ed discussing the eeriness of Kaira’s ritual while Silas, Clio, Tori, and Myron are discussing with Rogue, probably about what happened with the last rebel camp, judging by Myron’s expression.

The bond tingles in my palm as he catches me staring, and his features light up.

I return his smile before facing Royad, who seems to be waiting for me to abandon this conversation or say something.

The scar on his cheek tugs on the corner of his mouth as he gives me a small smile. “Are you all right, Ayna?”

I’m not sure how to answer that because there are about twelve different reasons why I’m not all right and seven why I might be. So I opt for an answer that isn’t a lie.

“Thank you, Royad.”

His brown waves fall into his face as he cocks his head, and he reaches up to pull them behind his ears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“For this morning.”

The expression of that endless understanding of his that would usually make me want to scream appears on his features. “You’re not the first soldier to suffer trauma during captivity, and you needed to work it off, Ayna.”

The feeling of barely stopping my sword at his throat makes my hands tremble, and I can’t look him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have lost control like that anyway.”

Royad doesn’t speak until I dare lift my gaze to his again, absolution waiting in his ocean eyes. “You found your control in time, Ayna. And you’re not the only one who ever nearly took my head off.”

His head turns marginally toward Myron, and I try to keep myself from staring.

“In all those centuries we were locked in a small forest and he kept watching one bride after another waste away, don’t you think we’ve had the need to work off our own trauma and frustration every now and then?

I don’t want to count the times we finished a sparring session close to ending each other.

” An absent expression spreads on his face, making me want to protect him from ever going back to those memories of devastation.

“But you didn’t.”

“And neither did you.”

The way he smiles at me tells me he’s truly forgiven me, so I decide it’s time to forgive myself.