Page 4 of Realm of Crows (Wings of Ink #5)

Four

Ayna

It takes longer than I care for, making my way to the Askarean border, but when I do, a weight lifts from my shoulders, wings easing into the next turn as I glide on a soft gust of icy wind.

I’ve been flying for hours, my muscles tired and my feathers not nearly thick enough to protect me from the cold seeping into my bones.

It doesn’t matter. I’ll fly until I can’t move them anymore if it means I’ll get another few miles closer to the people I can’t live without.

If it means I’ll have a safe place to rest high up in a fir or a crevice in the rocks scattered along the edge of the forest.

Letting the wind carry me a little farther north, I count the trees, keeping my mind focused, doing my best to trick my body to endure a while longer.

I’m up to a hundred and seventy-six when something hits me from the side, knocking me off course.

Sharp pain explodes in my temple, my fragile bird neck snapping to the side.

I have a sense of the night lighting up in blinding brightness before I tumble from the air, the rocks and trees approaching too fast for my liking, and my body quivering at the sense of death awaiting me if I don’t manage to break my fall by shifting.

Whoever shot at me has impeccable aim—unless they were going for my wing and hit my skull instead. The thought almost makes me laugh as I defy the panic rising inside of me, filling the space any rational thought could inhabit. Whoever shot knew what I am, because this can’t be a coincidence.

They found me.

And now I wish to break my neck in my fall—because, no matter how I want to live for Myron, for Kaira, for my court, my family, I won’t be used as a tool to break them.

Unfortunately, the world isn’t done with me.

As I do my best to maintain my crow form while my body strains to shift into my fae form, something elastic wraps around me from beneath, catching my weight and flipping me over in a painful twist as I bounce up and down for what feels like a lifetime.

My head throbs, my neck aches, but I’m whole. Shaelak be damned.

I’m still blinking away the brightness, trying to make sense of what sort of material or even magic has trapped me like a tightly woven skin with only enough room for my beak to peek through, when I hear them: murmurs from a few feet away, shifting limbs and racing hearts.

The odor of fear laces the winter night air, alerting my own panic to surge all over again.

“Is it dead?” someone asks in a deep bass that doesn’t seem to belong in the fairy forests.

“If it’s a normal crow, it probably is,” another voice, a female one this time, responds with too much hope for my taste. “You know, like the last seven we shot from the sky.”

A laugh from a bit farther away tells me there’s a whole group of people watching me as I can’t even fathom moving with my entire body tied up so tightly.

My own heart hammers in my throat, eager to escape.

But my instincts tell me to keep still, pretend I’m dead, just as they’re hoping.

Perhaps that will make them cut me loose and leave me alone.

Just as I believe this can’t get any worse, something sharp pokes my side, piercing my belly through the feathers.

“It’s alive.”

I don’t care who figured it out; I thrash against my bindings with all that I have, any concern if I’ll rip out feathers in the process beyond me. Because, no matter how dying would be the safest option, the warmth at the tip of my wing demands I fight.

I can’t hear his voice in my head, but I know all the same that Myron will never forgive me if I give up, if I allow for Eroth to claim me—or any other creature in this universe.

So I fight, shouts of surprise and fear echoing from the forest as my form expands, claws turning into legs, wings into arms, and the full weight of my fae body tears through the bindings.

The force of my impact in the ground beneath must leave an imprint in the frozen soil, I’m almost certain, but then I try to push myself off the ground, and my arm screams with pain.

Great! As if the injury to my head wasn’t enough, I broke my arm.

“Stand back!” the deep voice shouts, and a cluster of feet collectively shuffles away from me while the sharp item remains at my side like a lance of ice ready to push between my ribs. “And you,” he addresses me before I can even open my eyes, “don’t move.”

I give up on trying to heave myself up against my arm, taking comfort in none of them calling me by my name.

If they were Erina’s men or Ephegos’s Crows or Flames, I would long have been injected with a dose of the magic-nullifying drug.

Instead, my broken arm is already knitting itself back together, and the cut on the side of my belly doesn’t feel like it’s going to kill me.

I’m healing, my Crow powers weak after exerting myself in a day of flying, but functional.

The icy air and frozen ground drive a shiver through my body as I wait for the head injury to follow.

“Who are you?” the deep bass demands, pushing the sharp item a fraction of an inch closer, nicking my skin.

“Give her a moment, Kaen.” A female voice appears somewhere by the group of pounding hearts a few feet away, where the rest of my captors must hover.

“For her to collect her strength and attack? I don’t think so,” Kaen shoots back, withdrawing the sharp end of what indeed is a spear, because the first thing I see when my eyes finally peer through the light the blow to my head induced is the long, wooden staff Kaen flips around to push the blunt end into my ribs.

The next thing I see is my bare skin where a drizzle of crimson runs from the tiny incision the tip of the spear made an inch above where Kaen’s pointing now.

I can’t help a groan as I realize I’ve lost my clothes in the process of shifting and am sprawled on my stomach, completely and utterly naked between the rocks at the seam of the forest. “Fuck.” I screw my eyes shut for a heartbeat before I take in my surroundings as best I can from this angle without giving Kaen a reason to attack.

“Who sent you?” Kaen demands, and as I turn my head an inch, I can make out his tall form in the torchlight spilling from the group of people behind the next set of rocks.

There have to be at least twenty of them, dressed in simple winter clothes with bits and pieces of leather armor attached along their shoulders, arms, and chests.

“You aren’t soldiers,” I wheeze, my throat barely setting free my voice.

Kaen’s black eyes flash in the torchlight as he leans closer as if to read my face where my hair is half covering it. If only the rest of me was covered. “Depends on how you define soldiers,” he growls. “Now get up and identify yourself, Crow.”

“By the Guardians, Kaen, give her something to cover herself,” the female voice interjects, and this time, I make out the form of a woman a few feet away from the group, her hand clutching a torch and her hair shining like golden flames in the firelight .

Yes, something to cover myself would be great, and not only because my entire body is starting to go numb against the cold.

“She’s surely unarmed if she doesn’t have any leathers to store away a blade,” the woman continues her reasoning, and I can’t help the gratitude flickering through me, even when fear still has me in an iron hold.

The argument doesn’t seem to put Kaen at ease in the slightest. “She’s a Crow. She doesn’t need blades to kill.”

His words speak from a history of death that evokes a strange sense of loss within me.

“You have seen others like me?” I whisper, not trusting my voice. “Other Crows?”

“Feathered bastards who take our women and kill our men.” Kaen spits on the ground beside my shoulder, and I shrink away an inch. The spear follows shortly.

“I’m not here to harm anyone.” I push up again, bracing my weight on my forearms. The rush of icy air blowing over my chest is almost worse than pressing it to the frozen ground.

Kaen doesn’t seem to believe me since he flips the spear over once more, the sharp end lingering an inch from my throat as I lift my chin to take a real look at him.

Strong arms and legs, a barrel of a chest, and a mass of black-and-gray waves tied in a bun on the back of his head.

In the torchlight, I can’t make out the exact shade of his skin, but he seems to be golden like the folks at the eastern shores of Tavras, where my mother brought me when we fled Meer after my father’s execution .

“Get up,” is all he says, and to his credit, his eyes don’t stray from my face as I rise from the ground, facing him with nothing but a few strands of hair covering my breasts, leaving the rest of my body bare for everyone to take a look.

“The cloak, Enhela,” he says without a blink.

The woman who spoke before steps forward, removing her cloak as she strides toward me. Her round face is friendly despite the caution written in her eyes. “Here you go.” She holds out the fabric, and I take it without delay, wrapping it around my shoulders and pulling it tight around my body.

It’s not much with my feet still on the ground, but it’s an instant relief from the embarrassment of the stares from the rest of the group.

Enhela clears her throat. “Are you one of the Jelnedyn king’s Crows?” she asks, doubt on her face as she keeps looking me over like she can’t quite believe it. “I thought there were only males. At least, that’s what we’ve heard.”

I shake my head to both questions, careful not to make contact with the tip of the spear, which Kaen keeps near my throat.

“Are you part of his army?” I prompt in return.

The Jelnedyn king , that’s what she called Erina. Not the king of Tavras .

“Erina’s?” The woman shakes her head. “I’d rather die than fight for that piece of filth.”

A panicked laugh breaks out of me as I tip my head to the sky and scan the tree tops for signs of winged, feathered enemies … or for fire-wielding fairies who have a bone to pick with me—and find not a sign of either .

“You’re not working for Erina?” I prompt, my voice shaking with cold and the wake of my bitter amusement.

“Not even if my life depended on it,” Kaen spits in front of my feet and grits his teeth, exposing a wide gap where one of his front teeth is missing. “I’d rather die to see the true queen of Tavras on the throne.”

It’s in that moment I realize I might have ended up at the point of a blade, but it’s the blade of someone who is willing to risk everything to make sure I get to sit on the throne of Tavras.