Page 59 of Realm of Crows (Wings of Ink #5)
“You’ll meet Ephegos soon enough,” the Flame drawls, not to Clio but to me, a thrust of fire surging from his fingers.
This time, Clio isn’t fast enough to protect all of us with her ice magic, but my own shield is already in place, shimmering like a delicate silver sphere around the three of us while Silas’s own shield is weaving into it .
Both opponents pause long enough for me to stall with another question—one I’d really love the answer to.
“If you have no clue where your general is, do you at least know where the human coward king is hiding?” I cock my head at the flicker of doubt in the Crow’s eyes.
“He’s not fighting alongside you, is he?
A human man providing the armies you need to claim a realm for yourselves. What a farce.”
I don’t care if I sound like a human-despising immortal as I push for a response. All I want is to grab this opportunity and make the most of it while there is still time.
“None of your fucking business, Wolayna,” the Crow hisses. “You aren’t the Queen of Crows, nor are you the Queen of Tavras. We don’t answer to you.”
“Of course you don’t.” I scoff, raising my daggers and launching myself at the Crow while Clio takes on the Flame, feeling every emerging flicker of fire right in his hands, where no magic-nullifying drug has been used on his armor.
Silas grabs a sword from a fallen fairy soldier, fighting with both hands as he parries the blows the Crow delivers with his bare claws.
He’s strong—strong enough to keep both Silas and me busy.
Twisting and diving as I parry each blow, I study the technique, the savage power emanating from him.
I’ve never seen anyone fight like that. Not even during the battle in the Seeing Forest, when the Crows were more monster than fae.
It’s like Ephegos cultivated their half-bird selves even after the curse was broken and the outcome is this unpredictable fighting style that lands a gash in my shoulder and a bruise on my thigh, forcing me to favor one leg .
A ball of fire speeds past my ear, crashing into the melee behind us, followed by a shouted apology from Clio, who wasn’t able to stop it. Two inches to the left and it would have burned through my head.
“Silas, use your arrows,” I order in my mind, pushing the massive Crow back with my daggers, and thank the gods, Silas doesn’t question my decision.
I sense more than see him fall behind a few feet, faking an injury, and leaving me to fight the male on my own.
Ducking under my opponent’s arm, I slice into his side.
The cut is deep enough to draw blood, but it’s not enough to slow him down.
Just as I turn to attack from behind, daggers aiming at the area below his ribs, his claws lock around my upper arm, forcing me to a halt with one sharp pull.
Searing pain shoots up and down my arm from where his talons dig into my bicep, and I freeze to prevent them from tearing deeper into my flesh.
“Silas, now.”
My plea hasn’t left my mind when a silver arrow hits the Crow between the eyes in a clean shot, and a scream leaves his mouth even as his eyes roll back and he sags to the ground.
His claws don’t open, though, and I need to use my dagger to try to cut through his wrist—an endeavor that proves impossible from the angle the weight of his body is dragging me down, making his talons slide lower on my arm and slice through leather and flesh.
Crouching next to the dead Crow to prevent deeper wounds, I’m easy prey for whoever chooses to attack next, and odds are, those fucking projections already got word to Erina of where I am, and the Tavrasian king has reported to Ephegos, telling him exactly where to hunt me.
Another fireball shoots past me, but this time, it’s aimed at Silas, who swings his axe, bringing it down on the Crow’s wrist in a massive blow. The claws open the moment the tendons are severed, and I can shake them off.
“Can’t leave my queen kneeling in the dirt and the blood of our enemies, can I?” With a smirk, he wipes his axe on the dead Crow’s leathers, the other hand already reaching for my arm.
“Thank you.” I don’t have it in me to tell him I don’t need him to heal me, that my body can do that on its own, and I don’t need to.
Axe ready in his other hand, he winks at me. “Heals faster when we do it together.”
I’m about to thank him a second time when the crack of a moving trebuchet drowns out all other sounds, and not a drizzle but a splatter of liquid rains down on us. There’s no shield raised we could duck under, and I’m too slow to pick one up from the pile of bodies beside me.
“Shit—” I hiss, sensing my powers rebelling against the serum before it even touches my skin.
“Down!” Clio’s shout comes a split second before she tackles both Silas and me, pushing us to the ground, a streak of fire following her close enough to singe a few of the copper hairs sticking out of her braid.
My teeth sing, but the fire sizzles through the air, forming a burning ceiling, evaporating the serum ready to soak us and leaving behind a trace of steam which a gust of black smoke herding it along the battlefield, back into Tavras’s ranks .
“That was close,” Clio grinds out, gathering her limbs and jumping back to her feet.
“I think we won’t be that lucky another time.
” With a glance at the Flame whose blow we collectively dodged, I note that the fire-spitting male wasn’t as lucky as we were.
Not a droplet of flame emerges from his palms as he stares at them in wide-eyed horror.
Clio pulls a knife from her belt and throws it with such precision; the Flame doesn’t even realize it slit his throat before he suffocates on his own blood, the fairies gagging and retching on their hands and knees around him drowning out the sound of his slow and painful death.
Instead of watching him die, I follow Silas into the melee closer to the siege weapons, using my daggers to cut down whatever Tavrasian soldier gets in my way.
If we want to stand a chance to win this battle, we’ll need to neutralize the trebuchets or destroy the ammunition.
Too many fairies are already out of their power, and no matter how many of us remain on their feet, we can never be fast enough to fight the soldiers flooding our side of the battlefield, killing the helpless fairies like it is nothing.
It doesn’t matter how well we trained those males and females—the drug works fast and hard, leaving them useless to pick up a sword and fight. They don’t even see death coming.
Perhaps that’s a mercy.
“Why aren’t they using the magic-nullifying drug on us directly?
” Kaira asks into the mind link, sending me a flash of images, all of which show a scene similar to the one surrounding Clio, Silas, and me.
Too many fairies have fallen. Too many are crawling across the battlefield, their limbs severed or a blade protruding from their backs .
“Maybe not all of them carry the serum with them,” Royad suggests. He sounds out of breath but in good enough spirits. “With those fucking spheres filled with serum, I’m not sure they have any left to put in vials and use individually.”
“Gods, I hope you’re right,” Clio groans, punching a soldier in the face before stabbing him in the weak spot of his armor, right beneath his arm.
The woman drops like a dead fly, and Clio continues hacking her way across the field.
“If I need to kill an opponent by vomiting my breakfast into his face from the effects of the drug, I swear, I’ll never put on fighting leathers again.
I’ll just sit in a pretty palace for the rest of my life and knit baby hats like Sanja. ”
Tori’s speechless sound of surprise hits me in the gut like a fist, and for a moment—just for a moment—I want to ask if her statement has any deeper meaning, but behind the wall of soldiers, the first trebuchet is within reach, and I can taste a small moment of victory.