Page 64 of Realm of Crows (Wings of Ink #5)
Forty-Seven
Ayna
The next thing I see is the seam of a barren winter forest laced with sparse evergreens—and at the southernmost edge, a lonely crow scratching the frozen ground like a chicken. Behind us, Rogue’s soldiers pop up, ready for battle.
“Herinor,” Silas recognizes him first, shifting into his Crow form to close the distance faster, and zooms ahead while Clio and I stay at a cautious distance, daggers and swords drawn and magic at the ready.
My own powers come sluggishly, but they are there despite the earlier weakness I felt.
That must mean my theory was right. I might have gotten hit by a few sprinkles of the magic-nullifying serum, but my magic didn’t go to sleep in full, and my body hasn’t entirely managed to control the nauseating effects without bringing back my breakfast.
Hope. There is hope.
A few feet from Herinor, Silas shifts back into his fae form, axe in hand and silver power dancing at his fingertips. “Show your fucking face,” he orders, and I can sense his power rolling through the air like approaching thunder.
Herinor changes in a flash, hands up and palms facing outward as he stands before us. “Ayna!” he calls across the twenty foot distance, lowering himself to one knee, but the horror on his face is obvious.
He can’t help me without breaking his oath.
“Get up, Herinor.” I stalk closer, sending out my power for any sign of a trap and finding none.
“I don’t expect you to risk your life and whatever else the magic of bargains will claim.
Kaira already told us what you shared with her, so in my opinion, you helped her and the King of Askarea, not me . ”
The relief on Herinor’s face nearly makes me cry.
“What happened to you?” Clio rushes past me, wrapping the huge male in a tight embrace that makes him squirm and shift on his feet. Apparently, her scan of our surroundings let her come to the same conclusion: This is not a trap, and Herinor didn’t betray us.
“I don’t think I should talk about it right now.” Herinor is already walking southeast. “We don’t have any time to lose if we want to find Erina. ”
I quickly assess the dead landscape ahead: gentle hills covered in a thin layer of frost, different sizes of rocks scattered between clusters of trees, but no place for miles that could provide a proper hideout for a magic-wielding human and small army to project, except for?—
“Over there,” Clio beats me to it, gesturing at the farmhouse perhaps a mile ahead. It’s of obvious Tavrasian making with its tall, sharp-angled roof and the long, wide barn beside it—and it is as out of place here, at the Askarean border as a fairy at a human dance.
“Proceed with caution,” I say to the soldiers readying to site-hop while I grab Clio’s hand.
“See you at the back door,” Silas says with a wink before he shifts and takes flight together with Herinor.
My stomach is filled with the anticipation of another trap, but we’ve learned from our mistakes and are better prepared.
We don’t site-hop into Erina’s room like the last time without backup, but are bringing soldiers along—fairies with both swords and magic.
And if we run into anything magical, we have three vials of the magic-nullifying serum. We can do this.
There are no signs of guards stationed around the farm house or the barn when Clio site-hops us closer—at least not outside—so she hops us a little further, to the back of the barn, out of sight of the living quarters.
We’ve seen half an army stored away in a barn before, so it’s not as surprising a sight as it should be when, through a crack in the wooden boards making up the wall, I glimpse troops walking through the barn in formation like they were crossing a battlefield .
“They are here,” I whisper at Clio, who gives a sign to the fairy soldiers to get ready, while Silas and Herinor land on the edge of the roof, right above our heads.
“They’ll go in from above,” I inform Clio. How I know, I can’t tell. It’s like an instinct has come to life inside of me—one I’ve observed between birds acting in a flock before, but never fully appreciated.
The two crows click their beaks in confirmation, and I smile to myself when I spot a figure at the center of the room, elevated on a round dais, arms held out beside him: Erina.
“If we’re not careful, we’ll spook Erina, and he’ll get away like last time,” I remind Clio, who seems ready to break down the doors.
“He won’t get away.” Clio gestures at the soldiers again. “They will be our distraction. While they let themselves in and clash with the soldiers running to protect their king, the two of us will site-hop into the barn, right to the dais, and take down Erina.”
I count the soldiers through the crack—maybe a hundred men move through the otherwise empty space.
If the interior is anything to go by, they must have ripped out the stalls and other infrastructure to create their virtual battlefield.
The soldiers are lifting their swords, zig-zagging through imaginary opponents and cleaving the air with their swords.
“He must be projecting the same soldiers all over the battlefield,” I whisper to Clio, not taking my eyes off the display of madness inside the barn.
“He certainly doesn’t have thousands of men available to project when he has all of his forces on the real battlefield. This is all for show, to intimidate our soldiers and demoralize them with ridiculous numbers,” Clio agrees. “Do you see the amulet?”
She’s right—the soldiers are important, but there is no use fighting them if we let Erina get away with the amulet. I push to my tiptoes to get a better view of the center of the barn.
Erina is wearing gray armor without a headpiece, and from his hand, a thin, shimmering chain is dangling, its pendant hidden in his grasp.
“In his hand,” I tell Clio, who has flattened her nose against the wood to peer through the crack next to mine.
“The two of us get Erina, our soldiers get the rest, and Silas and Herinor give us cover.” She glances toward the roof where Herinor and Silas are patiently waiting for our order while they seem to be observing what’s going on through a crack in the roof.
“Ready?” Clio holds up her hand for the fairy soldiers, signaling them to get into position, which they soundlessly do. They could site-hop in, too, but we need them to distract by causing a clear breach in the hideout. This way, they’ll buy us a moment of inattention to get to Erina.
The male with silver hair, who seems to be their leader, nods at the Fairy Princess, and she waves her hand, grabbing mine with her free one. We leap out of the way a heartbeat before a gust of hard air hits the tall double door, splintering it into a million pieces.
Screams and shouts emerge from the now gaping hole as our soldiers storm through, ten facing a hundred, fearless even at the prospect of being hit by the magic-nullifying drug, should the Tavrasian soldiers carry it with them.
I don’t get to see the first impact from my spot beside the opening; Clio is already pulling me through time and space, right to the dais big enough for fifteen men, and I face the king who wants to own me for my blood with rage in my heart.
“Wolayna,” he greets me with a brief bow, a smile forming on his lips. His hair is trimmed to perfection as is his beard; even his armor seems oddly well-fitting for a suit made of leather and metal. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.”
Ignoring his phrases surely delivered to distract me, I scan him for the amulet. His hand is closed around something, but I can’t see the tail of a metal chain anymore— damn it.
Clio’s sideways glance informs me she hasn’t spotted our target either.
“I see you’ve been busy,” I drawl, buying us more time to find the Shaelak-damned thing that could tip the battle in our favor if destroyed, while the soldiers closest to the door are already locked in combat with the fairies.
“A real mage… I’d thought those were myths.
” Not exactly a lie since I hadn’t known they existed at all.
Erina meets my stare with a wide grin that tells me he is up to something. “So you have figured out my little secret? Are you disappointed?” He doesn’t give me a moment to respond. “It doesn’t matter since you’ll soon be back at my court anyway.”
“So Ephegos shared his plans with you? To lend me to you until you have your heirs before he takes me back after your death?” I’m not sure exposing what I know is a good idea, but if we want to get the amulet, we need to figure out which part of his body to cut off.
The hand does seem like a smart choice, though.
“My death—” His laugh belongs in throne rooms rather than a barn reeking of stale straw, old sweat, and fresh blood. “You think I’ll die after I win this war?”
Let him talk. It buys you time to get close enough to lunge for his wrist. I go through the steps in my head.
Two paces, and I can duck to the side, dropping one dagger to grab his arm and cut off his hand with the remaining dagger.
The soldiers closest to the dais have figured out by now that Erina is no longer alone, but Clio’s shield is strong enough to keep them out as long as they don’t use the magic-nullifying drug.
Their blades most certainly are creating more noise than harm along the invisible barrier, but whenever their armor touches it, the entire dais shudders like the magic creating the shield is straining to stay where it is.
“I’ve been spending months experimenting, Wolayna. My magic is growing stronger by the day, and the magic-nullifying serum isn’t the only one I’ve created.” Erina takes a casual step closer, creating an opening for me to lunge.
“Watch out!” Clio shouts, but a flash of purple light hits my own little shield, shoving right into my chest before I make that single pace left toward the king.
My teeth sing as I hit the floor, flat on my back, and my vision swims with silver and purple stars.
“What the fuck was that?” My voice is stable, though, and so are my legs as I push myself upright and conjure a stronger shield .
“What a foul mouth my future queen has,” Erina laughs, waving a hand into the barn. A moment later, a tall, broad fairy pops up in front of him, baring his teeth at Clio, who was about to release a flash of ice magic at the Tavrasian king. “Kill the fairy,” Erina orders. “Wolayna is mine.”
I barely get a good look at the male’s face before he attacks, a blur of gray leather and steel as he launches himself at Clio.
Splinters of ice spray across the dais as they hit his serum-coated armor, and I know we’ll need to rely on our blades.
So does Clio because she’s already stabbing and swinging at the male, the image of graceful wrath as she slices into his forearm with a scream.
I’m so captivated by the image that I almost miss how Erina murmurs something and opens his palm toward me, releasing another flash of purple light.
This time, I duck under it, rolling to the side and nearly falling off the dais, where Silas is already hacking away at the soldiers getting too close, a one-Crow wall holding off whoever wants to steal my chance at neutralizing Erina.
“You learn fast, dove,” Erina purrs, already aiming again.
I twist to the side, watching the streak of purple flash past me. The entire dais shudders at the impact, and I’m not surprised to find a hole in the wood where it hit.
“The vial!” Silas shouts from a few feet away. “Try the vial!”
Whether Erina knows what he means or is simply anticipating, he summons a purple shield thick enough to distort his form and features as I sheath one dagger, scrambling for the vial of magic-nullifying drug I pocketed in my jacket at the camp.
That costs me a moment of inattention, and I’m not fast enough to roll aside as Erina’s next assault hits me fast in the side.
Biting back a scream, I crawl to my hands and knees, dagger in one hand, vial in the other. It can’t shatter, or I’ll lose my powers.
“You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be, down there, Wolayna. You might as well beg for your friends’ lives while you’re there.”
The sour taste in my mouth isn’t entirely from the pounding pain in my ribs as I turn a few inches to lock my eyes on Erina’s brown ones and hold his stare.
“I’ll never beg for anything of you.” I don’t have the time to properly aim as I uncork the vial with my teeth and splash its contents at the purple mist shielding the Tavrasian King, but it’s enough to break down the barrier and touch his face.
If I wasn’t fighting for each breath, I’d laugh at the expression on Erina’s features as a drop of the drug runs over his upper lip, ending up in his mouth, and he realizes what hit him.
“You—” With his free hand, he draws the ornate blade hanging at his hip and lunges for me.
The tip of his sword slides off my dagger, but I’m too weak to shove him off as he throws himself at me, and his blade bites my shoulder, slicing through leather and metal.
“Ayna!” Clio’s panicked shout tears through the barn.
From the corner of my eyes, I watch her cut her opponent’s throat before veering toward Erina and me, his name on her lips as she curls her fingers in a silent command to stop him.
It’s the first time I see the legendary name control exacted on a human—probably the only human whose name we know on our opponents’ side, but she’s too late?—
Too late, because I’m already pulling up my knee, hitting the Tavrasian king between his legs, and he pushes away from me with a whimper.
I don’t take the time to cut his hand off. Not when he’s exposing his throat to me as he clutches his crotch with his free hand.
“This is for Tavras.” Fresh pain explodes in my ribs as I stab my dagger upward, driving it into Erina’s neck and twisting it as I rip it out again. “You shall bleed the way my people have bled for their freedom.”
A spray of crimson splatters my face and chest, and I don’t look away as Erina gazes upon me one last time with horror-filled eyes.