Page 19 of Heart of Night
Pain explodes along my cheek, blooming like a spring meadow of torment as I shoot to my feet but am jostled back into a sitting position immediately. The haze has lifted—or I blinked the dream away when Herinor slapped me with his brutal hand.
The ground is swaying, but it’s not a boat. It’s the carriage, and Herinor is riding in the cabin with me, face grim and eyes hard as a frozen lake.
“Pay attention.” His hiss is almost as harsh as the wind in my dream—a dream where Myron’s voice called out to me. Biting my lower lip is all I can do to fight the tears pricking behind my eyes.
Herinor gestures at the window, and I finally focus on something other than the gaping hole that the thought of Myron being alive—and waking to it having been a dream—left in my chest. Swallowing all signs of the spreading agony, I follow his gaze to find we’ve cleared the forest, and all I can see are the grassy plains outside the windows. Herds of horses should be grazing here and there, but the pulsing pain trapped inside my skull doesn’t allow for me to focus enough to make out those brown and black dots in the distance. I must have hit my head when I fainted.
“Drink this.” A canteen of water dangles from Herinor’s hand on a leather strap. “You’ve been out for a while.”
He doesn’t need to say it when it’s written all over his face: I missed my opportunity to escape in the forest. From here on, it will only become harder to avoid the keen eyes of my company—if I ever manage to slip away.
Ignoring the canteen as well as all the reasons I should spit in Herinor’s face, I pin him with a gaze. “Where is he?”
For a heartbeat, the massive male sitting on the bench across from me squirms. Then, his features smooth over, turning into the mask of the male who sliced me open in the basement of the Flame estate. He stashes the canteen under the bench he’s sitting on and faces me, shoulders squared and scar-flecked jaw feathering as he scans my features. “You mean Ephegos.” I can’t tell if I imagine the relief in his tone when he realizes I’m asking for the Crow traitor.
“Who else would I be asking about?” For there are only two males I want to see, and one of them is dead. Wherever Royad is, I hope he’s still breathing and fighting. I can’t bear losing another person, no matter how far away and how unlikely I’ll ever see him again. If he’s smart, he’ll take whatever remains of his people and flee Eherea.
Herinor shakes his head. “He’s driving the carriage.” The look he gives me is all I need to know that Ephegos hasn’t cleared the field to give me space. Someone needs to drive the carriage, and since Herinor is in here with me, I assume the pain in my chest and head won’t be the only ones for much longer.
It takes the blink of an eye for him to reach for his simple knife and set it to the side of my arm. “I’m bound by my bargain with Ephegos,” he reminds me as he slices through my sleeve, making me cringe back into the cushions of the bench.
Panic grasps my voice, and I can’t get a scream out. Even if I did, no one would come to my aid. No one would care if Herinor reduced me to a bundle of bloody ribbons—as long as I was still breathing so Ephegos could deliver me to Erina.
“Please.” I mouth the word, not daring to speak out loud when Ephegos is within earshot. “You said you were my ally.”
Herinor understands and nods, but his blade bites into my upper arm anyway, right where my tattoo wraps to the side of my biceps. A brief, stinging pain tears through my arm before Herinor pulls back his knife and sheaths it without wiping off my blood.
“I’m not supposed to make a mess in the carriage. Just do enough to keep you in line and occupied on an otherwise boring journey.” The bitterness in his voice doesn’t match the cruelty of his actions or the remorse in his eyes as he scans my arm, the streaks of blood running down my sleeve, then my face. “I’m sorry,” he mouths, too, before he opens his mouth as if to say something more.
I shake my head at him. He hurt me, poisoned me. Hurt me again. I don’t want his apologies or his pity. I want nothing to do with this fairy at all.
Fighting all the anger, the pain, the fear, and frustration, I clasp my wounded arm with my free hand and pray to the Guardians that this journey will be over soon. If I want a chance to make my escape, I can’t eat or drink to avoid another dose of poison, and I can’t sleep because I won’t miss another opportunity.
At least, the pain keeps me alert when my body is exhausted from the aftereffects of the poison. I yet need to learn what it does besides putting me to sleep for extended periods of time, how long it will take for it to finish me off for good, though I’m not ready to ask Herinor anything. I’ll bide my time until an opening arises. And then, I’ll run.
Eleven
Myron
The lack of pain in my shoulder is a small reprieve while my panic hasn’t eased for even a moment. It’s the second time the tattoo felt like someone was trying to cut it off with a burning knife, and I have yet to learn what exactly that pain means. The only thing I know is that it’s somehow connected to my Ayna.
We’ve combed over every last inch of ground on our way out of the Seeing Forest—not one trace of her. She isn’t here, and the uncomfortable sensation lingering in the intricate tattoo covering where feathers once met the skin of my shoulder blade keeps calling me forward.
The decision to bring Royad and Silas along was the right one. The rest of my people— not even twenty now—will have to hold out in the Seeing Forest while we run for their queen’s rescue.
“How much farther before we rest?” Royad wants to know.
I cut him a glance suggesting, if he even considers resting before we’ve found her, I’ll shift into my bird form and bite off his head. I am about to voice that thought when the air ripples a few paces in front of us, and the tall, broad form of the Fairy King’s general appears, auburn hair bound at the back of his hair and eyes of a similar shade finding mine across the small distance.
Beside me, Royad and Silas draw their weapons while I merely stand, calling upon my fae magic and summoning it to my fingertips. The last time I saw Astorian in leathers and fully armed like this was on the battlefield over a hundred years ago when he fought alongside his king and Princess Cliophera. For a heartbeat, I wonder if the female made it out of the Flame attack alive. Royad said Ephegos took Ayna, but no one saw what happened to the fairy who helped train her.
Guilt stirs in the pit of my stomach. I asked for her aid, made that bargain with her to make sure Ayna would be adept enough with her magic to survive a Flame attack.
“Lord Astorian.” I address him by the social title he holds in the fairy ranks, not his position at the fairy court. “To what do I owe the honor?”
To my left, Royad grunts his disapproval of my manners while Silas draws a second blade from his belt.
The fairy general doesn’t lift a finger toward his weapons. He doesn’t need to. Even with all fae powers having returned to the Crows with the breaking of the curse, the Askarean fairies are still strong and skilled. His magic is nothing I care to test the limits of my own powers against.