Page 27 of Heart of Night
It takes me a moment to understand he’s serious, but when I do, I don’t hesitate a heartbeat. With careful fingers, I pull it from his grasp, my other hand already reaching my skirts for a sign of that secret compartment for even more secret weapons.
Herinor studies me with more impatience than makes me feel comfortable, and when I don’t find what he told me to look for fast enough, he darts for my skirts and pulls at them so fast I don’t even get to scream before his arm is halfway up my calf. My heart races with fear. He’s a Crow. One of the earlier creatures of his people who were the reason for Vala to place a curse on them.
No matter how much I want to, I don’t shrink away when he catches a slip of fabric inside the masses of satin and tugs it to the outside by shoving up the crimson layers.
“Here.” He doesn’t explain, simply grabs the wrist of my hand holding the knife and guides it to the leather attached to the underskirt. “It might bounce against your thigh while walking, but no one will notice it.”
I’m still a pillar of shock and horror when Herinor drops the skirts and my wrist and steps back so we’re face to face, features turning into a grimace as he finds my gaze. “Don’t believe everything you hear in the palace. Listen for everything, though. You will know what’s the truth and what’s a lie by listening to that annoying moral compass of yours.”
“You’re talking to a pirate,” I remind him, just in case he forgets who I was before I became his queen. “A traitor to the kingdom you brought me to, a prisoner sentenced to a fate worse than death.”
His lips tug up at the side. “Turns out worse than death was actually pretty good.” The little smirk he gives me reminds me of who he used to be before he turned over to my side—which, after he’s handed me an actual weapon before sending me into enemy territory, is where I believe he stands. In my corner.
If it weren’t for that Guardiansforsaken bargain he made with Ephegos, he might have gotten me out of here.
“Don’t die, Ayna.” It’s all he says before he opens the door with a wave of his hand and gestures for me to walk to the carriage waiting for us at the bottom of the granite stairs.
Fourteen
Myron
The world is a kaleidoscope of colors in this part of Askarea. Rolling hills smooth out toward the coastline in the distance. Emerald trees and lush bushes scatter along the landscape in clusters like someone splattered blotches of paint. The air tastes of magic and wildlife; a herd of deer jumbles toward a patch of trees, attuned to the dangerous creatures walking these lands. As a Crow Fairy, I’m not the regular creature walking their territory, but the leather-clad, auburn-haired fairy male next to me is.
As if sensing me measuring him, Astorian lifts his gaze, a crease forming between his brows while he studies me without the slightest sign of deterrence. I might be a king—one without a people—but he is a general in the mighty fairy realm. He has the support of King Recienne of Askarea, and Recienne is not amused that his sister hasn’t returned to court.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m almost certain it would have been a matter of time until Recienne showed up on my—no longer existent—doorstep and demanded the whereabouts of his sister. The commander of the Askarean armies going on a search in his stead speaks for itself in a very different way.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Astorian earns a growl from Silas and a sideways glance from Royad, who both haven’t left my side—like the fairy I made a bargain with, who might stab me in the back any moment.
“Your hair?” Silas asks with his signature dry tone that makes me thirsty immediately. “It’s a sight to behold. If you’re into redheads.”
Royad laughs quietly, his hand on his weapon and his gaze on the road ahead. Without the fairy general, we could have shifted and crossed the lands high up in the air—wings sure have their advantages. But with Astorian on our asses, I’m nowhere near in a mood to expose my cousin and the Crow I’ve come to call friend. Wings have their disadvantages, too. Shifting into our smaller bird form makes us agile, yes. It also makes us more vulnerable. A small arrow can tear through our bird bodies and shred us to pieces while our humanoid forms have no problem surviving a stab in the heart—as long as our magic works, we survive almost anything.
Astorian grumbles what could have been a bitten-back chuckle, I can’t be certain. “Oh, I love redheads.” His grin is so broad it turns his features into a mask of threats.
“I’m sure you do. Since you’re mated to one.” Using what I think could be my diplomat tone—I can’t be sure, I’ve never had the need to play the diplomat—I turn my gaze to the sheep-shaped clouds hiking the skies. “Cliophera is a lovely female, by the way.” Before he can growl at me to let me know he’ll gladly tear off my head if I ever imply that loveliness is something I’d do more than admire from afar, I add, “I never really thought about my own preferences, you know, not having a choice in who I marry and all. Somewhere within the whole process of losing one bride after another, I lost the ability to get attached to a female.”
Royad clears his throat while Astorian shakes his head, loose auburn strands sliding over the metal bits on his shoulders. “Liar.”
It’s my turn to shake my head. “I can’t lie the way Eherean fairies lie, Astorian. I’m not an Eherean creature. We function differently.”
“You sure got attached to Wolayna,” Silas throws in for nobody’s benefit, saving me from immediate questions about our origin and the exact nature of our species. I’m not ready to spread more than the need-to-knows of Crow history at an Eherean fairy’s feet. We might be allies, but I sure as Hel won’t share all the gory details of my people’s past just because we’ve joined forces for what might be a moot rescue mission. My stomach flops uncomfortably.
“He said he lost the ability to get attached. Not that he never regained it,” Royad rushes to my defense, ever the loyal cousin. “And of course he got attached to her. She is an incredible female. I’m attached to her—not in the same way,” he quickly amends when I tense at the mere thought of anyone developing feelings for my Ayna. Royad gives me a pitiful smile. “Myron fucking fell in love with her. That’s what broke the curse.”
“That and the unlikely whim of fate that allowed her to fall for me, too. Or we’d be still walking around with permanent wings and uncontrollable beaks and claws.”
It takes a few hours to fill Astorian in about the basics of our existence—not a detailed history, of course—that’s for people I trust, but I manage to give him the bare bones of the curse and how Ayna broke it. It’s a small relief that his face draws into lines of distress when he learns what my people used to be capable of—still are. Enough Crows have chosen to follow Ephegos’s traitorous ass into battle against me and my own. If anything, the hatred he holds for my species must be growing while we make it through the thinning bushes and trees into the Plithian Plains.
The mostly flat lands defining the Tavrasian north are everything I remember from those early days of my life in Eherea when the Crows weren’t confined to the Seeing Forest yet. I’ve flown my rounds over the fields of grain and lush meadows often enough to know each hill, each stream cutting through them. Yet, it’s an entirely different world from the last time I’ve been here. It’s mid-summer, neither harvesting season nor sowing season, so the humans working these lands are safely tucked away in their farmhouses and scattered villages, staying among themselves. A part of me wonders how many of them still know the tales of the winged fairies who will steal their women—only, it’s not a tale.
I follow Astorian’s glance to the only well-kept fence along the path we’re walking.
“What is this place?” Silas is the first to comment on the tall estate mostly hidden behind a manicured hedge and rows of trees as if to keep it from prying eyes.
A gravel path leads up to a set of stairs I recognize to be of south Tavrasian granite—the russet and cream shimmering in the afternoon light are unmistakable. Memories of my father sending me out with some of his trusted Crows to bring home a few women for Ret Relah push to the front of my thoughts, and my stomach twists as echoes of their screams fill my head.
Too many humans have died because of him, because of all of us.