Page 72 of Heart of Night
“I believed in your way, Myron. I truly did, or I wouldn’t have guarded Ayna for you—in the Seeing Forest and now. But I wasn’t patient enough to wait for you to succeed. I lost faith. With trusting Ephegos and following him, I lost all hope for a place in your court, I understand that.” His features turn grim as, overhead, a cloud shifts in front of the silver moon. I try not to interrupt the male as he pours out his heart while I decide what to do with him—not that I can do anything much with the way my body still needs to recover. If I kill him, it will be because he allows it, not because I could possibly outmatch him in the state I’m in. “I understand if I’m too big a risk to take with the bargain I made with Ephegos. I understand if you need to dispose of me before I can cause actual damage.”
“You don’t call what you’ve already done damage?” I interject, my dark chuckle turning into a cough, and Herinor flinches.
“We need to get you to safety before they start looking for you.” His eyes snap to the corner where the wall turns into a dark alley framed by run-down houses.
“We need to fucking get Ayna out of the palace. And Royad and Silas and Astorian,” I bite out. My head is clearing up enough in the fresh breeze carrying in from the seaside to think straight. “If Ayna is still in the palace, there is no way I’m leaving.”
“I know.” Herinor shakes his head as if he doesn’t, but I see in his eyes that he understands better than anyone why I can’t leave without her. “She’s with Clio and … a friend.”
My heart thuds wildly, defying gravity as it forces me to roll to the side and push into a sitting position, ready to shove to my feet and run in whichever direction Herinor points me. I know it’s stupid to trust anyone with the many betrayals that have led me to this point, but I can’t help it. My shoulder tingles where the tattoo is etched into my skin, heat creeping through my arm, and the heaviness falls away long enough to grab the male’s collar in an actual threat as my other hand grasps his knife and sets it to his throat.
Herinor doesn’t flinch now. “Since I can’t help her directly, I made sure she had all the help she could get.” The look he gives me is nothing if not convincing. “If things went according to plan, she should be not far from here, recovering and safe.”
My entire body is tensed to strike, fingers still like the dead as they keep the knife under his chin, ready to slice into his skin at the sign of the slightest lie. “I swear, if you’re lying, I’ll make sure they can’t decipher which male’s corpse they’ve found.” The malice in my voice has nothing to do with the fear for my own safety. It’s all for my mate. My fucking beautiful mate, who I will die to see free. And I will take down anyone in my path, friend or foe, to protect her.
“Put off killing me a little longer, and I’ll take you to the meeting point.” Herinor’s gaze is full of acceptance for whatever choice I’ll make. The tug in my shoulder might very well drag me across the entire city without his help to where she’s hiding.
I shake my head. “It’s not like there are many Crows left in this world—fewer even whom I can trust. You got me out of the palace. Now, take me to her, and prove that you got her out, too.”
Thirty-Five
Ayna
Wrapping my arms around my stomach, I retch into a corner for what feels like the hundredth time. Nothing is coming up anymore, but that doesn’t keep my system from rebelling.
“Another few hours and you should be good,” Kaira chirps from her place by the window where she has a clear view of the street and the yard. “If you only ate a few pieces of bread, your body should have processed most of it and will be clean by sunrise.”
“Sunrise sounds like a year away,” Clio croaks, yielding groans and grunts alongside her dinner in the other corner as the detoxification process sets in for her as well. “I don’t know how anyone can develop an instrument of torture such as that drug. Not even a fairy wine hangover is that bad.”
“That’s because you’re a fairy,” Kaira points out. “I’ve vomited for hours because of that draught you call wine.”
“Hey, you’re a fairy, too.” Clio buries her face in her hands as she waits for the next wave to hit her.
“Barely. I have but a spark of fire.” Kaira glances at the darkening sky. I can see it from my place on the dirt floor, and it mirrors the way I feel.
“Don’t forget the mind reading,” Clio reminds us all, and Kaira shoots me a look that I can only interpret as punishing.
“You didn’t need to tell her,” she says into my mind, tone laced with a sort of hurt I hadn’t believed the female capable of.
“I told her because she is my friend and our ally. You were already sharing all the personal details in front of her.” I don’t mean it to sound like an accusation, but with the constant nausea, it comes out that way. “Sister. I would have preferred not to have that sprung on me on a flight from a hostile palace.”
Kaira’s eyes flash in the silvery light glimpsing through the clouds. “I always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling. Now I know everyone was right.”
“What did everyone say?” I shoot quietly, wondering how long it will take Clio this time to catch onto us having a mental conversation.
“That I’ll know what it’s like to hate someone and love them at the same time.” She turns back to the window.
“And what is that like?” Because I don’t love her right now. All I feel is frustration and the ache in my head that is becoming a throb.
“The best feeling in the world.” I think Kaira’s mouth curves into a smile, but I can’t be certain with the next assault of nausea making me dry-heave, hand braced on the crate beside me so I don’t slump into the puddle of vomit.
Aloud, she says, “If I understood what Ephegos and Erina are doing correctly, there are two types of drugs: The magic nullifying ones like the deep sleep and the basic one that I had to put in your food every day.”
Clio moans at the mention of the deep sleep. “They injected me with that one so often I’m not sure my powers will ever return. But they gave me the basic one as well… The one that takes out our fairy senses, too.”
Kaira nods. “You truly got the short end of the stick here.”
I’m less surprised by Kaira’s acknowledgement of Clio’s pain than by Clio’s acceptance of it, at the brief smile they share before Clio returns to spitting bile.