Page 29 of King of Storms and Feathers

Curled on my side in the middle of the pavilion, I stared at Arrow’s outline in the moonlight as he stood in front of the bed, his glyphs glowing a dull bronze color, illuminating his body.

Wiping tears from my face, I hugged my aching, hollow stomach. “I’m hungry,” I told the star-studded sky beyond the arches.

“Whose fault is that?” said the dark lump beneath the king’s bedcovers.

“Is there anything you can’t hear?”

“Not really. And if you had any sense in that dull human brain of yours, you’d understand why no one fed you dinner tonight.”

“Food is a basic right, even for prisoners,” I shot back, thinking of the Sun envoy I’d tried to stab and the way his nostrils had flared as he squeezed my hip, his palm moving lower.

“Your existence in this realm, or in any realm, is entirely at my discretion,” said the bed lump. “The moment you tried to kill the Sun envoy, your entitlement to any rights was destroyed.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill him, just mortally wound him.”

Arrow laughed, and a cold shiver rolled over me. “Goodnight, King Arrowyn,” I said, a sneer in my tone.

Only the flap of a single auron kanara bird answered me.

As I curled into a tighter ball, I pondered who might have given me the large bump on my head. Was it the same person who had injected me with an unknown drug? And why did they want to steal my memories?

I thought of the green-eyed boy in the forest, and warmth infused my shivering limbs. I sensed no evil, no bad emotions linked with the lush, green landscape from my flashbacks. The forest was home, a safe place, where friends and family awaited my return. I felt certain of it.

To find this beloved home, I needed to survive the pavilion. I had to earn food, grow strong, and make an ally who would help to break me out of these chains.

The seventh time my stomach growled, I resolved that no matter what the king did to me or made me do, I would bear it with detached silence.

Perhaps then he would feed me.

Chapter 8

Leaf

My feet were on fire as I trampled through the undergrowth, branches and twigs snapping beneath them. Sun blazed between tree trunks and vines. Tiny cuts bled between my toes, but I kept running until I reached the largest ruin in the forest—the crumbling walls of a once-grand palace.

My heart pounded and my legs ached, but I laughed gleefully as the boy chased me. Moss-covered walls soared into view, and I pumped my arms harder, making a leap for a low ledge that I planned to hide behind. A vine wrapped my ankle, and I went down with a thud, biting my lip to swallow a yelp of pain.

In three heartbeats, the green-eyed boy landed on me, tickling me as I rolled over. “Got you, Sapling,” he said. “Knew I was still faster than you.”

“You only caught me because I tripped. I’ll always be faster than you, Ash. I plan to make sure of it.”

“Oh, and don’t I know it,” he replied, his grin teasing. “But don’t worry. What has been forgotten will be remembered.”

Those words sent fear bolting through me. I shook it off and smiled at him.

The sun shone on his dark brown hair, and I tucked a thick lock behind his ear, which was rounded like mine. Not sharp like Arrow’s.

“You’re too heavy,” I complained. “My back hurts. Get off!”

“I’m not on you,” said the smooth voice of the Sayeeda, waking me from another vivid dream of home. I kept my eyes closed as she prattled. “Your back aches because you’ve slept on hard stone.” She dug a finger into my heel. “And the midday sun has burned your feet.”

“Is it midday already?” I sat up, gaping at the city below the pavilion’s arches. Scores of fae roamed below, their clothes of burgundy, bronze, and gold fluttering behind them as they hurried about their business.

“I see you somehow lived through the night,” she said, and I wondered if she wished I hadn’t.

If any of the fae in the streets happened to look up, they would see me in my spectacular marble and gold prison. I’d look tiny, more like a carving of a woman than a real one, but when I moved about, they’d know the rumors were true. King Arrowyn’s slave girl lived to see another day.

Rolling my shoulders, I made the mistake of looking up at the domed ceiling covered in mosaic-tile scenes of winged fae ripping each other apart on battlefields. Not a comforting sight.

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