Page 71 of Wingless Crow: Part 1

Her eyebrows moved into a frown and her chest rose with a sigh as she leaned away from the dessert tray.

“You find fae beautiful?” he asked.

“Don’t you? You guys are just so…” She searched for a perfect word to describe his kind and found it, “perfect.”

“Perfect,” he repeated, the word leaving a bad taste in his mouth. “But true beauty is not the same as visual perfection, little bird. Far from it.”

It pained him that such an alluring, conflicted, displaced but resilient person like Sparrow would find herself lacking in any way. Doubt floated in her eyes, the color of which he couldn’t pinpoint. Green, blue, and brown mixed in her irises in an ever-changing combination.

He leaned across the table toward her. “Don’t ever wish you were like us, dear Sparrow. If you’d ever peered into the souls of the royal court, you’d see nothing but ugliness. Don’t try to be anyone else but you.”

Her mesmerizing eyes narrowed at him.

“But who exactly isme,Voron? What am I without my memories? You’ve erased me—”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’ve freed your mind from the memories of people you knew, places you visited, and events you witnessed. Things that you might’ve missed to the point of growing debilitatingly homesick. But I haven’t touched the essence of you. Whatever your past life experiences have taught you—your beliefs, your personality, everything that makes youyou—it all is still there, little bird. It’s too precious to erase.”

She must know it, too. She had to sense that the person inside her never changed.

Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink, but she didn’t look flattered by his words. She looked lost in thought. Doubt, worry, some calculation—it was all there, playing out on her lovely face right in front of his eyes.

If she wished to thrive in Elaros, she’d have to learn to hide her emotions. Whether he liked it or not, Sparrow would have to become like the highborn of the court. She’d have to lose every fresh, sincere, real part of herself and replace it with fake smiles, words that meant little, and thoughts that were never on display.

She’d have to become like him.

There was nothing he could do to stop it. In fact, he’d been actively helping that transformation by teaching her to fit in.

The thought made his stomach churn.

“Do you still want to learn this?” he asked, hoping she’d change her mind and would release him from their deal.

No such luck. Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “Of course I do. Show me.”

He lifted the first panel of the game from the table, then raised the rest. Each panel represented a playing field. They unfolded from the table like petals of a flower.

“There are thirteen of these,” he explained, trying to focus on the lesson instead of his alluring student. “Equivalent to the current number of High Lords in Sky Kingdom. We’ll start with two for now. But you will have to play all thirteen at the king’s game nights.”

“All thirteen,” she repeated after him, opening her journal and sliding out a pencil from the loop on its spine.

“Are you taking notes?” This was too precious. His mouth quivered with a smile.

The pencil paused in her hand.

“Yes. May I?”

He nodded, watching her write as she bit her lip in concentration.

She couldn’t be older than thirty, he decided. That was about the time when fae’s aging stopped for centuries, to restart a decade or two before their passing. From what he’d learned about humans, their aging never slowed down. Every year would leave its mark on Sparrow’s skin and add silver to her hair.

“All right.” She set her journal aside, perking up like an eager little bird. “Now what?”

“The game requires focus and concentration. You’ll have to pay attention when you play with the king.”

Which wouldn’t be easy with the king’s hand up her skirt.

He groaned inwardly. Was that where his mind decided to go? Now? As if it wasn’t hard enough not to search for traces of her scent in the air he inhaled.

Brebie made sure to bathe Sparrow in a variety of fragrances popular at court. But he knew her very own unique scent. She didn’t smell like fae who carried the scents of fresh air, dew, and clouds on their skin. Sparrow’s smell was warm and earthy, with a hint of salt he longed to taste on his tongue.

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