Page 79 of Wingless Crow: Part 1

Please, don’t let this be the king sending for me.

I wasn’t ready to face him. Not while the tortured screams of the cursed still echoed in my ears.

“Who’s there?” I asked loudly.

“It’s Alcon, Lady Sparrow,” came the deep voice of the Head of the Royal Guard and Voron’s trusted man.

Had Voron returned? Hope sparked in my chest.

I opened the door.

“Are you here to take me for my lesson? Is the High General back?”

He’d left suddenly, without even saying goodbye. I’d learned he was gone from Brebie that morning, and somehow the world didn’t feel quite right since.

“No, my lady.” Alcon crushed my hope. “I’m here to inform you that High General Voron is not in Elaros and therefore won’t be able to conduct your lesson this morning.”

“How about tomorrow?”

His green eyes looked at me apologetically, glistening like emeralds in his dark-gray face. “Tomorrow, he won’t be here either.”

“Where did he go? When will he be back?”

“I don’t know, my lady.”

Wondering if his brief answers hid something he wasn’t willing to share while standing in the open in the corridor, I swung the door wider.

“Come in, Alcon. We can talk in my room.”

Instead of crossing the threshold, however, he took a step back.

“Sorry, Lady Sparrow, but none of us are allowed to enter your room.”

“Really? Even if I’m inviting you? Who made these rules?”

“Her Majesty’s orders.”

Queen Pavline was serious about keeping me exclusively for her husband, it seemed.

“I see.” I stepped out into the corridor to him and lowered my voice. “Just tell me, please. Will Voron be back at all?”

Alcon shook his head somberly. “He didn’t say.”

Worry tightened around my chest like a steel band.

What would Elaros be without Voron?

To me, it no longer felt safe at all.

* * *

Brebie rushed into my room two days later.

“Time to get you ready, Sparrow.”

I looked up from the book I was reading. During my lessons with Voron, I’d discovered I could not only speak but also read and write in the language of the fae. It opened a whole new world of books and scrolls for me and gave me something to do while sitting in my room alone.

I’d read a few books already, trying to familiarize myself with the world outside of Elaros. I’d been in Sky Kingdom for over a month now but hadn’t left the palace grounds yet. Reading was the only way for me to learn more about the people of Sky Kingdom.

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