Page 119 of Wingless Crow: Part 1

The flying insects around me suddenly glowed brighter, illuminating the space around me as if plunging me into a spotlight. Sky fae had the power of light. There was no hiding in the darkness from them.

Gripping my knife, I had it ready. But I kept running. Until the horse lined up with me and a strong arm scooped me from the ground. Then I kicked and clawed and screamed through the gag I still had tied around my head.

“Hush, Sparrow.” Voron easily removed the knife from my hand, then tossed me over the saddle in front of him. “Calm down. Or you’ll fall on your head and break your neck.”

But I couldn’t calm down. I’d been so close to getting free. I had done well surviving. Izux and his posse had been just a minor glitch in my journey. I would’ve escaped them. I could do this. I could run. If only Voron would stop catching me.

He grabbed a fistful of my clothes on my back, keeping me in place.

“If you won’t stop squirming, I’ll have to tie you to the saddle. Is that what you want, Sparrow? To ride all the way back to Elaros like a sack of potatoes?”

My head throbbed with all the blood rushing down to it in this position. The horn of his saddle dug painfully into my side. I blew out a breath through my nose, and let my limbs hang loosely.

“That’s a good girl,” he murmured approvingly. “Come up here, now.”

He lifted me by the scruff of my cloak and sat me up sideways in front of him.

At the sight of the gag in my mouth, he flinched.

“Those idiots. They didn’t appreciate your best feature—your smart mouth.”

There was warmth in his cold eyes when he said it. How twisted was that? My current captor knew and appreciated me more than anyone else in this world.

He untied the gag and tossed it aside, then smoothed my messed-up hair, brushing it away from my face. His movements were kind and gentle. He acted as if he cared. But we were back on the way to Elaros again.

“Please, Voron,” I begged softly. “Please let me go.”

He took my face between his hands. The glow of the forest reflected in his silver eyes, making them look liquid, like bottomless pools of light.

“I can’t.”

Regret sounded in his voice, just like on the day we’d met. It was regret for my life. He knew even then that happiness wasn’t waiting for me in Sky Kingdom. He’d always known.

Ever so gently, he brushed away a strand of my messy hair and tucked it behind my ear.

“Oh, to be free, my little bird,” he said wistfully. “Free as you are.”

“Me?” I couldn’t believe his words. “How am I free? I haven’t belonged to myself for a minute ever since I got to this world.”

“Yet you have the freedom that I will never have again. You can’t be bound by promises that rule my body and mind and tie my every move.”

Finally, it dawned on me. The explanation for his reservations and all the contradictions was that Voron’s decisions hadn’t always been his own.

“What exactly did you promise to King Tiane, Voron?”

He stared ahead, steering the horse along the barely visible path. With a snap of his fingers, the glow of the insects around the horse’s hooves brightened as we approached, illuminating our way, then dimmed again the moment we passed.

Holding the reins in one hand, he placed the other arm around me. Moved by compassion before I even heard his answer, I covered his hand with mine.

“I promised him everything,” he said in a hollow, detached voice. “My life, my loyalty, my obedience, and a few other things that didn’t matter much to me decades ago. Back then, I didn’t think they would ever matter.”

He tied himself to the king with all those promises. He didn’t justservethe crown, hebelongedto it. In more ways than even I did.

“Why did you do that?” I exhaled in shock.

“The payoff was too great to pass up.”

“What did you get in exchange for your freedom?” What could possibly be worth giving up one’s free will?

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