Page 45 of Wingless Crow: Part 1

“The River of Mists.”

“Right.” I shivered, remembering the foggy entity that had almost dropped me to my death upon arrival.

“It connects our words.”

“Earth and Nerifir?”

He shook his head. “Many more than that.”

“How many worlds are there?”

“No one knows. The Royal Archives hold records of an Orc Kingdom and the Shadow Kingdom in the World of Under, as well as many more. All of them, including the human realm, used to be one world before. Now, they say each world has its own rules in how it’s connected to the River of Mists. But no one knows exactly how accurate these records are.”

“So, the River of Mists flows through all of them, snatching people at will and dropping them off at random times and places?”

Amusement sparkled in his eyes at my brisk summary.

“The River of Mists onlyconnectsthe worlds. People are the ones who do the ‘snatching.’ Thebrackstole you from your world, Sparrow, not the river.”

“You’re talking about Trez, right?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you call himbrack?”

“Like all of Ghata’s servants he used to be a werewolf once, one of those who live in the Below, in the Planes of Sarnala. He gave up his free will and control of his life when he became abrack, a monk of the disgraced Goddess Ghata.”

I remembered some of these names from his conversation with Trez the day we’d arrived in Sky Kingdom. But I hadn’t had the presence of mind to fully comprehend the full meaning of it, then.

Voron continued, “The werewolves banished their goddess from Sarnala long ago. And she escaped to the human realm. She had taken herbrackswith her. But they keep showing up in Nerifir, fetching things for her to use in your world. As a goddess, she can pull them back to her every time they leave her. According to the archives, she wasn’t in the human realm for very long—just a few decades. But thebrackskeep coming from that time period and may keep coming still. Apparently, the things and substances they source in Nerifir have some value for her in the human world.”

“They’re trading humans for those things,” I added.

If it wasn’t for Trez and his deal with the dead Sky King, I’d be back in my home right now.

My heart pinched with longing. Voron had been only partially right when he claimed that getting rid of my memories would free me from homesickness. I might not miss specific people or places, but that didn’t stop me from yearning for a place to belong.

The look in his gray-blue eyes turned somber. “Yes, it appears they’ve resorted to trading people, too.”

I felt awkward, standing over him while he was sitting. There was plenty of space on that bench next to him, so I sat on the other end of it. His hand on the back of the bench ended up touching my shoulder. He left it there, and I didn’t move away, either.

“Did thebracksbring the human queen of gorgonians that you told me about to Nerifir?”

“No. She came to Lorsan willingly,” he said. “With her husband.”

“Were they in love?”

“More than that. The records say they were bonded mates.”

The magical bond that Dove and Libelle were talking about.

“I thought a bond wasn’t possible unless both people were of the same kind.”

“It’s not possible between the different types offae,” he explained. “We all have different strains of magic that don’t bond with each other.”

“But humans have no magic at all.”

“And that’s what makes your kind so versatile. You have no magic, but some of you can gain something just as powerful.”

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