Page 8 of Wingless Crow: Part 1

He hadn’t spared me a glance. I wondered how he even knew I was there.

Trez shifted on his feet uneasily. A prospect of a confrontation with the High General seemed to unnerve him much more than the argument with Lord Alcon.

“You may not do business with my mistress,” he said, “but your late king did. On behalf of Madame Tan—as Goddess Ghata is now known—I made a deal with King Aigel yesterday. Well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “To me, it wasyesterday. But, as you know, crossing the River of Mists makes time crease and twist. So, it seems, centuries have passed here since.” He glanced at Lord Alcon, then continued talking to the High General, “Anyway, the deal was made. King Aigel fulfilled his part of the bargain by giving me a saddlebag full ofcamytepowder in exchange for a human girl to be delivered directly to the Sky King. Well, here she is.” He gave me a shove to the back that made me stagger forward, tripping and nearly falling over my one high heel.

The High General finally turned my way. His steel-gray eyes rested on me, and I felt trapped by his stare more effectively than even by Trez’s orders.

“Take her back,” he said firmly, annunciating every syllable.

“She’s the payment,” Trez insisted. “If you refuse to take her, my mistress will remain in debt to your late king, which she highly dislikes. You cannot stand in the way of the deal made between a king and a goddess.”

“Take the human back to her world. And let me worry about the consequences.” The High General never raised his voice, yet the force with which he spoke made me shiver even more in my wet clothes.

Trez rolled his shoulders back. The movement was jerky, he was clearly uncomfortable under the High General’s heavy stare weighing down on us from the height of the saddle.

Yet Trez stood his ground.

“I can’t take her back. You know the River of Mists would never deliver her back to the place and time where I took her from. She’d be lost, which would be a waste of a young, healthy female.”

The High General raised an eyebrow.

“I also know that Ghata pulls you back to her every time you leave Nerifir. She will make sure you’ll arrive to the human world at the same time and in the same place where she is and where you’ve left from.”

Trez rubbed his chest, looking genuinely concerned. “Ghata pulls herbracksacross dimensions, but no one else. If I jump into the River of Mists with this human now, we’d get separated. She’d be lost. She’d land elsewhere in her world, in a different time period, which can be cruel for a single girl her age.”

I didn’t believe for a second that Trez worried about my safety or wellbeing. But the High General paused, looking reluctant.

Trez jumped at his hesitation like a starving hound onto a bone.

“It’s best just to keep her,” he insisted. “Why don’t you want her?” He gave me an assessing stare, as if looking at me for the first time or seeing me under a new light. “Come to think of it, she is rather plain. Short and kind of chunky. I didn’t think about that before. All humans equally repulse me, anyway. But if the king prefers someone else, tell me what he’d like to see in a human pet, and I’ll find one to his liking. I’ll just get rid of this one.” He grabbed my arm.

The rider gripped the reins, making his horse twitch and beat the ground with a hoof.

“Get. Your hands. Off her.”

Said in a grave, low voice, the words of the High General dropped like lead-laden punches. Trez jerked away from me. His massive shoulders curling in, he appeared to shrink under the cool gaze of the High General.

The horseman tossed aside the end of his long cloak and freed his foot from the stirrup. Swinging his leg over the saddle, he dismounted, gracefully landing on the path with both feet.

“If you can’t take her back to her time and place, she’ll stay here,” he spoke to Trez while staring at me.

Even out of the saddle, the High General towered over me. I had to tilt my head back to see his face. His steely eyes peered at me from under his tousled hair, black like raven feathers except for a few thick strands of silver in the front.

“She stays,” he said. “You’ll leave and never come back. From now on, no one in Sky Kingdom will make deals with Ghata’s puppets. Do you hear me? Don’t ever bother coming back.”

A corner of Trez’s mouth crawled up in a smirk.

“In the present, maybe. But, with time travel, I’ll always have the past.”

The High General’s gaze flashed with anger. I cowered, terrified of this man’s wrath even though it wasn’t directed at me. He regained his composure quickly, however. His expression turned so calm again, it bordered on laziness.

“Leave,brack. Or I’ll kill you. Then you’ll have neither the present nor the past, just the joy-sucking shadows in the World of Under.”

A long, bejeweled handle of a sword strapped to the back of the High General was visible over his left shoulder. He never bothered to draw the weapon. Yet I didn’t doubt he would deliver on his threat if Trez was stupid enough to disobey.

Thebrackretreated carefully, keeping his mouth shut. But when he was a few steps away from the High General, he spoke again.

“So, it’s a deal, then? Give me your promise you’ll deliver her to the king.”

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