Page 29 of Daughter of the Darkened City

Avenay was silent for a beat and Enid thought she wouldn’t answer, but she finally said, “I met one when I was sixteen. The demon culture was so different and fascinating that I decided to study what I could about it.”

“And you learned about flight leaders?”

She nodded. “Flight leaders can perform trickier maneuvers than the average winged being.”

Enid had to stop herself from preening at the praise—even if she let her wings come out just a little more. She couldn’t stop them. Everything in her nature wanted to impress the seraphe before her. “I once slipped through the Hiera Pass without a scrape and only reducing my speed by ten percent. I earned these wings at eighteen.”

Avenay’s brows rose. “I thought no one has successfully used the Hiera Pass in the war games since Galin won them fifty years ago. And he was thirty.”

Enid blinked. She’d thrown out the Hiera Pass, not expecting Avenay to know what she was talking about. Demons knew of it. Theyall trained to be the one to make the pass without a scrape each year. Most who attempted came out cut up and with bruises and injuries that took days to heal. The others usually slammed so hard into the entry rock that they blacked out and another had to catch them from falling to their death.

Enid crossed her arms and smiling as her wings fanned out just a fraction more. “What else did you learn about demons?”

Avenay gave a curt nod to the sword on her back. “You most likely earned each of those weapons by displaying mastery of them at the war games. And you’re only twenty-four, which means that you’ve practiced them a great deal.”

Enid shifted on her feet. There was a level of admiration in Avenay’s words that made her heart expand in a funny way—in a way that made her want to hear more and less at the same time. Avenay had somehow pierced through all her bravado, all her flighty ways, and drawn out this one sliver of success, that little bit of her that was worth anything.

Enid had trained so hard for years and years, determined to show Dryston she was good enough to be on the special forces, forcing him to let her leave The Darkened City and see the world at large. Butearning her wings by completing the Hiera Pass and mastering five weapons by the age of twenty-two had meant nothing to him.

It was too dangerous.

She wasn’t trustworthy.

Her chaotic nature would put the team at risk.

Those words, said in a nice, smooth way, had felt like a blow to the head.

So Enid had instead turned to partying and drinking. Because she was a fuckup anyway, wasn’t she?

“You should come to The Darkened City sometime,” Enid said. “I think you’d like the city since you’re so interested in demon culture.”

Avenay’s mouth parted in surprise. “That would be amazing to see in person. I know that most of the information about the capital city only comes from the gossip pages reporting on—” Avenay halted,and Enid finished the sentence in her head.

—you.

Enid swallowed disappointment and brandished a smile. “Yes, my jilted lovers certainly have loose lips.”

Avenay’s shoulders bunched up and her mouth opened and closed quickly. “I didn’t mean to…”

Enid chuckled, bitterness coating her tongue. “I thought you said you weren’t one of my adoring fans. Let me guess your favorite bit of gossip you’ve read in the pages about me. Maybe the time I hosted an orgy? Or the time I was found passed out in the cave streets?” Enid couldn’t seem to stop the words. The accounts were all exaggerated, highlighting the most unfortunate moment and twisting it into something far worse than it had been. But she wanted to see Avenay blanch and regard her with horror. She wanted all that admiration from a moment ago to melt away in the heat of Enid’s carelessness.

Because for half a moment she had felt good about herself, and she had a terrible suspicion that the fall from that high would crush her.

Avenay’s brows pinched together, and she tilted her chin up. “Personally, I think it was the story of when you escorted the refugees from the Earth realm when rebels destroyed their homes. You used your shadow shroud to hide them to move undetected throughout the night.”

It was silent for a beat,and then Avenay swallowed and continued. “Or when you defied your brother’s orders and freed all those gryphons from the cruel breeding farms. The article said it probably wasn’t you, though. Did you do those things?”

Enid frowned, her mind blank. She didn’t knowThe High Fliershad run either of those stories. Nor that anyone would believe them to be true. She’d been discreet when saving the gryphons. The Realm of Fire had bred them and kept them locked in cages. Her mother had loved gryphons, so when Enid heard about it, she’d begged Dryston to do something.

But they had a tenuous alliance with the Realm of Fire and couldn’t risk it. So she’d snuck out, used a shadow shroud and freed the gryphons before anyone knew what had happened. It had been attributed to pixies, but a few people had rumored seeing her.

“That was me. I didn’t realize anyone had written articles about it.”

“They said they were rumors, but ultimately, it wasn’t you. I didn’t believe that, though. I had a feeling it was you.”

Enid didn’t know what to say. Her heart ached at the belief in Avenay’s face. The warm regard the seraphe was giving her when she didn’t deserve it. Enid was everything the papers said about her and more. Sometimes better, usually worse.

“Let’s keep moving,” Dryston said loudly, giving Enid a jerk of his head that she knew meant stop talking, get to work.

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