Page 12 of Flight of Fate

“No.” Not this time. If she returns while we’re gone, I’ll need someone who can deliver a message. Someone who knows how to find me.

Herinor understands immediately the task I’ve given him and bows his head. “I’ll fly like the wind the moment she returns.”

I don’t care that he’s phrased his statement in a way that could mean anything. Returns from wherever she is now to any place in this world she’s been before. It’s all right because I know he’d rather peel off his skin than disappoint me.

“We’ll meet back here at noon,” Tori says before he holds his hand out for Kaira, and together, they disappear.

One by one the other fairies fade out of the room as they set out to find my mate when they should have been in the arena, practicing to function without their magic—a sacrifice, I realize, that might cost us in the long run should Erina decide to attack today.

But what’s a kingdom in comparison to my mate’s life? I’d trade all and any of them just to know she’s safe. If that makes me a ruthless bastard, I’ll own the title.

Royad is already shifting, Silas at his tail as they disappear through the window. I follow suit. We’ll spread out south and north.

I want to go south. Try to bank and follow Royad, who is already headed in that direction, but something inside my chest is calling north. It’s not the familiar tingling I was used to when we still had the mate mark but something more subtle, a call of an entity so much bigger than the connection between Ayna and me.

I haven’t felt it since the first night I visited Shaelak’s temple and lit a candle beside the altar, but it’s definitely the same energy, vast and unyielding as it beckons for me to follow the slight current floating in the opposite direction of my cousin.

Silas is already headed that way, and I merely give a long-stretched caw to inform Royad I changed my mind. He’ll know to continue south without me.

With a few strong beats of my wings, I’ve caught up with Silas, his head tilting slightly to the side in acknowledgement I’ve chosen to fly with him instead, but I don’t slow to his pace when that tingle in my chest keeps urging me to go faster, faster, faster like my life depends on it.

So I fly like the wind itself, and in my heart, I harbor hope and dread in equal parts as I head away from the direction of Tavras against my better knowledge.

Eight

Ayna

Uncomfortable doesn’t even beginto describe what traveling tied up in a bag feels like. My feathers get caught on the rough fabric every other step the male takes with the bag clutched tightly in his hand. At least, he didn’t throw me into his pack. I’d be lost for breath there. Out here, at least a modicum of fresh air streams in through the loosely woven textile. The leather string is a whole different story. I can’t open my beak enough to caw for help, and my claws are practically immobile. I tried wiggling around enough to slice the fabric open to the effect of my talons getting tangled in the fibers of the bag—magically reinforced—but that only made the string cut painfully through my feather coat, all the way to my skin.

The only positive about the situation is that hours in a bag make panic the new normal, and I start thinking clearly enough to remember I have other options than submitting to my captors and allowing them to carry me to Aceleau. Yet, I can’t remember why they’d need me specifically. I’m just a bird.

They said something about shifters,a warm, male voice whispers at the back of my head, and I nearly startle from it—nearly because moving is impossible right now.

Shifters. They did mention shifters. If I’m one of them. But what that means, I can’t tell.

Ayna,the voice murmurs, shooting tingling darkness through my mind.

The word means something.

Ayna, he says again.

“There are the city walls,” the male carrying me announces. The fact that I can understand him should tell me something, but again, I’m at a loss. “We’ll arrive in an hour.”

One of his travel companions says, “With the bird, we can walk in the front door and have a ticket to get out alive in case they catch us.”

“Ifit’s a shifter, yes. Could still be a normal crow,” the other throws in.

Gus says, “So far, it hasn’t given any sign it is more than a usual bird. Unless it’s a smart one who knows how to pretend.”

Pretend what, I want to ask.

The voice in my head answers,You’re their queen, Ayna. The Queen of Crows.

A caw tears the air as birds fly overhead so fast I hear their wings only for a few heartbeats, but the echo is loud in my head, so, so loud my ears won’t stop ringing. Inside my chest, a tingling that could be from the leather string cutting into my flesh, or from something else, spreads like honey sneaking through my veins. It’s not a familiar sensation, but it’s powerful enough to make my breath ragged and kick my heart back into that state of painful panic that won’t allow me to gather a clear thought.

You’re the Queen of Crows, Ayna, the voice in my head repeats.

The caw sounds again, a warning, a summons. I want to respond, but I’m a weak thread in a tapestry of doom, and whenI wiggle my claws, they cramp from being stuck in the same position for hours.

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