Page 35 of Flight of Fate

“Youcouldn’thave known,” she cuts him off.

“I should haveanticipated, then,” he corrects, but the anguish in his eyes when he places his hands left and right of his hips on the smooth rock speaks volumes about how it doesn’t matter what anyone says. He’s taking full responsibility for his people’s deaths, even when it wasn’t his hand that delivered it.

Sanja twists to the side, her small, bronze hand covering his fingers, squeezing. “Listen to me, Rogue,” she says in a strict tone that has me flinching where I hover on Kaira’s shoulder. My sister tenses beneath my claws.

“Rogue?”she echoes in her mind and I realize what the Fairy Queen called him.

“A nickname, I suppose.”It’s all I can think before Tori shoots both of us a forbidding glance.

“No one outside this room can know,”he tells me, as always, privy to my thoughts, even without the mind link Kaira is still keeping up.“Recienne is Rogue only to his friends.”

And even with the alliance we forged, we aren’t considered friends. Not really.

Recienne murmurs something to Sanja that is swept up by his unique power and delivered to her ears only, I expect, but his eyes meet mine. “It’s not that I don’t consider you a friend, Crow Queen. I’m just careful who I let see this real side of me. Not the king but the male.”

I understand,I want to say, but I don’t push my thoughts outward. If he decides I’m the only one to hear this, I want to keep it between us.

“Sanja is my heart, my soul, my life, the same as you are for the Crow King. It frequently proves impossible not to become Rogue with my mate at my side.” His words are still for me only, and I cherish this moment of trust between two allies who have fought battles together and survived. Between two monarchs who both learned to hide their true selves from the world, to lock up their emotions to ease the burden of others.

I see him, then. Rogue, the male: the slightly hunched shoulders, the weary expression that means countless sleepless nights.

Whether he finds that recognition in my eyes or he senses the change in me by different means, I don’t care as he says for everyone to hear, “You can all call me Rogue.”

He doesn’t reprimand his mate for spilling his secret, instead placing an arm around her shoulders and tucking her to his side, the face of the king returning, but much softer, more open as he lays out all the things he’s set in motion.

The patrols have been tripled in the untouched districts while a few units of soldiers are helping take care of the dead. Some of the corpses have been brought into the healers’ quarters for examination with the result that there were two sorts of assaults: simple cutting throats of the low magic fairies who would have been too weak to fight with their powers even against a strong human soldier, and those involving the magic-nullifying drug. Those fairies must have been splashed with the serum the same way the Flames did in the ambush in the Plithian Plains. They show more signs of putting up a fight, but eventually, all their throats were cut.

“I’ve ordered additional sentries on the battlements. Even when the palace wasn’t touched in the attack, we can neverbe too careful,” Recienne explains. “The army is ready to react should another attack happen.”

But it won’t. Herinor, Royad, Myron, and even Silas are all sharing that same expression, telling me they know, if this was Ephegos’s doing, he’s not going to attack immediately again.

Tori must have picked up on it as well because he pins Myron with a look. “You don’t think they will attack again?”

Myron’s throat bobs as if he’s put on trial, but his voice is steady as he answers, “Ephegos relishes terrorizing others. If this attack was truly ordered by him, he’ll enjoy our fear and confusion. He’ll draw out the time until his next attack, keeping us on edge, restless, wondering when he’ll strike next. The Ephegos I’ve gotten to know in Erina’s dungeons wants us to fear him, wants us to not dare close our eyes at night.”

He means it, and that’s what scares me more than the thought of another attack. Myron is afraid. He hides it well, but I know better, know the little tells even when, in my bird form, I can barely feel him through the mating bond.

“If the battle was a diversion to guide our attention and forces away from the city, making this statement probably wasn’t all he wanted,” Herinor says between gritted teeth. I wonder how much it hurts to speak those words.

He knows something, and no matter how diplomatically he puts it so he won’t upset his bargain with Ephegos, I can tell by the way his light green eyes shine that hewantsus to know.

So I flutter to his shoulder, ignoring his cringe of surprise and Myron’s of concern, and dig my claws hard into his leathers.“Whatever you know, Herinor, you better spill now, or I’ll kick you out of this court so fast you can’t even curse your own stupid bargain for it.”

Twenty-Two

Herinor

What a queen.Fierce and unyielding even when confronted with death at such a scale. Worthy of being called a Crow Queen. I don’t bother hiding how impressed I am with her fearless demand that I speak the truth.

I can’t lie anyway, so that demand is unnecessary. But she’s right. The weight of what I know has been slowly eating away at me over the past weeks since I learned of what Shaelak demanded of her.

“Ephegos doesn’t attack for the sake of attacking. He always wants something.” It’s as much of the truth as I dare give them.

Ayna isn’t satisfied, of course, and Myron seems ready to rip out my throat should I not comply with my queen’s wishes. He’s right to threaten me; it might ease the strain of the bargain enough to loosen my tongue without violating the promise I made to the traitor Crow.

At least, the Fairy King considers me afriendnow.Rogue. I chuckle to myself. That fancy king really couldn’t have picked a less-suiting nickname. The onlyroguething about him is the three black strands dancing out of his otherwise perfect hair. Even so, I must admit he did fight well on the battlefield. This time.

“We’re waiting, Herinor,” Myron reminds me, an order from my king.

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