Page 42 of Flight of Fate

“I’m here,” I breathe, anxious to break the silence, and Ayna nods, starlight spilling from between the folds of the fabric covering her. Raw emotion floods me as her lids flutter like a pair of delicate wings and she rests her head against my chest. My mate. Human. Yet not, I realize when I brush a strand of hair from her cheek and reveal her ear. I need to blink away the tears before taking a second look at the elegantly pointed tip.

Fae. This is a fae ear, its point less sharp than that of an Askarean fairy. ACrowear.

My chest heaves at the sob threatening to break from my throat as I grasp that Shaelak made true on his words. Immortal. My mate is immortal. A true Crow?—

And Shaelak’s descendant.

No. I can’t think about that right now. Won’t allow myself to think about any of it until I am ready to believe this isn’t a dream I’ll wake from to the bleak reality of Ayna still trapped, still distant with all the restrictions coming with being contained in the small form of a bird.

Like feathers, Ayna’s fingers graze my cheek, my neck, eyes remaining closed like from exhaustion.

“Where’s Kaira?” her voice is stronger, but her lids don’t open as I say her sister is mere feet away.

“Can you hear the beating of her heart?” I ask, the pain in my head forgotten even when I have trouble focusing my vision longer than a few moments. Listening to the steady thuds of Kaira’s heart, I wait for Ayna to indicate she hears it too.

Ayna nods, cheek sliding along my leathers, and I feel it like she’d be touching my bare skin. Pulling her more securely onto my lap, I slide the few feet separating us from Kaira on my knees.

“Kaira,” I call her name, not yet ready to let go of this solitary moment with my mate, but not ready for the guilt of not checking up on my sister-in-law when she’s not coming around on her own.

A groan is all the response I get, but it’s enough to make Ayna’s eyes blink open and her body to twist toward the sound.

“Kaira,” she croaks, and this time, the Flame rolls over, nearly plopping off the single stair at the foot of the altar, and grimaces at Ayna, eyes going wide as she takes in not the human face—thefaeface—but the starlight radiating from Ayna’s outreached arm. “Are you all right?”

Kaira rolls to her knees, studying her sister for a heartbeat, a ghost of a grin on her features. “I knew you’d come around,Ayna,” she coughs, scrambling to get to her feet. But the momentary relief fades as the Flame takes in the destruction surrounding us, the dark houses behind where the walls once shielded this sacred place. “We need to get her back to the palace before we draw attention.”

She’s on her feet, swaying and rubbing her elbow, but with her other hand, she’s already wedging free her dagger from where it’s stuck between two pieces of fallen wall a few feet away.

A godsdamned miracle. It’s a godsdamned miracle we weren’t crushed by the tumbling stone, most of it having pulverized at the impact of Ayna’s power, but there is time to say a prayer later. Kaira is right. This district might now be a district of ghosts, but we can’t risk anyone spotting star-torch Ayna. Whether Ephegos knew she was stuck in her bird form or not, him knowing she has turned full-Crow, ears and all, is a risk I’m not ready to take. Who knows what he’ll do with it, considering what he did today.

White-hot anger boils in my throat, but I swallow it down, pulling the hood of my cloak onto Ayna’s head with a gentle hand, and slowly push to my feet.

My legs remain steady, the shrieking pain in my head reduced to a dull pounding, a small blessing. Ayna doesn’t object when I keep her hefted in my arm, her eyelids already drooping again and her breathing easing into the rhythm of slumber.

When I turn toward what was once the door and find a heap of rocks blocking my path, Kaira waves me in the other direction, behind the altar where I’d prayed to the God of Darkness to give me back my mate, and I wonder if I should be grateful or hateful for how he chose to return her to me—and his threat of handing her to my enemy.

Twenty-Six

Ayna

“You couldn’t have keptthe Queen of Askarea’s armor on while shifting back, could you?” Myron huffs, his teeth a slash of white as I open my eyes to gray morning light.

He’s lying on his side, head propped on a silk-covered pillow, peering down at me like he can’t believe I’m truly here and is afraid I might disappear if he as much as blinks. The familiar scent of the room tells me where I am without taking my gaze off him, but I force myself to roll my head to the side, force my hands and feet to move under the covers.Hands and feet.

My human body is heavy compared to my bird one, but I savor the weight—every last inch of it where my back and hips dig into the soft mattress beneath me.

“I shifted back.” I still marvel at the fact that I have a voice, even this weak, dry thing barely leaving my throat.

Myron reaches behind him for a glass of water he must have prepared on the nightstand and sits up to help me lift my head, leading the water to my mouth.

I let him—not because I need the help but because I luxuriate in the feel of his calloused fingers scraping against the sensitive skin of my neck, the tips sliding against my scalp. Greedily, I gulp the water down, the clear, fresh taste of it so new that Iwonder if this is a special type of water or if my human senses are so much sharper than the bird ones.

When I’m done, Myron merely puts the glass back on the nightstand, but his other hand remains behind my neck, even when he rests it back on the pillow. His eyes linger on me, two diamonds set in his handsome face, but the wariness of his expression is enough to clench my stomach.

“Are you all right?” His scent is the same as I remember, but so much more detail, more depth calls to me in hues of forest and the sea. I can taste the wind on my tongue, the wildness and power surrounding him even when he stoically lies beside me.

Instead of responding, I inhale deeply, closing my eyes as I let his scent settle within me, savoring the familiarity yet novelty of all the facets I’ve never noticed before. Beckoned by the calling of that scent, I carefully pull up my legs, rolling to the side. Silk slides against the length of my legs, a touch so smooth and gentle I nearly moan. For weeks, I haven’t felt anything against my skin other than heat and cold and the sensation of the wind on my feathers, and this... This simple sensation is enough to send tears to my eyes.

“What’s wrong, little crow?” Myron’s forehead creases as I lean my cheek into his palm, savoring the brush of his skin against mine.

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