Page 43 of Flight of Fate

“I’m human again.” The word coils from my tongue like a lie, leaving a bitter aftertaste.

Myron barely shakes his head. “Not human, Ayna. No longer.”

To accept your bloodline. Only when you do that will you be able to save my creation from itself.Shaelak’s words echo in my mind.

In a phantom touch, his power slides against my face, tracing my cheek, my nose, then my ear. I arch into the touch at theunfamiliar sensitivity of my ear, and my hand darts to my face, tracing the warm lines Myron’s power leaves on my skin.

I let out a shriek as I notice the pointed arch at the top of my ear, and when I leap out of bed, adrenaline flooding my veins, and realize I’m wholly naked, I don’t bring myself to care. I don’t stop until I reach the bathing room and the gold-framed, square mirror above the sink.

Blowing out a breath, I brace my hands on the edge of the basin.

Two points peek through my near-white hair. It takes me a heartbeat to notice my hair isn’t the only thing that has changed. Ignoring the unfamiliar color, I brush my tresses back, exposing my unmistakable fae ears.

Before I can panic, Myron comes up behind me, placing his hands on my shoulders in what should have been a calming gesture, but I stumble back, colliding with his hard chest. The buttons of his black shirt dig into my spine where I press against him like I could disappear into the darkness leaking from his fingertips, his magic clearly responding to my fear.

My eyes dart up and down my reflection, my skin so pale, paler than I remember even after the months at Fort Perenis; my torso and arms are slightly longer, slimmer, the chain tattoo around my wrist gone as is the stiffness of my old injury. I flex my right hand a few times, watching my fingers close and extend. Not a single grain of pain. Not even the slightest sense of discomfort where I once winced at every movement. Dropping my hand, I assess the dip of my waist and sweep of my hips. I can’t see any lower in the mirror, but I assume my legs are longer, too, because Myron doesn’t tower over me the way he used to. His chin is just above my head, his eyes following mine along my body.

Not one scar shines on this new, immortal skin, not one hint of ink, as if I was born anew, taken from the flesh of human andbird and made into this form humming with life, with power. I’m not sure whether I want to bemoan the loss of all the marks my human life left on me, proof of the hardship I’ve endured, the battles I’ve won. Then, the most important mark has been gone for weeks—the bird mid-flight that was once inked on my shoulder. My mate mark.

“You’re beautiful,” Myron whispers, noticing the flawless skin where the chain tattoo once identified me as an inmate of Fort Perenis. The little scars scattered along my forearms and hands—gone.

I still look like myself, kind of, but those ears, the hair, my new height…

“I’m fae,” I mutter. And this time, the bitter aftertaste of the lie doesn’t coat my tongue.

“Crow Fae,” Myron adds, and where shock is defining my own face, Myron’s eyes gleam with near reverence as he trails the length of my arm, brushing the waves of white blonde falling over my shoulders, rubbing a strand of hair between his fingers, tangible proof of my change. But his gaze meets mine in the mirror, boring straight into my soul. “Immortal, Ayna. You’re immortal.” Just like him, like all the Crows. And Kaira?—

The creature of shadows and feathers, starlight and power hovering over me in the temple flashes in my mind, his threat to destroy Kaira if she fails to protect me. His threat to give me to Ephegos as the traitor’s mate if he manages to kill Myron. Myron’s attack, the power building in my veins an unmanageable force burning through the shell encasing me, my form blasting through feathers and claws, through wings and beak as I shifted back into my human form… No. Not my human form. I didn’t shift. Iturned.Into something entirely different.

Where before I merely held the senses of a Crow—or a fraction of it, I realize as I marvel at the colors of the lightbreaking along the edges of the mirror—I have now turned into a Crow completely. A Crow with Shaelak’s blood in her veins.

“What do you remember?” Myron’s face is unreadable as he takes a casual step back, depriving me of his warmth, the sensation of his shirt sliding against my skin as he pulls away leaving a tingle across my back.

I don’t need to think. Everything is bright and prominent in my mind. Every word Shaelak spoke.

“All of it.”

Myron studies me with guarded eyes. “Would you like to talk about it?” Careful. He’s so careful I wonder if he believes I’m made of glass. The soft glow coming to life beneath my skin surely suggests I’m something other, so very different from even the Crows and fairies I’ve encountered.

A god’s descendant.

That blast of radiating light at the temple sure proves my power has vastly changed, no longer a droplet of silver, no longer contained in a weak, mortal body. Strength hums through my limbs despite the oddness of this new form—not wrongness because Ichosethis. I chose immortality the way Shaelak demanded. In that moment, when the God of Darkness directed his power at my mate, I chose it, if only to destroy him.

“Is he gone?” I whisper, the light fading from my skin once more, like a beast closing its eyes.

Myron understands without explanation. “I don’t know,” he admits, watching me brace my hands on the edge of the sink once more, my hair flowing over my shoulders to cover almost the entirety of my torso. I don’t even wonder about my nakedness; it merely gives me a chance to quickly assess what I’ve become. Fae. A real Crow. And the God of Darkness’s power is now plowing through my body, ready to be used at a whim. I can’t think it often enough. Maybe, at some point, it will feel real.Maybe, one day, I’ll be able to look in the mirror and come to terms with what I’ve gained.

“Tori and Royad went back to the temple to check for any signs of his return, but he seems to be gone. Not that there’s a carving that could confirm he’s back where he was before.” Myron’s mouth quirks as he forces humor into his voice, but I see it for what it is. See the worry buried beneath the facade he’s fighting to keep in place. For me. So I don’t lose it.

“I’m all right, Myron. I really am.” Meeting his gaze in the mirror for a heartbeat, I turn around, leaning against the sink.

A brief nod as his eyes flash up and down my bare body.

So quickly my human eyes would never have caught the motion, Myron reaches behind him and hands me one of his spare shirts from the stack on the chair next to the bathtub. The chair where he’d once knelt between my legs.

I swallow the lump in my throat, pulling the soft, black cotton over my head and letting it hide my form all the way to mid-thigh.

“Just like old times.” I gesture at my body, at where his gaze lingers on my legs where his shirt doesn’t reach.

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