Page 63 of Flight of Fate

“We’ll find them,”I reassure Kaira through our mental connection when her gaze won’t stop scanning the space within the bare patch of land.“We’ll get the humans to safety, and then we’ll find the Crows.”

I hate that I need to prioritize lives, but between two magical creatures with healing powers and millennia of combat experience and the two humans before me, Andraya and Pouly need our help more. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Who knows what happened to the others? They might already be engaged in a fight they can’t win somewhere out of our reach, damned to defeat. I refuse to let the thought fester.

Instead, I drag Andraya to her feet, stabilizing her with my free hand as I guide her back toward Myron while, with the other one I’m still clutching my dagger. “Who tied you up?”

Digging in her heels like a stubborn donkey, the lady shakes her head. Whatever happened traumatized her in a way that she can’t differentiate friend from foe. Or she wouldn’t shy away from Myron, who stands a few feet ahead like a statue, death leaking from his fingertips as he sends his power around the clearing in search of Herinor and Silas. Guardians, how I hope whatever trouble they have found is something they canmaneuver themselves out of—or at least hold their ground until the rest of us can join them.

An instant later, Kaira is on Andraya’s other side. “Have you seen Herinor and Silas?” With a careful hand, she helps me guide the lady forward, who merely shakes her head.

“No sign of anything or anyone,” Pouly informs us a bit too hastily.

All right. No Crows. We’ll need to find them once Andraya and Pouly are safe and we know what we’re dealing with. My heart and my conscience aren’t at all happy with the delay in helping my friends, but leaving the only people who know what we’re dealing with behind and setting out into danger would be sheer stupidity, and I’m not willing to risk anyone else’s lives. We set out to retrieve Andraya for a diplomatic mission, not to head into battle.

“Where are the other rebels,” Kaira tries again, asking a question Andraya and Pouly more likely have an answer to.

But the lady freezes again, and Pouly shivers as he follows, one slow step after the other.

“South,” he utters under his breath, but I catch it with my fae hearing, wondering if he even meant to speak.

I don’t pick up any sounds from the surrounding trees other than the occasional scurrying of an animal in the thicket, but Andraya and Pouly seem to be afraid of something.

When I glance sideways at her, Andraya’s gaze is still on Myron, panic shimmering in the brown of her irises. “They were taken by the—” A cough racks through her with such force she almost slips from my grasp. Catching her at the last moment, I sit her down on the fallen tree splitting off the side of the clearing to my left.

Tata is there to help Andraya settle down, her hand steadily guiding the lady onto the tree trunk until she sits with her shoulders rounded and head bowed. The cough is gone, butshe won’t meet my gaze even when I kneel in front of her, pushing for answers while I check on her bruises with my magic. Surprisingly, the purpling skin on her cheek lightens under the touch of my healing power—a power, for once, that I don’t need to spend hours and hours training to control. “Who took them?”

Pouly remains standing, gaze flickering around the tree-seamed patch of blood-and-ice-frosted clearing.

“I can’t tell.” Another cough shakes Andraya, and her shoulder twitches to the right where Myron has walked up to stand behind Tata whose soothing hand remains on the lady’s shoulder.

“Why?” I demand. Time is of the essence. We might have found them in time, but if we fail to rescue the other rebels before they can shed their secrets under torture, any attempt to remove Erina from Tavras’s throne might be lost.

Trying to get more comfortable on the hard seat, Andraya shifts her weight, the toes of her boot turning to the right at an odd angle that has me wondering if she injured her leg in the fight.

“Was it the same people who tied you up?” Clio prompts, earning a nod from both Andraya and Pouly. The first non-evasive response since we found them.

“Who was it?”

“Does it matter?” Tata cuts her off, retrieving her hand from Andraya’s shoulder. “They can’t have gotten far. I’ll take Andraya and Pouly back to Aceleau while you hunt for the kidnappers.”

It’s the way Andraya cringes at Tata’s offer that gives me pause, and as I follow her gaze, finding it resting on Tata’s sword—a sword that’s casually angled at the lady, just enough to indicate a quick stab is all it takes to bring the human down—Pouly gives me a pleading look.

I don’t fully understand the dimension of betrayal, even though its sour taste already coats my tongue as I grab Andraya by the wrist, pulling her to her feet and tucking her to my side as if in support.“Protect Pouly,”I think at Kaira, whose surprise rings in her silent response, but she doesn’t question me as she steps closer to the man.

Something is fishy here, and it’s not the fact that Herinor and Silas disappeared. It’s that Andraya and Pouly are afraid of Tata. They weren’t keeping their eyes on Myron earlier, not afraid of the terrifying Crow King leaking night and darkness. A glance at Myron tells me he noticed it too; that’s why he’d stepped to Tata’s side, not out of curiosity over Andraya’s answers but because he saw the hints the lady tried to give. The shake of her shoulder, the toes pointing toward the fairy female.

“We need to get them out before Tata realizes we suspect something.”

Kaira doesn’t object, and when I ask her to open a mental channel to Myron and Clio, she relays my thoughts directly to them.“I think Tata is somehow involved in this attack.”Not staring at Tata as I share my suspicion is one of the hardest things I’ve done since shifting out of my bird body and into my fae form. “Clio, take Andraya and Pouly back to the palace. Don’t let Tata get anywhere near them until we know for certain she betrayed us.”

Myron shifts his weight, dark power coiling toward Tata’s wrist hovering an inch from her blade, ready to restrain it should she attack.

“We need to find Silas and Herinor before we search for the rest of the rebels,”Kaira throws in, a hint of panic in her mental tone that makes me believe she is half out of her mind not knowing where Herinor ended up. Honestly, the longer we don’t see any sign of the missing two males, the edgier I become, too,and it takes all my willpower not to leap to Myron’s side like a shield between him and the potential traitor in our midst.

“We will,”I reassure her, and Clio nods her agreement even as she holds out a hand to Pouly and Andraya, her jade eyes unreadable as she tells Tata, “I’ll take them. You help the others find the two missing Crows.” An order from the Fairy Princess.

For a moment, I think Tata will submit, her expression serious like the soldier I’ve gotten to know, her eyes two dark, sparkling stars. Then, so fast not even my Crow eyes can fully make out the movement, she punches Myron in the face—not with the sword hand he’d been watching but with the free one. The one that was not comforting Andraya but a gesture of warning not to tell on her.

His shield takes the brunt of the impact, but he’s pulled it too tightly to his skin to have much of a buffer as Tata’s knuckles connect with his jaw. A scream escapes my lips as his head snaps back, blood splattering the fairy’s hand where she split his lip. Tata twirls on the spot, blocking my path as I instinctively reach for Myron at the blinding pain exploding through the bond connecting us, and even without the sound of boots and blades arriving from the edges of the clearing, I know beyond a doubt that the female betrayed us.

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