Page 78 of Flight of Fate

A silence that nearly fools me.

But when I turn back toward our path, I spot movement ahead where the trees part, letting more light pour into the seam of the forest.

“Let’s hope those aren’t all enemies,”I think at her, drawing my sword as I duck deeper into the shadows.

Kaira follows suit, unsheathing both her daggers as we sneak toward the cluster of people perhaps two hundred feet ahead.

My pulse accelerates as what’s awakened of my magic strains against the remains of the drug, but it isn’t enough to draw up more than a thin shield big enough to enclose the two of us.

“We stay hidden and try to figure out what we’re dealing with,”I order, the tone of the king slipping into my voice, even ifit’s just through the mind link, but Kaira is smart enough not to call me out for it.

“If they have Herinor and Silas, I swear I’ll rip their throats out.”The level of violence in Kaira’s voice is new to me, but I’m familiar with the rage burning in every last word. It’s the same rage that I keep locked up so tightly as I try to avoid thinking about Ayna to be able to focus on the matters at hand.

“I’ll be right there with you.”Because, no matter how well I can suppress that rage about Ayna’s fate, I’m still the King of Crows, and my fury blazes at the thought that someone might have hurt two of the last Crows left in my court.

The trees become a blur as we hurry closer to what seems to be a camp at the edge of the forest. I spy sepia and gold on the banners floating on the wind—a wind that I can’t feel here between the trees.

“There are too many,”Kaira narrates as we crouch behind a row of young evergreens, the movements of the camp almost tangible.

“To barge in and kill, there are too many, yes. Especially with our weakened powers.”Touching the almost-healed wound on my cheek, I count the soldiers in the camp.“Twenty that I can see. No idea how many are in the tents.”

Kaira follows my gaze along the small grey tents indicating the soldiers have been staying in this place for a while.

“Are they human?”I almost jump as she prompts me through the mind link after what feels like half an eternity of silence.

A slow, steadying breath filling my lungs, I assess what I can make out from a distance, frowning at the absence of the smell of the army.“They must have at least some creatures with powers in that camp, or they wouldn’t be able to shield it that well. But from what I can tell, most of the soldiers out and about are human, but you already know that.”

Kaira has spent enough time between both species to tell the difference at a quick glance. It’s more like she’s hoping for me to invent a more bearable truth. I’m the last person to be able to deliver, though, with my inability to lie.

“And Herinor and Silas? Where could they be?”

Both our eyes sweep the camp for possible locations to hold prisoners. Between the larger tents, soldiers are bustling about, a group clustering around an open fire where a man stirs the contents of a cauldron with a long wooden spoon. Plates and loaves of bread sit on a split log serving as a makeshift bench. The tents bordering the cooking area seem to be the residential area. What I’m looking for is a place swarming with guards who aren’t there for the food, but find nothing standing out.

Just as I want to tell Kaira I have no idea, movement catches my attention by the side of the camp where the last row of tents stands a few feet from the thicket. I can’t see all the way to the gap with the trees blocking out my vision, but I see enough to understand prisoners aren’t being put into tents. They are chained up at the foot of a tree, shoulders slumping over the knees and heads bowed as they sit on the frozen ground.

“Over there.”In my mind, I’m already calculating the options of freeing them, factoring in Kaira’s emotional stakes in Herinor’s rescue—not that I don’t have emotional stakes. I merely learned to detach myself from them. Catching her arm in a cautioning grasp, I gesture at the group of figures in the shade of the trees, making sure she doesn’t leap and run for them without making a plan first.

A whimper escapes her throat as she freezes in place, eyes scanning the half-light behind the tents for faces I’m still looking for.

“Are you sure they’re there? I only see … people. I can’t tell if any of them are Crows.”The hope in her mental tone nearly breaks my heart.

Because if Herinor and Silas aren’t there, chances are they got away.

Or that they’re dead.

I turn back toward the camp where activity seems to be buzzing in the western area, farther away from the forest, people lining up to grab food, before unfolding from my crouch, pulling Kaira along.“Only one way to find out.”

Forty-Six

Herinor

This fucking camp reeks.It reeked when they brought us here hours ago, and it reeks even more now that the first of the prisoners are freezing in their own piss and blood after bumping fists with Hel for good. One of them is lying so close I’m worried my leathers will stink like the dead permanently if I ever get out of here.

The smell isn’t the worst about this place; it’s the eternal cold. I’m a millennia-old Crow Fae with tons of experience of captivity, torture, and all those other lovely things keeping immortality interesting, but if there’s one thing I despise, it’s the cold. And it’s fucking freezing.

With a shiver, I turn my head to find Silas staring at the back of the tent blocking the fireplace from view. If a tendril of heat ever makes it around the corner, it’s because the soldiers checking in on us every other minute carry wafts of it with them.

As if feeling my stare, Silas cuts me a glance telling me how very unamused he is by the most recent turn of events. After we picked ourselves up in the clearing, we ran into a group of soldiers herding the leftover rebels before them. A group led by two Crows I hadn’t seen since I fled Ephegos’s hand. Those very Crows who must have shot us from the sky with their silverpower. And I can’t even blame them. I betrayed their master and, with him, all of them. Given a chance, I would shoot them from the winter-pale blue yonder for betraying Myron.

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