Page 79 of Flight of Fate

Naturally, they were equipped with the magic-nullifying serum and didn’t hesitate to use it on us the moment they got close enough. Didn’t keep us from cutting down their soldiers like stalks of wheat, though, before we went down from the influence of the drug.

The rest is a blur of murky memories laced with pain and insults not even half as creative as I’d deem appropriate. I only opened my eyes to the dull gray of the tent fabric in front of us an hour ago and have been observing the comings and goings of guards as well as assessing the weaknesses of this makeshift prison.

The cold has been wearing us down in addition to the drug for sure, and the chains are thick and solid, nothing I could break without my full strength at my disposal.

“Any ideas yet?” Silas grumbles, his voice too weak for it to be fake. Then there’s the cut across his chest that keeps me wondering how much longer he can be out here without joining those poor rebels drawing their final breaths, one after the other, weak and human.

“Not unless you develop bear claws and slit the next guard’s throat before taking their keys and freeing us all.” I wish I could simply say I don’t dare hope for a way out of this after a mostly human group of soldiers defeated us. Guess I’m too much of a coward for that.

“Not likely.” At least a half-grin graces Silas’s bruised and bloodied features.

“Perhaps we can just die on them then?” I suggest. “That would guarantee freedom.” Not that I’m at all ready to meet Hel before personally having words with Shaelak about the deal hemade with Ephegos. My queen won’t be handed over to a traitor, and most certainly not at the cost of my king’s life.

I halt my thoughts, listening for the effects of Ephegos’s bargain at my thought of saving Ayna and Myron.

Only silence reigns where I can sometimes feel the idea of punishing magic.

“Not yet, my friend,” Silas coughs. “Not yet.”

A few feet behind me, a moan of half-conscious pain disturbs my temporary peace, and when I turn the few inches my chains allow me to, my gaze lands on one of the rebels still alive and breathing.

“You all right?” The old Herinor would have never asked a human such a thing, but the new Herinor can’t help but care.

The rebel crawls into a half-sitting position, the chains around his neck and wrists binding him too tightly to straighten—the same way the rest of us are bound in magic-defying steel.

“If I could actually feel my body, I’d tell you.” He glances down his front, grimacing at the half-frozen blood on his thigh, and shakes his head. “I guess not.”

“None of us here is all right if you ask me,” Silas chimes in, his tone a bit stronger but still weak enough to give me shivers. At least those damned soldiers didn’t slice me open the way they did him. A small mercy properly extended by the oath to Ephegos. He’ll want me alive and unharmed so I can step back into his service the moment he gets his hands on me.

I swallow the rising fear of what will happen if I must face him again—and fail to find the courage to risk everything and kill him.

“Perhaps we should all work together to get out of here,” I suggest instead of the million words of despair I’m about to offer. “The guards who’ve checked in on us over the past hour were all human. If we unite what’s left of all our strengths, we might make for one decent opponent.”

None of them grins as I’d intended, but that’s all right. They’ll grin once we’ve rid ourselves of these chains.

“You’ve never been even half-decent,” Silas spits, blood staining his lower lip like the strain of a harsher word tore an internal wound open—or like Vala’s curse is plaguing him all over again.

Trying not to let fear take me into a chokehold, I straighten my shoulders an inch or two, as much as the chains will allow, and check on the rest of the rebels. Three of them are dead, the stains on their pants and beneath their hips proof their bowels and bladders relieved themselves at their passing. But the three others are still moving. Of course, they look like shit, more blue and purple from bruises as much as from freezing, but they are breathing. The one farthest from me is wearing a thick woolen hat, the toes of his boots moving as if he’s doing his best to keep warm as he tucks his hands beneath his armpits, protecting his fingers from frostbite. Fighting to keep his tired brown eyes open, he peeks in my direction—and immediately looks away the moment I meet his gaze, a frightened animal shying away from a predator.

“What’s your name?” Putting on a friendly face doesn’t come naturally, but it’s the best I can do to make sure the man doesn’t die from fright as I address him.

Teeth chattering, he huffs one syllable. “Ed.”

“Ed,” I repeat. “Short for…” I prompt.

“Edunis. But no one has called me that in a decade.”

He doesn’t look old enough to have been alive for another decade where people could have called him that, his face that of a man yet one who’s grown into adolescence only recently. My immortality rolls with amusement at the thought of calling a boy of perhaps sixteen or seventeen a man, yet I manage to not make a snide remark.

“Ed,” I repeat. “Short and efficient.” I tilt my head as much as I dare so the chains don’t slide from my leathers onto my bare skin above my collar and attempt a smile. “How would you like to be free, Ed?”

“Very much.” His voice shakes as a shiver rakes through his form, and he winces, but his gaze doesn’t shy away this time. “I’d like that very much.”

“So would I,” the human who spoke earlier notes, scooting a few inches closer to Ed as if in silent support. They are both dressed in clothes too light to allow them to survive the day. A few more hours and they’ll succumb to hypothermia, and then Silas and I would be on our own—if my fellow Crow makes it that long.

That leaves the third human tied up a foot away from Silas the only one who hasn’t made a statement. That might have been because she’s asleep or unconscious, I don’t dare guess. At least, she’s wearing a cloak, her limbs bundled up where she’s curled up on the ground as best she can be.

“That’s Gabrilla,” Ed says with a hint of worry that tells of the sort of bonds I know only from families, long before Vala spoke the curse and the Crows fell into doom. “She’s the best sharpshooter among us, but that won’t help much when they’ve taken her bow and arrows.”

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