Page 91 of Flight of Fate

What hits me deepest is Kaira’s dead eyes as I retell the escape from the enemy camp and how she blasted us out of the shield with her strange yet powerful magic.

For an extended moment, the throne room falls silent again. Even Myron’s breathing has returned to normal, his inner strength rebuilding with his resolve. His tears aren’t signs of weakness but those of the power given to him by the sacred connection to his mate. It’s the strength of two souls turned into one.

As if reading my mind, Kaira blinks at me, and I check my mental shield to make sure she can’t see into the void opening up at the thought that, despite the muscles and magic at my disposal, I’m weaker because I haven’t chosen to become vulnerable with someone who reinforces the shields of hope and love buried deep down within me.

“So she’s never coming back?” Pouly wants to know, his voice brittle as if he’s aged ten years in the past half hour.

“Not to my court.” The raw emotion in Myron’s tone speaks of the wealth of sorrow building inside of him, the solid determination that will, from now on, paint our path.

Royad isn’t saying a word, but I can read the disappointment from his expression. He’s been hoping until the very last moment for this to turn into news he can handle. Now he knows like the rest of this Crow Court that the Queen won’t come home to us.

“But to Tavras, she will.” I’m not certain I like the relief in Andraya’s tone when she understands that this might be bad for the Crows, but the rightful Queen of Tavras could still reign over the human territory in the southeast of Eherea. “She won’t abandon both her courts.”

It’s in that moment that Myron’s irises flash the deepest onyx, veins of shadow and ink spider-webbing around his eyes. His spine straightens, but he leans back in his chair as if the weight of his own realization is too much to bear on his broad shoulders.

“What is it, Crow King?” It’s Sanja who beats me to the question, but it doesn’t matter when Myron merely shakes his head in response, darkness dripping from his fingertips, pooling around the legs of his chair.

“Wherever the Crow Queen can or will go is up to her and the gods who refuse to aid our cause.” He sends a sharp glance around the room for emphasis. “Let’s talk war strategies, Fairy Queen. We need to be prepared to win this war without her.”

Fifty-Three

Myron

In the pastfew hours since being reunited with my cousins and sharing the horrors of the past day with the few people left I care about, I’ve been checked over by Rogue’s healers about five times. They all saw my fingers bleeding black smoke and my eyes turning to inky orbs, and, honest to Shaelak, I’m surprised no one has run from me. On the contrary. Kaira insisted on joining me to see the healers, using the excuse of needing more of the herbal potion she has been sipping at since we arrived. At least, her cheeks are rosy again while I’m still the same, eyes of a monster and power leaking from my fingertips like a youngling losing control.

Before I wandered into the ground level of the palace to see the healers, at least Rogue and I agreed on postponing the issue of punishing Tata. As the Fairy King’s subject, it’s his call how to exact vengeance, but I’m not all against his idea of interrogating any information we can get out of her before she meets her fate.

That’s for later, though. For now, the traitor is locked up in the dungeon, and Clio and Tori are checking in every other hour to see if Tata has a wish to unburden her soul. So far, no news.

I’m not surprised.

Clio is checking up on the traitor right now. That’s the reason she wasn’t present when Tori site-hopped us in. Royad told me as much when I took him aside for a moment to briefly talk about what happened here after Clio arrived with Andraya and Pouly. At least, now I know why even the Fairy Queen is wearing armor: When Tata showed up at the palace before Clio could warn them, Tata got close enough to the pregnant queen to land a blow on her shoulder that drew blood. Thanks to Royad’s prompt reaction, Tata went down quickly, but the lingering fear of someone else in the palace turning on them has put our friends on edge so much Rogue has dismissed the guards Tata trained over the past months and replaced them with hand-selected men from Tori’s trusted legions. I don’t even want to think about the fear and fury raging inside the Fairy King at the sight of both his mate and unborn child in such danger.

After catching up, Royad left to inform Clio of our return and retrieve the latest news from her session with Tata. My pulse still pounds in my ears merely imagining what else Tata might have set in motion if she betrayed our secrets to Ephegos himself.

We’ll need any advantage we can get in the battles to come.

The bag holding the vials of magic-sedating drug still sits in the throne room, right under the chair I left. Silas and Herinor were assigned the task of guarding it until Kaira and I return.

I shrug off the gentle touch of the fifth healer tracing the black veins along my cheeks, the spreading lines no longer retreating when I calm down. Or perhaps I haven’t calmed down since I realized what Ayna truly did. That, if I’m right, and the gods aren’t mocking all of us, shetrickedEphegos into a bargain that is more beneficial to us than to him.

“How long has this been happening?” The young healer, a male of average height with forest green eyes and a shorn head asks.

Measuring his tawny face, I give him the same answer I gave the healers before him. “For a while. I can’t tell the exact day they first appeared. And before you ask, I don’t know if it has anything to do with the God of Darkness. I’m not really on speaking terms with him.”

“God of Darkness?” the healer stammers, obviously intimidated by my harsh tone, my impatience getting the best of me even when those people are trying to understand what’s happening with my power.

“You call him the Brother Guardian.” I let some of the darkness dripping from my palms collect in the folds of the gray woolen blanket folded up beside me on the cot I’m sitting on. “The power hasn’t hurt me or anyone else who wasn’t meant to get hurt so far, so I wouldn’t be too worried about it.”

Iamworried. About the fact that it’s not disappearing even when I’m calming my heartbeat and my breathing. It’s not uncontrollable, not attacking anyone, but the darkness keeps leaking from my hands like the spark of hope seeping through the layers and layers of sorrow stacked inside my chest.

With a glance around the long, simple room, I take another deep breath. A row of cots is set up against one side, curtains half-drawn between empty beds. Tools sit neat and clean in boxes on shelves on the other side, a wash basin built into alcoves in the gray stone every ten feet, like this place is meant to host an armada of healers when all cots are occupied.

Kaira sits on the cot next to me, her presence a reassurance, the way she’s been since the moment Ayna was dragged off.

“You all right?”her voice echoes in my mind, and I nearly jump off the hard mattress.

With a shrug, I turn toward her.“You look better, though. And the fact that you can use the mind link again…”

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