Page 92 of Flight of Fate

“Only shows that we made the right call to rest before searching for the others. And rested more before making a choice to head back here.”

A small smile appears on her lips that warms my chest where darkness is collecting, attempting to smother the hope gasping for breath.

Heavy brows raised, the healer waits for me to continue. When I don’t speak, he sits at the foot of my cot, lacing his fingers together in his lap. His eyes are cautious as he scans me head to toe like an experiment gone wrong, and I want to slash at him with the black ink now following me everywhere. At least it dissolves after a while when not used. Otherwise, I’d create an unsightly mess in this glimmering palace.

“Have you ever thought that this”—he points at my face, the area around my eyes in specific—“might come not from your magic but might be an expression of your emotions?”

“Interesting thought,”Kaira narrates in my head while I growl at the healer to get lost and hop off the bed.

I throw a glare at the male. “Does it matter as long as it knows how to kill the right people?”

The healer shrinks back at my bared teeth, the violence slumbering just beneath my skin, and I turn on the spot, already walking as Kaira jumps up from her cot, running after me.

When I head for the stairs back to the throne room, a trail of black ink follows in my wake.

The others are sitting in the throne room when we return, including Clio, who must have finished her interrogations, all eyes snapping up as we enter the glimmering hall. The Fairy Princess’s features brighten for a brief moment at the sightof me, but when she notices the black veins and black eyes, the smoke coiling around my hands, billowing behind me like ribbons, her mouth settles into a tight line. The others must have caught her up because she doesn’t ask any questions, merely waits for Kaira and me to take our seats.

Rogue and Sanja eye me with concern and compassion, two visionary leaders who will do anything to protect their realm and their people, and most of all, their family. Andraya and Pouly are sitting closer to the other three rebels now, their murmured conversation stopping the moment they lay eyes on me, on the lack of change in my appearance.

“The healers say it’s nothing to worry about,” Kaira chirps, looping her arm through mine as if to show the others I’m not going to destroy the world with my leaking power.

“For now,” I add, my gaze meeting Rogue and Sanja’s in emphasis that I won’t harm them or anyone in this palace. Least of all their unborn child.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Sanja who responds first. “I never doubted you had it under control, Myron.”

The trust and faith in her expression shame me into silence. Because I have lost control multiple times, that darkness ripping out throats. The day Erina tried to un-mate Ayna and me?—

“It never harmed anyone you cared about,”Kaira reassures me in my mind, reading my concern from my gaze or my thoughts, I don’t care.“Whatever it is might make you our strongest weapon yet.”

“Right after you,”I note through the mind link, and Kaira gives my arm a squeeze.

Together, we cross the room, sitting down in two chairs next to each other. Herinor and Silas exchange a look before Silas picks up the bag of vials and holds it out for me. “Care to share what this is now?”

Tori bobs his head, auburn eyes wandering back to the blackness dripping from my hands and pooling at the bottom of my chair. “I enjoy a mystery like the next fairy, but it’s time you told us what is important enough to risk all our necks to pick up from a remote killing field.”

The silence in the room becomes tangible, thick enough to clog my throat as I wonder what the others see when they look at my face—the Crow or the monster.

Apparently, they don’t care because even the humans scoot closer to the edge of their seats, waiting for me to reveal the secret. A secret that might not mean anything but, if used right, could level the playing field.

With a light nudge of her elbow, Kaira tells me it’s time to share.

“When we stumbled upon the slaughtered soldiers of Ephegos’s legions while looking for Herinor and Silas, Kaira and I found vials strapped to the soldiers’ arms and hidden in their pockets. We can’t be entirely sure it’s the magic-nullifying potion, but chances are high it is, especially after using one of them on the shield when we broke you out of the camp.” I glance at Herinor, who nods, eyes lighting up with understanding as I bend forward, carefully pouring out the contents of the bag onto the stone floor. The vials roll across the stone, clinking together in a melody of hope while the faces of fairies, Crows, and humans in the room brighten.

“It’s not enough to bring down an army,” Kaira adds, “but it’s enough to strategically take out a few key players in a battle.”

With a quick hand, Tori plucks a slender, corked vial from the floor and twists it between his fingers. “We’ll have the healers compare it to the other one we already have. If you’re right…” his voice trails away as his mind goes into the strategizing mode of the general.

“If he’s right,” Clio finishes the thought, “we can give that monster of a Crow, Ephegos, a taste of his own medicine.” Vengeance shimmers in her jade eyes, a sight so fierce I can see why Tori fell for her all those centuries ago and is still madly in love.

A pang of pain surges through my chest at the thought that I might never see my own mate again, her beautiful face, but more than that, the spark in her eyes, proof of that unbreakable spirit her breathtaking sight provides a host for.

“If only we knew where the bastard will strike next.” Silas tilts his head, staring past the vials at the map. One of the glass tubes rolled all the way to a figurine representing Erina’s armies in the borderlands. A black X marks the spot where Kaira’s power destroyed the camp. Who knows how many more units are sitting closely, only waiting for an order from their king or general to attack?

All immortal eyes dart to Herinor while the humans seem to wonder what response we expect from the male or why. They have no idea of his history with Ephegos.

“You know him best.” I incline my head at him. “He has Ayna. He has the magic-nullifying serum. He has Erina’s troops at his disposal. What keeps him from attacking us right away?”

The warrior shakes his golden-blond hair out of his face, light green eyes searching the map like a drowning man would for a straw. “He doesn’t trust Erina. And the King of Tavras doesn’t trust him either. Both of them are tyrants ready to grab all the power for themselves and sitting out their partnership until the moment they no longer have need of each other, but for now, Erina needs Ephegos’s command over the magic-wielders, and the Flames’ aid to produce more of the serum. He needs the advantage of speed and strength of the Crows following Ephegos into battle and the protection the drug provides to his human soldiers.” One by one, he meets the rebels’ gazes. “More nowthan ever, he needs to protect his own legions with the rebels coming out of hiding and the alliance building in the north.”

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