Page 95 of Flight of Fate

A flame of ire licking up my spine makes me spit in his face. Ephegos pulls back with a laugh. “You’ll learn the benefits of being my pet in time.”

The fact that it sounds more like a threat than a reassurance freezes the anger down to my bones, and I shrink back another inch, steeling myself for what’s to come.

Nothing.Nothinghappens.

Ephegos merely stares into my eyes, drinking in my terror. If I didn’t know any better, I’d believe he can digest it like food.

“Rest while you can, Ayna.” He huffs a laugh, a melody reminding me of days when I considered him my friend. What a farce.

With an elegant movement, he sheathes his sword and scoots toward the door, already reaching for the brass handle.

“Wait.” I don’t know what I want to say to him, but I need to get information out of him before he can drag me to Erina. Who knows how much time I have left to attempt my escape? After being too weak to try to run before we left the edge of the borderland forests, stalling until we got out of the Plithian Plains was torture in itself.

Rye-blond hair swinging around, Ephegos turns his head, fingers holding firm on the molded brass. “You found your voice again?” There is no courtesy or warmth in his tone now, only the stone-cold traitor, the torture master he’s become, as he pins me with his deep brown eyes.

One breath. Two.Ask him something,I tell myself.Get him to spill his plans.

“Why take me to Erina when you don’t need him for your grander plan?” It’s the first question I can think of, but the flare of anger in Ephegos’s gaze tells me I hit a nerve.

Great.

“None of your concern.”

Before he can push down the door handle, I sit up a tad straighter, allowing my voice to turn raspy as I force more faked weakness into it, like it costs me all my strength to defy him when, in reality, I could leap at him and try to pull his blade from its sheath. I just wouldn’t survive it.

“Kill him now, if you dare.” This time, the voice in my head is definitely not myself trying to talk me into a foolish act.“Hello, Ayna,”the God of Darkness amends in my head, a soft chuckle of fluid night leaking from each word.

Swallowing the knot in my throat, I focus to calm my pulse. It’s not helping much, though, and Shaelak’s sudden reappearance is only part of it. The other part is me holding my breath for Ephegos’s answer while I try not to let show that I’m hearing his creator’s voice in my head.

“Erina”—Ephegos smirks, sitting back on the bench and drawing a hunting knife from his other hip—“is a pawn in my grand plan, you already figured that out. What you didn’t figure out is that you are mine to do with whatever I want now.” I curl my fingers around the edge of the bench, holding onto the wood for support. “And what I want is for you to serve as payment for Erina’s armies until I return to collect you.”

The wood groans as I grasp it too tightly, catching Ephegos’s attention, but I bury the sound in a cough, laying it on thick to appear even weaker.

“You’re a real monster.”

Ephegos’s face lights up. “Thank you, Ayna. I’m doing my best to keep things interesting.” Before I can vomit for real, he rolls on, “You know, I had different plans. Kill Myron to makeyou mine. I would have sacrificed my vengeance on him to get my hands on the first Crow female in millennia. A gift from Shaelak himself. But since we’re both immortal, Erina is only a road stop on my quest. You’re mine with or without the God of Darkness’s aid.” He pauses, measuring my expression for any hint of understanding.

“Oh, I know about your deal with the Bastard of Darkness.” I don’t care about the angry rumble in my head. If Shaelak was on my side, he would never have put me through this. He would never have made a deal with this piece of vermin.

“Why did you make that deal again?”I shout at Shaelak in my head.“To make the species you created stronger? Survival of the fittest. Or better, survival of the most ruthless?”

“You aren’t so different from him, Ayna,”Shaelak whispers in my mind, and my hair stands on my neck at the icy touch of darkness caressing my shoulder.

“I’m nothing like that monster.”My objection echoes into the void that is the space between the realms of mortals and fae, and that of deities.

“But you are. You would do anything to protect the ones you love. If someone took Kaira from you, wouldn’t you go to incredible lengths to avenge her? And for Myron?”

In my head, his presence builds like a thundercloud laced with silver light and black feathers.

“I wouldn’t damn an entire continent to suffer tyranny only so I could get my revenge.”But I’d lay waste to the world if that was the only way to get that vengeance, he’s right about that. And as I think, Shaelak’s power tingling beneath my skin, I realize why he did it.“This isn’t about survival of the strongest or that Ephegos might be your favorite over Myron.”I’m panting now, and thank Vala Ephegos believes this is all part of me fighting the effects of his drug.“You don’t merely want to create chaos. You want to prove a point.”

“And what point would that be, child?”The danger in his tone makes my pulse spike, pressure building in my chest like a void of power has opened up and is pushing its path toward the surface.

“That I’m no better than Ephegos. That I’m just as evil and ruthless.”

“Wrong.”Laughter of silver and black curdles my blood.“You are immortal now, Ayna. You can play the games of immortality.”

My mind is spinning, vision blurring. I need to focus, keep Ephegos engaged in our conversation before he can leave the carriage, but I can’t breathe with Shaelak pressing down on my consciousness. It doesn’t matter.

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