Page 144 of Feathers of Ash and Hope

“Make her suffer,” she demands, and the man chuckles, sending a chill down my back.

“Oh, I intend to.” He looks down at me. “Get up.” Magic flows over me, compelling me to get up. Fuck. His gift is influencing.

I expect my curse to rise like a wave, but instead, it’s only a trickle. It stops his gift, but when I look for it, the normally big ball of coldness inside me is no more than a grain of rice.

The poison must have drained it.

I rise to my feet, and for the first time, I’m truly scared. His magic presses in again, and the curse flickers. I never thought I would see the day I dreaded being without it, but I do. Without it, I’m not only weakened but also vulnerable to his magic. Shit.

“Stand still,” he commands, and this time, I’m compelled to do as he says.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

It goes against everything in me, but I hold my curse back. I will deplete it completely otherwise, and who knows when I’ll need it.

“And if anyone sees us, you will tell them you want this. You want me.”The memory of the only other person I encountered with this gift pops up, and I shudder inwardly while my body stays still as the man commanded.

I’m not helpless. I only wait for the right moment. I repeat the words over and over to stifle the panic crawling up my throat.

“Well, that is handy,” Livia declares, startling me. Somehow, I thought she had already left. She steps closer and slaps my face with so much force that my head would have turned if the man’s gift hadn’t held me in place.

Pain explodes in my cheek. She smiles, grips my shirt, and tears it down the middle. “Look at that, you are a whore, and now you look like it, too.” She steps so close that her breath brushes my ear when she whispers, “You deserve everything that comes for you.”

Her gaze darts to the man standing next to us, then back to me. “I would love to stay and watch him torture you.” She grins. “But some have been picked, so my bird is waiting, and I have toget to the gathering point before I’m late.” She walks away but stops and turns back again. “Oh, and Deputy Commander Foley sends you his regards. Have fun,” she chirps before heading into the forest, leaving me alone with the stranger.

Tate

We circle above Mount Albión.Its snowy peak concealed in a cloud, but my focus is much farther down anyway. I’m using Daeva’s view to inspect every moving shape down in the forest and every huddled form on the back of a bird, looking for Ara, but I don’t see her.

“Have you heard of anyone bonding her?” I ask Daeva, but she answers in the negative. Either she hasn’t bonded yet or Daeva simply didn’t hear about it. I hope it’s the latter.

While we continue circling, I see a rider ascending from the forest below. He doesn’t have a body with him, which is strange, and I try to ignore the nagging dread coming over me.

Foley wouldn’t send a rider to kill her, right?

“Her friend just arrived at the gathering,”Daeva informs me. Whether she’s talking about Calix Ilario or Mariel Tethys, they must know more. I want nothing more than to turn around and demand answers, but I can't since I have to stay up here.

“Can you ask his bird about Ara?”I beg Daeva, and her conscience turns away from me while she does as I asked. We glide over the gathering place, and I bite my tongue, waiting for her answer.

“Freshly bonded are worse than chicks,” Daeva grumbles.“When they left, she was well, she says.”She relays some images, and the coloring and distortion, next to showing Ilario, tells me they are his bird’s view. Ara looks thin and fragile with a sheen of perspiration on her brow. Fuck, she must have been sick or something.

“Only a few more hours and you can dote on her all you want. She’s upright and walking. That looks good enough for me,”Daeva lets me know.

Damn straight I will look after her. She will be a rider by the time she gets back and, therefore, no longer off-limits.

What if she doesn’t bond?

The thought pops into my mind without warning, and dread pools in my stomach. I don’t know the answer to that. We never talked about that possibility.

What if she decides to leave?

We keep circling, but I get more and more anxious. Why isn’t she bonded yet? Why has no bird snatched her up?

Chapter

Forty-Two

ARA

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