Page 99 of The Belle and the Blackbird

“Shift into your phoenix form.”

“Now?” Ana pushed up from the dirt, sliding her pained back up the tree. She hadn’t known how broken she was from the impact until she tried to stand.

Elyria caught her before she could fall. “Now.”

Ana sidestepped Elyria and stumbled out of the way. She didn’t even know if shecouldshift, in as much pain as she was in, but the request sent fingers of dread spiraling through her. “Why?”

“Did you or did you not come to me intent on answering for your crimes?”

“Yes, but—”

“Shift, or die where you stand.”

Ana wrapped her arms around herself. The shakes had escalated to the point her teeth clacked when she tried to speak, so she gave up trying. Did it matter why the high priestess wanted her to shift? Elyria was right. Ana had come to answer for what she’d done, and it was not up to her how the Ravenwoods exacted their justice.

She shook her arms out at her sides and rolled her face upward. The convulsions might follow her when she shifted, but they would not plague her for long. Nothing would.

Tyreste, volemthe. Forgive me.

Ota. Niko. Grigor. Addy. Ludya. I will see you again by the wings of this life or the bones of the next.

Ana’s mouth became a beak, her arms stretching and shaping into majestic, fiery wings that she’d been proud of until Elyria had told her where they’d come from. Her phoenix form was not simply something she could call upon but an intrinsic part of herself, as much as her lungs, her heart, and her mind, so how could she ever separate herself from Mortain’s foul magic? Shewashis magic. Perhaps it was fitting to die in the shape he’d given her.

Elyria’s mouth twisted in scorn. Her nose twitched with every sprouted feather and elongated or coiled limb, as though witnessing the birth of evil.

As she marched toward Ana, one hand came out, and something cold and firm clamped around Ana’s neck. She flinched from instinct, but her neck was frozen in place, and she could not move the rest of herself either, only hover above the ground.

The high priestess lifted her dress and removed a dagger from her thigh strap without slowing. She paused long enough to look at Ana and say, “No bird can land without their claws. My council knows this. My people know this.” Elyria grasped both of Ana’s talons in her fist and severed first one, then the other. The pain blinded Ana until it was all she knew, the high priestess’s pronouncement relegated to another part of her mind. “And I will show them I have clipped the power from the evil haunting our halls. Fly now, bird, until your wings give out and you fall from the sky to the death of your own choosing.”

Elyria held the severed talons high for Ana to see. She slipped them into a pouch attached to her dress and gave them a loving pat. “There was a time when I called your father ‘friend.’ When he discovers his only daughter has been taken from him, I hope he understands our history is the only reason I am not now holding your heart in my hand. Your debt is paid, phoenix, and so long as he respects our skies, so is his.” She released the magical chain from her neck. “Now go.”

Ana commanded her wings to lift her higher, but she didn’t budge. Pain eclipsed everything else. Blood flowed from the place where her limbs had been severed, painting the stones in further evidence Elyria had dealt indiscriminately with the Ravenwoods’ enemy.

Elyria reared back, pursed her mouth, and blew. A fierce wind whipped around Ana, sending her spiraling up and into the air. Higher, higher she soared, caught in Elyria’s gale, until she was released and sent hurtling through the hail and snow hammering from the dark sky. Soon she couldn’t see the spires or the ramparts or anything at all. Her wings finally answered her commands, but without direction, she flapped in disoriented arhythmic jumps and falls, not knowing right from left or up from down.

I’m dying.It wasn’t a revelation but a call to action. She couldn’t die likethis, lost in mountains her people couldn’t reach. There was still time to make it to the village, and she only needed to reach as far as the paths went, and someone would find her body. She’d never again see her father or Niko or...

Tyreste. I love you. Forgive me. Forgive me.

Heartache fractured her focus, and she went hurtling downward. She called upon the last of her vigor to push her wings, strong and fierce even in their final throes, to find her way again, bracing through ice and snow and wind and leaving trails of blood in her wake. She opened her beak in what would have been a scream had she been Ana, but she would never again be her. The high priestess had heard her last words, and all that was left was to reach her people to offer closure.

I’m coming home.

For the last time, I’m coming home.

Chapter23

There Will Be No Rest

Tyr shoved past Ludya, swiping the unlit candles, papers, and stack of mugs onto the floor with one pass of his arm, beckoning wildly to Grigor with the other. He rushed to the bed, tore the sheet from the thin mattress, and returned to spread it haphazardly atop the wooden tabletop just as Grigor and Ludya eased Ana’s limp body onto the makeshift gurney.

There was so much blood, but it wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

“The bed would be simpler,” Grigor said, rifling through the bureau.

“She’ll need it for rest, once we’ve saved her,” Tyr answered as he joined in the search for anything useful. He chose to overlook the bigger man’s skeptical frown, becausehopewas all they had left, and Tyreste would hope enough for all of them.

He didn’t even know what he was looking for, butanythingwas better than realizing they’d taken her to the wrong place. Ludya had rented the room after they’d found Ana’s broken body twitching at the base of the mountain path.

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