Page 12 of Feathers so Vicious

Not now, not like this.

“If I give you my name, will you let her go?” When Lorn nodded, I straightened as much as the fear gnawing in my spine let me. “I am Lady Galantia of the House Brisden, daughter of Lord Brisden.”

Sebian sucked a long breath of air through his teeth, but it was Lorn’s malicious grin that turned my stomach before she said, “Brisden’s daughter. Take her to Malyr while I try to track those soldiers who escaped with the golden bitch.”

Dread thrashed through me, but I breathed it down, desperate to salvage the little I could. “You’ll want to take my nursemaid as well. Y-you’ll need her. To chaperone me! If it’s my value you want, let me assure you, it lies in my virtue.”

“My value lies in my virtue,” Lorn mocked in a high-pitched voice as she rolled her eyes, then let out a laugh and pulled a black knife from her belt strap. “Love, you’re too old for a nursemaid. Time to grow up.”

She winked at me.

Then she stabbed Risa in the neck.

ChapterFive

Galantia

Present day, the village Larpen

Istared at the spurts of blood that sprayed from Risa’s neck in slowing intervals, my mind trapped somewhere between nerve-wracking shock and heart-breaking anguish.

When Risa’s knees buckled, Lorn gave a shove, letting her body slump to the ground. “There, I let her go.”

She skipped over Risa’s twitching body with the giggle of a scotch-hopper. Just like that. As if the woman bleeding out from her neck was more amusement than a hurdle. At her next step, she shifted into ravens and flew off.

My gaze went back to Risa. Thin, dark purple veins webbed across her pallid face, framing her mouth that gaped unnaturally wide, her tongue entirely black. Her twitching slowed. Slowed more. Stilled.

My heart stopped.

No, this couldn’t be.

“Risa?” Why my knees suddenly pressed into the bloodied mud, I couldn’t remember. Perhaps I’d collapsed beside her, trembling fingers stroking over her distorted face. “Please say something…”

Why didn’t she answer? My Risa always answered; she never ignored me, never pretended I didn’t exist. Except…

Risa was gone.

Dead.

A deep cleft cracked open somewhere in my heart, letting new pain pour into my chest until the pressure ached behind my sternum. I wanted to cry, and scream, and thrash, and wail, but I… didn’t.

Instead, I remained so still, breathing down each onslaught of hysteria with paced gasps. Exhale.Don’t cry, Galantia.Inhale.Don’t cry, Galantia.Exhale.Don’t you fucking cry, Galantia!

“Alright, up you go.” A set of strong hands clasped my waist, then the world shifted around me. With a thrust upward, Sebian hung me over his shoulder. “I’ll carry you to where you’re wanted. Be a good girl and save your antics for when I’m gone.”

I dangled upside down, chin shifting over the brown plates of his cuirass that smelled of beeswax and herbs, the leather chaffed as if he’d worn it for many years. The wood of his bow caught uncomfortably on my strands, pulling away on my overhead tangle of tresses, revealing a sight of utter savagery.

Women cried—clinging to fence rails, sat in front of shops among corpses, wailed over little bodies inside their homes behind open doors. Some clutched a hand to their lower bellies, while others hysterically bunched the cotton tatters of their dresses between their legs, wiping at their womanhood.

As much as I wanted to join in their agony, weeping would do me no good. In the back of my mind, I knew I had to fix my thoughts on how to escape my captor and reach Tidestone. No, not Tidestone! Ammarett.

“Who is this p-person you’re taking me to?” I asked, struggling down the shake in my voice. “This… Malyr?”

“Oh, I have no intentions of taking you to Malyr, and Lorn doesn’t fucking command me,” Sebian scoffed. “My job was to track you down, capture you, and bring you before the fate. Alive and unharmed were his words, which is the only thing left standing between me and a warm meal. If I take Brisden’s daughter to Malyr… well, sweetheart, we might find ourselves struggling with theunharmedpart.”

Blood pooled in my head, turning me dizzy and scrambling my thoughts. “Fate?”

“Captain Asker.” When the ground beneath Sebian’s boots turned from grass to wet leaves, his shoulder vibrated against me with a shout. “I got the girl from your vision!”

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