Page 37 of Feathers so Vicious

Well, pluck my feathers and call me a chicken. “You’ve never… What do you mean, you’ve never seen a real town before?”

“Tidestone has none of this. Only four walls holding the same servants, the same forge, the same kennels, the same thing every damn day.” She pressed a hand against the window, rubbing away the condensation with little squeaks. “The closest town, Glosten, is down the western road. Only a brief walk on foot, but I was never allowed to go there, not even during the harvest celebrations.”

I wasn’t going to pretend I knew a wit about noble life, but that struck me as strange. “Why not?”

“My mother is… a very protective woman.”

“Shouldn’t every mother be?” I asked. “As overbearing as they can be, it comes from a place of love.”

“Love…”

A shift—no, an actual roil—worked itself through my stomach. That word carried a strange resonance, like a sarcastic edge cutting through her undertone. Why? What was I missing here?

“Surely your mother loves you dearly?” She better, because if Malyr’s threats wouldn’t convince Brisden to give us Marla, we might have to rely on his wife’s pleas to make this exchange happen. “I’m sure she’s desperate to get her only daughter back, is she not?”

Galantia glanced back at me with utter disbelief about how I could possibly question it, made an insulted spluttering sound, and said, “Of course!”

Good. Because if she turned out to be worthless… if Brisden refused this exchange and landed us with this girl, I wasn’t sure what Malyr would do with her. Ortoher.

“I’ve never left Tidestone until we departed for Ammarett,” she said after a while.

Myprimalcroaked at my core and spread his wings, eager to force me into a shift at the mere thought of being stuck in one place. Cici’s words came to mind about Galantia being in need of books, making me think back on the conversation I’d had with her when I’d tended those cuts Malyr, the mean bastard he was, had carved into her. How she hadn’t even known that my kind had fated mates.

Used to, anyway.

Bonding one’s mate was more and more a strike of luck. Many of them hadn’t survived the war, leaving their fated other half with no other choice but to make do with another pairing. Or remain untethered. Forever alone.

Like me.

I turned and leaned against the stone sill, if only so I could drink in that unadulterated excitement on her face. “Do you want me to take you outside?”

Her gaze met mine. “To town?”

“I’m not sure you noticed, but your chamber remains unlocked. You’re free to roam.”

“Because you know I won’t make it far on foot in these marshlands. Presume it serves your kind well as a stronghold, easily keeping attackers away without trapping you in. You can fly, after all.”

For someone who’d apparently never left Tidestone, she was a sharp little thing. “Precisely.”

“I think it best to remain in my chamber.” She turned away from the window, but I saw how her shoulders slouched with disappointment. “I would, however, like to visit that library Cici had mentioned. If it’s safe.”

“Malyr never goes there, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He was a terrible book hoarder and had his own personal library for that very reason. Still, the idea of her going there alone didn’t sit right with me. “There’s something I have to do up north. Once I get back, I’ll take you.”

ChapterFourteen

Galantia

Present day, Deepmarsh Castle, library

Sunlight filtered in through the colorful windows that lined two walls of the massive library, casting hues of green and blue across the tall white shelves. They formed a labyrinth of corridors, the air between them thick with the scent of old dust, yellowed parchment, and traces of leather.

I ran a finger over the black pigment of the feather image that decorated the page in the book before me and pulled my knitted green scarf higher. It matched my dress, warding off the strange draft that cut through the corridors. I began to read the paragraph before me out loud, each letter an intricately formed work of art.

In celebration of King Barat’s betrothal to Lady Elnora, King Omaniel of House Khysal flew to the city of Ammarett to deliver his well wishes. Clasped in his beak, he brought with him hair pins made of aerymel and shaped in the image of feathers. These, he gifted the future queen consort of the kingdom of Dranada, for indeed the two-blooded maiden had revealed to be a Raven only months prior, when her gift of echo had finally presented after sixteen years of being believed to be human. When Lady Elnora thanked him, King Omaniel was forced to his knees by her voice. So taken was he by the sound of it—like notes strung together by the goddess herself and written into a melody of the life they ought to share by fate—he knew that he had, at long last, found his mate.

When I looked up at Sebian, he shook his head where he slouched in a chair across from me, his boots folded on the table. “You cannot tell me this is the first time you hear this story. Even if Tidestone rid itself of all these accounts, your father surely talked of these things?”

I sunk my head.

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