Page 109 of Shadows so Cruel

I clenched my eyes shut, the sudden understanding of how Sebian must have once felt over failing to protect hisanoaleylike a dagger between my ribs. “What do you advise me to do?”

“We cannot abandon the search, but I daresay that fate calls us to Ammarett,” Asker said. “However, we are in no shape to take the city and hold it, stretched thin as we are, with siege weapons undergoing repairs at Tidestone. It will take weeks for us to assemble a proper siege… months if rains come.”

Weeks.

Months.

I turned away and looked over the city for a moment, my entire body trembling with fury and fear. They would hurt her. Over and over again, they would hurt her, the way they’d done to me. Days. Weeks. Months.

Eternities.

In darkness.

“Announce that every Raven with a gift for war has to be ready to depart for Ammarett in the morning.” I’d never cared about the city. In the face of losing my little dove, I couldn’t bring myself to care about those men hiding inside it, oaths and promises be damned. “We’re not going there to conquer; we’re going there to get back what ismine.”

ChapterForty-Three

Galantia

Present Day, the belly of a ship

Time no longer passed in seconds, but the rocking ups and downs of the ship’s hull while I cowered, ensnared on a floor dampened with my own bile. The constant nausea had finally abated, not so much the rancid stench of my vomit and urine—none of which the men holding me captive bothered to clean.

No, they only ever came down here to offer me ladles of water, and once a tiny piece of hard bread. A handful of times, they’d lifted me up by my cage of knotted ropes, only to drop me onto a spot where I may or may not have retched my guts out yet. Then they disappeared, leaving me behind in the darkness.

And a good thing they did.

Joints stiff from lack of movement, I wiggled my hand past my torso, letting my fingers follow the hemp ropes. Where was it? Somewhere near these knots had to be—

There!

My pulse thudded in those fingertips I pressed into the depression of the worn rope, the last section I needed to cut through for my ravens to fit. But could I even still shift? In an attempt to preserve energy, I hadn’t put it to the test, but there was nothing to be done about that uncertainty.

Assuming I could, leaving the netting in the corner beneath the stairs might make it look as though I’d rolled there. They would come to investigate, and the hatchway may remain open long enough for my unkindness to escape.

Where to, I didn’t know, but any place was better than this. As long as we found islands, rocks, or even icebergs to rest our wings—depending on the ship’s course—we could make it to the mainland. And if we didn’t…? Well, the man I was heading to, andespeciallythe one on the deck, made death look like a friend.

What precious little remained of Malyr’s shadows at my core, I weaved around the ropes in tangles darker than my prison. They squeezed, chafed, and tugged the already worn section, fibers snapping like strands of hair.

My lungs expanded wider, perhaps my only notion of hope that remained in this place, pulling the foul stench deep into my chest. A chest that caved, a sudden stab radiating from my core like a newly mended wound pried open to bleed anew.

“No…” I whimpered against the roar of waves hitting the ship’s belly, sensing the shadows fade from my shaky fingers, leaving my void empty. “No, no, no,no.”

I leaned in and clenched the corner of my teeth around the rope, jaw muscles straining as they chewed on the fraying section. The coarse fibers scratched against the tender insides of my mouth, but I gritted through the discomfort, gnawing with fervor.

The salty tang of my saliva mixed with the musty flavor of the sisal. With a final agonized jerk of my head, the last fibers snapped. It was a small victory, but in a world bereft of light and hope…?

It was everything.

I didn’t waste another heartbeat and clenched my eyes shut, communing with my primal. Energy sliced through me.

We struggled onto our little legs, beaks lifting the rope and pushing toward the hole. We wriggled through the frayed hole one by one, each of us unfolding our wings as quietly as the air around us, carefully stretching them as not to alert our captors.

With a silence borne of urgency, we took positions around the net. Then, we tugged as one, pulling with all the combined strength our small forms could muster. The rope slithered across the damp wood, scraping softly as we maneuvered it under the stairs.

We darted over thick, heavy ropes, our talons quietly clattering over the wooden floor. We slipped behind something white and elongated, a rolled-up sail, perhaps. There we waited, and waited—feathers ruffling at every creak of wood, every stomp of a boot, every murmur of voices—a tight cluster of dread and anticipation. Our little hearts beat frantically as time stretched thin, yet we kept patient, our muscles tensed, ready for what would come next.

After something that had felt like both a moment and a lifetime, the hatchway creaked open. A man descended the stairs, his boots thudding heavily with each step, a lantern swinging in his grip.

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