AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s not like you have a choice, Wolayna. It’s not like either of us has a choice.
Does he not want to marry me? He is a king, for the Guardians’ sake. Can’t he just do whatever he pleases? It sure feels that way considering he doesn’t seem to care that what he wants will eventually kill me.
“Almost there,” Royad narrates from the back, his footsteps louder than usual with the pair of polished boots he’s wearing. Even the guards seem to have dressed up, their leather pants somehow smoother and the buckles on their belts and boots shiny like they spent the day polishing them.
“If you don’t want to run again, you better not mention how close I’m getting to being tied to a monster,” I murmur. One of the guards caws an angry sound while Royad squeezes in between the Crow and me.
His face is near human today, brown hair spilling in soft waves past his shoulders.
“You combed your hair,” I note, earning a grimace.
“Wouldn’t want to look like a complete savage on your wedding day.” His mouth features a smirk, but his eyes are serious as he tucks a few loose brown strands behind his pointed ear. Yet, it’s the absence of malicious glee in his tone that makes me lift my head and listen—really listen—as he tells me, “You would think I’d get used to attending Myron’s weddings, but every year anew, it makes me nauseous with anticipation.”
I wonder what he’s anticipating—the spectacle of my suffering or the festivities themselves. Since there are no female Crows, I wonder what a wedding with the bride the only woman will look like.
Before I can paint a horror scenario in my mind, we reach the end of the hallway, and Royad stops me with a claw to my shoulder. I flinch, but only just. What is one claw compared to the bonds awaiting me in the room behind those enormous double doors?
I glance to the guards left and right of the entrance to the throne room, and my heart sinks as they smirk at me—as far as bird-features can smirk. I feel it, though. Something is changing. Something is expected of me that I don’t know if I want to deliver. If it has anything to do with the monsters in these halls, it can’t be good.
“Be brave, Ayna,” Royad says, claws squeezing gently. “Don’t judge by what you see.”
He doesn’t give me time to panic at his words, waving his hand, and the guards pull the gates open, revealing the view of the throne room I’ve seen only once thus far.
It’s not the sheer size of the hall or the intimidating view of dark stone and sunset flames. It’s the crows circling from below the ceiling. They are bigger than normal birds, bodies shifting into those of Crow Fairies as they land. I spot a few beating their winged arms before landing on two feet. They can fly with those wings. My gaze shoots sideways to Royad, down the length of his feathered arms.
“Don’t fight him.” Royad holds my gaze as if he wills them to have a lasting effect on me, and a flicker of emotion crosses his otherwise impassive features.
I swallow the fear climbing up my throat, all the way past where a thinner bandage is covering the puncture wound from last night. My forearm throbs as if to remind me the neck isn’t the only place I’m injured. My voice trembles as I retort, “Isn’t it a bit late to give marriage advice?”
Royad shakes his head. “Not for your marriage. If you want a chance to survive, don’t fight him tonight.”
He marches ahead, not giving me time to respond. I wouldn’t have found words anyway, throat clogged with fear as I scan the room for the Crow King.
He’s right there, a dark, looming threat at the front of the room where he stands before his throne, features human and beautiful, winged arms at his sides as he stares right back at me between the crowd of monsters that seem to gravitate toward him. They settle in rows along the throne room, forming a corridor that ends by the door, right where I’m standing.
My heartbeat hurts, pounding in my veins like poison, and I wish it were. It would be a quick death then. But the depthless black of Myron’s eyes tells me the death he delivers won’t be quick. If I fight, it will be over before I can even take a breath to scream.
I don’t know what Crow weddings look like, but I know just looking at the hunger in his eyes that I will fight with all I have to keep this creature off me once the ceremony is over. Royad can go stick his advice up his ass.
“It is time.” The Crow King’s voice rumbles through the room, silencing the caws and hisses of his wedding party, and he holds out a hand toward me as if he has actually been waiting for me to arrive. As if he was looking forward to this occasion. The corner of his lips pulls up, and I can’t help but wonder if he is mocking me or if he’s just happy he’ll get another bride to kill.
Murderer, my mind spits.Monster.Abomination.
My guards flank me, their spears directed at my shoulders rather than at the onlookers who seem to be enjoying the view of me in this dress way too much for my taste. I wonder if they even notice the thick scar peeking out from under my dress between my shoulder blades or if they are too busy rejoicing in my downfall to not care about the marks life left on my body. They surely are not distracted by the bandages on my arm and neck.
I try not to care, try not to be afraid. To be brave like Royad said, though he’s not even a friend to me. I try to be the Ayna Ludelle would have been proud of as I set one slow foot in front of the other, controlling my shallow breathing and my speeding pulse. I will see this through because, if I don’t walk, they’ll drag me to the front of the room where King Myron is waiting, and beside him, an ancient man with human arms, back hunched and eyes so milky I can’t distinguish a color as I finally come to a halt a few steps from him, wondering if he’s the only other human in this palace.
“Ceremonial,” the Crow King hisses, and I notice his face has shifted into its beaked version. It’s not like I’m seeing him like this for the first time, but my stomach clenches anyway, and I have problems breathing. A monster. Not just by his actions but by his very nature. “Meet Wolayna, my lovely bride.”
Nothing about the way he looks at me speakslovely, but I am sure my own eyes are as hard as his as we stare at each other in front of hundreds of Crows.
The man with the hunchback must be a hundred years old at least, but something about the weary expression on his face as he inclines his head at me tells me he has suffered at least a thousand lifetimes. His ears are rounded, human, and that alone is proof to me, he can’t be here out of his own free will. No human would.
If I weren’t convinced before the Crow court was a death sentence, I would be now.
King Myron flicks his hand at the Ceremonial, who leans on his crooked cane, pulling the gray robes more tightly around his shoulders as he takes a step toward him. “Let’s get this over with. We don’t have all day.”
Both his earlier words and the disdain on his face as he glances around the room with a gaze as cold as ice make me wonder if the Crow King hates standing here in front of his people as much as I do. Yet, he doesn’t stop this. He doesn’t turn and walk away the way only a king can. He is right here, holding out his hand to me as if he’s done it a hundred times.
