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My chest aches as I realize how much I’ve come to care about the male who carted me out of Fort Perenis in a cage—at how that transfer in truth wasn’t one from prison to prison but one to a new sort of freedom. A second chance for my broken existence. A chance I am determined to fight for, now that I have people in my life again who I’m willing to fight for. People who I can’t lose or what’s left of me will shatter for good. The way Ephegos’s death still lingers like a leaden anvil on my chest is proof of what it would mean if Royad was taken from me—or Myron.
The thought of Myron’s feathers seared from his wing-arms, flesh raw and life fading from his eyes sucks the breath from my lungs, and my essence riots against the image, against the mere possibility. I try not to pay attention, or I’ll shatter right there in front of them both.
“Myron and I—or how you like to call him, Moron,” Royad laughs, and it’s a natural sound, a free one, despite the darkness of the situation, the prospect of another attack that could tear from us what we care for, “have come to the conclusion that there must be an ounce of magic within you, or you wouldn’t have been able to command the water.”
My jaw drops, and I need to remind myself to close my mouth as I let the idea settle in my mind. “That can’t be right.”
While I try to wrap my head around what Royad proposed, Myron takes a step closer, one hand raised as if he were going to touch me, then lowers it before he makes contact with my arm. “Think about it, Ayna.” He points at the pitcher. “You are the first bride since my father’s death who gets access to the sacred chamber.”
“Sacred chamber?” I’m not sure I want to know.
“The sacred chamber where my father used toinitiatehis brides.” His lips pull into a bitter line as he holds my gaze.
“What do you mean ‘initiate’?” Again, I have the distinct feeling that an answer might traumatize me more than it will do me good. But I can’t stop myself from asking anyway.
Myron swallows, blows out a breath, swallows again. “Long before I had my first bride, long before you ever set foot in this realm, brides used to be crowned on their wedding night. A crown that connected the new bride to all the other brides past. All the brides who died in my father’s care. All the brides who cried eons of tears as they were brought to the sacred chamber and declared a tribute to the gods by Carius, the Cruel. Brides whose tears now make up the lake who aided you as they buckled under the weight of the crown. The crown was a gift from…” He lets his words trail away in a cough, and I spot a fleck of crimson in the corner of his mouth.
He’s on dangerous ground, and we all know it. One more word could be deadly for him.
“It’s all right.” I hold up a hand to stop him, but he shakes his head, gaze wandering to Royad, who nods and sucks in a deep breath as he braces himself for the pain.
“The gods,” he finishes Myron’s sentence, and my heart is pounding in my chest as I wait for him to start bleeding.
“From the gods,” I repeat when both Crows fix me with watchful eyes, expectant eyes filled with both hope and terror I yet have to understand.
Until Royad’s words register and I realize the trickle of blood from Royad’s mouth stops the moment they do.
I gasp as things fall into place, and all of a sudden, the maze of information they’ve given me piece by piece smooths out into one landscape of raw horror.
“The gods cursed you?”
Nobody is more surprised than I am when Myron claps his hands and laughs, face lighting up like he’s seeing the sun for the first time in a century.
Twenty-Eight
The hairstill stands at the back of my neck when Myron’s laugh has stopped echoing through the stone room, and Royad has wiped away the blood, settling down on the floor by the wall and breathing heavily.
“I’m all right,” he tells us with a lifted hand to keep us from rushing to his aid. “Just a little winded.”
From speaking three words.By the gods.The Crows were cursed by the gods.
“I won’t ask you what gods,” I reassure them. Because if they give me any other piece of information, they might as well die on the spot. I can still see the fading hysteria in Myron’s eyes and the slow recovery in Royad’s.
“I’m not sure that’s a good thing.” The darkness is back in Myron’s tone, and so is the challenge in his eyes as he locks them on mine.
Resisting the sensation of being swallowed by their all-black depths, I turn to the pitcher once more. Because the water is how we got to the topic of the curse. The sacred chamber where the lake is biding its time to kill a new bride. It didn’t open for the ninety-nine brides preceding me, but it opened for me. Twice. I haven’t given it a proper thought other than that it must be evil, lusting to take my life. But maybe it was testing me that first time, measuring whether I am worthy or if I’d be easily killed off like the brides before me. But I can’t deny that the last encounter with the lake was beneficial for my survival. It is not wrong that the lake worked in my favor, dousing the flames forced upon us by the Fire Fairies.
I also remember the sensation when the water washed around me without touching an inch of my skin, almost as if it knew of my fear—of it and of losing the only source of information I have in this place. There’s something more to it, and I’m not proud that I haven’t pulled up the topic to examine it in detail the way past Ayna would have—before I lost my family, the man I loved, and my freedom. There is something not so human about having sacred lakes working on your behalf, and I barely dare think the word—magic.“You think I have magic?” It sounds as absurd spoken aloud as it did in my head.
Myron and Royad exchange another look, and I start feeling like I’m the only one here who has no clue what’s going on—not that it would be a first. It seems like not knowing what’s going on has become my new normal.
“I don’t know.” Myron finally faces me again, his features paler than I’m accustomed to.
With a shaky hand, I sheath my dagger. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Royad’s footsteps are audible for once as he paces around the room, sword in claw and features shifting back and forth in a nervous display of a grim human face and a dark-feathered bird one. I try not to shudder at the sight. No matter how many times I see them shift, it still shakes me to my very core when Royad or Myron do now that I’ve come to care for them. It’s a stark reminder of how different our species truly are. How different I am as a weak human.
“Something happened with the water that day,” Myron continues, his gaze never straying from mine. “Something that I’ve been waiting to happen again so I can be certain before I push this on you. But?—”
