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It’s been a long time since the Tavrasian king’s name came up, and the shudder at the mention of King Erina Latroy Jelnedyn is no less intense than the last time Myron brought him up.
“You’re not intending to tell him of our deal, are you? He doesn’t need to know…”
“He doesn’t need to know,” Myron confirms before panic can take me. “That, however, doesn’t mean he won’t hear about it from one source or the other.”
“Does he have spies in Askarea?” It’s the only logical explanation since I’d be surprised if any of the Crows wandered out of the Seeing Forest to inform the Tavrasian king themselves.
“Kings have spies everywhere, Ayna. Just because they are not walking right under our noses doesn’t mean there aren’t those who carry information out of the Seeing Forest. The Flames aren’t the only ones unhappy with our presence in this realm.”
I gnaw on the meaning of his words, on the multiple possibilities of who—besides King Recienne and his court—could even know about the Crows in Eherea.
“Word of the next bride who died always makes it out of this palace somehow,” he explains. “Why would it be different with a bride who survives?”
“Survive—” I echo, breathless from the hope I’m fighting from welling up. “Let’s learn how to fight immortal monsters first.” It’s a weak attempt at humor, and Myron doesn’t buy it—or he’s offended by the use of the wordmonsters, for he shoves open the door to the training room, all the openness vanishes from his gaze and the mask of the unbothered king pulled up once more.
It takes me three heartbeats to digest the sudden change and another three to understand that it’s not because he is shutting me and my concerns out. It is because of the copper-haired female leaning against the wall beside the weapons rack, arms crossed over her chest and a smirk on her full lips that distracts from the challenging sparkle in her jade eyes. If it weren’t for the uniform-like leathers she’s wearing, I could have mistaken her for a beautiful fairy bandit, but she’s Princess Cliophera, and frost cracks at her fingertips as she drums them along her biceps.
“I was beginning to think you were trying to trick me, Myron,” she chirps with saccharine friendliness that is by no means genuine. Quite the contrary. One look at me and her expression shifts to one of professional assessment. “So, it is true? You want me to train her?”
“What?” The word flips out without my permission as I whirl on Myron. “You could have told me.” Told me that I am supposed to train with a high fae—one whose brother is holding the Crows’ freedom in his hands with the bargain he offered Myron decades ago.
“I wasn’t certain she’d show.” Myron slides his fingers around the edge of my waist, grip tightening as if he’s readying himself to yank me out of the path of a wicked fairy attack.
Cliophera pushes away from the wall, a chime-like laugh bursting from her lips. “You think I’d let down a female trapped in your little realm of torment? You think wrong.” She prowls closer, every movement graceful and feline, predatory and deliberate. She is lethal as much as the Crow King beside me.
My heart is in my throat by the time she comes to a halt in front of me, raking her gaze down my body, up again until she finally meets mine.
“Let’s have a little fun, Wolayna, shall we?”
Thirty
What the fairyprincess has in mind doesn’t even describefunin the loosest of my definitions. Frost is covering her fingers, running up her arms and weapon as she draws her blade to point it at me.
Myron’s wing shoots between us like a feathery beacon of defense, but I have my dagger at the ready—both daggers since my bad hand needs the exercise.
“That’s not what we agreed upon,” he snarls, stepping into the princess’s path, death in his eyes.
But the fairy princess vanishes from my view—blatantly disappears like she never existed in the first place. I gape past Myron’s shoulder, lowering my center of gravity for faster reaction in case Princess Cliophera decides to return with a vengeance.
“It’s not,” she chirps from behind me, the sweetness in her tone dripping down my neck as she places the tip of her sword at my nape. “But I’d like to see how skilled your bride is otherwise before I work with her on her magic.”
I freeze in place, and it’s not because her frost extends along her blade right onto my exposed skin.
Myron has turned to face her over my shoulder, and there’s menace in his eyes. Menace and terror. “Don’t forget we have a bargain.”
I’m not sure if he’s speaking to her or to me. Only the way Princess Cliophera’s blade slides away from my neck as she gives an unbothered laugh informs me it’s her. “How could I forget?” She stalks around me, winking at me as my gaze snaps to hers, my heart still hammering like it would rather gallop to the ends of the horizon, as far as possible from this Guardiansforsaken place.
“You made a bargain with her?” Now it’s me who has menace in her voice as I demand from Myron what, by all his cruel gods, he thought by making a bargain with the entities forcing his people to remain restricted to the Seeing Forest.
“I can train you in swordsmanship, Ayna,” he says softly, as if it were only the two of us in this room. “But you have magic. Magic I don’t understand. And to train that, you’ll need someone who understands human magic.”
“A fairy?” I don’t even try to hide the panicked giggle bubbling up in my throat. “What does a fairy know about being human?”
Cliophera kicks a pebble into the nearby corner and gives me a meaningful look. “I never said I knew anything about humans. Only that there is someone I know who used to be human but has been alive for over a century, and she is wielding some kick-ass magic.”
There’s nothing I can say to that.
The fairy princess swaggers back to the weapons rack and picks up the pitcher of water at the foot of it while Myron leans in to whisper close by my ear. “I don’t trust her, but she might be the only one willing to help us.”
