Page 120 of Wings of Destruction

I press my palm to his forehead. “If you have some final insult to throw at me, please. Just get it over with.”

He blinks, his double lids meeting at the center of his slitted pupils. You do such a lovely job of it yourself. You don’t need me.

“Go on, then, you overgrown lizard. I’m fine.”

Mozi takes me at my word and stretches his wings out to their full length. They beat toward the earth, sending him careening into the sky. I mark his departure until he’s once again a black speck in the sky and the potency of his hunger dissipates.

I’m left empty and weighed down with each of the notes its own separate anchor.

Now, what am I going to do about Morgan?

There’s no way for me to let her go now, not when we’ve exchanged such honesty back and forth. My heart clenches and stumbles over itself. Does she know who she’s been talking to? Who is on the other side of the pen?

Has she figured me out and the letters are her way of drawing me into a trap, waiting for the zenith moment to snap her iron jaws closed and mark me?

The girl in the cave certainly wouldn’t hesitate. If she’d been able to free my blade, she’d land the point between my eyes and be done with me. Here, there are eyes on her for most of the day, and the staff maintain their absolute control. She’d have no access to⁠—

I push up and pause to get my bearings. Scratch that. Morgan has absolutely had access to things she has no business accessing. Like using my private gym. She simply does it when everyone else is too exhausted to follow her.

Or stop her.

Where else has she gone in this place? What has she seen that she shouldn’t have?

I turn away from the castle and draw her note out of my pocket, the paper warm from being pressed to my skin. It starts hesitantly but then she holds nothing back.

She’s right, too. The monarchy is a sham, and our leader a puppet for my father’s desires. An easy to manipulate figurehead.

Morgan took a great risk in exposing her true feelings on the subject.

The clarity of her words speaks to a zeal and a heartfelt desire for lasting change. Then again, for those who have the willingness to bring about the change they want to see, there has to be a certain element of despair.

You have to be willing to go the distance, as I mentioned to her before. You have to do what it takes to be the monster who makes transformation possible.

Whether she knows it’s me or not, I have to get her to trust me, so she comes around to my side.

To my bed.

I glance up quickly and the wind slaps my face. No, I correct hurriedly, for the rebellion. She can be useful in multiple ways, but I have no idea how to justify training a maid.

This situation calls for care and strategy. There’s no good way for me to make it work even with my privilege. No doubt my father would hear of it immediately and march up to the castle to torture out my real intentions.

Training her out in the open might be a red flag drawing the bull off his path.

My gaze lifts to the sky above and the puffs of clouds like whipped cherry blossoms. The redheaded warrior has been a thorn in my side since she poked her head out of the caves in the mountains. If only she’d kept hidden. Things would be different.

We wouldn’t be in this current predicament. I wouldn’t be invested the way I am.

It’s always been a bit difficult to keep my personal feelings separate from duty. Now things are mingling in a muddled way I’ll never be able to untangle.

I shouldn’t want her but I do.

I wouldn’t consider bringing her under my wing, but I am. Ether take me, if she were any other woman, I’d have no issue relegating her to a separate box in my mind and going about my days.

There’s just no good way out of this. If General Ryson finds out about any number of illicit things I do, he’ll split me open from neck to navel. If he ever finds out I’ve kept the unicorn leader’s daughter alive and primed her for rebellion?

Worse. So much worse than a split belly.

Footsteps thunder behind me and a breathless Astrid calls out, “Your little pet maid is going to kill your future wife! You better get your head out of the clouds and get back into the castle.”