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Ignoring the sting of the sand around her eyes, she pulled her scarf tighter around her face and turned her head away from where it was blowing in over the wall. It wasn’t the nightmarish sandstorm from earlier, but it wasn’t comfortable either. As if the desert were unsettled and continued to react.
Almost as if it worried it would be forgotten even after all the damage it had caused.
The horses were being moved to the stable for the night, their hooves clomping on the ground in agitation as their keepers worked to place gear meant to protect the horses’ eyes and ears from the grit.
Most everyone else was indoors now, a few stragglers working their way to their homes as they ended their day.
Only two of the townspeople heading home sneered at her in passing as she walked down the street, but most of the others ignored her, lost in the exhaustion of the day. She wondered if she could actually consider that progress.
What a sad thought.
Jace was again a ball of nervous energy next to her, pulling her by the elbow away from people if they stepped a little too close. Losing himself to a growl when one of the few people that noticed her gave her a look. He had always been protective, but not this much, and that worried her about what he thought might happen at this meeting.
The Cauldron was across the road with two personal guards, or Declan’s thugs as Justin jokingly referred to them, stationed on either side of the doors. The torches lit on either side of said doors fought to stay lit in the whipping wind, the soldiers like statues, hands on weapons, at the ready should they need to put someone down. Declan was going into overdrive if he had his guards posted outside, the men usually only working when readying to leave for trade beyond the walls of their town. He obviously felt he needed to make a statement.
A happy little thought.
Almost to the sheriff’s office, Bryn heard the small caw in the alley to her right between the buildings. Stepping away from the road, she watched Cyerra settling on a metal pole sticking out from the wall with twine knotted at the end, whipping in the wind where it had torn free from the other building. The clothes that had hung there were long gone.
“Come on, Bryn. We need to move it,” Jace grumbled, his hands in his pockets as he looked around the road, unable to stand still. His eyes constantly moved, assessing for a threat, so unlike the calm, even-keeled man he was only yesterday.
Holding a hand up for him to wait earned her a scoff as he crossed his arms and leaned against the side of the smooth redbrick building.
“Planning to follow me everywhere now?” she whispered to Cyerra, testing her limits as she put her hand out for the crow to perch herself on. Without hesitation, Cyerra flew to her hand as if this were something the two of them did regularly.
The calmness of the crow did not last long as a shadow fell over them, her feathers puffing up, and Cyerra let out a battle cry that shocked Bryn. It was far more intense than the one with the shadow man as it left the little beak.
“What have we here?” The voice moved over her like oil, suffocating her and stopping her breath in fear.
She watched Jace stiffen out of the corner of her eye, and he stepped back as if to put himself between Bryn and their new arrival.
“Bryndis, I’ve yet to see you back at services...” Scrios Arioch smiled as he prowled like a predator around Jace and toward her, stopping and narrowing his eyes at Cyerra before he pointed at the crow. “What is that? Is that a crow?”
Bryn felt Cyerra’s tiny claws dig into her hand, drawing blood at the man’s words.
“Go on, find somewhere to rest,” she whispered to Cyerra, hoping the crow listened.
Naturally the crow refused, not budging from her post until Bryn moved her hand, curling her fingers into a fist, no longer giving Cyerra the option to stay. Even though she did leave Bryn’s hand, she only went back to the metal rod, keeping her keen eyes on Arioch as if she could take on the man herself.
Perhaps she could. Cyerra hardly seemed normal compared to what Bryn had learned of birds from a time long ago. Nothing in the literature stated humans were able to communicate telepathically with their avian friends back then either.
The scrios clenched his jaw, his eyes moving from Cyerra back to Bryn as something flashed in them, but it was far too quick for Bryn to catch. Arioch looked back toward the Sanctuary where Niamh stood now, looking through the window at them, before turning back to Bryn. “Taken up a new line of work since medicine doesn’t seem to be in your wheelhouse?”
She wished she could have slapped the creepy, self-indulgent smile right off his face, but she didn’t think she would enjoy having to sleep with one eye open for the rest of her life when Mallory found out. No, her aunt worshipped the scrios almost as much as she did the god she proclaimed to serve.
At least his focus was off Cyerra.
“No, sir. You know my friend Niamh lives there, and I like to visit her.” She pasted on the sweetest smile she could without rolling her eyes. She tried, oh how she did try, to not lose her temper with these people, but they pushed at her control. Had she not grown up terrified of her aunt’s reaction behind closed doors, she would have liked to think she’d terrorize the people here as much as they did her.
As Cyerra readied for battle once again, the sound of ruffling beautiful black feathers resonated in Bryn’s ears, but she didn’t dare remove her eyes from Arioch.
The scrios stared back at Cyerra, a growl coming from nearby had Bryn hoping that meant Finian was close enough to jump in should Arioch try anything. The scrios wouldn’t use his hands, but instead his words, and they could be deadly all their own should the right people hear them.
“Well, one would think you a witch with the familiar the way you two act.” His smarmy smile had her freezing, as was his plan if the widening smile was any indication.
His graying hair was pulled back at his nape, his cold blue eyes frozen with maliciousness that could only be honed from years of hatred. She hadn’t realized he’d backed her up to the wall until she felt the bricks at her back, his arms quickly caging her in.
Jace was at his left just as fast, vibrating with anger and clenching into his hands into fists, ready to throw them toward the scrios. That was until he finally turned her way and caught the look in Bryn’s eyes.
