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A strange force wrapped tightly around my chest, squeezing it painfully. My hand shook, sweat dampened my forehead, the underbrush blurred. Only the fever. Nothing but the fever.
Do it.
Kill her!
I reached for her neck, only for my finger to sink lower. My digit brushed over a tousled nest of blonde strands, too gentle for her to notice. It was so soft, so bright. Goddess help me, why was she so beautiful?
My hand shook harder.
My muscles locked.
A silent roar of frustration tore through me. I wanted to kill her; I did! But I couldn’t do it, and I couldn’t do it, and I couldn’t fucking do it!
And I hated her all the more for it.
With a primal growl ripping from my chest that had her turn, fall, and scramble away with kicking legs, I tore away back toward the cliffs. My heart pounded violently against my ribs as if trying to escape the cage of my chest, mimicking my desperate need for escape from this place, this memory, this… girl.
“Lorn!” I reached out for her, finding Lorn’s hand in the obscurity of panic. Her grasp was icy, yet it was the only source of reality that seemed to make sense in the chaos. “Don’t let go of my hand, you hear me?” I said, our fingers intertwining tightly. “Do not let go.”
With a final glance back toward Galantia, who’d been smart enough to run back to the beach, I turned toward the yawning expanse of the cliff, the drop a void of nothingness that promised freedom or death or both.
And then, we jumped.
The salty spray of the waves beneath bit at the wounds on my soles. A shout ripped from my throat, part terror and part exhilaration. The shift came as naturally as breathing. My skin gave way to sleek black feathers, my body distorting and reshaping until, in a burst of black shadows, my unkindness cawed.
Lorn’s ravens flew right beside us.
Together, we beat our wings, our croaks merging with the rumble of the waves. That, and the echo of laughter, a haunting melody that would forever remind me of the girl who should have died at my hands.
ChapterThirty-Seven
Sebian
Present Day, Deepmarsh Castle
Eight days.
Eight fucking days wasted, freezing my tail feathers off—three to fly up north, and nearly double that to get back to where I should have stayed in the first place. Whichever pathfinder had reported Domren’s sighting far outside the walls of Ammarett had caused me eight nights of roosting between frigid winds instead of between Galantia’s warm legs. If I found out who that blind fool was, I was going to pluck him bare!
Because Domren hadn’t been there.
I brushed the light dusting of snow from the shoulder pieces of my cuirass as I strode along the corridor, eyes going to Galantia’s chamber door. The sun had only just peeked up behind the white-capped pines that lined the marsh toward the east, so she might still be asleep. Hopefully. I couldn’t wait to climb under the blanket, wrap myself around her from behind, and soak in her warmth. But not until I had the name of that incompetent pathfinder…
I invited myself into Malyr’s chambers, ears immediately twitching at the strangest sound. Not for the rustling of parchment that indicated he was already at his desk—he’d been struggling with insomnia for several weeks now. No, it was his muffled laugh, dull and breathy, as if he’d released it into a crumpled piece of cotton. I’d only heard him laugh twice before—both times I thought his mind was about to crumble.
The moment I stepped into his personal room, my feet froze right along with my heart, as if the chill of the north had followed me home. Galantia wasn’t in her chambers… because she sat at Malyr’s desk. On. His. Lap.
“I got it all wrong again, didn’t I?” she asked as she glanced over her shoulder back at him, dressed in nothing but her long-sleeved shift and a black scarf wrapped loosely around her neck. Oh, and Malyr’s wool-knitted quilt was draped over both of them, painting a surreal picture, but it persisted no matter how often I blinked. “These two are just so difficult to tell apart.”
“Yes, they seem very similar at first glance, but if you pay attention to the sway down here…” Malyr’s hand settled on Galantia’s, a quill clasped between her fingers, and slowly guided it to glide across the parchment before them. “You feel this?Zéis less elongated and more rounded at the bottom, like a lazy roll on a gentle drift during a summer morning. The letters of Old Vhaer are based on flight movements. Try again.”
Galantia nodded, which let her beautiful blonde tresses shift on her shoulders before she lifted the quill out of Malyr’s touch, only to place it back on the parchment. She squinted as she gave it all her focus, gliding the tip over it. When it came to a stop, she looked back at Malyr once more.
“Did I do it?” she asked with a cheeky grin.
Malyr’s lips parted, and he ran his tongue along the upper corner of his teeth, making it look like he was about to bite, but no, it was an actual fucking smile. “Make azé?No. But after five cups of wine, someone cross-eyed might let it pass as agé.”
Galantia laughed.
