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I’m great at keeping balance on narrow paths, being a pirate and all. But this is an entirely different challenge. I’m used to climbing masts and nets, not walls. My only chance is to find an exit a level down or two where falling won’t mean certain death.
Before I can count the windows lined up beneath me, the door creaks open, and I almost fall on my ass as I jump away from my vantage point, pretending—without much success—I wasn’t just scouting for the best escape route.
“I thought they stocked your wardrobe,” the Crow King says by way of greeting, sending my heart into a spiral of panic.
“Don’t you knock? Is that a discourtesy a king is entitled to?”
He stares at me, features shifting from beak and feathers to human while he tucks his bejeweled hands behind his back, feathers falling along his arms like the sleeves of an eccentric jacket. Indeed, he wears a jacket—sleeveless and with a high collar that hides the silver pendant I spotted on him yesterday. “Bursting into their brides’ bedrooms unannounced? Yes, it is.” There is no sign of humor in his tone. Not a surprise. Of course, this monster of a king doesn’t care about something as trivial as privacy.
“Not yet.” I purse my lips as I bring as much distance between us as the room allows—and find myself with the windowsill digging into the small of my back.
“Not until Ret Relah, you mean.” He crooks his brow the way he did at dinner, and I’m reminded of how his power locked around my body.
I shiver. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“Which you don’t.” Before I can tell him to go cross Eroth’s Veil, he continues, “So, spare us both the drama, and pick a dress so I can introduce you to my court.”
“To your court,” I repeat like I don’t have half a brain to spare.
That costs him an uptilted corner of his mouth, and I can’t help noticing how painfully attractive that little gesture makes him, despite the all-black eyes. Then, I remember his true face, the feathers and beak and that horrible power of his, and my left hand aches as I wedge it between my back and the wood to protect my spine as I shrink farther into the windowsill.
“It’s only a week until Ret Relah.” He says it as if that were explanation enough.
Perhaps it is. In his world. But I have no idea what I’m dealing with other than a horde of monsters whose king I’m supposed to marry. No. Fucking. Way.
“I haven’t celebrated a Ret Relah in my life.” It’s the truth.
“Then it’s about time you started.” His half-smile has disappeared, nose shifting from beak form to human form and back as he waits for I don’t know what, standing motionless like a statue of death.
“I’m not planning on starting anytime soon.” Just becausehecan’t keep a woman happy longer than a year. That reminds me—“Can’t you get one of your old brides to return to you? That would spare both of us the inconvenience, and I promise, I won’t tell a soul.”
The Crow King turns and stalks to the armoire, throwing the doors open and randomly pulling out a dress. “They’re all dead.” He turns and tosses the black layers of fabric at me before heading for the door. “Put this on. I’ll be waiting in the throne room.”
He doesn’t look back, leaving me shaking behind the heap of silk and feathers. Before the door closes, I spot two feathered arms ending in claws holding spears, and I know, there is no escape.
Tears stream down my face as I strip out of my tunic and pants and tug on the dress, but I swallow them and wipe my hands over my cheeks to hide the evidence of my despair. A week. The transfer must have taken a few days and this is my second day at the palace. Only one more week before my fate is sealed. One week to flee from this fortress of monsters and make my way to the ocean where freedom beckons and I can follow those dreams of sailing east that Ludelle and I once shared. I bite back the inherent despair that comes with thoughts of the man with whom I’ve spent years on the Wild Ray, of the memories of brine and wind and the shouts of sailors.
The guards turn to stare at me as I cross the threshold, feathers flowing along my legs in a long, straight skirt. The silver-and-black belt reaches from my waist to just underneath my breasts where it kisses black silk wrapping my décolletage enough to not show cleavage. There are no straps or sleeves, and I have never felt so naked as I do when I walk down the stone hallway, followed by the keen eyes of the guards spaced out along the walls. They don’t bother to hide their stares, and I don’t bother to pretend I’m not noticing. I seethe back at them, holding my head high as I march toward the stairwell.
I have no idea where the throne room is, but instinct tells me, it must be behind the grandest door on the main floor, so I turn to where I spotted a tall pair of carved double doors. My gaze sweeps along the walls, scanning for doors or a window leading outside. Yet, besides the enormous entrance door, which is guarded by six beaked and clawed Crows, there is nothing.
Halfway down the stairs, a shadow joins me, and I leap to the side, grabbing for the handrail with my bad hand. I wince and curse, earning a questioning glance from Royad, who just scared me out of my wits.
“The king said you may need help,” he tells me as he stands there, feathers retreating from his head and torso like a layer that can be peeled off. It takes me a moment to get accustomed to the fully human features revealed in the process. And again, I startle as I take in his features, the way his voice just turned from a hiss to a melodious baritone. “Something wrong with my face?”
I almost laugh at the question because there is so much wrong with his face I can’t even begin to tell, and it’s not the scar making the corner of his mouth tilt up in what has to be the saddest half-smile of the century. It’s the way his human face is as stunning as King Myron’s. It’s clearly the fairy blood in his veins. No one is as beautiful as fairies—or so the stories say. The fairy guards at Fort Perenis were something to look at, but in comparison to this?
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“Good.” Royad holds out his clawed hand, feathers rippling along his wing-arm as he waits for me to take it. “Because you look like you just saw a monster.”
The way the unscarred side of his mouth tips up makes me believe he is actually joking.
This is the same male who poisoned me on the boat and brought me to this Guardiansforsaken place. I won’t take his hand.
He doesn’t seem surprised at my rejection, merely lowers his claw to his side where a long, brutal sword dangles on his belt—as if I need a reminder of the violence contained in that strange hybrid body.
“Is everyone here a Crow Fairy?” I ask because he is the one I need to fear least. He has done his duty and hauled me to King Myron’s palace. He’s also had every opportunity to kill me, has even threatened to do it, yet, I’m here, alive and breathing. And he is escorting me to the horrible creature whom he claims I am promised to.
