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If we survive this, I’ll marry you and take you across the oceans to whatever new world lies hidden in the east, Ayna.
There is no new world for either of us, no getting away. His soul has crossed Eroth’s Veil, and mine is trapped in a nightmare. There is no future for either of us. No love. No getting away. If I have no other comfort, I have the thought that he’ll be there beyond Eroth’s Veil, waiting for me with that soft smile and those warm brown eyes, arms and heart wide open for me.
Or he’ll despise me because it was I who caused the slaughter. Ludelle wouldn’t have tried to get past the guards if I’d been able to hold my tongue and swallow the wince of pain when they’d poked my shoulder blade with a sharp-pointed sword. He would have been alive—imprisoned like me, but alive.
I try to tell myself that I could have changed the course of his fate—of my own—had I only been stronger. But the truth is that my ending up here has nothing to do with Ludelle or the Wild Ray. This is about my father and his treason.
The sun crosses the sky as I spiral deeper and deeper into despair. I get out of bed only long enough to use the bathing room and glower at myself in the mirror. Naturally, Myron chooses exactly that moment to make an appearance. I’m surprised, though, to hear him knock rather than barrel into my room the way he seems to prefer.
“I’m not dressed,” I call over my shoulder, examining the bruise spreading under the bandages on my neck.
Maybe he’ll leave me alone if he has the decency not to want to walk in on me naked. Not that I really am naked. I am wearing the oversized tunic from my first night at the palace.
The door creaks open, and I glance at my useless hands that won’t allow me to wield a weapon—not that there is any weapon to wield. My heart beats in my throat, making me forget the pain in my chest and arm.
“I’m here to see if you are ready.”
I freeze in place, gray eyes wide in shock staring back at me from the mirror. The door is only half open, but I feel his presence as if he were standing right beside me.
Before I can make up my mind whether I should tell him to get lost, King Myron appears in the doorway, tall and clad in black finery so elaborate it almost makes me skip over the feathers on his arms where his jacket is missing sleeves. His face is fully human, no hint of bird or monster—only those all-black eyes that consume me as they track the shirt down my body to where it ends at my thighs.
I lift my chin. I have no way of covering myself, so I might as well own it. “Take a good look,King, because this is the last time you’ll see this much of me.”
He shakes his head as if trying to get rid of an unwelcome thought, but his eyes linger on mine. “Why aren’t you in your wedding gown?”
I ignore the way my pulse jolts at his gravelly tone, at the way he pins me with a gaze for the first time in a week. I definitely ignore the strange sense of relief coming with being acknowledged by the monster in whose palace I’m trapped.
“I already told you, I’m not marrying you.” The words are out before I can help it, and I brace myself for the strike, for his magic that can bind me or shove me or break me.
It doesn’t come. Instead, his lips tip up on one side, and he leans his feathered shoulder on the threshold. “It’s not like you have a choice, Wolayna. It’s not like either of us has a choice.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
“What will you do if I don’t?”
There is violence in his eyes, and my heart thuds harder, almost racing out of my chest.
“You don’t want to test me, Wolayna.” The warning is clear, and I don’t find my voice to object as he stares me down
His wing rustles as he lifts his hand to point at my hair. “Are you planning to keep it like that?”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” Not that it matters. It never mattered on the Wild Ray.
He shakes his head, heading back into the bedroom. I don’t dare follow him, tempted to shut the bathing room door to bring some distance between us, but he reappears before I can move. In his arms, he holds a gown of—surprise!—feathers and black fabric. I feel like I’m being transformed into a Crow by merely wearing the clothes provided. Maybe that’s what will happen after I’m married. Then again, Royad said there are no female Crows.
“Put this on.” He gives me a warning look as he sets the dress down on the stool where Royad placed me that first day after I fell from the shelf and leaves the bathing room, closing the door behind him.
I am so stunned I don’t think when I reach for the layers of tulle and feathers and lay them out so I can see what I’m about to wear when I stride to my death.
Ten
The fabricsof my skirts hiss against the stone floor as I make my way down the stairs, Crow guard on each side and Royad at my back to oversee the guards’ duty. His presence puts me only slightly more at ease. Since King Myron left my room not even half an hour ago, between me putting on a dress that revealed entirely too much of my chest to feel comfortable and Royad picking me up for the ceremony, I have cried gallons of tears and died a million deaths.
Now I’m empty. That leaves too much space for the fear I pushed back so well while I untangled my hair and braided it in an ash-blonde coronet around my head. It’s far from fancy, but it allows me to move without my waves getting caught on the feathers climbing from my waist over my breasts where they separate into two thin straps that make me wonder if they might snap if I even breathe wrong. I don’t complain though. I haven’t worn something this fine in my life, and when I looked at the mirror before leaving the room, the dress allows me to acknowledge I gained back a few missing pounds. The thought alone makes me feel stronger.
But I’m not at ease. I’m too fucking scared of what the next hours will bring to even consider taking that breath that could eventually destroy my dress.
King Myron’s words haven’t left my head, hollowing me out little by little as I try to make sense of them.
