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“Ayna.” He squeezes my name out between kisses. “Stop.”
I hear him, but my hands don’t. They slide higher to his neck, tangling with the silken strands of his hair, and Guardians, does it feel amazing when his mouth crushes down on mine again.
My lips are burning, and so is the rest of my body as I arch into him, my chest pressing against his hard one as I strain to turn my hips so our bodies line up.
“Stop.” When he says it this time, it is a growl of warning similar to the one he gave Ephegos in the dining room. “Stop, or what leash I have on my monster form will snap and?—”
He doesn’t finish the thought, and he doesn’t have to. It’s there in his eyes as he pushes himself up just enough to meet my gaze, the fear, the embarrassment, the vulnerability.
So, I don’t push him. Not on this. Because there are a whole lot of other things to push him on that will take my mind off what just happened.
“If you hate the idea so much, why marry at all?”
Myron gives a grim chuckle that I’ve learned to recognize as the harbinger of a new enigma. “I already told you I don’t have a choice. Not if I want to keep my court intact. Not if I want to appease the faction who believes the Crows have a better future. Or the others who want to keep the tradition upheld as a demonstration of our cruelty.”
He’s still leaning over me, wings braced apart, but the heat is gone, even when there’s a part of me that keeps demanding I study the mouth I just devoured in detail, that I remember every last sensation of whatever that moment was.
“And what about the attack Ephegos talked about? Why would killing any fairies hurt the Crows?” I hadn’t gotten sufficient feedback in the dining room before the smoke assaulted the hallway—another riddle I want an answer to. But one after the other.
Myron sighs and sits up, picking pieces of blue fabric from his fingernails as the talons retreat. I don’t dare glimpse left or right to see what happened to the cushions of the couch.
“After my father’s death, when we were unweaving the wards King Recienne had placed on my realm, some of my people—the ones who believe everything is righteous the way it is and brides are no longer needed—spent their nights haunting the females of the nearby villages.” He gives me a long look that should have explained everything, but I can’t bring myself to think what he’s implying. I can’t go there in my mind because that makes those monsters even more despicable than I initially thought. “Not all of the females survived the night, but some did, and they bore younglings from that one encounter. If what Ephegos says is true, those half-Crows are the only ones someone who hates us might be after.”
Horror spreads like a bitter tang in my mouth, eradicating Myron’s pleasant taste, and I close my eyes to drive the images out of my mind—images of burning creatures, winged or non-winged, it doesn’t matter.
Perhaps the lake in the spare bathing room isn’t a curse after all. Considering how violently it tried to smother me, it would do away with a set of flames easily. Of course, I don’t mention that to Myron. Instead, I ask the only question I can ask.
“If you can unweave wards and leave this forest, why not do so? Why stay here?”
Myron remains silent for a long while, and I start to believe he won’t answer. Yet, before the tension in my stomach destroys me, he nods as if in agreement even when he tells me that the wards aren’t the only thing keeping them here.
I try to wrap my mind around his response but can’t find a reason why they wouldn’t leave when they initially came from somewhere else… But that’s a topic for another day. Right now, all I want to know is why they haven’t left a long time ago. “So, what does? What keeps a strong and powerful people like the Crows in this tiny forest?” I don’t mention that I experienced the forest as anything but tiny when I tried to escape its borders.
“We lost a war, Ayna.” Myron’s gaze wanders the room until it lands on the door to the murderous lake. “Two wars, actually. My father was too cruel to make a real attempt at saving his people. He relished pain and fear too much to care about what happened to them. Let alone his brides.” A long pause fills the space between us, and I can almost hear the whimpering and screaming of the females who’ve come before me, the thrashing and gasping as they fought for their lives in this very room.
“But you are not like that.” Fingers shaking, I place my good hand on his wing where his forearm would be. Myron’s head snaps around, and his eyes lock on mine, full of doubt and disgust for the creature he is. But that isn’t true. If I’ve learned anything in the past days, it’s that Myron the Valiant is more than a torturing monster. Yes, he might be that to his enemies. But not to me. “You are better than your father.”
His chest heaves as I wait for my words to settle, as I count my own heartbeats while I wait for him to say something.
Eventually, he shakes his head. “And still, I’m not enough to save my people.”
It’s the blunt conviction in his tone that tells me he actually believes it, and despite everything—despite the fear and horror I’ve gone through since I came to this place—it breaks my heart that he thinks so little of himself.
“I thought everyone was responsible for saving themselves.” It’s a weak attempt at making him feel better but an attempt worth smiling through as I wait for him to look me in the eye.
As he does, a tingle runs through my body that has nothing to do with the beauty of his face and everything with the devastation on his features.
“Perhaps you can, Ayna. But I no longer can. Neither myself nor my people.” That he’d admit to weakness like that… Or is it just a belief? After over a century of ruling and marrying one bride after the other, stuck in this forest with no real prospect of escape, I might believe I can’t save anyone as well. Not that I could ever save him. He is a magical creature, powerful and strong and at the top of his species. He doesn’t need saving.
Maybe he does,a small voice at the back of my head tells me.From himself.
Twenty-Two
My boots clickalong the stone floor as I hurry down the corridor at Royad’s side in an ensemble of black pants and a lace-trimmed black tunic that are supposed to make me feel more comfortable as I step under the eyes of Myron’s court for my very first political meeting.
Two weeks have passed since the incident with the smoke, and I’m none the wiser, even when Royad and Ephegos spent hours briefing me on the ongoing conflict between the factions. At least, now I understand that some Crows believe that Myron will lead his people to freedom while others believe that freedom is something to be taken and Myron is a fool for negotiating for it in parts.
Ephegos brought me a book about the second Crow War, which I devoured even though my heart bled at the details of how the majority of their people were slaughtered by the fairies before being locked into the Seeing Forest yet again.
