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Myron’s hips roll again, and he makes a guttural sound, reminding me that I might be playing with fire pushing him.
“If you keep this up, I won’t be able to stop, Ayna.” He throws back his head, resting it against the couch as I graze my teeth along the soft skin running from his neck to his shoulder—to where feathers form the beginning of his winged arm.
“Maybe I don’t want you to stop.” I’m not at all sure if I mean what I’m saying, but the way my body reacts to his touch is like a command, like an ancient call that makes it all but impossible to take my hands—or my lips—off him.
Myron’s hands slide back up my hips, along my waist, my shoulders, until he is cupping my face between his palms, and gently pulls me away from him. “Please, Ayna, not like this. Not when the Flames just attacked the palace. Not when myfrienddied defending my wife.” He clears his throat. “Not when you barely got away with your life.”
The torment in his eyes softens the blow of rejection, but I can’t help reeling in the heat inch by inch, and with it, the warmth spreading in my stomach at the thought that he might have wanted this just as much as I did a moment ago.
As I climb off his lap, my whole body is shaking as if remembering the exhaustion, and whatever pain I might be lacking on the outside echoes inside my chest like a reminder.
Twenty-Six
“The Flames?”My mouth is dry for an entirely different reason now as I settle on the other end of the couch, a good distance between us so I can keep my calm as he points me right back to the horror of devouring flames and Ephegos’s shape disappearing in a curtain of fire.
Myron inclines his head, all emotion wiped from his features as he smooths back his hair with his hands. His feathers shimmer in the dim light as if gilded by fairy magic. “Flames. Fire Fairies. The people who used to live in this palace.”
“Thousands of years ago,” I add. At least, that’s what I read in his history books.
“Thousands of years ago, before my people slaughtered them and took their home for themselves.” I can’t help but notice the bitterness in his tone. “Myfatherled the attacks, not me, in case you’re wondering.”
“I’m not.” Because I know by now that Myron would do many things, but he wouldn’t slaughter an entire people just to make a new home for himself.
For a few fluttering heartbeats, our eyes lock, and I could swear a shimmer of emotion swirls behind layers of all-black, but he sighs, and it’s gone. “The Flames built this palace. Every last torch you find in here is part of their magic—everlasting fire.”
As I let that sink in, my gaze snaps to the candle on the table. Not a single flame is dancing in this room.
“Apparently, my father wasn’t thorough when extinguishing the Flames forever because, over the past decade, the attacks have increased. And I’m not only speaking about the attacks on the palace. Houses burn—entire villages—where the remaining Flames wander. I don’t know if they merely want their home back or if it’s a personal vendetta against the Crows…” His words trail away, his gaze intent on mine as he studies my reaction, waiting for the fear to surface in my expression, the horror. But I’d experienced enough horror during those months in prison. I’ve nearly died too many times to shudder at the mention of an enemy who invaded the only place in the world where I have people I can trust. Only two of them know that Ephegos is gone.
A deep sadness overcomes me instead, and I lower my head, the weight of what happened crashing down on me.
“Ephegos knew,” I whisper. “He warned me to stay in your room.”
Myron shakes his head in silent denial.
“He warned me, and I didn’t listen.” The realization clenches my stomach like those razor-sharp claws most Crows fashion at the end of their wings. “He saved me, Myron. If I’d listened to him, he wouldn’t have needed to save me, and he’d still be alive.” Guilt washes through me, taking the familiar path the months after Ludelle’s death have carved out inside of me, the years of shame that were my childhood chiseled from my culpable self. My father is dead because of me. Ludelle and the crew are dead because of me. Ephegos is dead because of me. I might not have known him that long, but he was a smiling soul in the darkness of this realm. Someone who brought information. Someone I trusted.
Myron’s gaze weighs on me like rocks dragging me underwater, and no matter how much I want to, I don’t dare meet his eyes for fear of finding the same conviction in them that is tying me to the bottom of the ocean. But he leans toward me, hand finding mine in a tender cradle.
“You weren’t the one who killed him, Ayna. That was the fire of the Fire Fairies.” His voice is soft, soothing—and so full of anguish that I can’t help but lift my gaze to meet his as he tells me, “You are blameless.”
My heart bleeds as he absolves me of my fault, as I feel it deep in my bones that he means it, too.
“It doesn’t change that he’s dead.” I can’t help the tear sliding from my eye.
“Nothing ever changes what the gods will. And it seems the gods will for this torment to become even more brutal.” It’s an afterthought more, probably not intended to be spoken at all, but the words are out, and his eyes widen with horror as he realizes what he said. Horror—then shame.
Wondering what could have possibly destroyed this strong male’s confidence in this world so much that he perceives it as a torment.
A minute ticks by. Two. And we sit with his fingers wrapped around mine in silent companionship. Only when the darkness in the depths of myself threatens to leap from my chest to mingle with the shadows of his past do I pull back my hand and face the unharmed library.
“Will they attack again?” It’s easier to focus on the brutality of the assault that decimated his court than on the fact that we seem to have more in common than that unbidden attraction sizzling in the air between us. We both have suffered losses over and over again. I recognize a tortured soul when I see one, and Myron is definitely that. Only, he’s learned to disguise it better.
“It’s not the questionifbutwhen.” Myron’s lips are a tight line as he studies the burn marks on the wood panels leading from the door to the bookshelves. “They’ve come for us before, but never this many and never have gotten so close to—” When he stops himself this time, it isn’t because a spell is preventing him from speaking but because he chooses to drop what he was intending to say.
“Close to what?” I hold my breath, exhale slowly as he studies me across the space between us. Inhale the slight taste of soot in the air.
“To losing more than I can bear to.”
