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“Tell me about human magic,”I demand as we sit on the floor of the furniture-less room an hour later, sweat beading my forehead and determination burning in my belly.
Myron is in deep conversation with Royad, who joined us a few minutes ago with a report from the borders.
The way Clio’s copper eyebrow rises on her forehead is almost comical, but I keep my grin in. This is about life and death, and if not death, then freedom, which in my definition equals life.
“He didn’t already tell you everything there is to know?” She jerks her chin at Myron, and his gaze snaps to her for a moment while he continues speaking to Royad in a hushed tone. “What do you want to know?”
For some reason, I’m not surprised she’d offer what I ask, yet, I’m not prepared. I haven’t made a catalogue of things I need to know the way I once did with Royad when he promised he’d try to answer any question I came up with. So, I go with the first thing that comes to my mind. “Are there many humans like me?”
The sadness filling her eyes gives me pause, but she recovers quickly, her fingers smoothing out the sleeves of her plain linen shirt. She took off her leather jacket sometime during training when I managed to dip a string of water behind her collar.
“Not anymore. Thanks to my own people and their ruthless hunting of humans, whatever human mages existed were decimated in an attempt to seal us within the borders of Askarea.” She gives me a warning look. “And before you ask, this is a long story. Longer even than the one of how Myron and his feathery menace of a people got themselves locked in this forest. So, don’t ask.”
“Feathery menace?” Myron asks over his shoulder, and I know there won’t be any privacy, so I need to ask my questions carefully.
“What else would you call winged monsters who like to hunt down women and force them into marriage?” she offers without as much as a twitch of her features. That alone tells me she’s been around long enough to witness it all.
“He’s not a menace,” I jump in before we get off topic and I lose my chance at learning something of use.
“Really? He isn’t?” Clio’s gaze locks on mine as she tries to figure out something I can’t even figure out myself. “What would you call what he did to you then?”
“I don’t know—” I stop myself before I can ramble all the things coming to my mind—all the things I’m not supposed to even feel. “He’s just my husband, for now. I’m better off here than I was at Fort Perenis, so bringing me here saved me in a way.”
Myron’s eyes find mine, even when I’m determined not to look at him as I admit that small truth, and I can’t help the sensation of his caress, even when he’s merely staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have.
“It’s true. At least, the food is better here, and I get to bathe and wear decent clothes.” It’s a weak defense, but at least, it sticks to facts.
Myron’s eyes light up. “I wouldn’t call the dress you wore last nightdecent.”
Beside me, Clio snorts as if she finds the tension between us more amusing than the world’s best joke. “Focus on your cousin, Myron,” she says, waving off his gaze. “The Guardians know you’ll need a stand-in when your court finally comes for you.”
There is no affection in the way she’s speaking, only the understanding of enemies who’ve learned to work around each other over centuries of sharing a border—and a couple of wars, as Myron’s history books informed me.
“Wait—what?” I don’t know why I never asked that particular question, but now that Clio put it out there…
A good look at Royad tells me everything I already know. His tan skin, brown hair, and the scar running down the side of his face, ending at the corner of his mouth. The two of them look as different as two males could down to Royad’s broader nose and shorter, sturdier build. “Cousin? He’s your cousin?”
“Shocking, I know,” Royad responds when Myron is still gaping at the fairy princess as if she just spilled his best-guarded secret. “At least it explains why I’m sticking around the broody king, doesn’t it? Anyone but family would have long bolted.”
He’s joking. The grin on his face suggests he is, as does his tone, but for some reason, I’m too shocked to process.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I don’t know who I’m more upset with, Myron or Royad. I trusted both of them after all.
“You never asked,” Myron finally finds his composure. “How the fairy princess has heard about it, I’d really like to know, though, since it’s a secret that has been kept since the day our mothers were taken by the curse a few weeks after we were born.”
Guardians—what sick god would kill all the females of a species? Why? “What did your people do to deserve a fate like this?” The question bursts out without regard for the outsider with copper hair and her curious glances wandering between Myron, Royad, and me.
Apparently, Myron has forgotten she’s here, too, since he mentioned the curse. Or… “Does she know?”
My head whips toward the fairy princess, who gives me an innocent shrug. “It was a condition of the bargain. I’d help you in exchange for ceasing the supply of annual brides—and the truth about why they used to hunt them.”
Nausea like I haven’t felt since the day I first stepped onto the Wild Ray spreads in my stomach, and I have to flap my hand over my mouth to keep it steady.
“But you can’t talk about the curse…”
“She’s not a bride. I can tell her anything since she can do nothing about it. But she agreed not to share the knowledge as part of the bargain.”
A web of half-truths, that’s what I’m trapped in. No one wants to keep anything from me, but I can’t know things anyway because of who I am—because ofwhatI am to them.
