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As if reading my questions and the astonishment on my face, Ephegos shoots me a grin. “How did I have a sister? I’m glad you asked. You remember the half-Crows the Flames used to burn down by the borders? She wasn’t one of those because she wasn’t only half-Crow but also half-Flame, and the Flames would never kill their own. She died because of him.” The wild accusation in his eyes as they slide to Myron hits me like a dagger.
A Crow-Flame halfling. And Ephegos betrayed his own people to take revenge on the male whom he blames for her death. The pain lining Myron’s features informs me this takes him by surprise as much as it does me, but he has a century-old history with the Crow who turned his back on him over a bride he had no choice in taking. Even if she was Ephegos’s blood.
I’m not even trying to interpret the meaning of my defending him. He’s the king of a cursed people. He even told me that, if the Crows or the Flames don’t kill his brides, the curse does.
“You don’t remember her, do you?” Ephegos rolls on. In his claw, a long, elegant blade gleams like a promise of pain as he brings his arms to his sides. How he drew it so fast is beyond me. His claws were empty a moment ago. “They all become a blur of faces and guilt.”
Beside me, Myron has become lethally still, the quiet before a storm I don’t want to get caught in, but I will if I don’t find a way to end this. Because none of the others will.
Courage is a fickle thing, which loves to flare at the most inconvenient of moments and then disappear once it’s shoved you into a situation impossible to maneuver yourself out of. As it flares in my chest, I’m not ready for it, but that doesn’t matter when the remainders of the lake are already collecting at my fingertips, receding from the rest of the room where steam turns to smoke and fresh wafts of burning stench float toward the top of the stairs. They weave around Myron’s wall only in thin streaks, but they are enough to show the Flames exactly where we’re vulnerable.
It doesn’t take a heartbeat for the first strike to sear past our defenses and barely manage to splash a wave of tears over the singeing heat to suffocate it before it can reach Myron’s chest.
“Hold!” Ephegos’s voice thunders through the entrance hall, and all attempts at picking up the battle where it had been left off are eviscerated by that foreboding rumble. There is nothing cheerful or mocking about Ephegos now. No teasing grin or knowing smirk. Nothing of my friend is left as he gestures with his blade at his king.
“I had hopes, Myron. We both had the same ideals. The same goal. To break the godsdamned curse and free our people. But you gave up.” His words are full of the sort of anger only desperation can summon in a person. The sense of helplessness brings out sides of people that should remain buried beneath their anguish. And Ephegos is showing us who he truly is: a male who lost the only family he might ever have—and turned on his king and friend.
Myron doesn’t lift a finger to stop him in any way other than the invisible wall I feel fortifying as the smoke is blocked out completely from the lower level. The amount of power flowing into that barrier must be draining him. His jaw is set, mouth pressed in a tight line as he listens to his friend’s accusations as if they were things he is telling himself every single day. As if the guilt isn’t new and the hopelessness is something they share.
“I thought you were different from your father, that you’d end this curse and free us. That you would keep trying to lead those brides on the right track so they had a chance at surviving. But yougave up. You gave up on all of us, and you locked us in this forsaken forest with your thoughtless bargains. But that was only the beginning. Then they brought in Sariell, and I begged you to try.”
My heart stopped beating. Sariell… The female Royad had brought up to distract Myron from telling me something that could kill us both.
“I remember Sariell.” Myron’s tone is so quiet and calm I can’t even fathom the amount of self-control he possesses in order to keep those emotions swirling in his eyes leashed. At the bottom of the stairs, Ephegos’s face twists with surprise and anguish before it sets into a mask of hatred that makes me believe he doesn’t care whether Myron knew her name or not. That the fact she’s dead is the only one that counts.
“I remember all of them.” Ice melts from Myron’s tone, but that only makes it more dangerous, and I’m not the only one who feels it. Around the room, Fire Fairies and Crows are cringing. All but Ephegos. Ephegos who’s seen it all. Who’s seen Myron at his best and at his worst. Who knows how well he can hide his emotions and how he’d never hurt the people he cares about. And he cares about Ephegos. He might not like that he still does, but I can see in the conflict spreading on his features that he does.
My heart bleeds for him—for both of them and the impossible situation they have been stuck in.
“I remember what it’s like to watch the light leave their eyes when the curse takes them. I remember the blood on my hands when I try to save them after my own people try to end their lives. I remember every burn on their skin whenyoupeople take them with swaths of fire.” Myron’s hands are trembling, and I can imagine he’s ready to bring down the entire palace while all I can do is wait with whatever’s left of my powers to erase the fires that are surely coming.
“I bemoaned each and every death. I did it when my father was still in charge, and I am doing it now that the burden has fallen on me.” His gaze turns lethal as he stares Ephegos down like the king he is. “You never told me she was your sister.” There is no apology in his tone, no plea for forgiveness because he’s said it all in the way he remembers his deceased brides.
The Flames flanking Ephegos adjust their stances, readying for an attack.
“Because it wouldn’t have made any difference. But if you must know… I didn’t dare intervene with her out of fear of diminishing her chances to beat the timely way the curse takes your brides’ lives and out of hope. You sealed her fate by marrying her. And I’d hoped you’d do better with her. That things would be different with her. That you’d finally fall?—”
I’m still trying to figure out why he stopped mid-sentence when I spot the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. The curse—and I taste iron on my tongue as if what he was about to say would have killed us both. A shudder runs down my spine as I realize that nothing has changed. My formless spilling of blood hasn’t done a thing to lift the curse.
“Thank the curse for tying your tongue, or I’d tear it out with my bare hands.” Myron means it. I can tell by the panicked glance he shoots my way.
“Fall?” I whisper, earning a head shake while the taste of blood remains a bitter reminder of how tied all our fates have become. Ephegos doesn’t need to stab me in order to kill me, and judging by the death in his eyes, that’s exactly what he wants to do.
“Why didn’t you come tome?” Myron demands, turning back to Ephegos, who seems to both wither and bloom under the king’s stare. As if he’s been waiting for exactly that question.
A determined expression spreads on the Crow’s face, and I know that whatever comes next will determine if there is a peaceful solution or if this is the end of all of us.
“Your father was a mad man, Myron, and wrong about so many things. But he was right about one thing.”
“And what is that?” Myron asks the question his friend has set him up for, playing along as if there is nothing else he can do. Because there are too many Flames in the room and not enough Crows on our side to stand a chance at defeating them.
“We are strong. With or without the curse broken. We are a new species for a new era, and we deserve to be free. You never saw that. All you saw was the guilt of our ancestors. But we are not them. We deserve a fresh start. And you’re not willing to let go.
“I’ve always defended you when it came to whether or not you are the right king for our people or whether we don’t need a king at all. But after what happened with Sariell, I realized they were right. You didn’t only give up. You sentenced us all to eternal punishment. Trapped and solitary. There is no future for us in this cursed forest. And the Flames offered me the perspective I’ve found you lacking for the past decades.
“I managed to hide her for centuries, fostering the hope that this was the beginning of something better for all of us. A new family we could build. But your bargains with the high fae led me to believe you no longer cared about a future for his people. So, someone had to build a revolution to bring you down. Someone had to send assassins and let the Flames in so they could send retribution for what our people did to them.”
I realize only now that the way Ephegos speaks, the way he’s dressed, the weapon clutched in his claw… He no longer sees himself as part of the Crows. He’s found a new family with the Flames. One that Myron couldn’t give him.
