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“You failed us all, but more than that, you failed to save Sariell.” Malice enters his gaze, and I can sense the lake stir around me as if readying to defend. “I’ve waited for you to become vulnerable. I’ve waited for decades. And now I can finally take from you what you hold dearest.”
A personal vendetta and retaliation for the lost future of a people. My blood chills with every new revelation.
“No.” Myron’s voice rips through me like a whip as he slides in front of me, blocking me from Ephegos, who merely chuckles at what he believes is confirmation he’s right, and in my chest, an arresting sensation spreads as I comprehend what just happened.
What you hold dearest.
I could swear Myron isn’t breathing. Neither am I. He told me earlier that he loved me, but I dismissed it as something he couldn’t mean. Because the cruel Crow King certainly cannot love.
Yet, here he is, putting his life between Ephegos and me.
The bitter sweetness on my tongue has nothing to do with the aftertaste of blood as I realize what Ephegos had been about to say when the curse forbade him from speaking. Fall in love. That he’d finallyfallin love.
“It’s not like you can keep her safe.” Ephegos raises a challenging brow when I peek past Myron’s shoulder, my heart in my throat and the armor of water tightening as my entire being understands that blood has nothing to do with breaking this curse.
Love does.
All those moments when he’d gazed at me, studying me as if I were something to devour, it hadn’t been because he’d intended to murder me or because he was upset. He’d been desperately trying to fall in love with me.
Yet, they are all still winged and black-eyed. The curse is still in place.
Maybe he hasn’t succeeded. Maybe declaring feelings he doesn’t truly have was his last effort to break the curse.
I’m not sure if the sickness in my stomach is from my own blindness or from the way the lake is tying my ribs so hard it hurts.
Despite everything, he’s standing in front of me like a shield of wrath and fury, and I’d be blind not to notice he cares. If he doesn’t love me, he cares enough to not want to see me die. Because that’s the sort of fairy he is. Not a Crow or a Flame, not good or bad, not monster or knight in shining armor. He’s just. And he would hate watching me be slaughtered by Crow or Flame or by the curse the same way he hated to see Sariell die.
“Prepare for a new era, Myron, the Valiant.” Ephegos gives a tiny wave with his free hand?—
And the wall Myron has been maintaining with all his focus goes up in flames. The fire pours from every direction below the balcony where we’re standing. The hallways, the throne room, the front gate. Crows go up in smoke and sparks as the fire magic hits them, consuming them in punishing heat and devouring death. Myron’s hands are already directing his power to swish across the hall below, snuffing out embers before they can start burning again, but he’s already wasted too much of his power to hold off Ephegos after draining so much of his cache to fight the Flames before.
The lake coils around me, refusing to return to the battle, but I command it with my magic, shoving on and on until I meet one streak of fire after the other with lashes of liquid. My hands shake, and my breathing is uneven, but I push on. Thundering explosions splinter stone from the throne room threshold, scattering debris across the melee of feathers and fire, and I scream as a heatwave whooshes over us. Myron’s wing covers me before it can touch my face, but the way he quivers and spasms under the force of it sends panic through my veins.
Protect him!I command the water, wrapping my tear armor around his inflammable feathers then his entire body until he’s soaked. When the assault is over, he winces, but he doesn’t seem to be hurt other than a small burn on his back, which he turns to me to face down the enemy approaching with every breath we take. Ephegos and a cluster of Flames have made it up the first few steps, and the glee in their eyes as they find both Myron and me vulnerable makes me wish I’d never left Tavras as a youth.
Myron’s magic whips through the air, knocking back two Flames who tumble down the stairs with screams and curses, but Ephegos doesn’t stop to see if they’re alive or if yet more lives have been sacrificed in this endless bloodbath.
Below in the entrance hall, the moaning and crying caws of injured Crows are a tapestry to the slaughter by blade and fire.
“We’re outnumbered.” I stand beside Myron, forcing my water back into battle even if it costs me double the strength from when it’s willingly participating in my efforts. I can’t let them die, no matter whether they were on Myron’s side or on the side of the traitors. This isn’t just or right or anything other than a massacre initiated by one traitorous Crow with a taste for revenge. One Crow who had the king’s trust and pretended so he could sneak in our enemies when the time was right—when he thought he could hurt Myron the most.
But Myron isn’t the only one who was betrayed. “Royad,” I mouth at him when another explosion rains rocks and glass over the battle below. If he’s still in the throne room, there can’t be much of him left.
Horror of a different sort clutches me in a tight grasp.
“Royad can handle himself.” Myron focuses on blocking Ephegos and the Flames approaching. They are a quarter up the stairs even when Myron’s power is shoving against them with everything he has. The fire is draining too much from him, and if he keeps this up, he won’t have anything left to fight with when Ephegos makes it up the stairs.
I reach into my magic and draw upon the lake, urging it to attack Ephegos, to at least slip his blade from his claw. All the water does is retreat even farther, weaving around my body more tightly as it strengthens my armor.
Please,I beg it.Help me.
It’s not the water answering my call but a flash of silvery-blue that streaks through the halls, leaving icy crystals on walls and corpses in its wake.
Forty-One
My head whipsaround to find Clio’s copper head emerging from the smoke of the throne room. And beside her, Royad’s menacing form hovers with a broadsword in one claw and magic in the other.
Hope surges in my chest, loosening the layer of water to let me breathe more freely at the sight of Royad alive. He hasn’t betrayed us like Ephegos; instead, he’s gotten help. It’s only one fairy princess, but if there is anything I’ve learned about Princess Cliophera, it is that she is a force of nature. And if I didn’t know, the ice on the walls speaks for itself.
