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With shaking hands, he produces a folded piece of wrinkled parchment, which he holds out to me with an expression resembling death on his usually so well-schooled features.
I take it with equally unsteady fingers, opening the grimy paper, which holds one single smear of blood on the outside, and I hope it’s not Ayna’s.
The Crows are free, but I have their queen.
I recognize Ephegos’s handwriting in an instant, and the power surging through me threatens to destroy me piece by piece. There is no threat added to the note, nothing other than a fact stated like a promise of torture. If Ephegos knows I’m alive, I can’t tell from those few words he scribbled.
“I’m going to destroy him.” My entire body is shaking again, and this time, I don’t even try to pretend I’m in control.
Royad merely places a hand on my shoulder, the touch tearing straight through my chest as I sense his support, his love, his loyalty to both me and my wife.
“I’ll be right there with you.” From the outskirts of the clearing, males in leather pants and boots step into view, their gazes all shades of brown to blue, and their mostly dark hair longish and bound with leather strings. Their chests are naked, as are their arms where once feathers spread over wings ending in sharp and deadly claws. “As will they.”
They bow their heads as I look upon the remains of my people. These twenty beings right here are the last of my species left in this world. The gods nearly reached their goal of letting us come to extinction. They cursed us, tortured us with each new bride we lost, each time we gained hope and lost it so bitterly. With the divide the curse created in my people. But Ayna saved us, and we’re finally free.
Now, we’re going to free her.
I close my eyes, sending my fae power into the world in a silent call for Ayna’s presence?—
And wait with my thundering heart for a sign that Ephegos hasn’t taken her life as well.
