The first time I saw a battle crow armor up, its feathers turning sleek and metallic, I’d screamed. At four years old, I’d thought the crow was dying. Then it’d released one of its gold-veined black feathers like an arrow, and a Turren smith had dropped it into a melting pot over a simmering fire. When Estrel had explained it was how we made black gold, a rare metal stronger than the finest steel, I’d prayed to the Saints for a black gold weapon of my own.
Estrel remembered. She gave me my bow for my tenth birthday.
Ericen slowed his horse to walk alongside mine. “Does it unsettle you, knowing your people could betray you again at any moment?”
My head snapped toward him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh? I know before either of us was born, a group of your Turren riders attacked my mother’s family on an unsanctioned mission to avenge your father’s death. I know they were relieved of their crows and Lord Turren was banished.” He moved his horse closer, the hot flesh of the beast’s muscular body pressing against my leg. I couldn’t move away without threatening to step on the items laid out for sale or the people tending them.
Ericen continued, his voice soft and slow, savoring each word. “I know when my mother came to Lord Turren, offering him the power and prestige he once had, he sold his loyalty to her, and his men’s loyalty, and helped us destroy every single crow.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away, trying to block him out, to block the memories out. After the fires had burned to cinders and only the smoke remained, people had wanted blood. Caliza had to show them she was taking action, but nearly half our army came from the Turren Wing. The people she needed to enforce the hunt for traitors had been suspects themselves.
And I’d done nothing but hide in my bed.
Coward.
Slowly, I became aware of something digging into my skin and looked down. I’d twisted the reins around and around my wrists and hands, tethering myself to the spot.
Ericen let out a low, rumbling laugh and dismounted with two of his guards to look at the weapons set out for sale. I stared at my hands, adrenaline leaking from my muscles like water from a punctured jug.
Today was only the second day of my time with Ericen. I couldn’t face an eternity with him.
Loosing a quiet breath, I unwound the reins to reveal angry red and white flesh and stiff fingers. I massaged my hands and scanned the crowd, spotting Ericen at a nearby table and his men at the one across from it.
Even without black gold, Turren weapons were still highly sought after, but the glowering eyes of several smiths made it clear Ericen and his men weren’t welcome. Others, desperate for any coin, called them to their tables, forming a line of tension that turned the air thick.
Ericen’s guards didn’t pay him any attention. The prince ignored them equally, investigating a pair of slim daggers with tiny sapphires set into the hilt. I eyed the weapons. What would happen if I plunged one into Ericen? Nowhere fatal, just somewhere very painful.
If you so much as touch me, if you push me too far…
The words echoed in the hollow space inside me, and I longed to run from them, to hide. The sensation of angry, questioning eyes pressed in on me from all directions. I tried to meet them, but every black stare that gazed back replaced my emptiness with a white-hot weight.
My horse shifted nervously underneath me, whinnying. Smiths and sellers glared at the Illucians with open hostility, more than one with a hand on the hilt of a weapon. A Rhodairen man to Ericen’s left leaned to a woman beside him, muttering. His expression looked wrong.
A sharp clatter rang out. My gaze snapped to a nearby stand, where one of Ericen’s guards had carelessly tossed a dagger onto the table, causing it to topple off. “Worthless,” the guard said.
A scowl broke across the smith’s face. “Pick it up,” she said.
The guard snorted and turned away. The smith’s hand shot out fast as lightning, seizing his arm. A dagger shone in her other hand.
The action rippled through the crowd, everyone from sellers to patrons to the faces watching from the shadows going still. A space cleared around the two. Hands went to weapons. The air evaporated. In the heat and dust, my guards moved closer as a hush descended.
A flicker of blue, and Ericen shattered the stillness. He shot forward, breaking the woman’s hold and shoving his guard back a step all before I even considered intervening. The smith switched her hold on the dagger, and Ericen seized the hilt of his guard’s sword from behind, unsheathing it halfway.
“Stop!” My voice erupted, and I regretted the word instantly. The last thing I wanted to do was tell my people not to hurt an Illucian, but a showdown between elite Illucian soldiers and the weapons masters of Rhodaire would end bloodily.
For a breath, no one moved. Then slowly, the smith lowered her dagger and set it on the table. Her brown eyes never left mine. “Your Highness.” She bowed.
Only once her hand returned to her side did Ericen sheathe his guard’s sword.
“We should go,” I croaked, no longer looking at the smith, at anyone.
Ericen didn’t argue, the thick silence and dark looks probably enough to convince him. He swung back onto his horse in one fluid motion. “We’re leaving,” he said to his guards.
They didn’t acknowledge him, already at the next table as if nothing had happened.
Ericen’s face flushed. “Now.”
One of them looked back, frowning. He muttered something to the other guard, then they both mounted, and we set off. The feeling of eyes on my back dug in like claws, and I kicked my horse into a trot. I wanted to tell myself their anger and resentment was for the Illucians, but not all of it was. It was for me, for my abandonment, for my uselessness.
My throat tightened, and I urged my horse on. The smith’s dark eyes seared in my mind, burning with accusation.
Coward.
I kicked my horse into a canter, breaking away from the group as the road opened onto a broad street packed with merchant carts and people. My guards yelled, but I didn’t slow. The crowd parted, and I reined in my horse. Nearly leaping from my saddle, I wove through the vendors and shoppers and ducked into the privacy of a nearby alley, collapsing against the wall.
Anxiety writhed in my stomach. Pain, fear, anger—they infected every wing. Infected me. Where did we even begin to fix things? One crow might protect us from war, but what about the decay spreading from within?
Something prickled at the back of my neck. I pushed off the wall, turning, and nearly slammed straight into someone. I stepped back, hands raised, and found Ericen staring back at me with a smirk.
“You ran off,” he mused. “Your poor guards are frantic.” His gaze lifted over my shoulder. “Something interesting about this particular alley?”
“Anything’s more interesting than talking to you.” Before he could respond, I marched back into the crowd. The cool air wafting off the canal chilled my hot skin, and I made straight for a nearby House Cyro cart, where I paid for an orange cake in an attempt to pretend I’d simply been in a hurry to get dessert. Except my fingers fumbled the coins, and I gave the vendor a silver talon instead of copper, and I nearly dropped the cloth-wrapped bundle in my attempt to pocket it.
I forced in breath after breath, trying and failing to fight away my anxiety, and moved to the edge of the canal. Except the murky water, once kept pure and glistening by water crows, reminded me of why I’d bolted into the alley to begin with.
Ericen appeared like a specter beside me. I stiffened. He moved so soundlessly.
“You’re shaking. Is something the matter, Princess?”
Before I could respond, footsteps echoed from behind, and I faced my guards as they emerged from the crowd panting and flushed. I winced.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, withdrawing the orange cake from my pocket. “I saw the vendor, a
nd there wasn’t a line, and that never happens, so…” I trailed off when I caught Ericen’s smile. As if to say I could lie, but only because he let me.
The guards straightened, the one in the lead bowing his head. “Of course, Your Highness. Please just give us warning next time.”
I nodded, swallowing hard and addressing the prince. “If you’re not going to explore the market, let’s go.” I didn’t wait for an answer before cutting back through the crowd to where a guard held my horse. Thankfully, Ericen followed.
We mounted and set off along the next wing, riding in tangible silence. I glanced down at the orange cake in my hand, and my stomach roiled in response. I let it drop to the ground.
The delicately crafted statues and intricate carvings of the Brynth buildings passed in a blur, my horse following the ones ahead on its own. In my mind, the scene in the Turren Wing replayed over and over again. The Illucian soldier’s mocking words, the Turren smith’s disappointment as she looked at me.
A shadow fell over me, and I blinked rapidly, clearing fuzzy vision I hadn’t noticed. My horse had stopped, as had the others, and Ericen sat merely a foot away, looking down at me from his massive stallion.
“I said, what are these?” He gestured to the rows of pure white statues on either side of us, carved into figures twice the size of a normal person. Each stood beside the black marble sculpture of a crow, or what was left of them. Several had chunks missing from their wings and bodies, and one of the figure’s hands was missing.
More damage from Ronoch shoved to the wayside in the face of bigger problems.
“Saints’ Row,” I responded. We’d reached the other end of the Brynth Wing already?
“The riders you worship.” He said the words with derision.
“Some people do.” The stories said the Saints were the first riders, gifted the crows by the Sellas. Together, they’d built Rhodaire, and when the Saints passed, they ascended into godhood. Before Ronoch, I’d believed that as wholeheartedly as anyone. Now I wanted to know why they hadn’t helped us. Why they hadn’t protected us.
At the end of Saints’ Row stood a building nearly as large as the castle. The citadel, a place of learning and research, where academics studied architecture and chemistry, crow flight patterns and the origins of magic. Before Ronoch, it’d been the earth crows’ unending project, slowly expanding upward and outward like a living thing. Now the unfinished upper level sat exposed like fractured bones, scaffolding slowly rusting in the humid air and tarps flapping in the wind like white flags of surrender.
“They certainly didn’t do much for the people that did,” Ericen said.
I scowled. “If you want to find your own way back to the castle, that can be arranged.”
He raised a single black eyebrow, the unspoken reminder echoing in the hot air. If you push me too far… I looked away, and in that moment, I felt the eyes of the Turren smith on me again, dark with disappointment and shame.
I’d begun this tour with renewed confidence, then let Ericen take it from me without so much as a fight. My whole life, I had fought: for my mother’s approval, for my place as a rider, for my skills and strength and knowledge. I’d pushed unwaveringly, and when I had met a wall, I’d shattered it.
When had I stopped fighting?
No more. I was done.
Forcing a sharp smile, I met his gaze. “You know everything, don’t you? Who I am, what to say to make me react, how to use my people’s history against me. But if you truly knew everything, you would know better than to piss me off.”
“Are you threatening me, Princess?” His eyes flashed.
I kept my voice low enough that only we could hear. “Do you feel threatened? You’re practically alone in an enemy kingdom filled with people who would line up for the chance to personally disembowel you.”
“If a single person here touched me—”
“Your mother would rain down upon us with the full strength of the Illucian army. Yes, I heard you the first time.”
His jaw clenched, but I kept talking. “Don’t worry. No one’s going to touch a single hair on your pretty little head. But Saints damn me if I keep my mouth shut again. Your mother didn’t demand this engagement just so you could end it because your skin isn’t thick enough.”
He stared at me, eyes narrowed. I waited, my heart thundering in my chest, filling my ears with a roaring. What if I’d been wrong? What if this marriage really was simply a way for Razel to torment us further, and she would happily let it dissolve at her son’s whim?
Finally, the prince smirked. “Not as useless as I thought, it seems.” Tension washed from my shoulders, and he continued, “But I would advise you to remember that I have an army on your border, and your kingdom needs this. We don’t.”
I straightened, keeping a neutral mask. A small victory. He still held the power, but at least I knew, to some extent, Illucia wanted this marriage to happen. “Let’s go.”
I didn’t wait for his approval before urging the group on to the Garien Wing, once home of the storm crows.
As we passed quickly along the light stone buildings, their windows shining with stained glass of amethyst and saffron, cerulean and gold, each color flowing into the next like a sunset, I felt endlessly lighter. Better yet, Ericen remained quiet throughout the ride, even as we crossed into the Cyro Wing, where the memory of fire crows lingered in the scorch marks on buildings and in the street.
I glanced at my burned arm before I could stop myself, and when I lifted my head, Ericen was staring too. My face flushed, but I didn’t look away, waiting for the snide remark. Nothing came.
As we passed beneath a row of pale pink orchid trees, a hummingbird flitted out from behind the tree and zipped over to him, hovering excitedly at eye level. He watched it curiously, trying to track its movements as it jumped around his head, then sped off.
I blinked. He was smiling. Not the wolf grin that made my skin crawl. An actual, human smile. He saw me staring and quickly turned away, making a show of adjusting his grip on his reins.
He could smile at a bird, but me he had to drive wild?
“Princess! Princess!”
A trio of small boys came running toward us, their harried mother calling after them a step behind. The smallest of the three broke ahead, a broad grin across his face. One of my guards shifted, but I waved him away, and he allowed the boy to approach.
The boy raised his hand in offering. A single daffodil rested between his small fingers, the petals stark white as snow. Behind him, a trail of them led back to his mother and brothers, having slipped from his hand in his race to reach me.
I took the flower, the beginnings of a smile tugging at my lips. “Thank you.”
His mother called for him then, and the boy flashed me another grin before rejoining her. She bowed her head, and I nodded, watching them disappear down the road.
“When you’re done entertaining the riffraff,” Ericen intoned, “I’d like to get out of this miserable heat.”
We moved on to the Caravel Wing, once home to the city’s sun crows. After Ronoch, their absence had been felt the strongest. The crows’ healing abilities had been sorely needed. Nearly half the wing was educated in the healing arts, but they hadn’t been nearly enough to help all the injured.
I ran a finger along my scars, the daffodil still clutched against my palm. A sun crow could have healed the wounds before they scarred. They could have saved Estrel. For a selfish second, I wished the egg I’d found had been a sun crow. But that wasn’t what Rhodaire needed to survive.
Aris was crumbling bit by bit, more than I had realized. Seeing it had been painful. Seeing Ericen witness it had been worse. Though that pain lingered, this time, it didn’t overwhelm me. I couldn’t stop myself from snapping at Ericen, but as I watched his proud form, head held high, riding like a conqueror surveying his prize, I found I didn’t care.<
br />
I wanted him to know that I was angry, that as close as I’d come, I had not been defeated. Rhodaire had not been defeated.
I wanted him to know I would still fight.
Seven
Once home, I washed and changed for dinner, which Caliza had condemned me to eat with Ericen. We had to keep up appearances, but I would have rather stayed hungry, even though my appetite had started to return.
As I dropped into the seat across from Ericen on the patio, the door opened, and several servants stepped out carrying plates of food. They set the dishes on the table before bowing and returning inside. I didn’t so much as look at the prince as I filled my plate.
“I can tell this is going to be a very productive meal,” he mused.
“Here’s an idea. You sit there and eat your meal, silently, and I’ll sit here and eat mine, while pretending you’re not there.”
“Is that your plan for the rest of our lives or just today?”
My face broke into a scowl. “That depends. Are you always this much of a pain in the ass?”
“Are you?”
“Only to people who deserve it.” I stabbed a piece of meat with my fork.
Ericen smiled, and a glorious silence descended. Thick enough to cut with a knife, but quiet.
Then, “Your Turren Wing reminds me of the streets around Darkward Academy in Illucia. Everyone carries a weapon, and over half the shops sell them. I graduated from there a month ago.”
I leveled a flat gaze on him. Despite all our bickering, he couldn’t seem to let the conversation die. Like we could talk as if there weren’t a dark and bloody history between our people. “What in the Saints’ name makes you think I would want to talk about anything to do with the Illucian military? Or about you for that matter?”
Ericen didn’t respond, his gaze resting briefly on my scarred arm before he turned his eyes to the garden beyond. I wanted my gloves.
The Storm Crow Page 7