by Ivy Asher
I don’t pay any attention to where I’m being taken I’m so hell bent on trying to get out of the guard’s hold. So when I’m dumped on my ass in what looks like some kind of church-like room, I’m surprised. A huge boot immediately pins me to the ground by my throat. I’m already struggling to catch my breath because this fucker just knocked the wind out of me when he threw me down; the boot to the throat is completely unnecessary.
Good thing I ripped out a chunk of the fucker’s armpit hair just before he dropped me. I add that to the score board of hits and then squeal and try to get out from under his boot. I wrap my legs around his tree trunk thigh and go for a good junk hit, but he’s too tall for me to connect properly. Fuck. Why didn’t Sutton teach me how to get out of shit like this?
Fucking Gryphons and whatever growth hormone that makes them giants!
I gasp and sputter when the guard applies more pressure to my airway, but I can’t stop fighting. I don’t exactly know what the Vow is and what all it entails, but I don’t want it. I have the sinking suspicion that it will mean that I can never get home, and I can’t have that. It’s the only thing I have to hang on to. That may be pathetic or delusional, but it is what it is.
Something hard and cold is pressed against my neck, and a slight stinging sensation there has me immediately going still. I pull my focus away from kicking in the guard’s dick and realize that one of the women from the Syta’s entourage is crouched next to me. And yep, she’s holding some kind of knife to my throat.
“Leave us,” she orders, her green eyes fixed on mine.
I realize quickly that it’s the seer-slash-lie detector chick. Ryn said she’d turn a blind eye to my half-truths. Despite the knife at my neck, a flare of hope goes up inside of me. Ryn said he would get me out of here, and she must be it. I release a relieved breath, grateful that he wouldn’t let this happen to me.
The guards that brought me here hesitate.
“I said leave,” the woman barks out again, and this time, the mountain sized males hurry to listen.
Heavy footfall moves away from me. I lie still, the blade nestled against my throat as a door closes and the room grows quiet. I pant from my escape efforts and from fighting the guards, and wait for the green-eyed woman to tell me that it’s time to run and get me out of here.
“Listen carefully, Ouphe Born,” she starts, and a sinking feeling in my chest warns me that maybe she isn’t the savior I was hoping for. “The Altern said we can’t let them mark you, which means we have to do to you what we did for him. I’ll mark you, but not with the Vow. It will be a dead marking. It will look and smell right, but nothing more. It will hurt, and we don’t have time to waste.”
At first I picture the mismatched eyes of the Avowed Altern and wonder why he’d be the one stepping in. But I quickly realize that she’s talking about Ryn. She presses the knife harder against my neck, and I can feel warmth spill around the blade.
“Here’s the thing, little one, you have to stay away from Lazza and his advisors at all costs. If they try the mark, they’ll know it’s not right, and you will have just exposed everyone who has one. Lazza doesn’t know that we can do this, and if you’re the one to reveal it to him, I’ll kill you. Do you get me?” she asks, the question more of a growl as she pulls the dagger from my throat.
I give her a frenzied nod yes.
“Roll over,” she commands, and she shoves my shoulders to hurry me into action before I can so much as blink and respond to the order.
I move the rest of the way to my stomach, and I feel the blade of the dagger she’s holding slice through the top of the shirt I’m wearing. I want to protest because this is the only article of clothing I possess, and it’d be cool if she didn’t shred it, but I worry she might get stabby, so I shut the fuck up. I feel her grip the back of my neck, and surprisingly there’s heat where her palm and fingers meet my skin.
I gasp, and then I’m suddenly not there anymore.
It hurts so much. Why does it hurt? I struggle to get away from the hands holding me down in my bed. My screams are accompanied by a rhythmic chanting, but the burning I feel everywhere overshadows it all. I writhe and beg for it to stop. I can just make out my mom and dad.
“Mommy, please, it hurts!” I wail and struggle harder to get away from the hands and the pain they bring with them.
“Shhhh, I know, My Heart, it’ll be over soon. Be strong, my girl. Be strong for mommy.”
I keen and plead for it to stop, but it doesn’t. The fire wants to eat me up whole, and no amount of screaming or begging will keep it from consuming me.
4
“Wake up,” a growly female voice demands.
My cheek lights up with a stinging sensation, and I can feel someone shaking me.
“Wake up!” the voice orders again, and this time I get a hand up before she can slap me another time.
“What the hell?” I groggily ask as I come to.
I catch a flicker of relief in the female lie detector’s green eyes before I look around and try to make sense of what’s going on. I’m still in the weird chapel-esque room. There’s an altar-like pulpit at the front of the room, and pews all lined up like they’re ready and waiting to worship and watch whatever Vows or other bullshit goes down in here. This is the only room— aside from the dungeons—that I’ve seen that isn’t capped by crystal walls and iron. Instead, the whole room is the cream stone I’m used to seeing at the Eyrie, with images of mythical creatures carved into the corners and ceiling. The non-fire torches make the lighting and feel of the room eerie, and I’m instantly not okay with having been unconscious in here.
What happened?
The last thing I can remember is this green-eyed chick threatening to kill me if I exposed their secret and then grabbing my neck. I reach back and rub at the spot where she had her hand.
“Did you do it?” I ask, not feeling anything different back there.
I scan the room again, but I don’t spot any mirrors or other reflective surfaces that I might use to see what’s going on back there.
“It is done,” she answers, but there’s something about the look on her face that gives me pause.
“What happened?” I query, self-consciousness and anxiety slamming through me as I study the haunted light in her eyes.
“What did they do to you?” she asks me almost on a whisper.
I’m confused for a beat by the question. “What did who do to me?” I demand, even more alarmed as she unsteadily moves away from me. “What are you talking about? What did who do to me?” I ask again when it seems like she’s about to make a break for it.
What the fuck could have happened that would have her so fucking freaked out?
“Remember what I told you.” She whirls on me in warning. The fear and trauma are suddenly gone from her eyes, and they’re once again hard and angry. “Stay away from Lazza and his followers. They’re the only ones powerful enough to know your mark is wrong, and they can’t know no matter what. It would mean the death of hundreds.”
With that, she stomps out of the room through a side door I’m just now noticing and leaves me a pile of what the fuck in the middle of the floor. I rub at the back of my neck again, weirded out that there’s something there and I still have no fucking clue what.
For some reason, I picture a big black dick inked on the back of my neck, and I can’t help but snicker. I blame the shock of everything that’s happened and hope to fuck this isn’t some messed up prank. Although at this point, I’d take the big black dick over the real Vow mark any day. I’m shaky as I stand up, and my borrowed shirt slips off my shoulders. I hold it in place against my chest and groan. Of course my only piece of clothing is once again in fucking tatters. It’s like this world wants me to be naked all the time.
No one comes in to retrieve me, and I have no clue what to do now. Thoughts of escape float through my mind. Oddly, the fake Vow sits heavy on the back of my neck. As much as I’d love to figure out how to get out of here, it’
s probably not smart. The seer’s warning rings in my mind again, solidifying my thoughts. If I try to run and they try to stop me, I could give myself away. I don’t want to be responsible for blowing hundreds of people’s cover. I also have no idea where I am and how the fuck to get out of here, so there’s that too.
This bullshit tale is way too frustratingly familiar. It’s like being back at the Eyrie, but with more people who look like me, and I’m rocking a tattoo now. Fucking hell. I sit down in one of the stone pews and stew in silence. I’m one fucked up, ragamuffin-looking gryphon shifter who can’t currently shift and just went from the frying pan into the motherfucking fire. Or maybe I’m just in a bigger frying pan...I guess time will tell.
I run my tired hands over my face and feel utterly overwhelmed and exhausted. Devastation slams into me out of nowhere, and my eyes prickle with unshed tears. How is all of this happening to me? I rub my face, refusing to let any of the tears fall. I’m so fucking sick of crying and feeling helpless. I try to think through the lessons that Sutton taught me, but thinking about him makes me think of Zeph...and then Loa and how he stepped in to save her. Then I’m forced to think about what happened between me and Zeph because of it, and all of that just pisses me off.
Lying asshole.
He’s pretty much the fucking reason I’m here, and I swear on everything, if I ever see him again, I’m going to deck him so fucking hard it will break his face. I give a humorless snort. Who am I kidding? That would probably just turn him on and shatter my hand in the process. I look down at my punching hand and flex it. It’s all healed up from my loss against the gryphon’s face earlier when they pulled me out of the water.
Stupid, stupid, stupid me for getting caught.
I rest my forehead against the back of the pew in front of me and try to think through the now what that’s swirling inside of my head. I have a fake mark that apparently will trick everyone as long as I keep my head down, and Ryn said he’ll get me out of here. So I’ll just lay low and try to figure out what the fuck to do around here until my asshole in shining armor can whisk me away.
Anxiety creeps in and starts to strangle that plan. Ryn will take me back to the Eyrie of the Hidden, and I can’t go back there. If Zeph doesn’t try to kill me, I might just try to kill him. Either way...it’s a bad idea. Maybe I can convince Ryn to help me get home? I immediately dismiss that thought; Ryn has never been game for the I’m going to leave plan, and I don’t think he’s going to go out of his way to help me now.
So that means I’m back to square one. I need to either find my own way home or go track down the mysterious Ouphe that were marked on the map that’s now sitting at the bottom of some lake. It’s possible that they might be more on board with the let’s activate the gate and get the fuck out of here plan, but not before I give them what they want first. And in there lies the issue. I have no clue how to do that.
A door opens quietly, but I don’t even bother to lift my head to see who has come in. It’s probably just a guard ready to drag me off to whatever hovel they’ve decided I can now occupy...now that I’m one of them.
Fuck my life.
I miss my bike and my freedom and...hamburgers. I’d fucking kill for a big ass burger and a pile of fries right now.
“Who are you praying to?” a warm voice asks me, and a massive body sits down in the pew on my left. A tree trunk sized leg rubs against mine, and I tense.
Shit.
Pretty sure the flower-loving, dimple-chinned male, who happens to be Lazza’s little brother, is square in the category of Lazza cronies that I’ve been warned to stay away from. I peek over at him. He’s about Ryn’s height, which means he towers over me by at least a foot, but he’s bulky like Zeph. I take in his mismatched eyes and his silky white hair, and mentally compare it with the disguise he wore earlier. Surprisingly, I prefer him like this. I shake that thought away and release an empty chuckle.
“I was praying for a hamburger the size of you and an even bigger mountain of fries. Not to any god though, there’s no way those assholes exist, or I wouldn’t be here right now,” I tell him, turning my head away and letting the cool stone of the pew against my forehead soothe me.
“Ah,” he states simply, like he actually understands what I’m saying.
The room falls quiet again. I’m not sure how long we sit in companionable silence, but I’m pulled away from my thoughts when I feel his fingertips tracing the mystery mark on the back of my neck. I tense, and his fingers pause their perusal. I should slap his hand away, but I don’t. I just sit there. After a beat, he continues to trace the mark that’s there. Maybe I want to see what he traces so I can better understand what’s there, or maybe I just need a comforting touch in this moment, but I do and say nothing as his hand draws out the symbol now on the back of my neck.
He traces what feels like the arc of a rainbow and then moves his hand lower and traces an upside-down rainbow. It’s like a circle almost, but the two sides don’t connect. His fingers gently move to the middle of the two arcs where the shape he reveals feels like an eye that’s missing the iris and pupil. A long vertical line comes down through the middle of it all, and a dot at the bottom is pressed into my skin by his soft touch. His hand goes still for a moment before he traces a new line slowly down my spine.
Goose bumps spring up on my arms, and for some reason, this touch feels different than the one that was just tracing symbols on my neck. I sit up and scoot away from him. My movement seems to snap him out of some kind of trance, and he clears his throat and sits up a little straighter. A flicker of apology fills his eyes, but he blinks it away and runs his mismatched gaze over my face.
“You must be tired and hungry. I’m to escort you to your new quarters and make sure you get settled in,” he announces somewhat formally, and the warning the green-eyed seer spy who marked me rings in my mind again.
“Why you?” I blurt and then instantly regret it.
Nice, Falon, the goal is to stay under the radar, not piss off the royal family two seconds after you get your bullshit mark.
“I mean, it seems like a menial task that I’m sure any old guard would have been perfectly capable of,” I add in an effort to seem less rude.
“True, but then you’re not just any old female, now are you?” he states with a wink and then stands up.
I have no clue what the hell that’s supposed to mean. My initial instinct is that he knows somehow about my time with the Hidden or the dangerous power I’ve been told I hold, but that seems like an overreaction. If he knew all of that, I don’t think he’d be calmly escorting me to my new house or quarters or wherever he just said he’s supposed to take me. Then again, this could all be some fucked up elaborate trick, and I’m about to end up back in the dungeon on some sicko’s torture table.
I guess I’m about to find out.
I stand up, my shirt gripped firmly in place at my chest, and wait for him to show me which path I’m destined to tread. He moves smoothly down the aisle, and I’m once again taken aback by how gracefully gryphons move in spite of their gargantuan size. I fall into step behind him and shield my eyes as we step out of the dimly lit chapel into the bright crystalline building.
He walks over to a door across the corridor and pushes it open. I follow him out onto a balcony, and I’m forced to jump back in surprise when enormous white wings spring from his back. Another shocked squawk escapes my mouth when my own wings shove their way out uninvited. It’s like they saw what he was working with and said hold my beer. I teeter from the unexpected arrival of my onyx feathered appendages, and Treno reaches out to steady me. He has a goofy grin on his face as he does, and my brow furrows with annoyance.
Just what the fuck does he find so amusing?
I tie my mangled shirt halter style around my neck and waist and grunt in satisfaction when it stays put, covering everything I want. Treno gives a quick flap of his beautiful snow-white wings as he watches me, and not to be outdone, my wings give a flap of their own. I
glare at them over my shoulder and send a stern mental cut it out. We’re not three years old, and this is not the copycat game.
Treno chuckles quietly and then announces, “Follow me, flower.”
With that, he leaps off the open crystal balcony, and his stunning wings work to propel him up. I look around at all the structures around me. They look like odd, naturally formed high-rises. They aren’t tidy and right-angled like the cityscapes back in my world, but more organic and wild in their structure. It almost looks as though the Avowed chose skyscraper-sized crystal clusters to hollow out and then fortified the gem-like shells with iron veins and borders.
The buildings gleam and shine like diamonds under special lighting at a jewelry store. It’s breathtaking and disorienting. I look down, hoping to give my retinas a slight break from the shiny onslaught, and see neat and tidy streets below. Dots of people move like little ants beneath me, and other dots fly to and from other balconies like the one I’m standing on.
I take a deep breath and then leap off my perch. Immediately, cool crisp air fills my feathers, and I swear I can feel the wind embrace me and whisper welcome back as it whips past. I release a sigh and relax as a sense of rightness and belonging lifts me up like the current I seamlessly begin to ride. I move higher and higher away from what I now realize is an island that the Avowed call home, into the open sky. Each flap of my wings wipes away the fear and tension that has been settling into my muscles since I flew off the balcony of the cliff castle.
My life and world may be in shambles, but in this moment, flying through the bright blue cloudless sky, this is where I belong. The white-winged Treno hovers on a strong current like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I watch him for a moment and wonder what his deal is. Why was he out there in the Amaranthine Mountains? Why is he here now with me? It would make more sense to me if he dropped me off wherever it is they’ve decided I’ll live and then went on with his life as the second in command of the Avowed. Or if he treated me like the prisoner I clearly am. But instead, here we are like a pair of lazy seagulls just riding the wind for who knows what reason.