“Why her?”
Bronwen’s lips pinch.
“I haven’t worked my ass off and risked my life for Lore’s cause to be treated like an untrustworthy idiot.”
Their shouting match makes Furia prance sideways and back. I grip him with my limbs as tightly as my lungs are gripping each one of my breaths.
“Because she’s immune to both obsidian and iron.” Bronwen’s tone whips Antoni like a jostled branch.
“She’s Cathal and—”
“Antoni—”
“Kahol?” I repeat. “Who or what is Kahol?”
“How’s that possible?” he murmurs.
Before I can make heads or tails of what is perplexing Antoni, the crow captures my attention with a low, guttural caw that sounds eerily like a warning.
“Sprite sentries are near.” Bronwen’s hushed timbre glazes my skin with goosebumps.
Here I thought the warning was for Antoni to shut his mouth in order to keep me in the dark. I’m so sick of the dark. I want answers.
The crow springs off the roof. As though a lead rope links his iron talons to Furia’s halter, my steed wheels around and takes off. I gasp as the reins hiss across the inside of my hands, welting my skin, then grit my teeth and hang on to my horse’s wild mane.
Before the forest swallows me whole, I glance over my shoulder at the tiny clearing and the shrinking figure of the ship captain. In spite of the growing distance and the teeming shadows, I don’t miss the tight pucker of his mouth and the twin slashes of eyebrows darkening his irises.
He’s displeased.
By what he’s learned about me, or because Bronwen forbade him from accompanying me?
I sigh, and focus back on the road ahead, mulling over the new words I picked up.
Lore.The master of these crows I must find.
Morrgot.Crow number one.
Kahol.An ethnicity? A thing?
If only I could speak Crow. Maybe Morrgot will teach me in between rescuing his friends.
I crane my neck toward the canopy of leaves, on the lookout for my winged scout. After several heartbeats of squinting, I catch the flap of wings.
Diaphanous, featherless ones.
I count two pairs.
The sprite sentries aren’t near . . .
They’re here.
Forty-Three
The two sprites drop in front of Furia like winged pinecones, startling my steed. The stallion rises onto his hind legs.
Oh Gods, oh Gods. . . I squeeze my lids shut and grip the animal’s mane for dear life. When his front hooves bang back into the earth, I’m miraculously still astride.
One of the sprites hooks an arm through Furia’s halter and levels a hard stare at my stallion, pinning his hooves to the gummy forest floor. The small faerie displays astonishing audacity, seeing as he’s half the size of Furia’s head and could easily be tossed away or chomped on. Then again, pixies are more attuned to animals than their full-sized counterparts.
