Morrgot has iron appendages.
Morrgot is leading me into the mountain to find another crow like him.
Lore’s crows.
Santa merda . . .
I just got into bed with my people’s enemy.
Forty-Five
My heart has been pounding out of alignment since I made the connection between Morrgot and Primanivi.
What if Morrgot isn’t leading me to the other crow? What if he’s leading me straight to his master? And what if this rebel leader takes me hostage and uses me in his war against the Regio dynasty? What if he has no intention of helping Dante take the throne? What if he intends to take it?
Gods, what have I gotten myself mixed up in?
Why me?
Just because I’m related to a man serving Lore’s cause doesn’t mean I’m on board with it. Not for the first time, I chide myself for rushing into something without analyzing its every facet.
I glance over my shoulder at the ribbon-like trench we’ve been traveling for hours now. I could jump off Furia and run down. It’s not like we’ve taken any turns, which, in all honesty, is surprising. Wouldn’t a tribe of rebels make the way to their land more difficult to reach? Then again, we haven’t crossed paths with a single guard, so this trail mustn’t be known.
I eye Morrgot, an ink blot against the lightening sky. Would he attack me with his armored talons if I renege on my offer to find his metal cronies, or let me go unscathed? What if he chops me in half like those two sprites?
Their mangled bodies flare behind my lids, and I shudder. If only I’d had the prescience to carry an obsidian spike. I pat the satchel nestled against my chest to locate my knife, but my palms are so reddened and blistered I can hardly feel a thing. When nothing spiky pricks my fingertips, I release the reins to open my bag.
I slip a shaking hand inside and find the canteen, slick with a condensation that feels divine against my aching palms. I root around for the rest of my supplies—the bar of soap I swiped from Giana’s bathroom, the logs of goat cheese, the wedge of hardened pecorino, the crackers, the fruit paste, the knife. My fingertips meet only coarse jute and the cool metal of my canteen.
I peer into the bag, in case, by some miracle, my numbed fingers missed colliding into my provisions. But no. Everything’s gone. Just, gone.
Skin tingling with alarm, I feed my entire arm inside the bag to reach the bottom. When my fingers slip through a hole the size of my fist, I suck in a breath.
I want to rage at myself, but that won’t miraculously replenish my rucksack.
Perhaps this is a sign I should abandon this mission here and now, before I starve to death and end up in a crevasse in Monteluce, lying beside that second crow I’m supposed to succor.
But then what?
I return to Tarelexo and behave like a model citizen so Silvius doesn’t toss me behind prison bars or prematurely push me into Filiaserpens?
My forehead prickles from someone’s scrutiny. Since Furia’s concentrated on the arduous ramp ahead, and no other being seems to inhabit this part of the kingdom, I deduce it’s Morrgot. Sure enough, when I flick my gaze in his direction, I find him staring.
In that moment, I’m glad he’s not a man because a man would’ve judged me. However assessing the crow sometimes appears, he’s an effigy come to life. Not even a real animal, which means he cannot possibly be endowed with true sentience or logical thought.
I fish out the canteen and take a swallow, hoping it’ll tame my annoyance. As though to wind me up, my stomach decides to growl. I plug my canteen and eye the yellow moss peppering the sides of the trench.
I almost reach out and rip off a chunk, but many faerie plants have side-effects, and I’m not in the mood to experience one of them.
Besides, I’m notthathungry.
* * *
Hours later,although Furia’s the one doing all the exercise, cold sweat trickles between my squashed breasts, my stomach spasms, and I ache in places I wasn’t awarecouldache.
Before I black out from fatigue and low-blood sugar, I take another sip of water, then reach out and tear off a clump of the moss. It’s damp and stringy like wet hair, and smells like musty fur. My throat closes.
Maybe it doesn’t taste as foul as it smells.
