Studying the landscape cloaked in veiled starlight to map out the course back to Furia, I do ask a final one. “So, where is your next crow?”
In Tarespagia. Buried in your family’s grove.
My gaze veers back to him. “My family’s grove?”How convenient. Unease dampens my palms. I wipe them against my pant legs. “Tell me, Morrgot, is the prophecy real, or did Bronwen orchestrate thishuntbecause of my heritage?”
A beat passes. Two.
I start to wonder if he heard my question when he says,Your princeling sits at the base of the mountain, surrounded by a battalion of men.
“A battalion of— Why?”
Why . . . to apprehend you.
Forty-Eight
My heart pumps so fast that it strips the moisture from my tongue. “He kn-knows—knows that I’ve f-freed you.”
I swing my gaze around the field, expecting to find Dante advancing toward me, long braids whipping around his crisp uniform, golden beads sparkling.
He’s in the valley, I remind myself.
I rush up a rising slope and peer down. All I can make out through the thready clouds are colored globs like paint on an artist’s palette—Racoccin green, Marelucin blue dotted with reflective copper rooftops, and at the very edge of the world, a latticework of Isolacuorin white and gold.
So focused was I on my task that I didn’t take a moment to gaze out over the kingdom that’ll someday be mine. It’s wondrous. So much so that I almost forget why I’m standing on top of a hill.
When I recall Morrgot’s words, I squint down into the wooded valley. Sure enough, a squadron of white-garbed Fae ring the mountain like a moat of salt.
The commander reported you missing and was ordered to find you. Dante decided to spearhead the task force, which got under Dargento’s skin.
My pulse is slowly ebbing. Not that being declared a runaway is good news, but it’s preferable to being chased for freeing a winged foe. “How do you know?”
I can hear them.
“I’m sorry, did you just say you can hear them? They’re a thousand meters below us.”
Sound carries upward.
“I’m standing right here andIcan’t hear them.”
My senses are sharp, Ionnh Báeinach.
Sharp is an understatement. It must be an animal trait. Amagicalanimal trait.
“It’s Fallon, or Fallon Rossi, or Signorina Rossi. Your pick. As for young, I’m twenty-two, so I’d appreciate not being addressed like a child.”
Ionnh means Miss in our tongue.
“Oh.” I scrape my fingers through my hair, feeling a little foolish about my outburst. “Call me Fallon. After all, we’re on a first-name basis, aren’t we, Morrgot?”
The crow appears blacker against the last splash of daylight.Very well, Fallon.
He unspools the syllables in a way that makes my name sound foreign and inexplicably more lyrical, as though it’s been mispronounced my entire life. Perhaps it has.
What if the man who fathered me whispered it to my mother, who stamped it between my upper lip and nose upon my birth? The baptismal groove may stem from Lucin folklore, but my name just may stem from Crow lore.
I stride back down the knoll, following the trail of crushed grass away from the gorge. I walk almost a mile, lost in the tumble of my thoughts, before I glance up at the sky to make sure my silent companion is still shadowing me.
His gold eyes are fastened to me, which makes me wonder if he’s even looked away.
