He does.
“Do many people know about you?”
Of me, yes. Of my return, no. And we need to keep it that way, or the price upon your head will inflate considerably.He gives me a pointed look.
Does he seriously think I’m going to trot down the streets of Selvati and proclaim I’m bringing a bunch of lethal crows out of hibernation? When he returned two decades ago, he started a war! Even if the Lucins aren’t fond of their monarch, they undoubtedly prefer peace to bloodshed.
Andrea Regio was willing to negotiate. We agreed on dividing the kingdom, but his son intervened.
I frown. “So why did the Crows kill Andrea? Because he changed his mind?”
We didn’t kill Costa’s son.
“Then who did?”
Andrea was killed by his own flesh and blood. By his own son.
Fifty-Five
Morrgot has stunned me into complete and utter silence.
After accusing us of his father’s murder, Marco gathered all the humans in Racocci inside a cave. He told them it was for their protection against the Montelucin rebels and their iron-taloned birds, when in truth, it was to lure me and my people out. He gave me an ultimatum: a ceasefire, or he would crumble the cave walls.
It takes my reeling mind a minute to understand all Morrgot is saying. I had no love for the monarch but now . . . now all I have is pure odium.
After murdering his own father, Marco almost sacrificed thousands of innocents? “I imagine you chose the ceasefire since you were turned to metal?”
His molten eyes roam over mine, over my face, as though hunting to see where my loyalties lie before releasing any more details about Primanivi.I did, but he still ordered his earth-Fae to shake the land.He pauses, eyes on the horizon, which is rapidly filling with color.I ordered my people to succor the humans, who misunderstood our intent and attacked us with the obsidian spikes Marco had equipped them with.He swallows.I underestimated how deeply the Regios had brainwashed humans during our five-century-long absence. Bronwen tried to warn me.
Another lengthy pause, followed by a full body shudder that bristles his inky feathers.
That afternoon, we became harbingers of death, and Marco, a prodigious savior. He gathered all my men who fell to our curse and two of my crows, gave one to Justus to dispose of and staked the other himself, and then he warned me he would kill one human for every hour I didn’t surrender my final crows. I didn’t think he would, but the death toll started to rise.
Goosebumps scurry over my skin, pebbling more than the slice of stomach bared to the elements.
He’d leave the bodies in Racocci for me to find, made certain the cadavers appeared mauled by an animal and not murdered by their fellow man. The hatred for my kind rose to a point where bands of humans went up the mountain to try and capture the evil king themselves. The crow in the ravine was taken down by a human.
Part of me wants to stroke Morrgot’s wing because rehashing this battle is clearly taking a toll on him, but another part keeps piping up to say:this is his side of the story. Can I picture Marco assassinating his father? Honestly, I never saw them interact, so no. Can I picture him using and discarding humans? Yes.
But I’ve also seen how callously Morrgot inflicts death. He is far from innocent.
“And your final two crows?”
What choice did I have but to surrender them?
His choice of pronoun is odd, since I imagine, Loremadehim surrender. Unless Lore was also apprehended in the cave and turned to metal?
I could’ve either doomed every human in the kingdom or cursed my people for a few more years.
“What do you mean,curse your people?”
My people’s magic is tied to mine. When I fall, they all fall. I was made from five crows to prevent such a fate, and yet twice . . . twice I’ve failed them.
“Maybe you should ask your avian god to turn you into a hundred crows next.”
That earns me a robust side-eye.
“Sure, it would make your next crow-collector’s job tedious, but itwouldgreatly increase your chances of escaping your curse. Imagine how small you’d be if divvied up into a hundred crows. I’ve never tried driving a toothpick into a wasp, but I’m guessing it’d be quite tricky.”
