“I’m so sorry, Lore. I’m so sorry.”
His jaw clicks and ticks.
Meriam is sagging against Justus. I suppose that five centuries sitting rids a person of the ability to stand. The ground shakes again, robbing her of her tenuous footing. When she begins to slide, my grandfather scoops her into his arms.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, gazing up at him. “I owe you my life, Justus Rossi.”
He sucks in a breath as a bargain inscribes itself around his bicep.
Lore watches them for a moment, and then his words move over that magical sentence that breaks his people from their obsidian spell. “Tach ahd a’feithahm thu, mo Chréach.”
Like the first time I heard him tell his people that the sky awaited them, my skin pebbles and my stomach hardens with a slow thrill and a deep anticipation. Twin streaks of smoke burst toward him from the blue-shadows of the ice cave. As they morph into Aoife and Colm, Lore speaks it again, this time in Lucin, probably so I can understand him.
My pulse quickens, nipping at my skin like minnows at small crustaceans, and ice slides down my spine as though I was rubbing myself against the cavern walls.
Fallon?
I begin to shake, my heart thrashing like some captive bird. Lore holds me at arm’s length, his metallic eyes running wildly over me.
“Fallon?!” he yells.
His voice drops into me like a spike, cracking the ice inside my veins into shards that catch in my organs and tear them open.
“What have I done?”
Though I can hear Lore, my vision goes black, then white, rubbing away the world.
“FALLON!”
I must scream because my lips are stretched as wide as my throat, and my eardrums throb with another form of pain than the one ripping through my insides like Crow talons.
My knees soften, my legs bend. I think I’m about to fall, melt right through the ice, but strong arms hold me, powerful hands wrap around my waist. And then . . . they fall right through my waist.
The next thing I know, I bang into something sharp. A giant icicle whooshes past me and collides into . . . into the ground.
The ground, which is no longer under my feet.
Oh my Gods. I’m—I’m—
Flying.
I blink away from the shards of ice, my gaze swerving toward my mate’s upturned face. His eyes glimmer with a smile that curves his lips.
You’re flying, Little Bird. My call must’ve undone the binds that were still coiled around your Crow side.
I glance sideways, finding huge black wings instead of arms. I flap them with too much verve and bang into another icicle.Merda. Focá.I sift through a whole bunch of other invectives that, for once, only seem to amuse Lore.
I’m flying.
I’m fuckingflying.
The realization trickles through me like warm water on chilled skin, burning away the hoarfrost lingering from the battle. My heart swells and swells until I think it may have grown wings of its own.
Oh, Cauldron, I can fly. I can morph into smoke. I can go through walls. Well, technically I could already do that, but now I can morph into air.Air!
Caws resound outside the mountain that trembles again.
My mate’s throat bobs with a deep swallow that steals moisture from his shimmering eyes.
