KONSTANTIN
An hour into our southbound flight, the horizon shucks its cobalt cloak for a frock of quartz and gold. Colors I haven’t seen in months. They gild my mate’s onyx feathers and enrich her violet irises.
From where I sit astride Colm’s back, I fill my eyes with the sight of her carving across the canvas of dawn. She is so majestic. All Crows are, but there is something otherworldly about Isla. Something ethereal. Precious.
She is the air in my lungs, the magic in my blood, the singular point around which I orbit. She is laughter on the wind and moonlight on the water.
Practicing your vows?she quips.
I’m so entranced that the only thing I can manage is a swallow. I cannot bend my lips into a smile or bend my thoughts into words. Aside from the ones I’ve been tossing at the Cauldron, begging it to deem me worthy of staying Isla’s mate.
She drifts closer, her bejeweled stare scrolling over me.Konstantin Korol, I know you don’t always trust the women in my family, but please trust me when I tellyou that we’re headed to Shabbe for a blood-bind, not for a reckoning.
As the brisk air engulfs itself into my bound locks, ravaging the braid she wove for me before leaving Glace, I sigh.I know.
My tonality, it appears, is too weak for her liking. I can tell by the way she keeps pace with Colm during the rest of the trip, stealing glances at my expression every time I look elsewhere than at her.
By midday, the Kingdom of Crows burgeons on the horizon, cracking through the surf like a serpent…swelling…spilling. The colors are so bright they’re almost painful to behold.
Although I don’t envy Lorcan, adoring my kingdom of aquamarine ice and emerald forests, of sapphire oceans and diamond snow, of black sand and russet timber, I sometimes worry that Isla will find its palette lacking, having grown up with so much more variety.
Who would have ever thought that the formidable Ice King could be riddled with so many insecurities?she muses.I love you and your kingdom.
My ribs unclench just the slightest bit, allowing the organs beneath to fill with blood and breath.Ourkingdom. All that is mine is yours. All that I am is yours. All that I will ever be is yours.
I hear her scrape in a rickety breath, and then she’s fragmenting into her shadows and swirling toward me, reappearing in skin on Colm’s back, knees notched against mine, lambent gaze fastened to mine. She loops her arms around my neck and draws my mouth to hers. I let go of Colm’s feathers to trap her waist.
Do you know that I’ve never kissed someone in midair?she says.
I’m honored to be your first.
She smiles. Too soon, her body loses its solid edges, only to recover them anew, this time tucked in between my thighs, her spine to my heart, her cheek cradled against my throat.
“Is it not too much for Colm to carry us both after such a long haul?”
“No. I checked. I didn’t want him listing.” After a beat, she says, “I would’ve caught you.”
“Glad to hear it.”
I circle her waist with one arm, keeping my other hand on Colm’s scruff. The trip to Shabbe winks by. Too soon we’re diving past its pink ramparts with its upside-down waterfalls and descending toward its scooped heart.
The heart of our entire world.
When we land, Isla’s family is already gathered in the courtyard. I thank Colm before he joins his mate, who carried Elio, while Lachlano carried my sister. I shed my coat, draping it over the extended arms of a Shabbin attendant, whose nose wrinkles at the brush of white fur.
What a fucking idiot I am. Wearing fur in a land where animals are so sacred that they’re never hunted. Not for their meat. Not for their hide.
“Sorry,” I tell the man in heavily accented Shabbin.
His eyebrows gather on his sun-burnished skin.
“For wearing…” I nod to the garment.
His reply is so brisk that I only glean two words.Animal. Use.
Isla fishes my hand from where I’ve balled it at my side and pries my fingers wide. “He says that if the animal hide is put to noble use, then the creature did not die in vain.”
“That’s comforting, though I still regr… When did you have time to change?”
