“Well...” A slow exhale rolled from Nezra’s chest, “Because the ancient tongue is otherwise dead. Buried with the gods. It’s rare to find a Fae who knows even fragments of it. Never mind two.” She played with the glove on her hand, like she was tempted to rip it off before she said, “Never mind one who a wolf will obey.”
Ah. Forgot about that.
The whiff of mildew and old parchment curled through the air as I cracked open another volume layered in withered leather. Hope sparked in me at the first lines—words of gods, of the divinity stones.
Maybe those could cure my curse.
“Youknow it,” I mused.
Nezra laughed, amused. “Yes. But I am a Liraern. My kind has known every language to ever exist. It’s in my nature to remember it.”
I pressed a palm to my chest and bent in an exaggerated bow. “Our invaluable queen.”
She scoffed, flicking a handful of nuts at me, the shells scattering against my lap before she placed the rest on a shelf. The raven perched there tilted its head, its eye whirling as it snatched one up.
It was a sleek, unsettling thing. Beautiful, but creepy.
A strange warble leaked from its throat, the sound oscillating through the cramped caravan. My stomach twisted when I realized the cadence was Verathi.
My spine stiffened. “Did...did that thing just—”
Her lips quirked, a smile that wasn’t one. She tossed another nut onto the shelf, eyes never leaving me. “He listens,” she said smoothly. “Sometimes he repeats.”
The bird’s wings twitched, feathers rustling, and again the warble came—two words slurred in the god-tongue. This time, I understood them.
Deythrun onrahni.Death awakens.
Atremor crawled across the nape of my neck.
“What did it say?” Elva cut in.
“Prophecies, curses, the weather report,” Nezra said lightly, plucking dust from her sleeve as though none of it mattered. “Ravens are dramatic. You get used to it.”
Her tone was too careless, her eyes anything but. I pressed the tome harder into my lap, feeling the letters pulse beneath my skin.
“Don’t look so rattled.” Nezra leaned back. “Sometimes he repeats what’s coming. Sometimes what’s already happened.” She shrugged. “Either way, he’s grown to love an audience.”
I tried to shrug it off myself, tried to swallow the damning weight those words had left in me as they sat heavy in my chest.
“So,” I said, desperate to change the subject. Grabbing a few of the nuts that hadn’t scattered across the floor, I tossed them into my mouth one by one. “What’s going on with you and Ford?”
Barking out a laugh, Nezra’s eyes darted through the thick book in her lap. “Not a thing. Why do you ask?”
“I watch you guys,” I countered, heat curling at the edge of my grin. “It’s not that subtle.”
Inessa coughed from her corner, very pointedlynotlooking up from her book, though her ears twitched.
It actually had been faint, Nezra and Ford. Glances hidden behind lowered lashes, touches disguised as accident. If you weren’t watching closely, it would seem like two companions finding easy friendship.
But I had seen the way Ford’s gaze lingered when Nezra looked away, the way her eyes tracked him when his hands brushed against Inessa’s arms in sparring.
Nezra slammed her tome, leaning back into the chaise, voice cutting. “It’s not like that. Harmless flirting out of sheer boredom, I assure you.”
I tilted my head. “Are you sure it’s harmless on his side?”
She stood, her back to me, the back of one finger gliding down the raven’s sleek feathers. “I’ve watched him flirt with at least ten pixie womenandmen, since we arrived. It’s mutual.” The raven tilted its head, preening under her touch as she scratched beneath its beak. “Besides,” she added. “My heart already has its owner.”
I nodded, pretending to sink back into my book, though my eyes barely skimmed the words. Without lifting them, I asked, “Do you want to tell me about them?”
