Page 2

She must see the questions written plainly on my face, because she shakes her head. “I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to move.”

Guilt coils around my chest and tightens. “I should’ve gone with her,” I whisper, the words strangling me as they leave my throat.

“It’s too late for that, but you can still survive.”

The word strikes a primal chord inside me. Survive. I cling to it, letting the raw instinct sharpen my focus. I refuse to let this be my end. I will fight for my next breath, and I will fight to make sure Aella gets out of this too.

I take a shaky breath, forcing the panic down, straightening my spine.

All right, Nyssa, time to stop spiraling and start scheming.

My gaze darts around my room. Myna is right. I can’t stay here. The Aviary is a cage, and if I don’t move now, I’ll be caught before I even have a chance.

In three quick strides, I cross the room, kneeling to strap on my sandals before retrieving the pack tucked beneath my bed. I’ve already checked it three times this evening. Aella and I had planned to make an escape if our rescue attempt took a turn for the worse. But this pack has been long prepared even before this, like a promise that if the day ever came when the Aviary turned its sights on me, I wouldn’t go down without a fight. That I’d be ready.

Still, my hands move on instinct to check the contents. A change of clothes, a small knife, a set of lockpicks, a pouch of drachma, and a waterskin. It’s enough to get me started.

The weight of the pack settles on my shoulders as I straighten. I snatch up the dagger from my bed and find a thigh harness and two gravers for carving goiteía from the nightstand at its side, adding them to the pack as well.

I glance at the desk, at the flickering candle and the note and charm Aella left behind. I pocket the latter, then hold the note over the candle’s flame. Part of me wants to keep it, to hold on to her words. But neither of us can afford to carry further evidence of what we’ve done.

The fire catches, and even as her words burn to ash, they echo through my mind.

Use these years of my life to live your own.

There’s no time for anger. No time for grief. If I let myself feel it now, it’ll drown me.

I take another breath, deeper this time, and let it out slowly as I focus on what needs to be done. First, get out of the Aviary. Second, find a place to hide. Third…when things settle down, find her.

“If your escape plan involves sewers,” I say dryly as I turn toward Myna, “I’m throwing you in first.”

The ghost of a smile hovers on her lips before she jerks her chin toward the door. “Not this time.”

Chapter 2

Aella

I wake to the taste of salt on my tongue and a deep, knowing sorrow in my heart.

Dim light leaks through a small circular window, carving shadows into strange and unfamiliar shapes, and a heady swell rises with the uneven shifting of the floor. I clutch at my sides, hands curling into threadbare sheets, and push myself up. Squinting, I coax my vision into focus.

The cot beneath me is pressed against the wall of a cramped cabin, its thin mattress doing little to mask the unforgiving hardness beneath. At the foot, a desk is bolted firmly to the floor beneath the window—a porthole—its once-polished wood now warped from years of damp seeping in, a small stool tucked beneath it. To my right, a narrow door serves as the only barrier between me and whatever waits on the other side.

Unease trickles down my spine.

I’m on a ship.

Waves of memory crash into me with the realization, stealing the air from my lungs.

Nyssa and I, promoted to Songbirds then assigned to join Alpha Flight on their mission to infiltrate Eretria. The weapon hidden within its court. My separate task, the one that still twists in my gut: to wear the mask of Princess of the Sorrows once more, to compete in the Royal Trials, to secure my place at Prince Keres’s side.

Only for it all to unravel. Keres discovering the weapon was gone. Discovering me. The frantic escape. The Eagle and his schemes to steal theïkós—magic that should belong only to those born of royal blood and of nymph descent. Raven’s betrayal. Keres’s demands.

And the last thing I remember…the dock. Silent, save for the lapping of water. The weapon—the man—I had helped escape standing before me. His hand on my shoulder, and then…

Darkness.

Heart pounding, I push to my feet, stumbling forward as the ship bucks, but I grip the edge of the desk and regain my balance. Reaching for my dagger, I wince when I find my holster gone, and a stinging ache shoots up my leg as my fingers brush against still sensitive scars instead.