House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(139)

Every one of them dissolves into feathers, becoming one with the starlit darkness.

I break into my five crows, all of my eyes fixated on the mouth of the cavern and the faint smear of white staggering just beyond it. A Lucin soldier trips over the crumbled obsidian but rights himself against the cavern wall and blinks at the field.

The Fae’s hands are bare of weapons. As he stumbles farther out, I fill his mind with the image of every soldier I tore through tonight. When I reveal how I plan on killing him, his pants grow sticky with piss.

I merge two of my crows in order to whisper into his mind that I will spare him if he brings me Fallon.

Although his eyes are unfocused by the drugs pumping into his system, he stammers, “I w-wiped the sigils off the d-door. C-can’t get through without them.”

How fortunate that you’re in possession of Shabbin blood.

“Rossi d-drew them. Only he—”

The blood he entrusted you with. Where is it?

He stares at his palms, then flips them over and proceeds to blink at his knuckles, and then he touches his neck. “I must’ve—must’ve d-dropped it.”

Should we kill him? Reid asks, impatience staining the boy’s voice.

Not yet. To the soldier, I say, Who else is in the cavern?

He shakes his head, making his blond hair flap around. “No one. Except-except . . .” The skin between his brows creases as though he has to give my question actual thought. “Commander Dargento.”

The name stills the beat of my wings and coaxes one of my crows nearer to the grotto’s opening.

As my eyes acclimate to the ambient darkness, he says, “He’s d-dead though. The Beast-charmer k-killed him.”

Cathal drops in front of the man and morphs into skin. “My daughter killed Silvius Dargento?”

The Fae’s eyes bulge at the sight of my general, who stands a full head taller than he does. A monstrous man—but not a monster.

I am the only monster present tonight.

“Y-Yes.” The air is rife with the stench of his soiled trousers. “Your”—he swallows—“your d-daughter k-k-killed him.”

“How?”

Nostrils pulsating with terrified intakes of air, the Faerie proceeds to give us a detailed account that swells my pride while also feeding my fury. “That is everything. Can I—please—will you—”

I interrupt his embryonic plea. Fetch me Dargento’s body.

“And then I can go?”

One of my crows flies into the cavern, but my skin blisters and my eyes sting. There is too much obsidian. Around the crumbled door, black blades and spikes lay like refuse atop the grotto’s floor, amidst a jumble of ancient bones—relics from the battle of Primanivi.

Fetch. His. Fucking. Body. My tone makes the soldier whirl.

He slips in the mud, adding brown smears to his white pants and darts into the cave.

“What did you ask him for?” Cathal murmurs.

To bring us the body of Justus’s pet asshole.

It takes the lone soldier several minutes to return, but he finally appears, corpse in tow.

The back of the commander’s white jacket is crimson and torn in three places. Three places that my Fallon must’ve pierced with a blade. I try to picture her wielding a sword, but it only serves to deteriorate my mood. I detest that she found herself in a situation where she had to fight for her life.

“What are Regio’s plans for my daughter?”

The soldier snaps his lids open and closed many times. “P-Plans?”

Cathal’s nostrils flare. “Why did he bring her into the fucking tunnels?”

“Oh.” The man runs shaky fingers through his waist-long hair that I consider shearing off before carving into his neck, just to show the Fae how I feel about their inane status symbol. “I d-don’t know.”

Wrong answer. My body unspools until I am one with the lashing rain.

The man jerks out both palms as though two tender appendages could hold me back. I may have smiled had my mate . . . my curse-breaker . . . my everything not been stolen from me and brought into a place I cannot reach.

“The k-king w-wants M-Meriam to-to-to—”

To . . .?

Cathal’s patience wears thin, and he cinches the man’s throat. “Finish your fucking sentence, Faerie.”

A whimper burbles out of the soldier.

“What does that gutless turd want Meriam to do?” Cathal’s howl blows back the man’s pale tresses.

“I h-heard whispers of wed-wedlock.”

My blood runs cold.

Cathal’s head rears back. “Wedlock?”

“Between the B-Beast-charmer and our k-king.”

Cathal turns his attention toward the oil spill I’ve become.

The sky roars and brightens.

I want this mountain disemboweled before sunrise! I command my people, who begin to pound the friable gray rock with their iron beaks and talons.

Mórrígan, how I will eviscerate Regio and all those he holds dear.

“C-Can I leave?”

Cathal’s talons must sprout for the next thing I know, he’s holding the man’s head, and it’s no longer attached to the rest of the body. “I will kill him.”

Cian, who’s landed beside his brother, says, “I believe you’ve already done so, brother.”