House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(27)

“No.” Her face turns toward me like a sunflower seeking the warmth of the sun, but all she’ll get from me is bitter frost. “Lorcan still believes he will slay Dante and lose his humanity doing so, for that is what will happen if he’s the one to remove your former lover from this world before the obsidian curse is lifted.”

A blush steals across my cheeks that Bronwen’s aware of my afternoon with Dante on the Barrack Island. “You mean, he’ll be turned into an iron statue. Let me guess, I’ll be the one to stab him?”

Her eyes mist over with tears that begin to fall, tripping over the runnels of her scars. Is she weeping for the friend she may lose, or is there something more she’s seeing that she’s yet to share?

“No, Fallon, because you’ll already be dead.”





Fourteen





I pad back to my sleeping quarters on feet that have gone as numb as the rest of my body. All the anticipation I felt upon waking has been washed away by Bronwen’s prophecies.

A murderess or a dead girl.

My two options.

Both rotten.

However disappointed I am in Dante’s behavior, I do not want him dead and cannot imagine anything swaying me to remove him from this world.

Nevertheless, the idea of dooming Lorcan and his people doesn’t sit well either. Especially considering that in that scenario, I’m the dead one. I’ve no desire to visit the next world. I’ve so much left to do and see in this one. So many adventures left to go on, so many men left to kiss and kin left to find.

Even though I’m not fond of my origins, I am curious to meet these sorceresses whom I descend from. Perhaps I should sail to Shabbe until this battle for thrones ceases. Why didn’t I have the prescience to ask Bronwen what would happen to Dante and Lore if I left Luce for good?

Yes, I’d be breaking my vow to the Crow King, but he’s found Meriam. It’s only a matter of time before the wards fall. And then . . .

And then I’d come back into play whether I wanted to or not.

I clutch my stone windowsill, the pink isle fading and reappearing beyond the slashing rain.

What if Lorcan penetrated the wards? Sure, he’d never head there willingly, but what if I could trick him across?

Everyone has a weakness. All I’d have to do is uncover his.

Or I could simply turn him into a block of iron and ship him through the wards on Minimus’s back.

Oh, how angry the Crow King would be, but at least, he’d be safe. Dante would be safe. And perhaps, I would be as well. Or I’d still be dead, but at least the two of them would get to hate each other for another few centuries.

“Connor . . .” Phoebus mumbles from where he lays flopped, fully-clothed, on the bed. I think he’s mid-dream when he adds, “You promised to bring me back breakfast, Picolina, but I see neither food nor dark and handsome Crow.”

Worried my expression will display my moroseness, I keep my gaze riveted to Shabbe. “A pale-haired Crow was serving the food today. I seem to remember you find brown-haired men boring.”

He yawns. “Seeing as the brown-haired male is Connor’s son, bringing him back here would’ve been awkward.”

“His son?” I whirl away from the window this time, Bronwen’s prophecies slipping to the back of my mind.

“Yes. According to Aoife, he had him with a mortal woman a few decades before the Crows’ first slumber.”

I suddenly worry that Phoebus has taken a fancy to a male who may never return his affection. It’s happened before, and it cracked my friend’s heart.

“He swings both ways. I’ve checked. Not that it matters since we’re leaving.” Phoebus expels an exaggerated sigh. “My prospects are dwindling to Racoccins or Selvatins.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because of my allegiance to a certain someone.” He cocks me a half smile. “It’s fine, though. I’m starting to prefer extra-rugged men.”

“Stay.”

The emerald color of his irises hardens as he props himself up to sitting. “Quiet, Picolina.”

“I’m not jesting, Pheebs. It’d be safer for you to stay.”

“Where you go, I go, even if it’s into the human swamp lands.”

A knock forces me to drop the matter. For now.

“Come in.” My pulse, which beat with dread and then with guilt, now beats with an oxymoron of an emotion—glum anticipation. I want to leave, and yet I don’t.

I’m expecting our escorts to have arrived, but the male who stands in the doorjamb is not equipped with wings.

“I heard you were leaving.” Lazarus, the fire-Fae who worked as a healer beneath two Faerie kings, looks between Phoebus and me. The Crows’ passion for face-paint has rubbed off on the mammoth male, who’s adorned his amber gaze with black stripes that make him look like a seasoned warrior.

“We are. Shortly. Will you be coming home with us?”

He steps over the threshold without closing the door behind him. “My home was killed two decades ago, Fallon. I’ve nothing left in Luce.”

His home was Dante’s father, Andrea Regio, who was murdered by his own son, even though Marco blamed the Crow King to sway the public opinion against the shifters. Andrea, like Dante, was willing to broker a peace treaty to end the age-old feud; Marco wasn’t.