House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(89)

The apple in Tavo’s throat rolls up and down a few times before he manages to ask, “Gabriele asked you to shoot arrows at who?”

In between ferocious pants, the wildling snarls, “At the silver-haired one! He paid me to stop her heart.”

My hand crawls up to my throat and clutches it as a soft sob tears itself from my heart. Catriona sacrificed herself to save me.

As Lore scrutinizes my damp lashes and pallid cheeks, thunder growls, vibrating the wooden pontoon upon which we stand.

Why would Gabriele want me dead? Did Dante command him to have me murdered? Wouldn’t Tavo have known?

Something doesn’t add up.

“What color hair did the commander have?” My voice is so hoarse that my murmur gets lost in the medley of loud invectives swarming the Barrack Island. Lorcan, ask her—

My thoughts become garbled as fire crawls up and down my thigh which has become gummy and—

Oh, Cauldron, no. I hinge at the waist and claw at my skirt, hitching it past my knees.

No, no, no.

Someone hisses.

Focá. Lore is suddenly standing before me, his face as pale as the bloated leg that looks as though it should be screwed onto another body.

Oh Gods, I’m going to perish like that boy . . . Like Catriona.

My life begins to flash before my eyes. I see the women who raised me, the man who fathered me, the friends who loved me. I see golden eyes and black feathers and smoke. So much smoke.

You cannot die, Lore grinds out.

Except I can.

I’m not immortal.

A tremor shoots through the ground beneath my feet, unsteadying me further and pitching my body against Lorcan’s.

Although fear claps my heart, it’s guilt that overwhelms me. Guilt that I’ve doomed Lore and every Crow who’s protected me since I ventured back into Luce. Lore, Meriam is in Tarespagia! Xema Rossi is hiding her. As ground and sky rumble, as wind and rain lash at our faces, I seize Lorcan’s biceps and yell, “Go find her!”

He clasps either side of my face as the world around us continues to blur and shudder.

I focus on his eyes, on the pinpricks of black adrift in an ocean of gold, and I wonder if they will be the last thing I see before the poison takes me. They’re very nice eyes, long-lashed and glittery, and kind—sometimes.

Say goodbye to Luce, Little Bird.

How cruel and so very tragic. Must he remind me that I’m dying?

But then he finishes his thought, and I realize he isn’t telling me to bid adieu to life.

For tonight is the last time you will see the Fae lands until they fall to us again.





Forty-Four





The stars darken, and so do the lights of Luce, as we climb into the raging storm.

This body of mine has become so inflamed and stiff, I want to use the talons Lore has wrapped around my limbs to pierce my skin.

Lore beats his great wings, soaring higher, and although I strain to stay conscious, the pain radiating from my wound flares and fleeces me of consciousness.





I gasp awake, but my scream is muffled by something soft. I think it may be a pillow, but it’s so wet it could be a sea sponge. I try to twist around but all I manage is to turn my head.

“Lore?” My mind feels fuzzy, yet I’m lucid enough to wonder why he is the first person I call. Because he was the last person I saw?

Fingers sail through my hair. “I’m right here, Little Bird. Right here.”

“Where is—” A cry rips the word here from my throat when what feels like twenty blades flay the back of my body open.

“Shh.” The fingers keep stroking, cool against my scorching scalp.

I squeeze my lids tight as another breaker of pain rolls through me, and fire and ice collide inside my bones. Is raising the dead one of your powers, Lore?

Why? Did you want me to revive the wildling so you could kill her again?

What? I’m so stunned by his answer that I momentarily forget about the pain, but then it comes rushing back, and I grit my teeth and curl my fingers into the bedding. I think I’m dying.

Would I ever let that happen?

You may control many things, Lorcan Ríhbiadh, but you surely cannot control the rhythm of my heart.

I control all that belongs to me, Behach ?an. His voice is both hard and soft, sharp and supple.

My heart belongs to you?

It’s always belonged to me. I’m hoping that soon you’ll understand this, so you stop wasting its precious beats on males who aren’t me.

I snort into my pillow. You are most delusional, Mórrgaht.

My pain softens suddenly, and my mind wanders, drifting as though it’s grown wings, as though I were riding atop a Crow and soaring through the bright blue.

I want so much to live and wander the world.

And fly. Oh, how I long to fly, and not as a spirit. I add this in case the Cauldron is listening and cares to grant me my wish.

I swear to you, Fallon Báeinach, that you will live, wander, and fly.

Another one of your empty promises?

The fingers slow. Halt.

Fire suddenly erupts in my veins, stealing what little respite I’d gotten, and I fall.

But I don’t fall alone. Someone falls with me, and although I cannot see the person’s face, his thunderstorm scent coils around me like the frostbitten threads of his magic.