The Storm Crow (The Storm Crow, #1)(21)

One of them looked back, frowning. He muttered something to the other guard, then they both mounted, and we set off. The feeling of eyes on my back dug in like claws, and I kicked my horse into a trot. I wanted to tell myself their anger and resentment was for the Illucians, but not all of it was. It was for me, for my abandonment, for my uselessness.

My throat tightened, and I urged my horse on. The smith’s dark eyes seared in my mind, burning with accusation.

Coward.

I kicked my horse into a canter, breaking away from the group as the road opened onto a broad street packed with merchant carts and people. My guards yelled, but I didn’t slow. The crowd parted, and I reined in my horse. Nearly leaping from my saddle, I wove through the vendors and shoppers and ducked into the privacy of a nearby alley, collapsing against the wall.

Anxiety writhed in my stomach. Pain, fear, anger—they infected every wing. Infected me. Where did we even begin to fix things? One crow might protect us from war, but what about the decay spreading from within?

Something prickled at the back of my neck. I pushed off the wall, turning, and nearly slammed straight into someone. I stepped back, hands raised, and found Ericen staring back at me with a smirk.

“You ran off,” he mused. “Your poor guards are frantic.” His gaze lifted over my shoulder. “Something interesting about this particular alley?”

“Anything’s more interesting than talking to you.” Before he could respond, I marched back into the crowd. The cool air wafting off the canal chilled my hot skin, and I made straight for a nearby House Cyro cart, where I paid for an orange cake in an attempt to pretend I’d simply been in a hurry to get dessert. Except my fingers fumbled the coins, and I gave the vendor a silver talon instead of copper, and I nearly dropped the cloth-wrapped bundle in my attempt to pocket it.

I forced in breath after breath, trying and failing to fight away my anxiety, and moved to the edge of the canal. Except the murky water, once kept pure and glistening by water crows, reminded me of why I’d bolted into the alley to begin with.

Ericen appeared like a specter beside me. I stiffened. He moved so soundlessly.

“You’re shaking. Is something the matter, Princess?”

Before I could respond, footsteps echoed from behind, and I faced my guards as they emerged from the crowd panting and flushed. I winced.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, withdrawing the orange cake from my pocket. “I saw the vendor, and there wasn’t a line, and that never happens, so…” I trailed off when I caught Ericen’s smile. As if to say I could lie, but only because he let me.

The guards straightened, the one in the lead bowing his head. “Of course, Your Highness. Please just give us warning next time.”

I nodded, swallowing hard and addressing the prince. “If you’re not going to explore the market, let’s go.” I didn’t wait for an answer before cutting back through the crowd to where a guard held my horse. Thankfully, Ericen followed.

We mounted and set off along the next wing, riding in tangible silence. I glanced down at the orange cake in my hand, and my stomach roiled in response. I let it drop to the ground.

The delicately crafted statues and intricate carvings of the Brynth buildings passed in a blur, my horse following the ones ahead on its own. In my mind, the scene in the Turren Wing replayed over and over again. The Illucian soldier’s mocking words, the Turren smith’s disappointment as she looked at me.

A shadow fell over me, and I blinked rapidly, clearing fuzzy vision I hadn’t noticed. My horse had stopped, as had the others, and Ericen sat merely a foot away, looking down at me from his massive stallion.

“I said, what are these?” He gestured to the rows of pure white statues on either side of us, carved into figures twice the size of a normal person. Each stood beside the black marble sculpture of a crow, or what was left of them. Several had chunks missing from their wings and bodies, and one of the figure’s hands was missing.

More damage from Ronoch shoved to the wayside in the face of bigger problems.

“Saints’ Row,” I responded. We’d reached the other end of the Brynth Wing already?

“The riders you worship.” He said the words with derision.

“Some people do.” The stories said the Saints were the first riders, gifted the crows by the Sellas. Together, they’d built Rhodaire, and when the Saints passed, they ascended into godhood. Before Ronoch, I’d believed that as wholeheartedly as anyone. Now I wanted to know why they hadn’t helped us. Why they hadn’t protected us.

At the end of Saints’ Row stood a building nearly as large as the castle. The citadel, a place of learning and research, where academics studied architecture and chemistry, crow flight patterns and the origins of magic. Before Ronoch, it’d been the earth crows’ unending project, slowly expanding upward and outward like a living thing. Now the unfinished upper level sat exposed like fractured bones, scaffolding slowly rusting in the humid air and tarps flapping in the wind like white flags of surrender.

“They certainly didn’t do much for the people that did,” Ericen said.

I scowled. “If you want to find your own way back to the castle, that can be arranged.”

He raised a single black eyebrow, the unspoken reminder echoing in the hot air. If you push me too far… I looked away, and in that moment, I felt the eyes of the Turren smith on me again, dark with disappointment and shame.