The Storm Crow (The Storm Crow, #1)(23)

As I dropped into the seat across from Ericen on the patio, the door opened, and several servants stepped out carrying plates of food. They set the dishes on the table before bowing and returning inside. I didn’t so much as look at the prince as I filled my plate.

“I can tell this is going to be a very productive meal,” he mused.

“Here’s an idea. You sit there and eat your meal, silently, and I’ll sit here and eat mine, while pretending you’re not there.”

“Is that your plan for the rest of our lives or just today?”

My face broke into a scowl. “That depends. Are you always this much of a pain in the ass?”

“Are you?”

“Only to people who deserve it.” I stabbed a piece of meat with my fork.

Ericen smiled, and a glorious silence descended. Thick enough to cut with a knife, but quiet.

Then, “Your Turren Wing reminds me of the streets around Darkward Academy in Illucia. Everyone carries a weapon, and over half the shops sell them. I graduated from there a month ago.”

I leveled a flat gaze on him. Despite all our bickering, he couldn’t seem to let the conversation die. Like we could talk as if there weren’t a dark and bloody history between our people. “What in the Saints’ name makes you think I would want to talk about anything to do with the Illucian military? Or about you for that matter?”

Ericen didn’t respond, his gaze resting briefly on my scarred arm before he turned his eyes to the garden beyond. I wanted my gloves.

Finally, he let the conversation die. I moved the steak around my plate with my fork. Once, Iyla would have nudged me with gusts of wind from where she perched on the patio railing until I tossed her a snack. Without her, without Estrel and my mother, the patio felt empty, the table too big.

The patio door opened, and servants cleared away dinner before bringing us each a slice of chocolate cake. Ericen eyed his as if it might bite him.

“What? Is our dessert not good enough for you either?”

“We didn’t have sweets at Darkward.”

“That explains a lot.”

He barely seemed to notice the insult, instead taking a bite of the cake. His expression didn’t change as he ate it, and he didn’t say a thing, but he finished his slice before I did mine and watched me eat every last bite.

Then, as if he’d simply been waiting for me to finish, he reached into his pocket, withdrawing a folded letter with Illucia’s royal seal. He slid it across the table to me, but I didn’t take it.

“This,” he said, “is a letter to General Castel. She leads the army currently sitting on your border.”

A chill dripped slowly down the back of my neck, turning every muscle to ice. He continued, “In it are instructions to destroy your outposts for ten miles in every direction and to leave no survivors but one, who will be sent back here as proof that my order has been carried out.”

My breath slipped in and out quick as a wingbeat, my jaw aching from clenching it so tight.

“Say whatever you’d like to me, Princess. Snap and curse and insult until your throat is raw. But remember why I’m here. Remember there’s an army sitting on your border full of soldiers who have been trained to do one thing their entire life: kill.”

The word echoed with promise. He was playing with me, trying to make me feel powerless. It worked. The situation felt slippery, out of my control.

He left the letter on the table and stood. “We leave for Illucia the day after tomorrow,” he said and stalked back inside. His presence lingered, the space he’d occupied as solid as if he were still there.

I sent a servant to Caliza to convey the news of my imminent departure and Ericen’s threat. Then I ordered the letter burned. Only once every fragment had turned to ash did I go upstairs.

*

I couldn’t sleep. Ericen’s threat had followed me upstairs and draped itself across my shoulders, whispering promises of burning towers and bloodstained earth.

Tomorrow. I had tomorrow, and then we left for Illucia.

I knelt before my armoire, the egg cradled in my lap, my fingers skimming along the shell. Its soft humming gave me little comfort in the face of everything that stood before me.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow was my mother’s birthday. Or would have been. Now it was my last chance. There was no guarantee I could hatch the egg, so we couldn’t risk denying Razel. But if I could figure out a way to hatch it before I left, I wouldn’t be forced to leave tomorrow for Illucia, the spoils of a phantom war.

There had to be a way.

Tucking the egg away, I dressed in boots and a cloak before slipping out of my room. The hallways were quiet, the sona lamps burning low against the darkness. I plucked one carefully off the wall, holding it at arm’s length as I traced my way to the nearest stairway leading to the upper levels. Moonlight poured in through massive windows, illuminating the stairwell and revealing dust and cobwebs thick as my hair.

I stepped out two floors up. The stone walls were bare, the hallways empty. Any art and furniture had been relocated to the bottom floors or sold. My footsteps echoed in the unfilled space, trailing me like ghosts. A shiver trickled down my spine, and I held the sona lamp higher.

It felt strange being in the upper levels again, and I made a point of walking more softly. Making noise felt wrong, like any sound might shake more than dust free from the walls. So many memories slept in these halls. I half expected to see shimmerences, the spirits that dwell in forgotten places, floating in the air in wisps of silvery smoke.