Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(34)
You will become strong, Malfleur had said.
Talons skewer the rope, ripping into the flesh of her arms. The rope loosens. She tears free. Anger surges through her. Power. She stands. She’s up. She swings out, clawing the air with her open hands, her now-ragged nails. The birds launch at her and she defends herself, flinging their bodies aside, her arms as fluid as their wings are frantic. She wrestles one down, but then another is at her throat, its whirl of dark feathers blinding her.
You will become sharp.
The blade. The blade. There is a bodkin against her hip—tucked into her suit, which is black and tight, made of leather and buckles, like a full-body muzzle. The hilt slides into her palm, and in a flash of clean movement she has jammed it into the attacker’s back. There’s a deafening screech as the crow falls from her, tearing flesh away from her clavicle with its beak in a rain of blood.
For a moment, she is frozen in the red spray. She feels no pain, only awe.
Now there are two daggers, fine and slim, one in each fist, and she is all weapon, all movement, a spinning blur of blade and skin. More blood—hers—slashes through the air. Another crow screams, flying straight at one of the moving knives. She becomes the bird now, could swear she is flying.
You will become deadly.
A darkness floods her vision, freezes her blood, blacker than the feathers of these creatures who want to kill her, want to devour her, want to force pain from her. No. She will force pain from them. Hunger spikes inside her. Hunger to feel their pain. One knife is in her teeth as she grabs the bars and climbs sideways, scissoring her legs. The crows are furious. She has become the attacker, they the prey, and it feels, almost, good. She swings back down, using her momentum to slice the air, slitting the throat of another crow.
It crashes into the floor in a gush, and she slows, staring down. The ground is a smear of luminous red—her own blood mingled with that of the birds. A littered carpet of black feathers, some of them shredded. Corpses strewn about, claws clutching at air, gone still. It is a horrible, hideous work of art.
She turns to defend herself, but the remaining crows are fleeing the cage, shrieking. Back into the darkness.
Aurora drops her knives. They clang against the floor.
She grabs two of the bars and leans in to them—there is just enough space to push her forehead through. She vomits, her empty stomach releasing bile and acid. Sweat slides down her back and neck, along her cheeks. Wetness streaks her face, but it is not tears. It is her blood, wet and shiny and glorious. She heaves in a shuddering breath, wondering what has just happened. The vile stench of the crows reaches her and makes her wretch again. She is full of disgust at what she has just done. And yet there is another sensation winding up through her as well: the sensation of victory.
When the queen had come to Aurora’s cell in the dead of night one week before, it was as if she’d offered a dish of cream to a cat. Aurora nodded, doing everything in her power not to sob outright in her weakness. She feared if she did, the cry would split her apart.
The queen’s promises—that Aurora would never again have to be seen as a pathetic princess or a damsel in distress—weren’t even necessary. Aurora didn’t trust her, and never had, but she would have agreed to anything. Malfleur handed her a scroll and a feather pen saturated in ink.
Aurora saw then, in a flash, that she’d been right to play into Malfleur’s pride: the queen craved a new experiment. Aurora would be that experiment.
The document promised Aurora thirty days of training. She’d be pushed to the limit, but given the magical strength to endure it. She’d become a warrior—fearless and merciless. The queen didn’t know exactly how the dark magic would affect her—that was the point.
Aurora could not speak, and she did not know what would become of her.
But she thought distantly of the ax she’d dragged through the quiet dawn of Sommeil.
She did not hesitate.
She took the pen, and signed.
Aurora’s trainer today wears a floor-length cloak and a black mask that covers his head like the other soldiers. She’s pretty sure she has a different trainer each day, but they may as well all be one person, since all Vultures look nearly identical.
He drags her from the cage, brings her to a cell where her wounds can be dressed.
She has now been training for eighteen days. Her body has once again morphed into something she doesn’t recognize, this time not from hunger but from strength. Her shoulders are rounded with muscle, her back rippled, her calves taut. She moves now like a predator—able to carry stillness in her bones and then spring suddenly. She is alert too; not a fleck of dust can dance in the sunlight without passing detected through the corners of her vision.
And as Aurora gets stronger, her goal gets clearer and clearer, surges within her, waking her earlier and earlier every morning until she soon finds she does not sleep at all. Urgency pumps through her at all hours of the day and night. She feels wild, and hungry—the need to run and to hunt and to kill pulsing in her veins.
And yet a tiny flame deep inside her still sometimes flares bright, making her yearn to speak to Wren, to touch her, to confess everything . . . but then the feeling gutters out, and she is left only with coldness.
She is lucky, one of her trainers told her. The others—all of the soldiers in Malfleur’s army—went through a similar initiation, but not all of them were forced to fight off crows. Some had to defend themselves against ravens, some against vultures. Each type has its own lethal fury.