Page 10 of The Avowed
I rest my forehead against the back of the pew in front of me and try to think through thenow whatthat’s swirling inside of my head. I have a fake mark that apparently will trick everyone as long as I keep my head down, and Ryn said he’ll get me out of here. So I’ll just lay low and try to figure out what the fuck to do around here until myasshole in shining armorcan whisk me away.
Anxiety creeps in and starts to strangle that plan. Ryn will take me back to the Eyrie of the Hidden, and I can’t go back there. If Zeph doesn’t try to kill me, I might just try to kill him. Either way...it’s a bad idea. Maybe I can convince Ryn to help me get home? I immediately dismiss that thought; Ryn has never been game for theI’m going to leaveplan, and I don’t think he’s going to go out of his way to help me now.
So that means I’m back to square one. I need to either find my own way home or go track down the mysterious Ouphe that were marked on the map that’s now sitting at the bottom of some lake. It’s possible that they might be more on board with thelet’s activate the gate and get the fuck out of hereplan, but not before I give them what they want first. And in there lies the issue. I have no clue how to do that.
A door opens quietly, but I don’t even bother to lift my head to see who has come in. It’s probably just a guard ready to drag me off to whatever hovel they’ve decided I can now occupy...now that I’mone of them.
Fuck my life.
I miss my bike and my freedom and...hamburgers. I’d fucking kill for a big ass burger and a pile of fries right now.
“Who are you praying to?” a warm voice asks me, and a massive body sits down in the pew on my left. A tree trunk sized leg rubs against mine, and I tense.
Shit.
Pretty sure the flower-loving, dimple-chinned male, who happens to be Lazza’s little brother, is square in the category ofLazza croniesthat I’ve been warned to stay away from. I peek over at him. He’s about Ryn’s height, which means he towers over me by at least a foot, but he’s bulky like Zeph. I take in his mismatched eyes and his silky white hair, and mentally compare it with the disguise he wore earlier. Surprisingly, I prefer him like this. I shake that thought away and release an empty chuckle.
“I was praying for a hamburger the size of you and an even bigger mountain of fries. Not to any god though, there’s no way those assholes exist, or I wouldn’t be here right now,” I tell him, turning my head away and letting the cool stone of the pew against my forehead soothe me.
“Ah,” he states simply, like he actually understands what I’m saying.
The room falls quiet again. I’m not sure how long we sit in companionable silence, but I’m pulled away from my thoughts when I feel his fingertips tracing the mystery mark on the back of my neck. I tense, and his fingers pause their perusal. I should slap his hand away, but I don’t. I just sit there. After a beat, he continues to trace the mark that’s there. Maybe I want to see what he traces so I can better understand what’s there, or maybe I just need a comforting touch in this moment, but I do and say nothing as his hand draws out the symbol now on the back of my neck.
He traces what feels like the arc of a rainbow and then moves his hand lower and traces an upside-down rainbow. It’s like a circle almost, but the two sides don’t connect. His fingers gently move to the middle of the two arcs where the shape he reveals feels like an eye that’s missing the iris and pupil. A long vertical line comes down through the middle of it all, and a dot at the bottom is pressed into my skin by his soft touch. His hand goes still for a moment before he traces a new line slowly down my spine.
Goose bumps spring up on my arms, and for some reason, this touch feels different than the one that was just tracing symbols on my neck. I sit up and scoot away from him. My movement seems to snap him out of some kind of trance, and he clears his throat and sits up a little straighter. A flicker of apology fills his eyes, but he blinks it away and runs his mismatched gaze over my face.
“You must be tired and hungry. I’m to escort you to your new quarters and make sure you get settled in,” he announces somewhat formally, and the warning the green-eyed seer spy who marked me rings in my mind again.
“Why you?” I blurt and then instantly regret it.
Nice, Falon, the goal is to stay under the radar, not piss off the royal family two seconds after you get your bullshit mark.
“I mean, it seems like a menial task that I’m sure any old guard would have been perfectly capable of,” I add in an effort to seem less rude.
“True, but then you’re not just any old female, now are you?” he states with a wink and then stands up.
I have no clue what the hell that’s supposed to mean. My initial instinct is that he knows somehow about my time with the Hidden or the dangerous power I’ve been told I hold, but that seems like an overreaction. If he knew all of that, I don’t think he’d be calmly escorting me to my new house or quarters or wherever he just said he’s supposed to take me. Then again, this could all be some fucked up elaborate trick, and I’m about to end up back in the dungeon on some sicko’s torture table.
I guess I’m about to find out.
I stand up, my shirt gripped firmly in place at my chest, and wait for him to show me which path I’m destined to tread. He moves smoothly down the aisle, and I’m once again taken aback by how gracefully gryphons move in spite of their gargantuan size. I fall into step behind him and shield my eyes as we step out of the dimly lit chapel into the bright crystalline building.
He walks over to a door across the corridor and pushes it open. I follow him out onto a balcony, and I’m forced to jump back in surprise when enormous white wings spring from his back. Another shocked squawk escapes my mouth when my own wings shove their way out uninvited. It’s like they saw what he was working with and saidhold my beer. I teeter from the unexpected arrival of my onyx feathered appendages, and Treno reaches out to steady me. He has a goofy grin on his face as he does, and my brow furrows with annoyance.
Just what the fuck does he find so amusing?
I tie my mangled shirt halter style around my neck and waist and grunt in satisfaction when it stays put, covering everything I want. Treno gives a quick flap of his beautiful snow-white wings as he watches me, and not to be outdone, my wings give a flap of their own. I glare at them over my shoulder and send a stern mentalcut it out. We’re not three years old, and this is not the copycat game.
Treno chuckles quietly and then announces, “Follow me, flower.”
With that, he leaps off the open crystal balcony, and his stunning wings work to propel him up. I look around at all the structures around me. They look like odd naturally formed high-rises. They aren’t tidy and right-angled like the cityscapes back in my world, but more organic and wild in their structure. It almost looks as though the Avowed chose skyscraper-sized crystal clusters to hollow out and then fortified the gem-like shells with iron veins and borders.
The buildings gleam and shine like diamonds under special lighting at a jewelry store. It’s breathtaking and disorienting. I look down, hoping to give my retinas a slight break from the shiny onslaught, and see neat and tidy streets below. Dots of people move like little ants beneath me, and other dots fly to and from other balconies like the one I’m standing on.
I take a deep breath and then leap off my perch. Immediately, cool crisp air fills my feathers, and I swear I can feel the wind embrace me and whisperwelcome backas it whips past. I release a sigh and relax as a sense of rightness and belonging lifts me up like the current I seamlessly begin to ride. I move higher and higher away from what I now realize is an island that the Avowed call home, into the open sky. Each flap of my wings wipes away the fear and tension that has been settling into my muscles since I flew off the balcony of the cliff castle.
My life and world may be in shambles, but in this moment, flying through the bright blue cloudless sky,thisis where I belong. The white-winged Treno hovers on a strong current like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I watch him for a moment and wonder what his deal is. Why was he out there in the Amaranthine Mountains? Why is he here now with me? It would make more sense to me if he dropped me off wherever it is they’ve decided I’ll live and then went on with his life as the second in command of the Avowed. Or if he treated me like the prisoner I clearly am. But instead, here we are like a pair of lazy seagulls just riding the wind for who knows what reason.
