Kiva’s boot caught a stone and she lurched forward. Before I could react, Res was there, his outstretched wing guiding her back to her feet. She shot me a look, daring me to comment, but I didn’t have the spirit for mirth any longer. Not as the slow reality of what had happened sank in.
“Where is everyone?” she asked. “You don’t think Razel ki—”
“No.” I refused to think it. These people were not dead. If Razel had attacked to draw me out, if my escape had led to these people living through what I had… “No,” I said again.
Caylus slowed beside a pile of debris. He knelt and reached for a strip of blue cloth. My first thought was Illucia, but the shade was wrong. It wasn’t the royal hue they bore but a bright, sea-blue ice.
And the sight of it turned him to stone.
Just as I started to ask, rocks clattered in an alley to our side. I whirled as a thin form leapt into view, bow drawn and aimed at Kiva.
“No!” I leapt toward her at the same moment the string resounded with a snap.
I waited for the thud of metal in flesh and the wave of pain, but it didn’t come. My eyes had closed involuntarily, and I slowly peeled them open.
The arrow hovered inches from my face.
It dropped to the ground with a clatter, taking my breath with it. I nearly wilted, but Kiva seized my arm. Res’s eyes glowed bright silver.
He’d done it again.
In Illucia, Res had shown signs of magic beyond his expected storm abilities. Somehow, he’d wielded a shadow crow’s power to hide and shook the earth with the magic of an earth crow.
Now he’d stopped the arrow like a battle crow.
“H-How?” the shooter stuttered. His thin voice stilled me. He was only a boy. Ten, maybe eleven at the most. The bow was too big for him, the quiver sagging loose at his hip. He fumbled for another arrow but dropped it, nearly losing hold of the bow in his attempt to catch it. With a curse, he turned to flee—and ran straight into Samra.
She caught him by the forearms, hardly seeming to notice his struggle. “Explain yourself.”
“Let him go!” My voice cracked as I surged forward. Samra frowned, and I straightened beneath her dark gaze. “He’s a Rhodairen citizen, a child, and I said to let him go.”
She watched me with that same unreadable look, holding on a moment longer as if to test me. Then she slowly unfurled her fingers.
The boy stumbled back, rubbing at his wrists. “Please don’t hurt me,” he begged. “I thought you were them.”
“We’re not going to hurt you,” I said softly.
His umber eyes were round with fear. Then they settled on something over my shoulder, and he let out the smallest gasp. “A crow!”
Res straightened, puffing out his feathers and lifting his head.
The boy’s eyes somehow grew wider. “But that means you’re—” His mouth fell open as the realization of who I was clicked into place. “Saints, my sister’s not going to believe this! She said the rumor the princess found an egg was a lie! I told her it wasn’t. I told her! Oh, what’s his name? What kind of crow is he? Can I pet him?” The words flew from the boy’s mouth almost faster than he could form them, the near arrow mishap already forgotten.
I grinned. “Resyries. Storm. And yes, I think he’d like that.”
The boy shot forward as fast as the arrow he’d fired and threw his arms around Res, burying his face in his feathers. The crow’s wings curled around him in a protective arc.
“Storm,” Samra said slowly, as if testing the word for weakness. “Then how did he stop that arrow?”
“That’s not all he did.” Kiva’s voice came quietly, tentatively. She was staring down at her injured arm with a careful, uncertain awe. Slowly, she rolled it forward and then back without a hint of pain.
“Thia, I think he healed me.”
* * *
The boy’s name was Jaycyth—Jay for short—and the bow belonged to his mother. She was a soldier who’d been called up for reinforcements when the Illucian threat appeared on our border. He lived in Cardail with his older sister, his father, two hounds named Stick and Stone, and a frog called Toad.
All this he told us before we even turned the corner at the end of the street.
“I don’t think he needs to breathe,” Kiva muttered to me at one point.
Jay also told us his family ran the town inn, which was where the rest of the villagers had taken refuge, wanting to put distance between themselves and the coast. He was supposed to be gathering fruit from the orchard when he spotted our sails.
We turned another corner, revealing a small courtyard bustling with people and animals before a squat, two-story building with a sign that read The Edgewood Inn. Sure enough, the line of a small wood rose behind it, casting a shadow over the people hauling buckets of water from the well at the square’s center and lining up to receive food from a vendor roasting spiced chicken.
It felt good to see Rhodairen faces, to hear Rhodairen voices. A smile spread across my lips, remaining plastered there the deeper into town we went, the familiarity of my people like a warm winter coat.
“Jaycyth!” A deep voice barely preceded a thick-chested man as he broke through the crowd. “Where in the Saints’ name have you been? I told you to come straight back.”
Jay burst forward, seizing his father’s shirt and tugging. “Look who I found!”
I moved aside, letting Res step forward from the shadows of the alley. A gasp sounded across the courtyard, an excited murmur swelling through the crowd alongside shouts of “A crow!” and “The princess!”
I stepped forward. “You must be Jay’s father.”
My words broke the man’s stare, and he dropped quickly to one knee. The action rippled through the square as person after person knelt. It struck me in a way I couldn’t quite explain. It wasn’t just the formality of it, something we rarely adhered to in the capital where the royal family’s presence was as likely in the local tavern as the grand hall. No, it was the looks on their faces as they took in first me, then the crow at my side. The way their bent backs straightened and the edge of exhaustion in their eyes softened into something warmer.
Into hope.
“Please, stand,” I called across the square. They listened, rising as one. “My name is Anthia Cerralté, princess of Rhodaire. You may have heard the rumors that I discovered a crow egg and took it with me into the heart of Illucia. Well, you can see now those rumors are true.”
A murmur coursed through the crowd. Jay jumped excitedly, still clutching his father’s shirt.