The Raven and the Dove (The Raven and the Dove #1) - Kaitlyn Davis Page 0,141

from the floor. He hung there for a moment, teetering. Then she lifted his ankles, destroying the careful balance that kept him aloft, and released.

Cassi didn’t watch Rafe fall.

She couldn’t.

She grabbed the bundle of unrecognizable black feathers at her feet and pumped her wings, taking flight, every beat a harsh reminder of the curse she’d just laid upon someone she might have once called a friend.

Cassi tried to focus on the good as she flew—that it was finally over, that she was going home, that by the end of the day the world above would seem like a faraway memory as she showed Lyana the wonders of the world below. Her best friend would forgive her for her lies once she learned the truth, heard the prophecy, and realized who she was. Together they would use their magic to save the world. Lyana would help make Cassi the heroine she’d always wanted to be, instead of the monster she’d become.

From now on, she was done with duplicity.

She was free.

It was over.

Cassi stuck close to the cliff on the underside of the isle, hiding from sight as she maneuvered around the outer edge of the city, only rising above the surface once she was deep in the uninhabited trees and mountains beyond. Cassi arrived at the meeting point just in time to see a tip of white feathers disappear within the hull of a small metal boat. Her king stood outside, arms crossed and alone. The two warriors he’d brought with him, the metal mage and the wind worker, must have already gone inside with the princess, probably preparing to leave. They were all waiting for one thing—her.

Yet Cassi hovered out of sight, behind a layer of branches, as her stomach twisted and a knot jammed her throat, making it difficult to breathe.

Because she had waited for this moment for so long.

So impossibly long.

He would finally see her, the real her. Not the girl she made up in their shared dreams. Not Kasiandra, but Cassi. She looked down. Her trousers were ripped by a knife wound. Her jacket was stained a deep maroon. Her hands were covered in blood. Her face was probably splotched with it, too. She didn’t even want to know how her hair looked—and the wings, the wings she’d hidden from him for so long, felt dirty after what she’d done, not wondrous or powerful or strong.

Her king spotted her before her feet grazed the grass. There was no hiding from his magic. She stepped into the light. His gaze darted over her frame, scrutinizing her. Hers did the same, roving over his features, which she normally saw only in the soft glow of moonlight and the forgiving replication of his dreams.

He looked harsher in the stark light of day. A bronze glow from his time above the mist stained his normally pallid skin, but it only served to make the angles of his face more severe. Sun-kissed strands were streaked across his hair, heightening the contrast. What she noticed the most was that the starlight in his eyes had disappeared. They were dark and cold and as impossible to read as the surface of the ocean clouded by a charcoal fog, as though his soul were still back home even if his body had lived a few days in the sun.

“Kasiandra,” he murmured, voice exactly as she remembered, sending a quiver down her spine.

“My Liege.” Cassi bowed her head in greeting and lifted the package in her hands, the bent and broken wings, trying to find her voice within the revulsion. “The job is done.”

His features gave nothing away as he took the wings from her hands with no smile, no gratitude, no recognition. His lips were drawn in a thin line, hard and grim.

Her heart began to flutter, her throat to burn.

“There was an unfortunate hiccup in the plan today,” he said, tone even.

Cassi swallowed, trying to calm her frantic nerves. Now that he spoke, she recalled the way the ground had quaked a second time, the way the isle had plummeted for a moment, though at the time, she hadn't stopped to think of it. She’d been too lost in the scraping of her knife to absorb anything else.

Her mouth was dry. The question came out like a raspy breath, “What?”

“The raven prince—he saw too much, and then he got away.”

Her pulse took a painful leap. “No.”

The word erupted before she could contain it. Because she could read the command hiding behind what he said,