Shield of Sparrows (Shield of Sparrows, #1)

by Devney Perry

It was the best kiss of my life.

“Why can’t he just take it all?” “It’s bound to me. It has become a part of my very being. To take it all would be the end.” “Bound to you. Like blood magic.” “Yes.”

“He’s burning them to keep information out of Father’s hands.”

The day Ramsey had come to Treow to destroy the library, I’d watched from behind a tree. I’d stayed hidden. With Cathlin. Was she Ransom and Evie’s mother?

“I cannot trust you with all of my truths, Odessa.” He stepped closer, his hand lifting to the hair at my temple. To a wild red curl that he twisted around a finger. “But I will give you as many as possible.”

“Forgive me, my queen. Please.”

His gaze cut through the others, landing on me like he could sense me in the crowd. Like he was as linked to me as I was to him. His expression didn’t change. Didn’t relax. But his eyes shifted from hazel to green.

“I’ve never touched a priest before. I didn’t realize it would hurt so much.” “It doesn’t hurt.” “I beg to differ.” I rubbed my arm where I’d been touched. “It was like feeling their magic but a thousand times worse. Like it went straight into my bones.”

“What if it’s me?”

I’m not trying to trap you here, Odessa. But I need you to live. I won’t…” He dragged a hand over his face. “I have never been more scared than when I saw you run for that boy.”

“Good. I have no desire to live in Quentis.” “Wh-what?” I leaned away. “You are mine.”

“When I am nothing but dust and ash, Turah will endure. I do not need a crown. And I have made peace with my destiny. But before I step into my grave, my choice is you.”

“What have you done to me?” I leaned in, smiling against his mouth. “Stop asking questions, Ransom, and kiss your wife.” “Yes, my queen.”

The fall would break me apart, and though the fragments would stitch together again, the woman I’d been once would be gone. I was his. Not bound together by blood or vows or the treaties of men and magic.

But this lazy morning felt different. Important. It was about the feel of us joined together. The words neither of us were ready to say.

She’d kept feeding me from wherever she hid her stash. If I had to guess, I’d say without Luella’s knowledge. Why? Why? Why? Why?

picture I was missing. “There were fresh injection marks on his arm.” Zavier extended his own, pointing to the soft skin on the inside of his elbow. “Here.”

Why would someone infect humans with Lyssa? Because of the Guardian. Because here was a person who was nearly impossible to kill, by man or monster. “Whoever gave that man Lyssa knows you have it. They’re trying to give it to others. To recreate you.”

“Cathlin.” My eyes were pleading. “How long have you known the king is giving his soldiers Lyssa?”

“The reason soldiers leave home and are never heard from again. He’s trying to replicate the Guardian. To create men with powers that might stand a chance against the crux. But it’s not working. Lyssa is killing them instead.”

The feminine handwriting in the book upstairs about extensive testing of cave ginger. The only lesson that Evie loved being science with Luella. “It’s you,” I whispered, my stomach twisting as I turned to face Luella again.

She met his eyes, defiant and bold. “I can’t lose you. I can’t lose Evie. I won’t. I did what I thought was best to keep you safe and alive.”

believe that the monsters of Calandra are a part of that magic,” Luella said. “And I’ve spent years learning how to extract it from them.” Extracting a monster’s power? “How?”

There are ten of us who took the elixir, and not a single one has gotten Lyssa. I think the elixir we gave you was the fundamental magic for Lyssa and the bariwolf’s saliva was the missing piece. When it bit you, a bond formed. A bond between man and monster and magic. That day, you both created Lyssa, and it has since morphed in your bodies. The bariwolf continued to spread it as it bit other monsters. Then as they bit others, and so on and so on. In you, it has given you powers beyond that of a normal man.”

“Except it doesn’t work that way, does it?” I guessed. “The bite was the missing piece. The magic.”

There was an intricate etching on the cover. A winged emblem. The same emblem on the pendant I wore around my neck.

What did all of this mean? What was that winged symbol? Was my necklace just a trinket? Or something more?

Jocelyn wasn’t simply a maid, was she? Was she a spy of Banner’s? Or Father’s? There was a reason she’d come on this journey, and it had never been to draw my baths.

That kiss knocked the wind from my lungs. Banner and Brielle. She was his fiancée? And this was the bargain Banner had made? Jocelyn’s information for Brielle.

If my hunch was right, then Jocelyn had betrayed us all.

will kill you. I swear it.” Ramsey’s nostrils flared. “I see the way you look at her.” “She is my life,” Ransom said. “She will be your death. As your mother will be mine.” “Father. Please.” Ransom put a hand on Ramsey’s arm. “Let her go.”

Jocelyn tried to slink to the wall, but the crux pecked at every human, like a chicken eating bugs. My former lady’s maid was gouged in two.

Halston’s body sagged when she stood upright. But he’d been too focused on his wife. He’d taken his eyes off the crux. And the monster’s talon took off his leg, tearing through flesh and bone. He fell to his side, eyes wide, blood spurting from the wound as his limb landed on the dirt.

And with a snap of her beak, she cleaved Luella’s body in two.

“I love you, Evie. Stay with Odessa.”

“I love you.” “Yes, you do. Don’t forget.” “Never.” “Neither will I.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I will find you. Here, or in the shades.”

Instead, I’d pulled my sword from this woman’s body. A woman with red hair, the spiraling curls a mix of orange and strawberry and copper. Odessa’s hair.

“No,” she said. “Any crux killed was just a monster. What do you think this means?”