A Feather of Air by Claire Davon

Author:Claire Davon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Claire Davon
Published: 2022-09-20T14:29:05+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Vadoma stared out the window of the backseat. Rasmus was next to her while Patrice slumbered, his head resting on her thigh with his body stretched out next to her. The women were in the front, talking among themselves. She tried not to consider what was coming, but her thoughts kept straying to what was ahead of them.

“What are you thinking?” Rasmus touched Vadoma’s shoulder. She started, her mind lingering in the tangles of her future.

“Nothing,” she mumbled, staring at the floor.

“What is it, Vadoma?”

Ligeia and Molpe stopped talking, focusing their attention on the trio. Patrice was snoring, the rise and fall of his chest shallow. Around them, the French countryside was falling away as Molpe drove just above the speed limit, not too fast to attract police but not slow enough to be suspicious.

“I…it’s all hitting me, that’s all,” she said. The Rasmus she was learning about wouldn’t be satisfied with a falsehood. “This. Challenge. I’m just a minor Romani air talent but I’m—we’re—in the middle of something so big. But…” She paused, again glancing at the women in front. She doubted they would be sympathetic to her plight.

“But what, Vadoma? What’s upsetting you? You can tell me. I’ll understand.”

“Yes,” Ligeia drawled, a note of condescension in her voice. “The way you’re projecting raw emotion, you will draw our enemies to us. Vântoase, you have to keep your head in the game. We wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for you.”

She was surprised when Rasmus’s wings buzzed and he pushed at the front seat with a closed fist.

“Back off,” he said and glared at Ligeia’s back. “She doesn’t have our advantages. She has done more than you could dream of. We’re in this together, all of us. Whatever is going on affects all of us. Stop with your superior attitude. Vadoma has a right to be afraid.”

The sylph mouthed something Vadoma couldn’t make out.

Molpe kept her attention on the road. “You need to realize what you are facing. You are a child in this fight, and unskilled at what it takes to win the battle. In the past, sirens, like most paranormal and supernatural creatures, went about our business and did not concern ourselves with Challenge. It was of little importance to us whether the Elementals or the Demonos were the victors.”

Vadoma mulled this over in her mind. “But you’re here. What changed?”

Ligeia exchanged a glance with Molpe and picked up the thread. “The oracles. The ones we have consulted see great danger looming in the near future, a peril tied to the outcome of Challenge. Because of this, Molpe has been convinced of the need for this Challenge to go the way of the Elementals. It is imperative. That’s why she is here. As for you, the oracles mentioned nothing about you. You are more of a liability than a help. You are here because of Rasmus. If he had a different view…”

“I will not,” he growled.

“If not for you, we might be able to succeed and learn what we needed to without all this effort.

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