Empire of War & Wings Signed Hardcover, E-book & Audiobook

Anticipation buzzed in my chest. 

The Wing opened her mouth and I could already feel the relief flooding me mixed with a bitter strain of regret. It would have been nice to be powerful. It would have been good to have had a weapon to fight with now that all the rest had been taken.
But I hadn’t Hatched. I’d be dismissed. 

“Take the bandage off your palm. It interferes.”

With a trembling hand, I unwound the bloody bandage, exposing my aching palm. I didn’t dare look down the line at the man who put it there. Not because I was afraid he’d do it again, but because I wanted to show him what happened to pretty little soon-to-be-Emperor boys who stabbed people’s hands – and I didn’t dare let him see the hate in my heart. I didn’t dare show him that I wanted to make him hurt like I hurt right now.
I wanted to take his security and certainty like he’d taken ours.
I even wanted to take the confidence from this loathsome Imperial Wing and her solemn swan. She had walked past each of our young people, acting like they were worth less than the grass under her boots. What right did she have to treat us like that?
My nerves evaporated, leaving me trembling with frustration and anger.

The buzzing in my chest grew stronger. 

“Cup your hands,” the Wing said as the last winding of the bandage fell to the grass.

I cupped my hands. The flesh around my stitches was red and angry.
They’d done that to me. I would make them pay for that.

I met her eyes defiantly.
But where I had expected harsh arrogance, instead I saw surprise light her face.

I looked down.

A tiny golden glow rested in my hands like a trapped sun. 
I gasped.

No! I shouldn’t have thought about this. It was my own fault that it was happening now, and it was a bad idea. 

Go away, little ball. Go away!

I tried to shove it away, my frustration building as the glow only grew stronger. I wasn’t supposed to draw attention to myself. We were supposed to just ride this out. 

“Speak to it,” the Wing said, her voice almost seductive.
Anticipation rolled off her like a wave. It lit her eyes and made them too large as her lips parted hungrily. 
It was all I could do not to snarl. I wasn’t a precious gem for her to find in a mine. I wasn’t an unexpected strawberry found in a field. I wasn’t something to be possessed and owned. 

Oh, Forbidding take it! I would be owned. Juste Montpetit had promised it.

Panic flared in me and my breath came too quickly.
If this stupid ball of light Hatched, I’d be theirs forever, broken, owned, and made to serve – like one of my father’s horses. Even one of those mysterious birds wouldn’t be worth losing my freedom – my life.

I’d wished for the wrong thing. This was all my fault.
I gritted my teeth together.

“Speak!” the Wing barked, and I jammed my eyes closed and said the only words that made sense.

“Be relentless,” I whispered.

There was no crack. No peep. No feeling of fluffy feathers on my hands. 

There was only the angry buzzing in my chest and a whisper-soft caress against my fingers. Only the wind. Nothing magical at all.

I sighed in relief. 
I let my eyelids crack open. 

Above my palm, a translucent, golden bee hovered. Just one. Small and foreign.

I felt my mouth drop open. What in the …

“Blasphemy,” the Wing gasped.

And then the buzz got louder.


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