Chapter 57
let myself lie in his arms too long. And we both know it. The silence that started warm and needy becomes more pronounced and awkward withI every inhale and exhale. ‘Do you know what would make this better?’ I ask, needing to break the
rising tension.
‘What?’ ‘Ruben.’ He instantly scatters sparks across my skin, making me laugh even as I complain. ‘Ow! I just mean because he’s warm and I’m fucking cold.’ ‘I will forgive you for speaking his name,’ he murmurs dangerously to me, ‘but only because I know you can still feel me inside you. And I will make it my life’s mission to make sure you never, ever, think of him before, during, or after sex ever again.’ ‘Oh yeah?’ I arch an eyebrow. ‘What am I supposed to think of then?’ It’s hard to keep the grin from my lips as his eyes darken further still. ‘Me,’ he growls. ‘Only ever me.’ ‘Hmm, interesting.’ I allow the grin to flicker in my eyes, tempting him back towards me, yet as he leans over, a throat clears in my mind.
Not interrupting, are we?
I jolt so sharply that Kyor’s face freezes only inches from mine. ‘Oh, for the love of—’ I hiss aloud.
Kyor’s eyes narrow as he backs away. ‘Fen?’ ‘Yeah.’ In the darkness, two pairs of ringed eyes gleam, and though I wouldn’t have thought it possible, I swear there’s a smugness to their gazes.
‘I guess we’re busted,’ I whisper to Kyor as he reaches down to pull me to my feet. ‘It was always going to happen,’ he replies, ensuring I’m upright before he reaches down, picks up my furs, and hands them to me.
Both of us ignore the pointed looks of our mated dire wolves as we pull our clothes back on and brush them down before walking in silence back to the camp and its welcome warmth. ‘You okay?’ Ruben asks as I silently take a seat next to the fire. ‘You’ve got a load of twigs in your hair. Did you trip?’ ‘Yeah,’ Benny snorts. ‘Onto Kyor’s cock.’ A crack of laughter breaks from Caz’s throat a heartbeat before she reaches out and hits Benny on the shoulder. ‘What? She did! And you found it funny. You laughed.’ ‘I got something stuck in my throat,’ she lies before turning her attention to me. ‘Why don’t you have some food?’ she suggests. ‘Yeah, to recover your energy,’ Ruben finishes for her, smirking.
I study my friend, but when I meet his gaze, there’s nothing but his usual ineffable warmth shining through. So apparently he’s okay with taking the piss now too. My feelings are mixed on that score. I’m glad he’s not hurting, but I also don’t need someone else to join Benny in his salacious banter.
I look towards Thessa. She’s wrapped in her blankets on the ground, facing away from us, and I worry that our idiocy has bothered her.
Caz reads the worry in my eyes. ‘She took a potion,’ she murmurs, ‘to help her sleep. She’s out for the night.’ I nod in relief.
Caroline is correct, you should eat, Fen’s voice murmurs in my mind.
Build your strength. Your kind values stamina, and that mating was somewhat short, was it not? I’m surprised you could have found such enjoyment in so brief an interaction.
My face goes hot enough to ignite another tree trunk.
Privacy, I say to my wolf huffily. It’s a concept. Look it up.
Fen’s amusement hums, but thankfully he remains silent.
Conversation is sparse as we eat, and as the temperature drops, the camp settles into uneasy stillness. ‘It’s a cold one tonight,’ Ruben says as he feeds the flames with his power. ‘Anyone need a hug before we bed down?’ ‘I guess it’d be rude to say no,’ Benny replies, immediately on his feet.
Caz’s gaze shifts to slumbering Thessa. If anyone needs warmth, it is her, but Ruben isn’t going to wake her.
I don’t know if he’s ever offered either of the Sannings his furnace power before, and a sadness sweeps in as I think of Stide’s body, now cold beneath the earth.
It’s not comforting, knowing she cannot feel the chill of the night anymore. Not at all.
As Ruben takes the first watch, I deliberately bed down between Caz and Benny. Sex with Kyor was exactly what I needed in the moment, but I don’t want to signal everything is perfect by snuggling up to him by the firelight.
Things are still so far from perfect, and my heart is heavy.
In my head, I knew the chances of all of us surviving the journey were less than slim, and yet I allowed my friends to come with me. Worse, I wanted them to. How fucking selfish can one person be that they would let their loved ones risk their lives for them? And worse still, I know if they offered again, I would make the same choice. Because it’s hard, so damned hard, to be alone.
Grief and guilt tangle inside me, an impossible knot that grows tighter with every thought. Every memory, every truth both past and future, pulls the threads more and more taut. If I believed my time with Kyor would offer anything more than a moment’s respite for the torments that maul my heart, I would have been very, very wrong.
When night fully claims the land, Fen rises without a word.
He pads across the camp on silent paws, his massive form a dark shadow against the night. He does not hesitate, does not look back, and it is without a single word or feeling passing between us that I know where he is heading: to lie beside Stide’s grave.
Guarding her last rest as though it is an act he has done before, and one he fears he will do again.
MORNING BRINGS no respite from the grief. As the pale light filters through the mist-laden air, we pack up our things, though none of us make the call to move out. It’s not our choice when we go today.
And so, we wait.
Thessa kneels at the edge of Stide’s grave, her fingers brushing the cold stones. It is the same place I found her when we woke. The same place she has been since dawn, I suspect.
We wait at a distance and watch as her lips move. I cannot hear what she says, and I do not try to. Caz stays close, one hand hovering as though ready to catch Thessa if she falls.
Is this what our life is to be like now? Never on an even footing. Always ready to catch the next one of us that might fall.
It’s an existence no different from life in the slums. No different to watching my mother’s breaths grow thinner and weaker with every passing day, while my father drank himself into oblivion. When? I want to scream out as tears sting my eyes. When do I get a life that’s not filled with pain and hurt? Maybe I never will.
As hopelessness threatens to claim me, my thoughts drift, unbidden, to the single reason I can’t give up.
The reason I have pushed through all of this.
My family.
Kay.
William.
This journey was never about me, not once I saw those markings. It’s about them. Him.
I will not get my brother back only to lose him, and I will not have Kay’s child be born into a life of fear. If this is the price I have to pay for their future and their safety, for their lives to remain free from pain and suffering, then I will do it a hundred times over.
Homesickness hits like rocks to my ribs. The need to be there with them, far from hard earth and broken bodies and the unending cold that seeps into bone and soul alike.
It’s wrong, I know, but while Thessa grieves and the others watch on, I push myself away.
I OPEN my eyes and find myself surrounded by darkness, and what begins as relief at escape is quickly submerged in fear. Darkness? I shouldn’t be in darkness. Where are my wings? Where is the freedom?
I thought I understood how this raven thing worked, me slipping into the body of a corvid at the same time of day, just in another location. Ideally, one of my own choosing, but that’s not what’s happening here.
It was a bright morning when I left Kyor and the others. Here, it’s dark.
Pitch black. Darker than the forest in the dead of night. How can that be, unless more has changed than I realise?
Gods, maybe I know next to nothing about this power, too.
Knowing that the easiest way to learn where I am is with an aerial view, I prepare to fly, but my feet have barely lifted from the ground when I change my mind. I can’t see any stars above me, not even the flickering canopy of trees moving in an infinitesimal breeze. The air is completely still.
So if I’m not outside, where the fuck am I?
For the first time, I allow myself to look down. There, I see the shadows of bird-shaped feet. I am still Little Raven. At least that is right.
Still, if I can’t risk flying, then I hope these little feet have it in them to walk.
I move forward, aware of the bounce of my body and the touch of cold stone beneath me. Is that what I’m surrounded by? Stone? Am I in a tunnel of some sort?
As my avian form continues its swaggering motion, I’m struck by a vague sense of déjà vu.
I’ve been in tunnels before. Tunnels in the Sunken Temple, tunnels in the caves of the Ofur. I conquered those things, won those trials, and I can do so again, even if I’m not sure what success looks like here. Surviving, I suppose.
Getting out of the tunnel alive.
With no real desire to return to the camp just yet, I lean into the vision.
There must be a reason why I was brought here. So despite my apprehension, I continue on.
Just like during the last trial in the Retterheld, I’m frequently forced to make decisions about where to go. More than once I come to staircases, steps carved into the stone that lead up. Up towards freedom. Towards ground level and the ability to fly. Taking them would be the sensible choice, but … I don’t. Instead, I go down, guided by some other need or instinct.
Only when the staircases stop appearing do I realise that carrying on in this manner might have been a mistake. After all, perhaps I have been brought here because raven-me got stuck in the tunnels and needs guiding out. In which case, I should turn around and fly up those steps.
And yet, it feels like it is the raven’s needs guiding me, as much as my own, and both of us want to keep moving inwards. Into the bowels of the earth.
Only a moment later, I step into a large open space and, for the first time, find myself too stunned to carry on.
After all the dark, cramped tunnels, the cavernous space is overwhelming.
It’s easily as big as the bottom of the Sunken Temple, but unlike the arena where our Retterheld vows were taken, this does not open up to the sky, and there are no layered seats for spectators. It is cut off from the outside world, and the stench is vile. But unlike the rest of the tunnels I’ve walked through, there are half a dozen lanterns fixed to the walls that cast a faint light over the shadowed shapes below. Pillars of some sort. Pillars over ten times my raven height and made of a material I don’t recognise.
I hop along the floor, moving towards one of the closest columns, my eyes still locked on it when all the heat drains from my body.
Yes, the pillars are mammoth to me, but that is only because I’m so
diminished in size.
The air quivers in my lungs.
If I were still in my human body, I would have seen it sooner.
I am not looking at pillars … but people.
Not ordinary people, I realise in terror as I look at the one closest to me.
The skin of its face and limbs is mottled green.
Rottings.
An absolute fuck tonne of Rottings.
Instinctively, I feel for my dagger, but there’s nothing at my side other than a mass of feathers. Of course I don’t have my weapon – I’m a Godsdamn bird right now.
Panic swells through me, and for the first time since I slipped here, I am desperate to be back with the others.
Wake up. Wake up, I shout in my mind, trying to command myself, even though I know this isn’t a dream.
Come on, Fen, I urge. Call me back! My heart is hammering against my hollow ribs hard enough to crack them. But it makes no difference. Nothing happens.
I don’t know how long I stand there, waiting for my dire wolf to yank me back to my body or for the Rottings to awaken and tear me feathered limb from limb.
But nothing happens. Fen does not call me back, and the Rottings remain utterly stationary, exactly as when I entered. Motionless. Pillars of rotting human flesh.
With my pulse still rattling, I debate what to do. I should head back into the tunnels. Find the staircases and not stop until I see daylight. That’s what I should do, and yet I can’t seem to draw myself away from the cavern.
Whatever the Gods want from me, I haven’t achieved it yet.
And so I move forward, walking between the pillars. It is easier to think of them as that.
I weave a path through the figures, and not a single Rotting moves. Not so much as a tilt of their head in my direction or anyone else’s.
If I couldn’t hear the gentle wheezes of their breath, I would think them dead. But they do breathe, do live … though to call it that makes the bar indescribably low.
With no direction set in my mind, I quickly find myself lost in the labyrinth of effigies, but as I turn around to decide which way to go, something makes me stop and, for a reason I can’t fathom, I lift my head upward.
I look up … and gaze upon a familiar face.
No! No sound leaves my lungs, but my heart clenches with such force I feel pain spear through my entire frame as tears blur my eyes. I shake my head in denial, praying that somehow I’m wrong. But I know in my heart that I’m not mistaken.
Noleen. Ruben’s mother is here, her eyes open, her lips parted, her skin mottled green.
How? How is Noleen here? The priestesses took her, said she was hours away from passing, that she would be buried, and yet here she is.
Galvanised by what I have seen, I leap up into the air and sweep low between the statue shapes, searching for more familiar faces.
And I find one.
Evelina. My old neighbour.
Fresh tears clog my throat. She doesn’t deserve this fate. No one does.
How is this possible? Why are they here?
Why?
THE QUESTION RIPS from my throat in something close to a scream and I bolt upright and realise, with heart-stopping relief, that I am no longer in my borrowed avian form.
I could not pull you back, Little Raven, Fen says, and I can feel the echoes of his panic that he could not reach me.
I’m okay.
I felt your fear, your horror.
I bury my hands in his fur, unable to even express to him what I saw.
How can I when I barely understand it myself?
Kyor is beside me in a blink. ‘Rose? Are you okay?’ I shake my head once. Twice. Like that might knock the images loose.
Make me unsee the horrors I saw. ‘Rottings,’ I manage. My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Too high and thin. ‘It was … a room. A huge underground cavern like the Sunken
Temple. Full of them.’ Benny’s face hardens. ‘How many?’ ‘Too many,’ I whisper. ‘They weren’t moving. They were standing like … like statues.’ Ruben steps closer, eyes sharp with dread. ‘What do you mean?’ My throat tightens. ‘They were there, but not … there. Not talking, not eating, not living. Just columns of flesh. Waiting.’ I shudder. ‘Waiting for what?’ Caz asks. ‘I don’t know. But they came from Wrohelm,’ I tell her. ‘At least some of them did. My old neighbour was there, Evelina.’ Ruben gasps. ‘I thought the priestess had taken her,’ I continue. ‘They did take her. But she was there. And she wasn’t alone. N—’ The single consonant flies from my tongue before I can stop it, and silence drops like a blade.
Ruben’s face drains of colour so fast it’s like watching a candle go out. ‘My mother? Noleen? You were going to say Noleen.’ He shakes his head as he shifts back away from me. ‘No, that’s not possible. She can’t be …’ ‘I know,’ I say hoarsely. ‘I know it shouldn’t be. And I’m sorry – I’m so sorry – but it was her. I’m sure it was. I wouldn’t say if I wasn’t sure, Ruben.’ Kyor’s hand tightens around mine, grounding me, but even his touch can’t warm the cold that crawls under my skin. ‘Why?’ Ruben’s voice cracks. ‘Why would she be there? Why would she
be one of them?’ I have no answer.
Only the image I cannot stop seeing and the certainty that something is terribly wrong, and we have somehow walked into the thick of it. ‘It was an army,’ I whisper. The rest of the words are swallowed up, the fear of what they mean too terrifying to consider, let alone say aloud, because armies are only ever needed for one thing.
For war.
