Page 64 of Heart of the Raven Prince

Gnarled, twisting trees covered in stark white and gray bark line a winding dirt road, their bark coalescing into the shape of ever-watchful eyes. Blood-red moonlight filters in through the branches, dotting the forest floor like blood spatter. Caden walks up next to me as we stare at the forest path in front of us.

“After you, Oisín,” he says, gently placing his hand on the small of my back. His touch is grave-cold, so why in the gods’ names does it spark warmth in me? My breath hitches at his touch, and I quickly pull away from it, beginning to step toward the rift when Caden stops me. “Oh, wait, I nearly forgot.”

He hurries away from me. I shift awkwardly on my feet, as I avoid looking at the rift. It’s an unsteady sensation, to be standing in the middle of an elegant hallway just to have a thicket of trees mere inches from me. After a moment, Caden returns, and I pull my gaze away from the trees as he says, “Here, this is for you.”

I freeze, not believing the sight before my eyes.

Caden is handing me a bow and quiver full of arrows. Trancelike I reach out, taking the well-polished bow in my hands. It’s already strung, and acting on instinct, I test the tension of the string. The reverberating thrum is like the call of my heart, a song my soul has memorized. I run my fingers over the carved, filigreed design that runs up and down the bow. Twisting, curling vines of ivy painted a dusty gold stand out against the rich wood. Glancing at the arrows, I see the feathers are an iridescent green that shimmers as they twist in the light.

Suddenly I realize how close he’s standing to me. I’m becoming used to the dominating feel of his power, which makes it only too easy for him to creep up on me. His magic no longer assaults my sense, switching now to an almost alluring call that my body is having a hard time not responding to. Grazing my fingers over the arrows in the quiver, I make to sling the whole thing over my shoulders when I come to a confusing halt. I am just trying to figure out how to situate it around the pack I’m already wearing, when Caden lets out a rumbling chuckle and takes the quiver out of my hands.

“It goes around you, Oisín.” Heat creeps up my neck when he steps close, his fingers grazing my waist, and brushing over my hips as he secures the belt around me. His eyes are trained on his hands which are taking perhaps longer than necessary to secure one single strap. “Promise me something.”

I narrow my eyes in suspicion and ask cautiously, “What?”

“When you kill me, use this bow to do it.”

“Why do you want me to promise that?” That’s not at all what I was expecting him to ask of me. He doesn’t answer, not immediately, instead he simply takes the moment to continue to stand close to me. His hand shifts to my hips, holding me there as his thumb traces a slow circle over one. Somehow heat radiates from his frigid hands and begins to pool low in my stomach.

“Because that was my father’s bow,” Caden says. “And I think he would like to know it was his arrow that eventually ended my life.”

Once, when I was hunting through the forest on my own, I came upon a road to nowhere.

Falen was a sickly child, requiring constant attention in his early years. My father refused to leave the duty of childrearing to my mother and our string of maids, so our training ceased for a time. He might have been up late tending to a restless, teething child, but that didn't stop me from rising early, saddling my mare and riding into the forest.

They were quiet, tranquil rides that let my mind fully silence. I knew these trails like the back of my hand, I rode them regularly with my father. And yet, on this particular trip, a split in the road appeared. Pulling my mare to a halt, I frowned at the unexpected path, blinking rapidly and expecting it to be nothing more than a trick of the sunlight.

But I drew closer, and the path remained.

I dismounted and tied my horse’s reins around a low-hanging branch, all the while keeping the phantom trail in my line of sight. Stepping to the very edge of where this strange new road began, I paused. Looking down the line of it, I could see the leaf-covered way leading into a shadowy nothing, encapsulated by the growing thicket of trees. There was something different about the wind that cried out from the hollowed depths of the forest.

It sounded like the distant cry of inevitable violence, and I found I was too scared to continue down that path. I mounted my horse and rode back to my palace, spending the next few weeks in my room as my father tended to Falen. I never stumbled upon that path again, and I forgot all about the road from nowhere.

I can't stop thinking about it now.

The eerie essence that drips over these woods reminds me every bit of that ghost path and the wind that cried from it. Leaves and gravel crunch under our boots as we walk slowly down the dirt road amidst the trees. For all of Caden's talk of training me, he hasn’t uttered more than a few sentences, mostly just indicating the direction to take. The sun has gone down, or rather, the night has fully fallen. It’s hard to tell the passage of time in this realm wreathed in eternal night, but I think I’m beginning to recognize the shifting tones of the sky.

“What exactly are we looking for?” I ask, my shoulders drooping as I come to a halt. I ease my grip on the arrow nocked in my bow, shaking and flexing my weary hand. We’ve been at this for hours and I haven’t seen so much as a rabbit or a bird, much less a horde of vampires I’m supposed to somehow control.

“A demon,” he says in that annoyingly unhelpful manner.

“A demon, yes, you’ve said that many times, and each time has been as useless as the last. What are we looking for? What tracks, what claw marks, what patterns through the brush? You told me you wanted to train me to control a vampire.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he snaps.

Sweeping my arms wide, I indicate the empty space before us as I say, “What vampires, Caden? Am I wrong in assuming you’re the only vampire within shouting distance?”

“To be fair, you are fairly loud, I’m sure your voice carries quite a distance.”

Prick.

“Did you expect me to have a batch of willing vampires for you to train with? This is the best I have to offer.” He indicates the trail around him. “Arawyn’s lesser creations and experiments roam these woods. I thought they would attack the moment they scented you. Although, they might be sensing me and holding back…”

I make a show of rolling my eyes as I mutter, “I swear to the gods, if these demons don't start attacking soon—”

“Only you would get annoyed by a demon not attacking you.”

“I'm annoyed by the fact that you told me we didn’t have a single hour to spare for me to meet with my people, just to parade me around some maze in a forest and call it training.”