AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jace had asked her to keep a low profile today, not because she had done anything, but because when the town feared something, anything they already deemed a threat to them was in even more danger.
Best not to remind them she was here if word got out about the sandstorm stowaways.
Night was upon them now, so she could safely walk the streets. Pyres would have to be done at night, too, if bodies were to show up, and she hadn’t thought of a way to pull that off yet.
People were bound to notice fire and smoke since she couldn’t guarantee an entire town would stay asleep.
If only it were so easy for her to obey in other areas of life. If she went to church without questioning it and followed in her father’s footsteps, she’d be welcome anytime in Ifreann. Day or night.
Shaking away useless thoughts, she was happy to be back on her schedule of sleeping during the day. Standing and stretching out the kinks of her body, her linen shift fell to her knees as her hands caught on her nest of hair from going to bed with it wet and uncombed.
Tangles galore.
That was going to be fun to deal with. Perhaps the crow she’d seen could enjoy a nice nest on her head.
A squawk sounded outside her window, and for a split second, she wondered if her thoughts had summoned it.
Wavering between ignoring the crow and opening the window, she bit her lip in thought. Was it worth inviting more trouble? She was sure a crow, a bird that hadn’t been seen in this part of the world since before the Collapse, was not a sign of anything good to come.
The decision was made for her when the crow went about tapping its beak against the glass of the window a tad too loudly. Throwing her wild curls out of her face, she made for the window, hitting her knee on the edge of her wooden bed frame in the process. Cursing Justin for his sturdy woodwork, woodworking being his hobby when he wasn’t in the role of the town’s justice, she slammed her palm on the window ledge.
With another few curse words to color her dull and drab world, she threw open the curtains.
Narrowing her eyes at the bird, the crow stared back in challenge, almost daring her not to open the window.
What was it with this weird animal?
“I would have assumed this was a mental health crisis had my friend and cousin not seen you too,” she muttered as she unlatched the ancient brass window and swung it open. With dust motes and sand fluttering through the air into her room, the bird sauntered in and looked around, its head swiveling to take in the entirety of Bryn’s small room. If she hadn’t thought she was losing it before, the look of unimpressed ambivalence on the crow’s face would have done it.
Taking flight, the crow landed on her headboard before beginning to work over a feather at its side.
“Make yourself at home,” she mumbled, shutting the window and latching it before turning to stare at the crow, crossing her arms as she studied the avian stalker. “Well, I have a crow, something that hasn’t been seen in over two hundred years in Ifreann, sitting on my headboard. Not at all a reason to be concerned.”
Sarcasm was usually not Bryn’s choice of armor—no, that was normally disassociation—but it was the one she was apparently going to wear after everything that had happened the last day or so.
“My name is Cyerra.”An irritated voice had Bryn freezing, her knees weakening at the sound of a voice in her head that was not her own.
Swallowing, Bryn looked around the room for any other potential reason for the voice aside from the crow. She knew logically there would be no one there, but desperation had her on the edge of acting unreasonable.
If only it hadn’t sounded like it had been in her own head, then maybe she could rationalize it. Someone outside the door was talking, or...
A hesitant laugh left Bryn as she stepped closer to the wall, leaning against it as her weak knees lost the fight, and she slid along the wood paneling until her butt met the floor.
“You seem so much weaker than before.”The crow tilted her head as the words rolled through Bryn’s mind. She was going to have a very serious nervous breakdown if she wasn’t already in the midst of one.
“Than... before? You are talking to me... in my head? A crow?”
Bryn was hardly impressed with her wit, and the crow even less so.
“Simpler, too, it appears.”Its beady eyes somehow held a look of disappointment. Bryn wanted to laugh, and then cry. She was transferring her insane emotional state onto a bird.
“Simp... simpler?” Bryn released the unhinged laugh she’d been holding in. Of all the ridiculousness...
“Bryn?” Jace knocked as both her and the crow, Cyerra, turned to look at the door at the same time. “Are you all right? Can I come in?”
Looking back to Cyerra as if in question, Bryn shook her head, standing up and reaching to unlock the door as shadows rolled over the doorknob. Yanking her hand back, her heart pounding, she looked around the room for the cause.
Nothing made sense anymore. A shadow should be the absence of light, yet these moved through her room as if light did nothing to faze them.
