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I led her to the edge of our bed and pulled her down beside me. “I don’t know what troubles me, but in my gut something tells me Ari has not been silent for no reason.”
Elise’s lips pinched. She smoothed a fur draped over the side of Livia’s bed. “You know we share the same fear then. What do we do about it?”
I slipped my fingers into hers. “We go to the East as planned; no doubt all is well. Then to the isles to introduce our folk to their princess, and I’m sure we will find an excellent reason why our nephew and ambassador have been so quiet.”
“But?”
My mother’s tale, the sharp twist low in my stomach, tangled into one knot of dread.
I held my wife’s crystalline gaze, unsettled and reluctant to admit this feeling of wrong had come to me before—when my curse lifted and I tried to run from the TimoranKvinnawho’d stolen my heart, then again when we’d received the message that war was building in the East.
I lifted Elise’s palm to my lips and placed a tender kiss to the missing fingertips on her hand. “We go,” I whispered, “but we bring an extra blade or two.”
Chapter2
The Raven Queen
Moonlight crawled across my face,cold, hard, and unfeeling. The light cooled the skin where tears wetted my cheek, a constant reminder my heart was buried somewhere in the Court of Blood with a man who might be left to sleep eternally.
Darkness was consuming, frightening even, but in the moment, I was glad for the night. I was glad, should someone look closely, they would not see the damp spot on the burlap pillow, they would not see the way my eyes were red and swollen.
Sweet and perfect while in my dreams of him, only to wake to living horror with only memories of our short peace together as companions. Gentle hands. Beautiful, salacious words as his body loved every piece of mine. The sly way he’d smirk when he was about to say something he thought was hilarious.
I dreamed of the darkness that lived behind the golden swirls in his eyes. The vicious side that was more warrior than lover. His brutality was masked by smirks and laughter, but it was made of vicious things fueled by a heart that loved ferociously. A deadly combination, and I missed it to the point I wasn’t certain I would ever draw a deep enough breath again.
I missed his laughter almost more than his voice. There were parts to it, and I dreamed of them all.
When he was delighted, he laughed like a breeze, light and free. If he was teasing or taunting, the sound rolled from the back of his throat in a low rasp. Almost like he didn’t want to laugh at another’s expense, but could not help himself. Then, the last. The sound when rage, and blood, and violence dictated his steps. He’d laugh with a blade at the throat of an enemy, a truly sinister sound. Made worse when an enemy threatened someone he loved.
Ari would laugh and draw his blade, slipping to a place in his mind where he would bring justice, and he’d love every bloody, brutal moment of it.
I swiped a hand over my cheek and rolled onto my back, eyes on the weaver webs dangling like tree moss from the rafters.
I missed him. Not a slow ache of longing. This missing was a molten blade stuck between the ribs. Always there, always burning, always pleading for me to rip it out and either heal the hole or bleed out.
Floorboards groaned. I peeked over the edge of the cot.
Calista crept into the front room of the small tenement flat. She wore an oversized coat made from burlap, as if grain sacks were sewn together. Her bony body drowned in the sleeves, and over her head was a floppy, brimmed, woolen hat, damp with rain.
She knelt beside the small, ashy pit they called a fire nook. A faint glow of embers still lived in the hearth. I would not even call it a hearth. A few walls of stone slathered in white clay that was chipping, but the room didn’t need much to stay warm.
Calista dipped the wick of a burgundy wax candle into the embers, hissing unintelligibly at the stubborn tip until the spark caught.
I watched her saunter to the table in the center of the room. Only three legs kept it upright, and Calista and Stefan had propped the fourth edge atop a wooden box to keep the surface level. The girl slumped into the chair and removed a few sheets of thin parchment from a leather sheath on the top.
From a box at the foot of one chair, Calista removed a raven feather quill and a small, capped inkwell.
For a long pause she hovered the point of the quill over the ink. What was she doing? Then, a slow, melancholy hum followed. A tune like a broken heart, sad and bittersweet. Calista let the tune flow for a few moments before she scribbled over the parchment.
My pulse rushed.Seidr.
Turns had faded since I’d witnessed the act of twisting fate into a new path, a new tale.
The quill scratched against the parchment in a frenzy. Calista hunched over the table, focused only on the words until a soft crack bounced off the walls.
“Dammit,” she cursed under her breath. Calista lifted her quill. The tip was cracked in half. Her slender shoulders slumped and she rubbed the front of her forehead. “Could’ve done without that.”
She lifted her chin and slowly turned her head toward the glow of embers in the soot. I followed her gaze. She wasn’t staring at the soft red glow, her eyes were trained on a dried, brittle rose. Wrapped around the stem was a black, satin ribbon buried beneath a layer of dust.
