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“I have no gift.” Her voice carried a tone of somberness that weighed down even my chest. “Not… not anymore. Myanoais dead.”
“Your… what?”
“The raven that carries our gift is calledanoa.”Brush put aside, she clasped one of the pins and skillfully twirled a strand of my hair around her finger. “It is said that, at our birth, ouranoaflies down from the moon carrying our gift. A heavy burden for a raven, so it can take many years until we receive it… unless it’s the gift of void.” A shrug. “It’s empty, so it weights nothing.”
Yet another thing that no book at Tidestone had ever mentioned, making it hard for me to make sense of this magic and how it seemed to have different classes. “And it saddens you that you have no gift.”
“No. My gift wasn’t very strong.” Once the first strand was pinned up, she set to work on the next. “But without myanoa, I will never find my mate. The goddess makes one gift call for the other.”
One’s mate seemed to be a treasured thing among Ravens indeed, which somehow caused a pinch in my chest. “And you can’t make do with another Raven?”
“I guess,” she said with another shrug. “But nobody could ever want and love me the way my fated mate would have. Not the way I… the way I look.”
Irrational guilt tried to surface at the sadness in her voice, the undertone of resignation of a girl who likely hadn’t even bled yet. Why? For all I knew, she might have used her gift against Father’s soldiers one day. But her fear of forever being unwanted? Unloved?
That resonated.
Deeply. Urgently.
The door squeaked, followed by an excited, “At last, a confidante.”
I turned toward the copper-haired beauty who now stood in my chamber, her strands put into an elegant coiffeur and pinned back with green gemstones. “And you are?”
Her hand lifted the ruffled skirts on her green silk gown ever so slightly as she curtsied. “Lady Cecililia of the House Taradur. Cici will do. Galantia, correct?”
Taken aback by the unexpected presence of another human, I only nodded.
“Prince Malyr had this gown made for you. And while he seemed eager to assist you in dressing, Captain Asker hurriedly sent me ahead with it instead.” With a gentle smile on her lips, she walked over, and I only now noticed the heavy black fabric hanging over her arm. “Girl.” A snap of her fingers. “Out with you!”
The girl ducked her head like a beaten puppy and hurried out the door.What a strange creature…
I rose with the intention to curtsy, but found myself taking a precautionary step away from this woman instead. “Your father is Lord Taradur? Of Hanneling Hold?”
Something soft came around her blue eyes. “There are a great many things you should fear in this place, Galantia, but I am not one of them.”
“You are no Raven.” Which meant she was a traitor to the crown. Or at the very least, the daughter of a traitor. “Why would your lord father bring you here? To a place like this?”
“Same thing that brings many a lord to flock around the Ravens these days.” She gave a wink that seemed to come as easily to her as her smiles. “Ambition.”
“Your father abandoned his oath to King Barat.”
“Oaths don’t keep you alive these days, Galantia, lest they’re sworn on your knees at Prince Malyr’s feet. Not every stronghold lies safely nestled between harsh winds and Ammarett, let me tell you. Now…” Fabric clasped between her fingers, she held out the dress. “I daresay I’ve never seen anything so fine.”
I stepped closer to the dress, its fabric so black, it seemed to swallow all light, betraying not a single crease, not one speck of glow. Only the bodice reflected the occasional red flicker from the hearth, where hundreds—if not thousands—of black pearls were sewn onto the fabric. No, not pearls.
“Aerymel.” A metal so hard and ungiving, weapons made of it never broke, never dulled, yet light as a feather. “Father has an amulet set intoaerymel, but I’ve never seen so much of it.”
“More precious than diamonds and gold,” she said. “Not such a surprise, considering it can no longer be mined.”
I ran my finger down the train, feeling the strange fabric and how its threads seemed to shift in its weave, though it had to be a trick of the light. “Why not?”
“Because of the shadows?” When I only stared at her, she lifted a perfectly arched brow the way Sebian had. “Do you truly not know that the city of Valtaris, almost the entirety of the kingdom of Vhaerya, really, is sitting beneath a veil of shadows? Has for many years, ever since the city fell. I’ve never seen it, of course, but my brother has. Lost his horse when that stupid beast reared and stepped into the offshoot tendrils that creep across the meadows there. Good thing it threw him off. Those shadows kill everything—beasts, humans, Ravens. Everything.”
I looked back at the dress, pretending to inspect it closer when I just wanted to hide whatever ignorant shock might show on my face. No, I hadn’t known. Not that I would confess my lack of knowledge in worldly things that seemed to grow bigger with each additional conversation in this damn place. Why had Risa never mentioned it?
Against the risk of making myself sound even more naïve, I gave into that curiosity poking at my guts. “Where did the shadows come from?”
“Nobody knows. My mother once told me the blast killed everyone in the city, humans and Ravens alike, leaving no witnesses behind. Only darkness and quiet mines.” She gathered the dress on her arms, then jutted her chin at the one I was wearing. “Now get out of that hideous cotton thing. No lady should be late for a feast held in her honor.”
