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When the bird remained still, I dared a glance at the cutout, its purpose now painfully clear. No doubt the Ravens had equipped every room with these, and I just hadn’t noticed. But no more birds followed, the leather strings that kept the wind out once more calm and unmoving.
Slowly, the black-plumed bird spread its wings, its head bobbing up and down. A warbling sound resonated from the back of its throat like a ballad of gentle croons. Why was it acting so strangely?
“Go! Shoo!” I quickly grabbed the edge of my quilt, letting the fabric ripple and whip across my bed. “Leave me alone! Go back to where you—”
Lightning struck, fading my surroundings until nothing but white remained for one second. Wings flapped. My muscles tensed. Where was it?
Thunder boomed.
I jumped out of bed with a yelp, stumbling back into the wall just as the bird landed on the quilt.
“S-Sebian…” I mumbled mindlessly, all pride and bravery bled away from my veins as I called for the only person in this place who might help me with this stray bird. “Sebian!”
What felt like an eternity passed in flickering lights and creeping shadows as I pushed myself out of the corner and along the wooden partition. I’d rather run in my nightshift through the castle than have this bird maim me.
The raven mirrored my sideways movement, hopping along the length of the bed, and more crooning sounds followed. Opening its beak ever so slightly, it let a string of some sort fall onto the quilt.
What was this? Why did this animal—
With a flap of its wings that sent a storm of panic through me, the bird hopped to the floor. It leapt toward me faster than I could dodge, disappearing under the flowing train of my shift as I stumbled along the partition. Claws scurried over the stone. Feathers brushed across my ankles. Something hit my calf. The beak?
With a cry, I kicked at the air or the raven or both. I spun around, only to trip over the leg of the table that held my wash basin. Wood moaned. Water splashed. Coldness licked at my chest before pottery shattered.
I ignored it all, raced toward my door, and ripped it open. My naked feet slapped the stone as I hurried across the hall. I slammed against Sebian’s chamber door, pounding it with my fists.
“Sebian!” I shouted, screamed. “Let me in. Oh, gods, please let me in! Open! Sebia—”
I fell forward, and perhaps I would have tumbled straight to the ground, wasn’t it for how he caught me, pulled me against him. “What on earth is going on!?”
“There’s a raven!”
“What?” He glanced into the seemingly empty corridor before he stared down at me from eyes heavy with sleep. “What are you talking about?”
“Malyr’s raven. Or… I don’t know.” Malyr had left me blissfully alone these last few days; in fact, I wasn’t sure he’d been in the castle. But what if he’d returned with a vengeance? “A raven came into my chamber through that… that… hole thing in the wall. It wouldn’t leave. Then it… it pecked at my feet!”
He squatted, lifting the train of my shift ever so slightly to look at them, only for his gaze to return with one brow lifted. “There isn’t a single wound.”
My mouth turned dry. There wasn’t? But that bird had attacked me… had it not?
“It was just a nightmare, Galantia,” he said as he rose.
“It wasn’t—”
My mouth snapped shut. He was nearlybare. A detail I must have missed when I’d stormed in here in my terror.
Instead of a shift, he wore nothing but light brown cotton trousers that showed every damnable inch of the outline of his cock. The stretched waistband sat low on his hips, where two valleys rose in the shape of a V toward the sides of his stomach. One of which was partially covered in burn marks, the puckered skin reaching all the way up to his shoulder, from where it encapsulated his entire arm. I didn’t want to imagine the pain of such a widespread wound…
“I wasn’t dreaming.” I averted my gaze. “There is a raven in my chamber.”
He turned toward the corridor. “Wait here.”
The moment he disappeared, my eyes wandered to his hearth and higher from there. Until they settled on yet another cutout by the ceiling. The entire castle was full of them, wasn’t it?
“Your chamber is a mess but it’s empty,” Sebian said, closing the door, but it was the sight of him, his nearness, that smoothed away my chills of dread.
“Therewasa raven.”
He walked up to me until he stood close enough that I could smell sweet remnants of wine on his grinning lips. “Extraordinary…”
