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“Raven witch!” a man shouted at the top of his lungs. “She needs to burn!”
Blood-streaked fingers digging into the wooden floor, the woman struggled to lift her bruised face and let out a deafening cry toward the crowd. “I’m no Raven!”
“Hair as black as those bastards’ plumes,” the woman nearest the platform yelled. “She’s a Raven. I’ve seen this witch about the fields last night, blighting our crops, starving us!”
“It’s not tr—aah!” Another strike of the whip. “The only thing I’m guilty of is being born black of hair! Oh please… please, plea-ha-ha…”
Cold dread shivered down my spine until my shoulder blades pulled together. “What if she’s not a Raven?”
When men with lances stepped onto the platform and the crowd roared louder, the guard beside me rested his hand on the pommel of his sword, though his easy posture betrayed no immediate danger. “Then she’ll prove it.”
“Prove it, how? She’s been whipped halfway to death already.”
“To bring about her shift,” Risa muttered with a tug on my arm. “Galantia… your mother would not want you to see this.”
“Why? Is she concerned that it might give me cataracts? Nothing ever seems to—” Sudden numbness spread along my limbs when two young men carried a steaming kettle by two long handles, which they lifted high over the woman. “Surely they won’t—”
A gargling scream mixed with the splash of water as it hit the woman’s back. Steam billowed into the air, but it barely hid how the woman jerked and shook on the ground, nor how the hot water rinsed the blood off, sending a wave of pink across the wood before it dripped into the mud.
“Oh, gods…” My voice was merely a whisper since my lungs refused to take in the iron-scented steam that wafted toward us. “How much more torture does she have to endure to prove her innocence?”
“Even before King Barat attacked the city of Valtaris, Raven children were taught to endure great pain,” Risa explained. “Taught how to hide what they are for as long as they could, should it come to war.”
“Please,” the woman pleaded once more, her voice hoarse. “Oh, please… have mercy…”
“She’s no Raven,” I uttered, then a bit louder so the guard would hear. So the guard would intervene with this… atrocity. No creature could endure this to hide its wicked nature. “She’s no Raven.”
Another strike of the whip. Metal clawed into flesh, ripping another scream from the accused, along with drops of blood—and quite possibly pieces of flesh—that speckled the platform crimson.
Then it happened.
A plume of shadows and feathers puffed from the platform, leaving nothing behind but five black birds. They croaked and shrilled, flapping their bent wings and wobbling about. One of them rolled onto its feet, pushed itself off the platform, and into flight…
Until the silver metal of a lance pierced through its body and sunk into the wood, pinning the dying bird down. Its wings twitched for eternal seconds, then stilled. More lances thudded into the wood. Four more, to be precise, skewing the rest of the struggling ravens.
My pulse fluttered in my throat at the sight of this carnage, but it exploded into my head when the crowd fell into turmoil. Men pushed through the mass of people while women slunk and elbowed through the gaps. They all tried to climb onto the platform. Some ripped the lances from the men’s hands and sprinted off, only to get tackled by another. Others grabbed for the pierced ravens, pulling until the birds tore into feathery pieces, letting red guts dangle from their bellies.
Nausea rose in the back of my throat. “What is happening?”
“Out,” Risa shouted. “Get her out.”
The guard gripped my arm, pulling me away from the chaos as I looked over my shoulder. And there, beneath the platform, cowered a boy. The shadows hid his dirt-smudged face, but not that bright white grin he carried. Not until it disappeared between black feathers as he bit into one of the dead birds.
ChapterFour
Galantia
Present day, the village Larpen
Istared down at the roasted bird on the platter where a girl from the kitchen had left it on the table in my room only a moment ago, the way she’d arranged the peppered and salted thing on a bed of red beets nothing short of nauseating. “You cannot be serious.”
Risa frowned at the meal, assessing the tiny bird for a second before she simply shrugged. “It’s much too small for a raven, so it’s probably quail.”
Probably…
My stomach clenched. “It could be the size of a sparrow, and I still wouldn’t touch it.”
I turned away, leaned against the frame of the window, and stared through the thick pane of glass over at the mountain range where the sun had gone up a few hours ago. “How can they eat something that looked human only moments before?”
