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ChapterOne
This is adarkfantasy romance, containing situations that might make some readers uncomfortable. Your mental health matters!
ChapterTwo
Sebian
Present Day, Deepmarsh Castle
Cold, soul-rending shock froze the blood in my veins, my senses drowning beneath a flood of sounds and smells that stunned my mind: the breeze of wingbeats shifting the black strands spilling from my topknot, the pained caws echoing from the stone walls, the stale, musky scent of dander in my nose. This couldn’t be real…
Four ravens, their feathers pale as winter, slipped through the flight holes at the top of the wall in Cici’s chamber. Like ghosts, they disappeared into the swirl of snow and wind, their piercing cries fading into the icy oblivion.
My mind spun circles.
This couldnotbe fucking real.
“What has happened here?” Asker’s voice thundered somewhere behind me where he must have stood in the door, the grind of his blackaerymelarmor giving away his shifting tension. “Where is Lady Galantia?”
Gone. Galantia was gone, leaving nothing behind but a couple of white feathers that drifted in the air. What in the ever-loving fuck had just happened?
I looked over at Malyr, searching his pallid features for a smirk, a sneer, a smile—anything that would indicate that he somehow understood what was going on here while my brain couldn’t explain any of it. Instead, I found his mouth agape, his bottom lip trembling as much as those fingers he raked through his long black hair before he fisted it.
Still, his bewilderment didn’t fully hit me until he stared at me from wide, gray-brown eyes that narrowed with each silent passing second, until said eyes snapped to Asker behind me, and his shout shattered from the walls. “Find the white Raven! Catch the unkindness, and bring it to me!”
White Raven. Yes.
Galantia was a white Raven.
Asker’s birds dashed past me, leaving a trail of shadows in their wake as they slipped through the flight hole.
“Oh gods…” Cici all but breathed in that wedding gown that should have been Galantia’s—her copper mane biting against the black shadowcloth and feathers—as she lifted her shaky hand to point at the ground. “What of this one?”
I looked down.
My chest caved.
A single white raven sat quietly on the stone, unmoving, its wings closely pressed against its body, its pain-filled eyes only half open and closing more with every slow blink. Its dull, ratty, damaged feathers explained the smell of dirt, dust, and dander, but not why that bird was the size of a juvenile, at best. What was wrong with it?
“It’s Galantia’sanoa, the bird in our unkindness that carries the gift.” I squatted, slowly reaching for the bird with both hands, the sick-looking thing entirely unbothered. “There isn’t a trace of magic from what I can sense, almost as if—”
Malyr scooped the bird into his palm, lifting and pressing it to his chest with one hand before he covered it with the other and turned away. “I want every single fate in this castle to look at thisanoaand give me answers!”
My skin bristled at the premise of him anywhere near Galantia’sanoa. “Where are you taking it?”
That bastard spun and left Cici’s chamber with quick strides. Just like that, as if this chaos wasn’t entirely his damn fault!
“Hey!” My shout echoed through the corridor as I hurried after him, anger surging hot and fast, quickening my steps and tightening my jaw. “You don’t get to just walk off with that bird. Not after all this!”
If anything, he walked faster, letting the leather lacing on the back of his black corseted vest groan under the expanse of his broad chest with each inhale. When he reached the iron-cast raven that spread its wings on the doors to his chambers, he stormed inside, letting an orchestra of noises flare up.
Wood groaned. Glass shattered.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I stepped into his personal room and pushed the heavy door into its lock with such force, black wisps caught on the sheared sides of my skull. “Give me heranoa, Malyr, or by the goddess, I’ll sever whatever is left of this thin thread that once was our friendship. This is all your damn…”
My voice faded under the clanking of metal.
Because Malyr one-handedly dragged a large, temple-shaped, gilded bird cage from a dark corner, many of its golden wires bent and covered in a dark reddish-brown that sure as fuck wasn’t rust—it was dried blood. By the state of the cage, this must have been where he’d locked up hisanoa, getting his bird into such a frenzy to escape, it must’ve cut itself on the wire.
