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“We need to get you out of here.” Did I want answers? Yes, but not at the cost of her life, or mine. “Battlements, towers, hoardings… everything’s sprawling with archers, and torches illuminate every inch of wall up there. They’ll shoot you from the sky the moment you take flight. I have a plan, but it’ll work best if you can shift in here. Can you?”
“With your help,” she said. “All we have to do is intertwine our fingers.”
“Even better.” I pushed the cracking salt crystal into the lock before I sealed my palm over it. “The bay will do then, saving us the climb to the cliffs. It’s still quite a hike, but I brought—”
A chill bit into my palm, making me hiss in pain as tendrils of shadows rose from the edges of the lock, trying to escape. I pressed my other hand over the first, whimpering through the biting, nipping ache. What a good thing that pain and I had been acquainted, courtesy of Malyr.
Do not let go, Galantia!
The shadows kept growing, expanding, writhing free until, with a noisyclick, the lock sprung open.It worked!
I pulled my burning hand from the lock and let the door groan open, staring down at that black mark on the center of my palm that seemed to burrow and bite a crater into my flesh. “Here.” Ignoring the pain, I fumbled a small flask of goat’s milk from my belt beneath my cloak, and pulled a loaf of cornbread from the satchel. “Eat this. You’ll need your strength to fly to Deepmarsh.”
Marla all but ripped the bread from my fingers, stuffing it into her mouth, even as she collapsed forward. That didn’t keep her from devouring it, lying on her side, until her cough returned with more violence.
“I need you to shift into your unkindness now.” I knelt, holding her head somewhat steady while I popped the cork from the flask with the thumb of the other, and let the milk wash down the bothersome crumbs. “At some point, they’ll check the dungeons and find you gone. Nobody can see you roaming between the walls of Tidestone if we didn’t make it to the bay by then, so I was thinking…” From where it had been folded over my belt, I pulled a large potato sack, the shadowy stains already gone from my palm. “Get your birds in here, and I’ll carry you there. I checked from my window earlier, and the bay lies mostly abandoned for now while they prepare the castle for an attack from the southwest.”
Nodding, she reached her hand to mine. “Help me, and I will give you what you came for.”
Frowning, I intertwined my fingers with hers. A burst of shadows followed, reshaping into five black ravens, three of them mostly motionless, another croaking quietly, as though in pain, and a fifth glancing around, disoriented. I grabbed them all and tossed them into the sack, tied it shut, and carefully brought it over my shoulder.
This had been a great idea.
ChapterSix
Galantia
Present Day, Tidestone beach
This had been a stupid idea.
A raven, as it turned out, didn’t exactly have the weight of a sparrow. But five of them? They wereheavy.By the time I’d struggled out of the wood chute, hurried through the shadows, and climbed down the slippery rocks toward the beach, they wore down on my shoulder as if I was carrying a damn ingot.
“Stop wiggling,” I muttered, the snow beneath my feet crunching against the sand as I headed toward the side of the bay where one of our docked ships would give Marla cover. “It’s bad enough that every muscle in my body is still sore from—”
“Halt!” a guard shouted from where he suddenly appeared around one of the massive wooden dock posts, another guard standing by his side. “Who goes there?”
Before I managed a word across my quickly numbing lips, the other guard held his torch closer to illuminate my face. “It’s only Lady Galantia.”
My fist clenched tighter around the burlap. Yes, it wasonlyme. Worthless, unassuming, naïve little Galantia. Most definitely not on her way to free a Raven prisoner…
“What is your business out here, my lady?” the guard asked, lifting his torch dangerously close toward the sack, studying it with eyes too curious for comfort.
I lifted my chin. “My business is my own.”
“Not if Lord Brisden has all of Tidestone locking down,” the other said, jutting his chin at my shoulder. “What’s in there?”
Too many seconds passed, giving rise to their brows before I managed to say, “The dress I arrived in, of Raven-making. My mother is greatly offended by it and asked me to drown it in the bay.”
The one with the torch only lifted his brows higher. “She sends her daughter to rid of it, in the middle of the night, instead of a maid, who could have easily tossed it into the hearth?”
A sweat pearl formed somewhere on my nape, and I sensed every darned shift of those stupid birds in the sack. One croak, and we would be done for. Well, she could possibly fly away, but still,Iwould be done for! Unless I shifted as well… But how? How had I done it? Oh gods, this was awful.
I offered a smile.
“The maids are cleaning out the privies once more before the attack,” I said with a sigh. “Besides, shadowcloth does not burn. Some say it’s protected by that evil magic of theirs. Probably soaked in their pitch-black blood.”
“I see.” The guard with the torch regarded me for another moment, then hinted a bow. Just as the flame hissed over his first step, he stalled, once more glancing at me. “Forgive me, my lady, but I would like to have a look into the sack.”
