Chapter 13 Blood and Feathers
Blood and Feathers
Raisa
Everything is muffled, the world narrowed to the impossible weight of Sable’s head in my lap. His breath is a wet rattle, more memory than sound.
I clutch his jaw with both hands, willing his eyes open, willing the blue lips and pale skin to flush with color again.
“Sable.” My voice comes out wrong, barely there, so I try again, screaming. “Sable!”
His eyelids twitch. Or maybe it’s just the last shudder of nerve and muscle giving up. He looks dead, his skin drained of all the warm, ruddy gold I love so much. The wound in his side is a ragged slit, pulsing each time the feeble beat of his heart forces more blood onto the moss.
I press my palm against it, but my hand is too small to matter.
His blood is everywhere. It’s in my hair, under my nails, in the hollow between my breasts.
My body shakes, but it’s not from fear. It’s not from grief, either. It’s the same wild, vibrating surge that ran through me the night I turned men to stone, the night I learned my hands could split open fate itself.
But I don’t want to split the world.
I just want Sable to open his eyes.
Behind us, the forest howls. I hear the crash of boots, the shriek of wounded men, the primal, animal fury of my brothers.
Each heartbeat hammers more panic into me. Sable can’t die. Not now. Not ever.
A boot lands inches from my face. Onyx, panting, knees stained black, his eyes like winter ice. He drops to his knees, grabbing my shoulder.
“Raisa. We have to run.”
I jerk away, clutching Sable’s head against my chest. “I’m not leaving him.”
Onyx’s jaw clenches, grief and anger twin flames in his eyes.
Behind him, Bran staggers into view, one arm dangling uselessly, the other smeared with blood that’s not his own. He takes one look at us and stumbles forward, collapsing beside Sable’s like a supplicant at a shrine.
“Don’t be dead,” he mutters. “You idiot, don’t you dare.”
I stroke Sable’s cheek with my thumb. “Please,” I whisper. “Don’t go.”
But he’s already gone. Even the weak pulse that was fluttering in his throat has gone still.
If he were anywhere other than one of the men who has my whole heart, I’d let him go. If I were anyone else, I’d grieve and move on.
But I’m not.
I don’t know why I have magic or what my father created me for, but I do have it. And if it can turn men to stone, it can stitch this one back together again, too. I don’t care if it wants blood and death. I demand life.
The world narrows to the hole in his side, to his blood, to the wild magic pulsing in my veins.
I press both hands to his wound, pushing down with everything I have.
The skin beneath my palms grows hot, hotter than anything human.
Light bleeds from my fingers—blue, then white, then a violent, searing gold.
Bran flinches away, shielding his eyes. Onyx just stares, his mouth a slack line of awe and fear.
I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do it anyway. I pour every ounce of want, of need, of fury, love, and terror into the hole in Sable’s side.
“You don’t get to leave us,” I snarl. “You’re not allowed. I won’t let you.”
My voice sounds strange, echoing in the clearing like a song or a curse.
There’s a ripping sound, flesh knitting under my hands, the wound pulling shut in a mess of new skin and old blood. I press harder, feeling something move beneath the surface—a spark, a thrum, a new pulse that answers the wild tempo of my own heart.
Sable jerks. His back arches, his mouth opening in a scream.
I clamp down, screaming right back at him, matching my voice to his, daring him to let go again, to give up and leave me.
He doesn’t.
With a shudder, he collapses against me, breath rattling but steady. The color returns in slow, trembling waves, a blush at his lips, a flare in his cheeks, the familiar wicked curl of his mouth.
He coughs, sputters, then looks up at me through a veil of blood and tears.
“You’re–” He chokes, spits blood. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
I laugh, then sob, then laugh again, and the world rushes in at once. My hands are shaking, the skin around my nails lit with blue fire that won’t go out, not even when I ball them into fists.
Onyx stares at me like he’s seeing a ghost.
Bran says nothing, just pulls Sable’s body up into his arms, hugging him so tight the bones crack.
I’m so tired I could sleep for a year.
But I can’t.
There’s movement in the brush. The kind of movement that means swords and arrows, not animal feet or wind.
Shade barrels into the clearing, covered head to toe in blood, none of it his. His eyes are feral, his mouth curled in a snarl. Behind him, Talon and Grim appear, dragging two wounded men between them, the king’s livery shredded and bloodied.
“We need to move. Now,” Shade barks. He doesn’t look at Sable. He doesn’t look at me. He’s all animal, all forward motion.
Talon drops the guards, then grabs Bran’s unbroken arm, hauling him to his feet. Grim wipes his blade on a patch of moss, his green eyes unreadable in the gloom.
Onyx lifts Sable, slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Sable grunts but doesn’t protest. He’s alive. That’s all that matters.
Shade looks at me, and for the first time in my life, I see fear in his eyes.
“What did you do?” he asks, his voice barely more than a growl.
“What needed to be done,” I say, my own voice shaking.
Shade doesn’t argue. He just jerks his chin at the trail, and we run.
The forest is a blur of black and green and silver. We duck and weave through the trees, our feet pounding the earth, our hearts drumming in a savage counterpoint.
Behind us, the king’s men regroup. I hear them shouting, their voices desperate, the crash of boots growing louder.
We don’t have time to even breathe.
But as we run, I see Sable’s face—sweaty, blood-streaked, beautifully alive—and know that nothing will ever be the same.
We don’t get far.
The ground in front of us explodes with motion—four, six, a dozen men in black and red livery, all of them hungry for blood. The captain is tall and lean, his helmet a crow’s beak, the plumage dyed to match my own hair.
He spots me instantly and grins, his white teeth sharp in the dark.
“By order of King Gallagher Morgantern, seize the princess!” he bellows, his voice slick with triumph. “Alive if possible, dead if you must!”
Alive if possible.
My blood runs colder than the grave.
The brothers don’t hesitate. They slam to a halt, circling me and Sable. Bran and Grim at my left, Onyx and Talon to the right, Shade at the point. Rune hovers behind, his hand steady at the small of my back.
Sable sags at my side, barely conscious, but his eyes flicker, wild and alive. I pull him up, bracing his dead weight against my hip. I’m trembling so hard my teeth click, but the magic still sings under my skin, not tired, just raw and reckless.
“Get ready,” Shade says, his voice low. “We make a hole and run for it.”
But there are too many.
The men fan out, swords and pikes gleaming, boots crushing saplings and wildflowers as they close in. They expect fear. They expect surrender. They have no idea.
The captain steps forward, swinging his saber in a lazy figure eight. “You’re surrounded, girl,” he calls. “Give yourself up and we’ll be gentle.”
He means it. He means it the way men always mean it.
I spit blood and bile at his boots. “Come take me, asshole.”
The men laugh. The first one steps in, swinging a pike at Onyx.
He never gets the chance to swing again.
Onyx grabs the shaft, snaps it like a matchstick, then shoves the broken point through the man’s chest. The impact is so violent that it lifts him off his feet.
Onyx roars and tosses his body aside, barreling into the next two guards with enough force to bend their helmets.
He rams their heads together, and one of them drops instantly, blood spurting from his nose like a geyser.
Rune is beside me, his eyes silver and burning, muttering words I can’t quite catch.
The earth under the guards’ feet ripples, then bursts.
Black roots, sharp and wet, rocket up from the ground, twining around their legs and yanking them down.
The roots move fast, too fast. Within seconds, five men are screaming and clawing, their bodies sucked halfway into the earth.
Grim and Bran move as one. They drop low, scuttling along the edge of the circle, their bodies shifting as they go.
Feathers sprout along Grim’s arms, his hands twisting into talons.
Bran’s face is slick with black, his teeth longer, sharper.
They hit the first group of soldiers with a frenzy I can’t follow—arms, claws, beaks, all flashing in the moonlight.
Grim rakes a man’s face off in a single swipe; Bran bites another’s throat, hot blood spray painting his jaw.
Shade keeps his eyes on the captain, moving with a predatory stillness that’s more animal than human.
He sidesteps the first sword thrust, grabs the captain’s wrist, and snaps it with a single twist. The captain howls, falling back, but Shade follows, slamming a knee into his gut, then flipping him onto his back.
The saber clatters away, and Shade pins the captain’s throat with one boot.
Talon is a force of nature. He wades into the fight with both arms raised, swinging broken tree limbs like clubs.
He catches a guard across the jaw, and the man’s skull caves in with a wet crunch.
Two more try to tackle him, but Talon just shakes them off, breaking bones with every motion.
There’s blood everywhere—on his face, in his hair, dripping from his teeth. He doesn’t care. He’s smiling.
All this happens in the space of a few heartbeats.
But more men are coming—twenty, thirty, too many to count. They crash through the trees in waves, shoving aside their own wounded, blind to anything but the promise of reward.
Sable coughs beside me, his eyes wild. “Let me fight,” he rasps, but his limbs won’t work.