Chapter 13 Blood and Feathers #2
He can’t fight. But I can. I feel the magic whispering for blood, screaming to be fed.
I set Sable down behind a mossy stump, then turn, my arms raised. The magic is a living thing now, crawling over my skin, dancing in my veins.
A guard lunges at me, his sword high. I let the magic loose. It lashes out, blue and black, catching the man mid-stride and yanking him to his knees. His armor corrodes in seconds, peeling away to reveal the pale, shaking flesh underneath.
I aim my hand at his chest and squeeze.
His heart stops. He pitches forward, dead before he hits the ground.
Another comes from the side. I slap my palm to his face and let the magic pour in. He shrieks, drops his sword, claws at his own eyes as they turn to glass and shatter. I shove him away, stepping over his twitching body.
I thought it would feel like horror. Instead, killing feels like breathing.
Onyx is on his knees now, three spears buried in his side. He grunts, pulls one free, and uses it to impale a guard to a tree. Rune’s roots are dying, the guards cutting through them with axes, but he’s switched to knives, slicing at hands, faces, exposed throats.
Bran and Grim are covered in blood, working in tandem to corral the men into clusters, then picking them off one by one.
Bran yanks a man down by the collar, slamming his head against a rock until his skull splits.
Grim pins another to the dirt and uses his beak to gouge out an eye.
They don’t speak, don’t even look at each other, but every move is coordinated, practiced.
Shade never lets up on the captain, dragging him through the mud, demanding names and orders, never once breaking eye contact. The captain, for all his bravado, pisses himself before the end.
Talon takes a blade to the leg, another to the ribs, but doesn’t seem to notice. He just keeps swinging, breaking faces, cracking spines. When he rips a man’s arm off at the shoulder, the sound is wet and perfect.
But there are still too many. They’re everywhere, screaming, fighting, dying.
I hear footsteps behind me, turn, and see a young guard—barely older than me—raising his sword over Sable’s head.
Sable is too weak to fight, barely strong enough to raise his hands.
I move without thought, sprinting the last few feet and throwing myself at the guard.
He swings the sword down. I catch it with both hands, the blade biting deep into my palms. Pain lances up my arms, but I don’t care. I twist the sword from his grip and fling it away.
He tries to backhand me. I duck, grab his wrist, and channel the magic. It rushes through me, lightning and blood and fire. The guard screams as his arm withers, muscles shriveling to dust in seconds. I let go, and he falls to his knees, sobbing.
I grab Sable, drag him up, and shove him behind me. The guard whimpers, “Please,” but I can’t risk him getting up again. I place my hand on his head and whisper, “Sleep.”
The magic obeys.
His heart stops. He slumps over, face buried in the moss.
The brothers are winning, but it’s taking everything they have.
I feel the magic ebbing, burning itself out, but I won’t stop. Not while there’s still a chance.
I step forward, hands out, and scream—not in fear, but in fury. The world tilts, and power pours from my body, a shockwave of blue. The guards closest to me drop instantly, their bodies hollowed out, their armor twisted into jagged, useless shapes.
The ones further back hesitate, seeing what I’ve done. They whisper, “Witch,” and “Monster,” and I love the way the words feel in my ears.
Bran and Grim finish off the last of their cluster, then turn to face the remaining guards. Onyx, Rune, Shade, and Talon regroup around me and Sable, bloodied but breathing.
Shade’s face is a storm, his jaw set, eyes locked on the captain. He drags the man to my feet.
“What do you want to do with him?” Shade asks, his voice flat.
The captain trembles, blood pooling at his feet. “Mercy,” he begs.
I look at Shade, at my brothers, at the broken, twitching mass of men at our feet.
I raise my hand, curl my fingers, and let the magic do what it was born to do.
The captain gasps, his eyes rolling back, and then he goes still.
For a moment, the world is silent.
I collapse to my knees, spent, the magic gone. The brothers gather around me, their hands gentle, their voices low. Sable is there, too, his face slack with pain, but alive.
I close my eyes, listening to their breathing, feeling the weight of their bodies pressed close.
We’re alive. All of us.
The forest is quiet. The dead are quiet. But my brothers—my monsters—are louder than the gods.
Onyx, Rune, and Talon drag the bodies into a heap and torch them, the stench of burning hair and cloth rolling through the trees.
Shade paces the perimeter, scanning for survivors, his jaw clenched so tight it looks like his teeth might shatter.
Bran sits next to Sable, wiping blood from his face and muttering curses under his breath.
Grim kneels by my feet, picking dried gore from his nails with meticulous, almost delicate precision.
My own hands are raw. I stare at them, flexing my fingers, watching the tremor that won’t go away.
I want to sleep. I want to sleep forever. But every time I close my eyes, I see the men I killed—their faces, the way their bodies fell, the sound of their last breaths.
The brothers crowd around me, forming a wall of heat and sweat and clotted wounds. It should feel safe, but the air is taut, every word and movement sharpened to a cutting edge.
“We can’t stay here,” Shade says, his voice clipped. “They’ll send more. We need to move.”
“We’re not in any shape to run,” Bran snaps, glaring at Shade like he wants to bite him. “Half of us are bleeding, and Raisa–” His voice breaks, softening. “She needs rest.”
“She needs to stay alive,” Shade retorts. “And that means not sitting around waiting to be slaughtered.”
Grim looks up from his hands, his eyes flat and empty. “We split up. Maybe Raisa and one of us. The rest scatter, draw them off.”
Onyx shakes his head. “We’re stronger together.”
“Not if we’re all dead,” Grim spits.
The argument spirals, their voices getting louder, teeth bared.
Sable stirs, blinking awake, and tries to sit up. Talon gets to him first, pinning him back with one massive hand.
“This is your fault,” he snarls, his voice vibrating with rage. “You and your fucking self-flagellation. If you’d listened, if you’d stayed with the group–”
Sable coughs, red and wet, but manages a shaky smile. “Nice to see you too, Talon.”
Talon bares his teeth, his fingers tightening on Sable’s collarbone. “You nearly got her killed. You nearly got us all killed.”
“Enough.” My own voice shocks me. It’s not a scream, not even a shout. It’s low, cold, and final, like a blade slicing through the fog.
I step forward, wobbling a little, but Onyx moves to steady me. His hand is gentle, anchoring, and I lean into it, borrowing the last of his strength.
“I’m tired of running,” I say. “Tired of hiding. Tired of pretending like this isn’t a war we can win.”
My brothers watch, silent now, their eyes bright and hungry.
“We’re not going to splinter and fade away, not after everything we’ve been through,” I continue.
“I love all of you. Every one of you. Even when you’re cruel, even when you’re monsters and killers, even when you make mistakes.
” I look at Sable, then at Talon, then Shade, letting them see that I mean every word.
“We’re going to end this, even if we have to break the whole damn world to do it. ”
Bran’s lips tremble.
Shade blinks, once, twice, as if he doesn’t believe what he’s hearing.
Sable’s eyes go soft, the smirk melting off his face.
I press forward, needing them to believe it as much as I do. “If we run, if we hide, we die tired and alone. If we stand together, we can be more than the weak, cowering creatures he made us. We can be family. We can be free.”
I drop to my knees in the center of their battered circle, ignoring the grit and blood. “But I need you with me,” I say, looking at each of them in turn. “All of you. My heart belongs to seven, not one.”
And it’s because of them—all seven of them—that I’m not afraid anymore.
I don’t care what the magic wants. Or what my father wants.
I don’t care if I’m a monster, created in a womb of death and dark magic.
I still have a choice. I decide what my future looks like.
I decide when I heal or kill or if I tear the world apart.
My hands shake as I reach for the men who plucked me from my cage and rebuilt me in the ruins of my father’s lies. “I’d rather die fighting for our freedom than spend the rest of my life running from the man who created us.”
For a long time, nobody moves.
Then Onyx kneels, cupping my hand in his. “My life for yours,” he whispers.
Rune drops next, pressing his forehead to my shoulder. “Let’s burn the world,” he says, and I laugh, because I know he means it.
Bran slides in, wrapping his arms around me and Onyx both. “I’ll follow you anywhere, Raisa.”
Grim crouches at my back, his mouth at my ear. “We’re monsters,” he reminds me, but the words are soft, almost loving.
“I know,” I say, reaching behind to take his hand. “And sooner or later, every monster turns on the one who created it.”
Talon shoves Sable into the circle, then kneels himself, his eyes wet and his jaw trembling. “Don’t ever do that again,” he says to me, to Sable, to himself, I’m not sure.
Sable, bruised and weak, crawls the last few inches, folding into the group. He lays his head on my lap, his breath warm on my thigh.
“Told you there were other things to worry about,” he says, and this time, there’s no joke in it.
Shade is last, as always. He stands over us for a moment, his arms crossed, eyes storm-dark and unreadable. For a second, I think he’ll deny me or walk away. But then he drops, hard, the motion rattling all of us. He grabs my face in both hands, his grip rough and real.
“You’re insane,” he tells me, his voice flat.
I nod. “So are you.”
His mouth twitches, the ghost of a smile. “We stand or fall together. No more running.”
“Good,” I say. “I’m done hiding.”
The seven of them—eight, with me—make a perfect circle, bodies pressed close, blood and sweat and tears mingling on our skin.
Something shifts in the air. I feel it—magic, but not just mine. It’s all of us, a knot of power and pain and need that thrums through the clearing like a living thing.
We stay like that for a long time, clinging to one another, daring the world to break us apart.
When we finally rise, the air is different.
The trees seem to bow, the earth pulsing with new energy. The wounds on our bodies are already scabbing over, faster than they should.
Sable walks on his own, bruised but upright.
Shade’s eyes are bright, clear, no hint of the old shadows.
We gather what’s left of our supplies and set out, not running, not hiding.
For the first time, I know exactly what I am.
And I know where I’m going.