The Prince’s Raven (Games of Power #1)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Raven

P ain means you’re alive, said a deep male voice out of memory as I pressed the dragonstone blade to my chest and allowed it to dig in.

I didn’t feel it at first; that’s how sharp the dagger was. It wasn’t until I pulled it back and sulfuric air swept across the wound that I felt the sweet, sharp twang of pain thrumming in my breast. Blood pooled in the shallow cut and formed a droplet that trailed down to stain the front of my plunging neckline.

The crowd fanned out below me on the mountainside gasped. Their gaze was like sharpened fingernails running down my spine. I wanted to shrink from their eager eyes, hating the way this ritual exposed me, but I didn’t allow myself to. I tilted up my chin, throwing back my blue-black waves and thrusting my slim chest out for them to see as my mind floated away in favor of one single awareness: Pain.

I leaned into it as if it were a hot springs bath. I let it wash away the discomforting attention of the crowd and the unyielding tightness of the metal collar around my neck and the pressure I felt constantly to live up to my father’s name. It erased everything from my consciousness until there was nothing left but the throbbing ache.

The dead feel no pain. When you feel pain, be grateful you can feel at all.

Old words, spoken a lifetime ago to help a little girl survive in a world too brutal for the innocent. But I was more than just grateful. A familiar craving for more pulsed low in my stomach. I swirled the biting sensations around like a fine wine on my tongue.

More, the craving begged. But I never gave it more. I made it survive on these tiny tastes, these safe, excusable moments. For I feared that if I ever really leaned into the pain I craved, I would lose myself in it.

“What do you see, Priestess?” said the man who called himself Prince of Snakes, blood of the ancient Riders, Heir to the Broken Realm. His voice called me back, his tone one of respect in spite of the metal circlet he’d locked around my narrow neck.

Liquid fire drooled like spittle from the open mouth of the Mother’s Womb before us. Black smoke darkened the pink sky. I tasted the acrid scent of it on my tongue. Even here, on a ledge halfway up the side of a sister mountain, flakes of white ash landed.

The Mother’s Womb was full. Soon, she would give birth and a dragon would fly in the skies over the Broken Realm for the first time in a thousand cycles. Tanead Tajawl, Prince of Snakes, didn’t need a Touched priestess to tell him this. But only a Touched priestess could see inside.

I closed my eyes and looked at the back of my eyelids. The Threads of the Tapestry unveiled themselves in the friendly darkness.

All the people around me were gone, but for one. Another Touched, though less gifted than I was. She stood near me on the mountainside, her frame outlined in thin emerald lines. I raised my own hand and traced the pulsing Threads.

The Threads illuminated that which the gods had touched. Almost all of Crust and the land were dimly outlined, even where gods had not tread for a thousand cycles. But the liquid fire that leaked from the Mother’s Womb pulsed with such brilliant brightness, it was difficult to see past it to the deeper womb within. The Threads were thick and wet, sloppy like a greedy animal’s tongue.

I frowned, focusing.

“What’s wrong?” Tanead muttered quietly, so his crowd wouldn’t hear.

I didn’t answer him. Soon enough I’d be able to give him what he desired. I just had to concentrate.

I peered past the blinding surface of the mountain to the hollow womb inside. Thousands of Threads lined the walls and wove their way through the bubbling pool of lava. Never had I seen such density.

Hard to find an egg in all this.

I searched for smooth rounded lines like the curve of a baby’s cradle. It would be in the pool of lava at the bottom, hovering in the middle, drifting around. Or, perhaps, if it were almost ready, it would float on top.

I allowed my Sight to sink to the bottom of the pool. My chin came down as I studied the base of the mountain. Tanead’s voice addressed the crowd, filling my silence with his vision. The sound drifted in as if from another world. Promises of fire and vengeance and rebirth. He would take back what had been lost. They were the same promises his mother, Queen Ead Tajawl, had once made, and before her, all those of Rider blood who ruled in the long age since the last dragon died.

Vaharilarans called those of ancient Rider blood ‘demons’ and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Proud red and black horns twisted skyward from the top of Tanead’s skull. His were larger than most, though all demons had horns. His hair was auburn with waves that descended to his shoulders. The unforgiving light of our suns shimmered where it landed on his brown skin, which had a rough, reptilian quality, as if he himself were covered in gold scales. His tongue was forked and the irises of his eyes were red slits, like a snake’s. Or a dragon’s.

The egg wasn’t at the bottom. It wasn’t floating in the middle either, as it had been when I last stood here beside Tanead a cycle ago. That time, I’d peered into the depths of the womb and reported back: the dragon is not yet ready. Though the outline of her egg was clear, the wings of the god inside hardly fluttered, her heartbeat hardly pulsed.

But today, the egg bobbed gently up and down in the lava, floating like an old hen’s egg in water. Inside it, every Thread in the dragon’s body was alive with life. Tiny horns rose from her head and a long tail wrapped around her body like a blanket. Though hardly larger than a falcon, the dragonet squirmed, pressing at the softened egg with the claws on her wingtips.

It was no secret that the gods feared death so much that they refused to die. There were twelve dragon-gods, plus the Mother and Father who’d given them life long ago. The same twelve dragons were reborn over and over again, their Threads weaving in and out of the Tapestry of Life, disappearing for a time but never really ending.

Once, this cruel land served as the dragon-gods’ hatching ground. In the final moment of life, a dragon would pierce the Crust below and lay an egg that contained the promise of their soul. Then, the dying body of the god hardened to stone. Tanead said each egg was made of dragonstone, at first. Cold and solid until incubated by extreme heat. Then, it softened and grew leathery, as Asherah’s egg was now.

Asherah, goddess of birth and lost souls. Perhaps it was appropriate that she’d be the first to return.

A thousand cycles ago, Calathan Havard, the Conqueror, came down from the Pestern Mountains in the north and killed all the dragon-gods. He stole the throne of Vaharilar from the Riders, who fled here to lick their wounds. His heirs still held that throne.

The Rebirth of the dragons meant one thing for certain, and I desired that thing above all others: the fall of the Havards.

I opened my eyes and rocked back on my feet, disturbed by the busy colors and shapes of the real world after the simplicity of the Tapestry. It was in my nature to crave darkness and anonymity—or perhaps it was only what I knew.

I was raised in shadows and secrecy in the Emperor’s Dungeon in the heart of Vaharilar. Until I was fourteen, only one person knew my name. Even now, my very existence was a closely guarded secret, known only to a few still loyal to my father’s memory. They called themselves the Coterie. After I escaped into their care, they made me the perfect spy. Then four cycles ago, they sent me away, infuriatingly far from the Vaharilaran court where the man I hated above all others lived and breathed.

The emperor.

I’d argued when they gave me the mission. Then I’d begged. Send me to the capital city of Havard, instead. My handler—I didn’t even know his name—firmly denied my request. Then he sat me at his feet and told me why. “Your father knew the Rebirth was imminent. The Tapestry Unweaving speaks of it.”

I’d never read it. There was no need for me to read the contents of the ancient prophecy uttered by a Touched so powerful, she could see the Threads of the future. My father’s interpretation, and the interpretation of those in the Coterie, were all that mattered.

“When the Rebirth comes, the new Riders will burn down the Dragonslayer dynasty. But we cannot allow them to control the new age. That’s our job.”

My reluctance became eagerness. Finally, for the first time, I was being asked to do something other than wait and train. “What must I do?”

“There is a demon in the Broken Realm named Tanead Tajawl,” my handler said. “He is the son of Ead Tajawl, who threw an egg into the Firecap Mountains. Asherah will seek Ead’s blood when she is born and Tanead is all that is left of her. It’s his destiny to be the first Rider of the new age. But we cannot count him a friend to our cause. The Tapestry Unweaving warns of ‘the Ravager,’ a being of great evil who will rise alongside the dragon-gods and seek to destroy the world, and of an ally who will help him. It was your father’s great wish to prevent this tragedy. Tanead Tajawl may be the Ravager’s ally. Either way, he’s important. We think he’d welcome a powerful Touched into his service.”

My heartbeat was tripping over itself as I swore not to let my handler down.

He smiled as if we were friends and we’d come up with this plan together. “Get close to him and earn his trust. Store away everything you see. Help him, for now. But if he proves to be an ally of the Ravager, you must be ready to kill him. The demons cannot be trusted, Raven. Your father knew this. Use them when it serves and kill them when it doesn’t. Never forget that they once controlled the greatest power our world has ever seen. Power deserves respect and a firm hand. What the Dragonslayer, Calathan the Conqueror did, bringing down the Tajawl’s empire at the height of its power, was a miracle. We can’t afford to need another.”

My handler stroked my cheek and I leaned into the rare touch. “Above all else, do not tell the demon your name. If he were to find out you’re Raven Rosa, daughter of the great Traitor, he would use you mercilessly.”

Yes, that’s all anyone who knew my name wanted to do. Use me without ever even seeing me. If it were known throughout the empire that I was alive, armies would rise to serve me. Assassins would slit my throat in the night. For some, my name represented hope and justice. For others, it was a personification of betrayal. I was a pawn, a weapon, a secret, and I’d grown comfortable in the shadows after a lifetime of hiding in them. But right now, I couldn’t slip into the dark and disappear. A crowd of demons watched me with rapt attention. Tanead had stopped speaking and raised his arms for quiet.

“Asherah will be born soon,” I promised. “The Rebirth comes.”

A cheer rose up from the crowd. They raised their fists above their horns, shouting together the hurrah of a people oppressed for centuries whose gods are soon to be reborn. Vengeance, they cried. Tears rolled down cheeks dirty with smudges of red sand.

Tanead came to me. His hand circled around the back of my neck, caressing the skin just below the collar that bound me to his service. “It floats?” he whispered.

Lie to him, a deep voice slithered through my mind, its command hardly more than a whisper. I’d heard it since I was a child. It offered me guidance, and sometimes comfort. I imagined it was a fragmented memory of my father, who I could not picture at all.

Why? I asked the voice. We wish for what he wishes for. The Dragonslayers rule Vaharilar because their ancestors killed the dragon-gods. The Rebirth will topple their empire. Shouldn’t he know that the time comes?

You see what he cannot. Do not give your power away, little bird.

I considered the advice. Tanead would stay close to the mountain if I told him that Asherah’s Rebirth was imminent. If I didn’t, he might leave when today’s ritual was complete, more interested in hunting for new eggs than playing nursemaid to the one already found.

What would happen if Tanead were not here to Bond Asherah when she was born? It was unlikely, but she might Bond someone else—someone I was less well-positioned with. She might even be hurt without her Rider to care for her. I offered these concerns up to the voice, but it remained silent. It had given its advice. It was for me to choose what to do.

“She reaches the surface,” I said, hedging my bets. “She does not seem strong enough yet to break free of the shell.” I kept my voice low so that the other Touched, Mayze, wouldn’t hear and volunteer disagreement. I was careful how I phrased my words, in case Tanead spoke to her later.

“Then it will be soon.”

“Before the moon-cycle ends,” I promised. In truth, I thought it might be only days.

Tanead turned away from the Mother’s Womb with an expression I had come to know well. It spoke of a craving he always seemed to nurse to be somewhere else, anywhere besides here in the heart of his realm where his destiny required him to be. Any other demon would be thrilled to learn he would soon become the first Rider in centuries. But Tanead wished to Ride on his own terms. He spent most of his time hunting (unsuccessfully) for new eggs rather than ruling the fragmenting kingdom his mother had left behind. Asherah’s wings did not represent freedom to him, but a prison of expectations that had been written on the day his mother died.

The cage of destiny was something we had in common. Though I wore his collar around my neck, I was freer in the Broken Realm than I had ever been. Tanead treated me with fairness and disinterest, never taking advantage of any skills beyond my Sight. Here, I was part of a community that longed for the same thing I did: Vengeance. The desire for it burned as hot in me as the lava that roiled in the Mother’s Womb.

Someday, my father’s name would not be spoken like a curse in the empire he’d loved. Someday, the Slayers would fall.

Until that day, I moved through the world without any name at all. Slave. Priestess. Pawn. Weapon. That’s all I was to those who wielded me.

But I was here to harness a weapon of my own—and she was almost ready to hatch.

“We should stay,” Tanead said with obvious bitterness. “I can’t miss the Rebirth. But after Asherah is born, when she is strong enough, she will fly me to a place on the edge of the Salt Sea. My readings have led me to believe that the god Enki may have fallen there.” His voice was excited and he danced on his feet.

I nodded with docile obedience, the image of the perfect slave. As if he were not being led to do exactly what I wanted.

The crowd cleared, the demons melting into the landscape like sand blown away by wind. They were still there somewhere, but I could no longer see them. In this harsh land, roving was the way of life that allowed survival. Though he called himself ‘Heir’ and ‘prince,’ Tanead ruled largely in name, with no court and no throne. He had nothing but the right blood and a look in his eyes that said he would burn the whole world to Ride over the ashes on the back of a dragon.

Personally, I didn’t care whether Tanead was a monster or a savior. I only cared that when Asherah was born, she burned the Slayers first.