4. Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Raven
W e were sparring on a cliff when the shake began. The cliff was a wall of rock so vertical, only goats should ever seek to climb it. My stomach was in my throat when Tanead made us fight here and I always lost, for the heights didn’t seem to bother the Losians. They used the movements of pebbles to unsteady their opponents and the shimmering illusions of the midday suns to distract.
Losian children were taught to fight as soon as they were taught to walk and many adults, though missing eyes, fought as naturally as they breathed.
Eymen, the guard who’d raised me in the Emperor’s Dungeon, had started young with me, too. I was a diligent student—his lessons were my first taste of the lovely agony of a bruised rib— but he taught me mostly hand-fighting, for he did not expect me to have a blade with which to defend myself.
It wasn’t until I’d left the dungeons to go north with the Coterie that I’d begun training with a sword, but I’d never taken to the long scimitars used by Vaharilaran soldiers. When Tanead gifted me a set of twin dragonstone daggers, I finally found a weapon that felt like mine .
They were a generous gift for a slave. The hilts reflected their age. They were bronze, forged in the unadorned style common in the Age of Dragons. I conditioned them until they glowed like the sun Jupe. When I closed my eyes, the dim Threads of their dragonstone greeted me in the Threadworld.
I managed to sheath them when the shake came. After that, it was all I could do to hug the rock and hope as two others of Tanead’s court fell to their deaths. My mind flew to the Mother’s Womb to check on Asherah’s egg as new fissures split open, spitting steam.
The coating of ash in the air grew thick enough to make me cough. The air tasted rancid and rotten on my tongue.
“Priestess?” Tanead shouted the question.
“This is it!” Mayze screamed in answer.
But she was wrong. The egg was not moving.
“It’s not. Not yet,” I told them as the quake quelled. It was a small one compared to many I’d experienced since my arrival.
Tanead glared at Mayze while she looked thunderous. She was so sure Asherah was coming that she hadn’t even looked.
We all climbed back onto flat ground and dusted ourselves off.
“The fuck was that about then?” asked Sonja. “The air tastes like rot.”
Another thing I liked about the Losians: Their women were more than just wives and companions—the Vaharilaran word for an owned mistress. Tanead’s mother Ead had ruled Los. From the stories they told about her, I wished she were still alive to Bond with the dragon that always should’ve been hers. Like many other women in Tanead’s court, Sonja was a skilled warrior and a valued adviser.
“Birth is disgusting, always,” Zar said. He was a father.
His twin sister, Loyce, rolled her eyes. The twins were Tanead’s best friends and closest confidantes.
“Just another sign of how close we are to a new age,” Tanead assured them. He hopped atop an outcropping, leaned back, and opened his arms, letting the rancid air wash over him, cleansing him. “Come on,” he shouted, begging the dragon to appear.
“Perhaps she’s hungry,” I joked.
Tanead didn’t take it as a joke. His eyes sharpened, his interest peaked. “A sacrifice?”
I resisted rolling my eyes. Tanead was just bored. Serving him sometimes was like being nursemaid to a child. Other times, we were priestess and prince, spy and target, even brother and sister. His lack of interest in me as a man meant things never got…complicated. Most days, I actually kind of liked Tanead, though I’d slit his throat in a minute if my handler indicated that it would serve my mission.
“Dragons are born of blood and fire,” I said. A noncommittal answer that would allow Tanead to do whatever the fuck he felt like doing anyway.
Tanead strode inside a cave and Mayze—the other Touched—sidled up beside me to whisper hotly in my ear. “You’re a traitor,” she said.
I almost laughed. ‘Traitor’ was practically my house name. It meant nothing to me to be called that, especially by a woman in the court of a foreign prince.
“I’m not Losian,” I said very reasonably. “I can’t be a traitor.”
“Yes, you can,” Mayze said firmly. “You gave our prince your word. You’re supposed to serve him.”
“I do.”
“If you served him, you would’ve told him what I know you saw during that ritual. Asherah will be born any day. He should not leave the mountain.”
“He’s still here, isn’t he?” I said, shrugging her off. Her Sight was far weaker than mine, and consequently, Tanead didn’t pay much attention to her. Hopefully it stayed that way.
I felt her eyes on me that night when a scout ran into the cave where Tanead held court, breathless and dripping, coated in pale ash, bending over at her knees. She gratefully accepted a canteen of water.
“Spit it out,” Tanead urged, rocking back and forth on his toes.
“Vaharilarans have crossed the border,” she gasped out.
Tanead stilled. His slitted eyes sharpened while every muscle in his body relaxed, like an animal holding still in tall grasses so as not to be seen by approaching prey. “How many?”
“The child who saw them said six. Five alwashi between them. They killed the rest of her tribe but the child escaped.”
Tanead frowned. “Six is no army.”
“A scouting party. Carrying few supplies and moving quickly. They were heading towards the mountain."
“They must know Asherah is soon to be Reborn. So soon. Any time now,” offered Mayze. Her emerald eyes darted to me before sliding back to Tanead.
Tanead rushed into the open air and peered east. The height of the mountain gave us an expansive view. Valuable scraggly trees grew around the base but rocky soil soon replaced them. Beyond the hills stretched spans and spans of red sands. Dunes rose and fell, casting shadows and obstructing the view.
Those sands were deadly. Unpredictable winds whipped them into cyclones without warning and the ground below was hungry. Step wrong and the sands would suck you in and hold you tight, allowing the insects that crawled below the surface to slowly devour you. The safest way to cross was in the underground tunnels left behind by the dragon-gods. I doubted very much that the Vaharilarans knew of them.
Beyond the sands, out of sight beside the River of Madness, was the most dangerous terrain of all: the black glass plains, where dragonfire had along ago melted the sand into flat glass plates. Not a single tree or bush grew there and the suns' light danced on the land as if on an ocean.
But, though my eyes scanned and scanned, I saw no signs of any mounted scouting party.
“There! Fucking invaders,” Tanead said. He shifted from foot to foot, pacing at the edge of a drop. His powerful shoulders flexed beneath the brown waves of his hair as he tipped his head forward. His horns pointed at his enemy.
I stepped beside him and squinted, but my vision wasn’t as good as a demon’s at distances.
“They’ve come to see the Mother’s fat belly,” Loyce said. She stepped beside me and I squeezed towards Tanead to make room. Her green-and-black horns were smaller than his, but far more twisted. The smile she gave Tanead was twisted, too.
“I’ll show them my fat cock instead,” Tanead boasted, grabbing his crotch. I restrained myself from rolling my eyes by fixating them on the hills in the distance.
I still saw nothing, at first. But gradually, by staring in the same direction as Tanead, I made out tiny moving shapes, no larger than insects.
“How do you know they’re the Vaharilarans?” I asked.
Tanead scoffed at me. He had the haughtiness of a real prince, that was for sure. “Priestess, I can see the gold of their armor and the stripes of their alwashi. Besides, look how they ride in the open on the backs of beasts. These are not my people.”
“Of course,” I murmured, bowing my head in respect, but really to look down at the party I could barely see. There were six moving shapes. I couldn’t make out any more detail than that.
I huffed out a breath as Tanead laughed. The mania in his eyes was rising.
This is an opportunity, suggested the deep voice in my mind. It is time to come home. It is about to begin.
What can you mean? I asked. Asherah will be the one to rain fire down on the Slayers. We must be here to greet her. She will be Reborn any day.
Then I saw the bird flying towards the mountain.
Perhaps it was my name that made me interested in the animals. Perhaps it was a life spent behind the bars of a cage. But whatever the reason, I’d always felt a kinship with winged creatures. In my fantasies of the future, it was dragons who answered my prayers, ravens who adorned the flags flown by kings, and songbirds who sang me into a deep sleep without nightmares.
The bird that flew towards the mountain was none of these.
It was an ordinary animal, but a massive one. Its wingspan was enough to tell me that. I imagined feathers along those wings as long as my own arm.
Could it be?
“The party’s down there, Priestess,” Tanead’s voice whispered in my ear. I jumped at his closeness and scolded myself for taking my attention off him. His arm snaked around my stomach and he rested his chin on my narrow shoulder, holding me like a mother holds a child. Gently, he rocked me.
His hands didn’t shake and his muscles were loose and limber, but I knew if I turned my head to look into his red eyes, they would be as wild and crazy as an untrained alwashi’s. The promise of violence and vengeance might tighten another man, but not Tanead. He leaned into them as if they were his own mother’s embrace.
“The bird in the sky isn’t right,” I said. Tanead’s pointed chin didn’t leave my shoulder, but he did twist his neck up to see.
It was not only the creature’s size that was unusual. The sulfurous sky was empty of life; all other birds had fled. Though a predator this size ought to circle high, conserving energy, instead it stayed low, beating its wings over and over to fly in a straight line towards the mountains.
“The Priestess is right. The bird must be with them,” declared Tanead. He released me to prowl back to the edge, toes hanging off. His gaze lingered on the bird for only a short moment before it was pulled, as if by force, back towards the party in the hills.
“Of course, the Prince of Snakes understands what the presence of this bird could mean,” I said.
What was I doing? Tanead needed to stay here to bond with the dragonet as soon as she was born. I’d worked for four cycles towards an alliance with Asherah’s future Rider. Now, on the eve of success, I put Tanead’s Bonding in jeopardy.
And yet, the words tumbled from my mouth anyway. The same desire that pulled Tanead towards that party pulled me: a desire for vengeance.
“That bird is an Imperial eagle. They can only be flown by members of the Slayer royal family. If I’m right, it means there’s a Slayer royal in that party.”
Every demon on the mountainside stilled. The air felt charged with electric excitement. As one, they turned, every eye shifting either to the bird or to the party in the foothills.
“Can’t be. My scout would have told me,” Tanead said.
“A child saw them. Do you think she could tell a lord from a prince?” Loyce said.
Tanead considered this. “Are you sure it’s an Imperial eagle?” Though Tanead could see the details of the bird’s feathers better than I could, he’d never seen an Imperial eagle before. Neither had I.
“No, Prince,” I admitted.
Tanead moved so quickly to my side that my hand flew to the hilt of my dagger. I didn’t have time to draw it before he grabbed me by the back of the neck and tilted me over the cliff’s edge. My arms instinctively began to flail, but I forced them to still. It would do nothing except let Tanead know he’d scared me. And that was a power over me I would not grant him.
I kept my hands on my belt and leaned into the tingling heat and aliveness that flooded my body from the tips of my fingers to the crown of my head.
“Look closer,” Tanead said mildly.
I tilted my head to peer skyward, ignoring the thrill of my racing heart. Smoke drifted, revealing Ksafa’s yellow light, and a flash of gold teased me as I stared at the bird.
“Do you see gold feathers on the wings and crown?” I asked, trying to match Tanead’s mild tone. Perhaps some waver of excitement leaked out and betrayed me.
He pulled me back from the edge and disappointment layered alongside relief as my feet settled back on the stone mountainside and the terror of my predicament eased.
“I do,” he said.
Good girl. Keep going, urged the voice.
I could not understand its motivation, or my own. I felt reckless, lightheaded. Ready to throw everything I’d worked for in the fire, and for what? The chance to kill a Slayer.
Tanead’s red eyes pierced me. He always held his head tipped forward. Most demons did—I deduced it helped them balance the weight of their horns. But the visual effect was of a predator about to charge. When he worked his magic, the draconic red slit in the center of his eyes would overtake the whites, darkening them to the color of hot coals. His body was lithe and lean—a little too thin for a royal. But for the Heir of a starving, broken realm of scattered demons, it was perfect.
“It is an Imperial eagle. And more importantly, it behaves oddly.”
“You said that and I see it with my eyes. But what does my priestess believe it means?” Tanead said.
By calling me by my title, reminding the others that I could see a world they could not, Tanead avoided the shame of not deducing what I had.
“My prince, see how he flaps so hard to stay low rather than riding the thermals high in the sky? See how he flies in a straight line towards the mountain? Even a well-trained animal would not do these things. This bird behaves as if he is controlled by a man.”
“It cannot be. No altayr has been born to the Slayers in generations. Their magic is dead.”
“Yes, Prince. As dead as dragons.”
Tanead’s eyes flared. His irises danced and changed like crimson storm clouds. But he smiled. He liked a spark of defiance, even in his slaves.
He turned to study the bird and the party below once more. The Vaharilarans were moving away, riding back towards the River of Madness. But the bird flew ever closer.
Tanead could not keep his eyes on the bird. They slid over and over to the party on the ground. “Tell me, Priestess. Will my dragon be born today, or tomorrow? Be sure, Priestess. Be very sure.”
The answer tumbled from my mouth. A terrible lie. My heart beat with eagerness to betray. I liked Tanead and had no particular wish to destroy him, but my imagination could not stop thinking about how it would feel to plunge my dagger through the heart of a Slayer and feel his heart’s blood pumping out to coat my hand. In his final moments, I would lean in to whisper my name so that he would know that the Traitor had triumphed after all.
“She will not be born until you are ready to welcome her,” I promised. “Perhaps she waits for a sacrifice of blood, like we discussed.”
It might be true. I’d read of such things happening in Losian history texts.
And if Asherah were born without Tanead here to greet her? What would happen then? Another answer I didn’t know. She might Bond another, though the pull of Tajawl blood would likely prevent it. In all probability, she would wait for him, mewling on the side of the mountain like a newborn babe, until he rushed back to her side to feed her her first meal: the head of an Havard.
“Prince of Snakes, I must disagree,” Mayze’s nervous voice rang out. She’d been quiet since her mistake during the quake, but she was not so timid that she’d let me get away with a deceit as vast as this. “Asherah is eager to be born. She is ready, Prince. She might come at any moment.”
Tanead raised an eyebrow at me.
I shrugged, trying to look unconcerned. “Different interpretations of the Threads.”
Tanead hesitated, considering. My ability to see Threads was stronger, and he trusted me. Mayze had already made a mistake. But a lot rode on the choice he was about to make.
“The ancient texts speak of an eclipse that will herald my dragon’s coming, do they not?”
“They do, my prince,” Zar said, eagerness in his voice. He was a hunter by nature. Waiting here made his madness rise.
“There has been no eclipse. The Mother has not yet indicated her readiness. What say you of that, Mayze?” Tanead asked.
Mayze trembled. “I do not pretend to know more than I can see with my Touched eyes, my prince. Asherah is ready. Perhaps you might ask those who study the sky when to expect the welcoming eclipse.”
It was a good suggestion, but such scholars were not here, and Tanead had no patience for such things.
“The eclipse was foretold and has not yet occurred.” I tried to say these words wisely, as if they said something we didn’t all already know.
I guess it worked, because Tanead nodded, satisfied. “Yes. Asherah will come soon, but not just yet. The party is close. I will bring back Invader blood as a gift for her.”
Sonja rushed to speak. “My prince, might it be wiser to send a party of your best warriors, their swords raised in your name? The Rebirth is too important—”
Tanead rounded on her, his finger jabbing at the Mother’s Womb. On each knuckle of his fist, a jut of bone curved out from beneath the skin, giving him small claws. “This is my dragon, is it not?”
“Of course,” Sonja said.
“Then she shall not hatch while I am not here. Will she?”
Pride flared in Sonja’s eyes. She didn’t answer, nor did she bow or apologize. She did shut her mouth though, and for Tanead, it was enough.
***
I descended into the tunnels that spidered beneath the Broken Realm with Tanead and a party of eight warriors, including Loyce and Sonja. Mayze and Zar had been left behind to monitor the mountain, much to Zar’s chagrin.
Inside the tunnels, the power of the long-dead creatures who’d made them still thrummed. When I closed my eyes, the entire world lit soft green. I took the lead, for I would not trip or stumble. This underworld wasn’t dark to me. It was an embrace.
Though the Vaharilarans rode mounts, they were unfamiliar with this land and moved slowly. The Losians believed it was sacrilegious to ride any animal but a dragon, but the caves allowed us to move quickly on foot. Every hill above was a straight line to us. We’d catch them.
We walked hard for a day before taking a tunnel exit. Tanead believed we must be right behind them now, but it was hard to know after disappearing into the Crust for so long. When we ascended again into the sunlight, I looked for the bird while the others scoured the land, searching for footprints or other signs that they’d passed by here.
“No bird,” I noted.
“No prints, either. Not fresh, anyway,” Loyce said. “We’ve overshot them.”
So back into the tunnel we went, only to rise and again, come up empty.
“Find them,” Tanead commanded me.
“I cannot see the threads of men,” I reminded him.
We canvassed the hills until we encountered a tribe that had found signs of the Vaharilarans' passing.
In my four cycles here, I’d tried to gather some count of the population of Los and failed. The small, nomadic tribes that had united into a single nation under Queen Ead's leadership had fractured since her death. They shared history, a need to survive, and a blood-deep craving for vengeance, but there was little else to unite them.
We stayed above ground after we caught the trail, following Loyce as she tracked them. Soon, they were close enough to see, rising and falling far ahead as they crossed the hills.
More than once, Tanead glared at me as I tripped over a rock or sent a shower of pebbles skittering down the bumpy land. I didn’t have a demon’s natural grace and this wasn’t my kingdom.
It was even harder to hide when we got to the sands. The ground kept evidence of our every step and shifted without warning. We sank back into the tunnels, emerging frequently. Every time we peeked our heads up, I was grateful that the bird had flown away. With an altayr watching through his eyes, ambush would be impossible.
“Do we attack?” Sonja asked in sign language once we were close enough. Losians spoke the common tongue of the continent, but they also used a sign language to communicate silently and secretly.
I didn’t see Tanead’s answer, for my eyes were on the party. Specifically, on the man wearing a full set of dragonstone scale with a dragon’s severed head etched onto a golden chest plate.
Father be damned, he was big. He lacked the standard paleness of the Northerners. His skin was the color of roasted nuts, warm and golden. His hair fell in waves to his shoulders. The tips peeked out beneath his helmet, which rose to a point above his head.
Only an idiot would wear that armor here. Without it, I might’ve thought him just another noble. A giant, for sure. A man I’d shudder to fight. But just a man.
His armor told me different.
It marked him a monster.
A guardsman rode a careful two steps behind him. The rest of his party ranged about him, keeping him in the center of their circle. I ran them all over quickly with my eyes, but they didn’t capture my attention. There was a guardsman, an older noble who had the look of command about him, a woman of eastern blood, a small man who lacked talent at riding, and a Northerner with armor nearly as rich as the Slayer’s. I studied him for an extra moment, but the falcon he wore marked him as the member of House Kells.
They were all idiots, I thought. They told the whole story of themselves without ever speaking. Had it not occurred to them to come into Los dressed as Losians? Did they even know what Losians dressed like?
I looked around at our own party. I was dressed like the rest of them were, in rough-spun red fabrics that hid my skin from the elements. Loose pants draped, allowing for movement. Strips of cloth compressed my chest below my tunic, obscuring obvious signs of sex. Like the others, my head was also wrapped in the red cloth, leaving only my eyes exposed. This land could not even be trusted to let you breathe without armor on.
Only the demons' horns were displayed proudly outside the head wrap. They twisted through holes in the fabric, rising towards the sky. My own lack of horns marked me as different, as did the color of my eyes and the daggers at my waist. But it could not be helped.
“He is a Slayer,” I signed, my fingers slow and sloppy. The complex sign language had taken me two cycles to follow. Now, whenever I saw it spoken, I thought of all the Losian secrets that the Vaharilarans didn’t know.
Once, I’d thought the scattered demons, with their dead land and lost magic, pitiable and weak. Living here, I’d learned otherwise. These people were smart and hungry for change. It was no accident that they’d survived.
Tanead nodded. “Obviously.”
“His bird is still gone,” I noted.
“For now.”
“It is good,” Loyce signed. “Without the bird to scout for him, we can follow undetected. I propose we attack them in the sands just before they reach the glass plains. They will think they are safe there.”
The tunnels that ran beneath Los continued all the way to the River of Madness, but the Vaharilarans would know nothing of them. They would look across the flat expanse of the glass plains and think they were alone. It was a good plan. Loyce was a clever strategist, if a bit reckless.
Sonja shook her head. She cast a pointed glance at the Mother’s Womb. “Now,” she signed. She was still young, with bright red eyes and narrow, stark white horns, a rare color.
Tanead stared up at the Mother’s Womb as he considered. Waiting for the party to travel through the sands would take time. He could kill them now. Today. And rush back to the mountain.
Then again, they were almost at the plains.
So it came down to me.
“Priestess?” he asked.
I hesitated. Closed my eyes. Flew in my mind into the mountain, where liquid fire roiled like the sea during a storm.
You owe the demon nothing, said the deep voice. You are Raven Rosa and vengeance awaits you.
Yes, being in Los for so long had grown confusing. The deep voice, which I associated with my father, reminded me what my real priority was. I could not let any feelings of fondness for the Losians I’d grown friendly with to alter my path.
I opened my eyes and let myself think for a moment about what I wanted. I devoured the sight of the Slayer’s back, fascinated by every curve of his muscular body. By the stiffness with which he rode, like a man asleep. By the expressionless face he wore as he spoke to his men. I wanted to put him in a jar and study him, and then turn the lid of the jar until it was closed, and watch him suffocate.
No. No, that would not be enough.
I wanted my blades to sing free and slice through the man’s skin until his guts fell out. I wanted to slay the skin off that oh-so-muscular back.
I didn’t want to cheer on Tanead while he killed the Slayer. I wanted to do it my damned self. And I’d have surer footing in the plains. I’d never been surefooted in the sands.
“Wait,” I signed.
And Tanead listened.
Good girl, whispered the voice. That’s power.
Tracking the party was easy after that. The caverns beneath the eastern sands were shallow, formed just below the surface. As the alwashi slogged through the treacherous sands, we looked up at the shifting of the particles caused by their hooves. There was no question now what direction the Vaharilarans would travel in, and so we passed them and waited where the sand froze to glass.
“Are you ready to kill yourselves a Slayer?” Tanead licked his lips as my own breathing fluttered.
I was more than ready. My skin itched with my desire. My fingers twitched with readiness. My entire body felt scalding hot. My body was a bone-filled cauldron bubbling and boiling with vengeance.
I wanted to kill him myself.
I’d wondered who he was as we followed, of course, and I thought I knew: Prince Caelan, younger son of Emperor Calathan VIII. It was said he was a giant and darker-skinned than his brother, the sadistic Crown Prince Amon. It would be ludicrous to send a crown prince or an emperor into Los. A second son? The one known as the Demonhunter?
Yes, that made sense.
At night when I slept on the tunnel’s hard floor, I closed my eyes to a vision of his cold face. My stomach clenched and flipped over. I wanted to crawl into a ball inside my skin and hide from his gaze, but in my dreams he seemed able to see through me.
I pictured his body, my eyes drifting over his limbs and chest, marking where the gaps in his armor would be. Would he be warm when I slid in close, dagger buried in him to the hilt?