Chapter 3 - Return of the Ravens
As soon as I thought I would suffocate on my own terror, Ganora released her hold on my mind.
I pulled my hand out of the water of the healing spring and crawled back on the smooth pebbles. My heart pounded as my eyes found Daigen’s.
“G-Ganora, she—”
“This is what happens when you don’t listen to me,” Daigen said with a smirk as he rested in the spring.
I furrowed my brows and sat up. “She is going to blood bond with Riyan at the next full moon unless I unshackle Fraleigh.”
Daigen ran his claws through his hair. “I told you Ganora cared about her sister…”
“Then tell me why!” The words seared my tongue. “Tell me why the Hytons enslaved her! Tell me how I can set her free! Tell me something, because if you will not let me ask—!”
Daigen quickly raised his claw and suddenly all the air from my throat disappeared. My hands scrambled to my neck as I tried to draw in air, but his brow stayed hard as he looked at me. “Your answers will come at the right time, be patient.”
Why was he being vague when I had only three weeks to save Riyan from eternal enslavement? I shook my head and ran my fingertips along the ribbon of my choker as my lungs burned.
“Magic is not logic,” he said firmly. “You have to just trust me.”
He released his enchantment and I gasped. My palms spread across the pebbles as I coughed through the pain in my lungs.
All the questions I could not ask burned in my chest. Why did magic not make any logical sense? Why would Rosaline send me to Daigen as my answer to help Riyan? What had the Hytons taken from him that he would need my help to get?
“ Se-ra! ”
I looked up—the two black ravens beat their wings against the night sky, flying straight for us.
Daigen groaned. “Not this again!” He scooped up some glowing white water from the spring and dripped it against his forehead. The healing spring suddenly dulled into its normal cerulean luminescence. “I got the memory I want. Let’s go.”
He quickly leaped out of the spring and threw on his tunic and cloak as he shook his legs dry.
“ Se-ra! Se-ra! ” the ravens croaked.
I watched the birds as they flew closer. Why did they want to get to me so badly?
Daigen’s hooves clacked against the rocks as he rounded the spring toward me. Steam curling off the surface of the hot spring warmed my face, and I swore I heard laughter as the steam kissed my ears.
Not just any laughter—the laughter of a boy on a summer afternoon.
I knitted my brows. I recognized that laugh…but it could only come from a memory…
Daigen’s claws wrapped around my hand, but my eyes stayed on the ravens even as the magic in the air dragged against my skin.
In a flash of white light and a blink, a wall of icy rocks consumed my entire vision. Frigid wind blew past me and my hair whipped around my shoulders. I wobbled on the balls of my feet and I looked down.
Tree tops. I snapped my head up—we stood on a tiny ledge on the side of the mountain, only wide enough for my feet and not an inch more.
I gripped Daigen’s hand and swallowed a gasp. He laughed.
“Not afraid of heights, are we?” He tugged me forward.
A goat bleated above us. Another answered from below, but I was too afraid to look at anything other than the back of Daigen’s head as I tip-toed behind him.
Luckily, the perilous path was only a few steps long. With a click, Daigen pushed open a door and pulled me inside a small house.
Daigen flicked his wrist and a fire sparked to life in a small hearth. He locked the door and hung his cloak on a peg. Four other cloaks of dappled shades of grey, green, and brown hung near it.
How did he have that many cloaks of invisibility?
“I would love to learn how to become invisible,” I said, careful to make my statement not sound too much like a question.
“I’m certain you can master the ability.” Daigen looked over his shoulder and fanned out the grey and white cloak. “It’s an ancient form of sorcery known as paint.”
My fists gripped my wool cape and I shot him an icy glare.
He dropped the cloak and his smirk disappeared. “Can’t even take a joke? You still have to learn how your power works, Litlnadr. ”
“Just tell me—!”
Daigen held out his hand and silenced me. “Hand over that hunk of rock in your pocket and you’ll know soon enough.”
I held my cape tighter around me. My blood bond was gone and the flower crown Riyan had given me withered, why did he want my Nordingaard crystal too?
Daigen’s brow hardened. “ Trust, remember? I’m going to make it useful.”
I let out a tense breath, but retrieved the rough crystal from my pocket. The crystal made a grating clink as Dagain’s claws snapped around it.
He unsheathed his ancient blade from a scabbard at his hip. “Here, I’ll hold your precious little trinket and you’ll hold mine.”
I tentatively held out my hand and he placed the worn leather hilt in my palm. I ran my fingertip down the ancient and tiny runes carved into the blade.
“ Reginbani, ” Daigen said. The word sounded rough and ragged, must have been in Old Tongue. “That’s its name.”
Riyan had once told me men name their weapons to give them more power. I had no idea what Reginbani meant, but the weight of the name hung around the steel.
He turned on his hooves and slowly walked over to a small table that was littered with iron tools. He sat down and placed my crystal in a vise.
I tucked Reginbani’s hilt into my palm and slowly walked toward the firelight to join him at the table.
He tapped the hammer to the chisel and a piece of the blue crystal chipped off.
I threw out my hand. “Stop! You will ruin it!”
My magic reached for him again, but nothing responded. A sneeze would have made stronger contact than whatever I had just done.
“Calm down.” Daigen scoffed as he chipped another piece off. “These things aren’t delicate like your sensibilities.”
I sat on the stool opposite Daigen at the table. I focused on that little white fire around my heart that flickered slowly, like the single flame on a candle’s wick.
What was the point of having the gift of sorcery if I could do nothing with it?
“Magic is based on your emotions, that is why you struggle with it,” Daigen said as he calmly chiseled at the crystal. “When you want to change something—step through thin air, alter appearance, turn snow into flame—you have to believe in it. You have to want something so badly that you bend reality itself to satisfy that deep emotional need.”
He gave the crystal a sharp tap. “For example, Fraleigh’s damn blood bonds are supposed to be impossible to remove, but I have a deep emotional need to rid them from every mortal I come across…and here you sit, liberated from the corruption. You can thank me at any time.”
When I last used my power, I allowed the pain of losing my brothers to warp my body until it did exactly what I wanted—destroy the giant that killed Endre.
Unlike then, my heartbeat now echoed in a hollow cavern. How was I ever supposed to use my magic if the grey numbness had taken over my body again?
“Thanks to your liberation, ” my voice broke and I swallowed, “I do not have a deep emotional need anymore.”
I spoke but my words had no flavor. My voice had no melody. How could I know what I wanted if I did not even yearn for food, or sunlight, or…happiness?
Daigen sighed and put down his tools. “You are changing. Still very much mortal but…changing.”
His hooves clicked as he rose from the table. He walked to a wooden shelf on the wall full of small glass vials. His claws clinked against the glass as he plucked a vial filled with white powder off the shelf.
“I used to be an alchemist’s apprentice.” He speared one of his claws into the cork and unstoppered the bottle. “I crafted remedies and illusions alike.”
He poured a small pile of the powder into his left palm. His hand dipped slightly like he was carefully weighing the contents. “A couple of tricks here and there to amuse the simple-minded…”
He tossed the powder into the fire. The fire blazed blue. Hyton Blue.
I blinked. “The blue fire the Hytons use…was never Fraleigh’s magic.”
Daigen barked out a laugh. “No, though the Hytons do love to steal things. It was one of Alastar the Conqueror’s favorite tricks of mine. His wretched son loved it too, among all the little feats and illusions I performed for decades.”
His head slowly turned back to me, the blue fire casting a glow onto his white hair. “But the most important element of crafting illusions is not the materials I use, but precision. ”
He let the weight of his last word hang in the air amongst the crackling of the log in the fireplace. He leaned forward and splayed his claws on the table. “That is why I ask you to trust me. Everything I do is deliberate, Litlnadr. ”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Everything should be deliberate.”
Daigen let out a low laugh. “A little serpent with a mind like mine. Although we may think alike, our power manifests differently. I was formed in a time where I had to be discreet and unseen, so I developed an affinity for transformation.”
He smiled, revealing his fangs. “I don’t actually look like this.”
I examined him from horn to hoof. “Then wear your real face. Surely you cannot be any uglier than this.”
“This,” he stomped his hoof for emphasis, “is a delightful curse from the Great Sorceress of Nordingaard. She wanted me so ugly, so fearsome, that no mortal would ever seek my help again.”
So Fraleigh did have a rivalry with Daigen. Even while held captive by the Hytons, she must have somehow felt threatened by his power. “What a shame she forced you to look like this forever.”
“I never said that.” Daigen’s smile grew bigger. “There is nothing more delicious than proving Fraleigh wrong, and since a certain little mortal sought my hideous face regardless of her curse, I finally have my opportunity to take the mask off…”
Daigen bowed his head slightly and his horns retracted. His hooves turned into feet and his claws became fingers. His red skin blanched into a pale white brushed with a lavender glow.
He opened his eyes—now violet instead of gold. His fangs had disappeared. Like Fraleigh, his features were too sharp to be considered beautiful, but he was no longer hideous.
A goat bleated outside. Dozens of hooves clattered on the rocks.
Daigen’s violet eyes shifted to the small window. “I also have a talent for transforming others. Those enchantments tend to be more…permanent.”
My stomach turned. “The goats are—”
“No, not them,” Daigen said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But others…I’ve hidden in the rocks around the mountain and turned men into mice. Girls into larks. Hell, I turned a couple of Bloodstone boys into white bears a few decades ago.”
I folded my arms. “You robbed them of their lives!”
“It’s better than being giant food! Though I will admit my insatiable need to help others is one of my worst vices.” He sighed and sat down in front of his tools. “Anyone I turn into a goat runs away from me, those beasts outside just won’t leave me alone. My father was a herder, guess it’s just in my blood.”
I rested my hand on my fist as I listened. I never needed to ask Daigen who he was, he was just…telling me. Despite his power, it was hard to be afraid of a cursed and bitter soul on the mountain who liked to help people.
Maybe he had a point about answers coming to me at the right time. Had he tried to tell me who he was before I saw his true face and his quaint home, I would have never believed him.
I had only known Daigen for a couple of hours yet I still hated when he was right.
A sharp tap rattled the window pane and the glass darkened. “ Se-ra! ”
The ravens had returned. How did they find us?
Daigen groaned and picked up his tools again. “Here we go. They’re going to annoy us until they realize they can’t break through glass.”
I took in a breath—the smell of smoking herbs and charcoal dust hit my nose.
That smelled just like…it was impossible, but we were on Nordingaard, where the impossible had stared me in the face more than once.
My heartbeat quickened as I lifted myself from the table. “Just to make sure I understand you correctly—the Man of the Mountain’s tears behave like water and live in the air around us.”
Daigen lightly hammered his chisel against the crystal. “Yes.”
A raven pecked its beak on the window pane and the wooden door rattled—the other raven must have joined in.
I took a step closer to the door. “You also took a memory from the healing spring. Since the magic comes from intense emotions…the tears can carry memories too.”
Daigen blew the dust off the crystal and buffed it with his sleeve. “What a joy to hear that you’re finally using your brain and figuring things out yourself. See what you can accomplish without asking endless questions like a snotty nursery child?”
I had picked up on the memories floating through the air with my magic, but why had the tears carried memories of my brothers any time the ravens were near? Were they just harbingers of my grief, haunting me with the fact that my brothers were dead?
Or what if…?
Sharp scratches echoed through the door. The hinges rattled again.
I could not pry my eyes off the door as the scratching got louder. “If you were on this mountain, then you must have been at the failed battle with the giants seven years ago.”
“I was—wait, are they picking the lock?”
The door swung open and a raven screamed as it flew inside. It soared past me to attack Daigen.
Daigen cursed in Old Tongue and swatted at the raven, but it would not stop.
I snapped my head to the open door. The cold mountain air flooded in, carrying the scent of tea leaves with it.
Another raven, larger than the first, hung from the door handle. Its beak was clamped on the latch and a stick stuck out of the keyhole near its feet.
My breath caught in my throat and tears lined my eyes.
I knew him.
My throat shook and I could barely believe the name that left my tongue. “Erik?”
The larger raven flew toward me and landed at my feet. His glossy black eyes met mine and he said in almost a sigh, “ Se-ra. ”
Tears dripped down my lashes and my chest shook. I turned my head just as the smaller raven landed on the table next to me.
I fought back a sob as I said his name, “Endre?”
The smaller raven squawked and spread its wings as if it were about to give a hug.
Memories flooded the front of my mind. Muddy footprints in the foyer. Dozens of freckles on our cheeks after baking in the sun. Flying down a hill on our favorite sled.
My brothers were alive. They were alive.
But that meant…
I crunched my hands into fists and looked down, where Daigen was pulling himself up off the floor with bloody scratches marking his face.
He took them away from me.
My white flame ignited. Power surged through my arms like a river bursting through a dam. My empty chest turned into an oven, kindling my rage until it grew hotter and hotter.
And then one word screamed in my mind...
Burn.