Blood of Ravens

by Jen McIntosh

  ‘Do what you want. I won’t bow,’ stated Keriath, though there was ice in her veins.

  Talize’s answering smile was grim. ‘Oh, but you will. Opaele breaks all. A pity. I’m afraid you won’t be much use to me after this … though Pria can still have her fun, no doubt.’

  Then she called her guards, and they prised open Keriath’s jaws so the Queen could pour the contents of the vial down her throat. Keriath snarled and spat out as much as possible but, much like the ruan, only a little was needed for it to take effect. Her vision grew hazy, and she was vaguely aware of watching Talize’s retreating back as the Queen stormed from the cell.

  She was floating, cocooned in warmth and happiness. Her peace was absolute. The agonies she had endured were nothing but a distant memory. She had never been more content in her entire life. Relief flooded her tired body, easing sore muscles and soothing half-healed wounds. Her fear and rage dissipated, like mist burning away at dawn, and all the dark things she had seen no longer troubled her. It was paradise.

  Ecstasy thrummed through her veins until she thought she might burst from the sheer pleasure of it. She was flying higher than the stars themselves, looking down on their heavenly beauty with dreamy eyes. She didn’t know how long she drifted in that world of rapture and delight. It might have been hours. It might have been years. She had no way of knowing, and nor did she care. All that mattered was staying there. She would have spent eternity in that place if she could.

  But suddenly it was over, and she was slammed back into reality with an excruciating jolt. She screamed in agony. Somehow her body hurt more for its reprieve, the suffering of her mind greater after respite. She wanted nothing more than to go back to that place. She screamed and screamed and screamed as the real world tore her apart. Nothing had ever hurt as much as this. Nothing.

  But she would not give in. Not now. Not after all she had already withstood so much. No matter how much it hurt, she wouldn’t bow … and so Talize returned. She gave Keriath more. The second time was even better than the first. The descent after was even worse. But still, she would not bow. And so the cycle continued, over and over again until it was all she thought about.

  She needed more. She’d have torn open her chest with her bare hands and ripped her still-beating heart from it if she’d thought it would take her back to that place. But a pair of red eyes glinted in the doorway, and she knew her torments were far from over.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Keriath had not believed she could fall any further. She’d been wrong. Pride and rage were no longer things she could afford if she wanted to survive. So she begged. She pleaded and beseeched and implored. She grovelled and knelt at Talize’s feet. She did things she daren’t linger upon, her stomach churning with disgust and self-reproach.

  But when Ylain returned and demanded answers, still Keriath had not bent. Not when they’d starved her. Not when they’d beaten her until she was barely recognisable for her wounds. Not even when they’d withheld the opaele, and she’d screamed herself hoarse. She would sell her soul to Sephiron himself before she betrayed her kin.

  Finally, she was given to Pria – though only after the youngest Queen had promised Ylain and Talize that she would not lose control and kill their prisoner by accident. Not that any of them believed her. So began what seemed like an eternity of suffering. Ylain had been a butcher when it came to inflicting pain. Pria was an artist. She tortured her for no other reason than the joy she took from the suffering of others. It wasn’t like with Ylain, who tried to justify her actions with claims of righteousness, or Talize, who only felt strong when she inflicted pain and elicited fear.

  No, this was pure madness. Pria was insane. Keriath wondered if she would die from the humiliation and pain that the Queen caused her. Sometimes she hoped Pria would get carried away and end her. But the Queen kept her word. She held Keriath on the brink for hours at a time, until her victim no longer knew the difference between life and death.

  Then came the day she’d been dreading. Pria entered the chamber as usual, waltzing in on delicate feet. The angelic smile on her sweet face, so at odds with the malice roiling in those bloody eyes. But this time, she was followed by Talize, and Keriath felt her heart sink. The older Queen was smirking, radiating the satisfied smugness of a cat that’d just swallowed a songbird.

  Two male figures flanked Talize. Her pet Goran was to her right. Keriath shuddered as he leered at her, licking his lips in anticipation. But to her left … that hulking figure was Dell. Or at least, it had been. There was nothing of his cocky arrogance left. None of the decency or practicality that’d prompted him to bring her a healer. Not even a shred of warmth was left in his distant gaze. She reached for his mind and flinched from the hate and desperate need for violence she found there. It might have been Dell’s face that stared at her, but there was nothing left of him within.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ she gasped.

  Talize grinned. ‘I have … expanded his mind,’ she purred. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘How?’ Keriath growled, swallowing her disgust. Magic should have been beyond her.

  The Queen tittered. ‘Graced blood carries more than just life-magic. Drink enough of it, and some of it sticks.’

  ‘That would take hundreds of lives,’ breathed Keriath, trembling from the horror.

  ‘Thousands.’

  Her stomach heaved. ‘That’s not possible. My people are dead and gone – they have been for a hundred years.’

  ‘Yes, that was a shame.’ Talize sighed. ‘But Ylain, Pria and I … we’ve been feeding from the Graced since they first walked this earth. We even had our own breeding stock for a while. Until the Shade King made us destroy them. So you can appreciate how interested we are in where we might find more of you.’

  ‘The Graced are dead. The Shade King made sure of that,’ insisted Keriath, trying to hide her rising panic.

  Talize raised a disbelieving eyebrow. ‘If you say so.’ Then she gestured at Dell. ‘I’ll leave you to get reacquainted.’ She turned and left with Goran on her heels, leaving Keriath alone with Pria and Dell. The youngest Queen giggled and clapped her hands.

  ‘We’re going to have so much fun!’ she exclaimed, her girlish voice sending shivers down Keriath’s spine. But worst of all was the look of diabolical glee spreading across Dell’s face as he tested the edge of his knife.

  It was getting harder. Whatever Talize had done to Dell, it hadn’t broken the bond between them. He still seemed to sense what would hurt her most, what would scare her. With Pria’s guidance, he wore away at what little remained of her resolve.

  Keriath could only pray to Gods long-forgotten that the others were coming. Resari and Théon. Faolin and Dorrien. Her brother. Even Illyandi. And when they did, the Queens would pay for what they’d done. The last of the Graced would blaze through Dar Kual like a natural disaster, leaving only death in their wake. A faint hope, true enough, but it was all she had.

  They’d taken her power and her strength, but that could be fixed. Time would reverse the damage from starvation and torture, and then she could use her powers to purge their poisons from her body. They’d stolen her dignity and her fire. But she had hope. They would come. They would save her from her fate, and she need never look upon another Darkling again. They would make sure of that. They would protect her. As they always had.

  She’d clung to that hope while Dell whispered her nightmares into Pria’s ear. Even as her chains were tightened, and the Queen approached with knife in hand, and she’d felt the bitter grip of fear around her heart. She’d screamed as Pria carved her face, the blade digging deep and edged with enough magic to ensure the wounds would scar. Talize had taken the magic of the Unicorns, corrupting it for her own ends. But Pria had stolen the power of the Casting from any Elf unfortunate enough to cross her path. It was a dark, twisted thing in her hands. The scent of it, the touch as it cut through Keriath … her stomach heaved in revulsion.

  But when Pria handed
the knife to Dell, Keriath’s terror surged. She thrashed then, making the ordeal even worse as the knife dragged. But she didn’t have it in her to hold still. Not when he trailed that blade down her throat, across her breast and the ravaged hollow of her stomach … lower. Not when he cut into unmarked flesh, to finish the ruination of her beauty that his brethren had started all those years ago. Not when he licked her skin clean of the blood that flowed from his ministrations.

  She was not so far gone that she missed what it sparked in his eyes. But she was too tired to care about the flash of devastation on his face when he looked at the bloody knife in his hand. Pria was too drunk on her pain to either notice or care. Instead, the young Queen shoved him aside and drank her fill, dragging Keriath towards oblivion.

  The cold seeped through her body, and Keriath drifted, floating in the darkness. She thought she heard a voice raised in song, but it was little more than a distant memory. A Phoenix. Her clear, pure voice soaring to notes that Keriath could not have imagined, tears rolling down her cheeks as she sang. It was an old song, the lyrics in the ancient tongue. Keriath did not understand the words, but she knew their meaning. It was a song of hope.

  It was a legend, whispered around mortal campfires – a story they told their children to send them to sleep. They claimed that the song of a Phoenix gave hope to the strong of heart, while casting fear into the weak. Keriath smiled bitterly to herself, wincing as the movement sent a flash of searing pain through the wounds on her face. Mortals also believed that Phoenix tears had healing powers. But faith was its own kind of magic. So she let the memory of the song fill her until it was almost as though the Phoenix woman stood there. Hope swelled, and somehow, despite the crushing weight of the mountain, her magic flared.

  Keriath’s hands wrapped their way around the chains above her. Her body, although she did not command it to, heaved itself up to stand tall. It fought off the pain and the weakness, the hunger and exhaustion, and it felt strong. In a last, desperate attempt, she hurled her fury at the weight of dark magic suppressing her power and felt it yield. Magic rushed through her body, healing her, strengthening her. In the same instant, she pulled on the chains and kicked out, planting her feet on the chest of the youngest Queen, sending her flying back towards the door.

  Flames of darkest amethyst lashed out at Dell, knocking him to the ground. She screamed in defiance as she ripped the chains from the wall, freeing her arms. But as she reached for the chains about her ankles, the corruption of the mountain pressed against her once more, and her strength crumbled. A shout from the door drew her attention – a dozen guards were rushing towards her.

  Defiance never left her lips as she was subdued and ruan poured down her throat again. Still she struggled against them, but they were too many. Then she saw the Queen bearing down on her. Blood oozed from a cut in Pria’s head where she’d hit the ground. Dell had blood dripping from his mouth. He wiped it from his chin with the back of his sleeve and snarled.

  ‘I should make you drink this,’ hissed Pria, gesturing at her blood.

  ‘It would do nothing to me,’ Keriath said. ‘Even your blood isn’t strong enough to turn me.’ The Queen’s eyes blazed, and she struck Keriath across the face. Despite the taste of her own blood in her mouth, Keriath smiled. With an insolent smirk, she spat the blood out on the floor. All around her, the Darklings eyes glowed red.

  ‘It may not make you one of us, but I can assure you, it will not be a pleasurable experience,’ Pria crooned. She sliced open her wrist with her dagger and approached Keriath, smiling as her guards forced their prisoner’s mouth open.

  The pain was excruciating. The blood burned the inside of her mouth and scorched all the way down her throat. It hit her stomach like a fireball and exploded outward. Every nerve in her body was on fire. Pain blazed through her entire being, a raging inferno fuelled by her power. She could feel the blood trying to change her, to make her blood more like itself. But she was healing as fast as it could hurt her. And then it went back to hurting what had already healed. She didn’t know when – or how – it would end. She heard herself screaming. She could not stop it.

  ‘This pain will endure for as long as you can, Unicorn,’ sneered the young Queen. The guards released her. She didn’t need to be restrained; her agony did that for them. She was writhing on the floor, thrashing against the stones beneath her, desperate to escape.

  ‘I will kill you.’ Keriath panted as she fought through the pain.

  The Queen only laughed. ‘Unlikely. Now, I believe I asked for information on where we might find others like you?’ Keriath couldn’t even summon the strength to swear at them while her body burned. She screamed again as another wave of agony coursed through her.

  ‘Make it stop!’ she gasped.

  ‘Tell her where the others are,’ Dell countered over Keriath’s shrieks.

  ‘I can’t!’ she choked as she convulsed.

  Then Pria’s voice whispered in her ear, soft and cruel like the sound of a snake slithering over stones. ‘You have nothing left with which to fight. Tell me what I want to know, and I will end it.’ Keriath’s body twitched. Her eyes closed. It was more than she could endure. They had broken her, and they all knew it.

  ‘Ciaron,’ she whispered in the Queen’s mind, unable to find the strength to speak aloud. ‘There are still Dragons in Ciaron. The Nightwalkers hide them. Protect them from you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ crooned Pria. She gripped Keriath’s face, forcing her mouth open as she tipped the contents of a vial down her throat. ‘To dull the pain.’ Then she stamped down on Keriath’s leg, shattering it into pieces. Keriath flinched, but it was nothing compared with the agony of her blood.

  Guilt and shame mingled with pain until she was drowning in it. Suffering, on and on, long after her tormentors had turned away. She embraced it without question. She deserved no less for her betrayal.

  Keriath was singing when Dell returned. Her voice was not as pure as Arian’s, and it was raw and hoarse from screaming. But it was still enchanting. The curse of her bloodline. No matter what they did to her, it was the one thing they could not change. Her lips were dry, and as she sang, they cracked, coating her mouth with blood that made the Darkling’s eyes glow. She watched him cross the bridge to her, tried not to flinch as he cradled her face in his hands and stroked the tears from her cheeks. Then, ever so gently, he kissed her. His lips were warm and insistent as they savoured the blood in her mouth.

  And when he stepped back, and she saw mischief dancing in his eyes, she sobbed with relief.

  He smiled and kissed her again. ‘Miss me?’ he murmured against her mouth.

  ‘How?’ she whispered, pulling away.

  ‘This,’ he said, touching a finger to the blood beading on her lip. ‘I’m not free of her yet. But soon. I’ll get you out of here soon. I swear.’ She nodded in understanding and thanks, and turned her head to the side, offering her throat up to him.

  ‘What were you singing?’ he asked once he’d drunk his fill.

  Though the words were in the ancient tongue, Keriath knew the story well. It was one of the Old Tales; written into song by a small, broken-hearted child. She closed her eyes, remembering the little girl with bright crimson hair sitting by the fire all those years ago. The Phoenix memorialised everything in song. Even when there was only one left living, she’d insisted on continuing the tradition. It was the Song of the Fall.

  Dell inclined his head, not needing her to speak the words to understand the fathomless sorrow in her eyes. ‘Will you tell me the story?’

  Keriath nodded and did as he asked. And as she sang, translating as best she could into the common tongue, the horrors of that day came rushing back. Everything had happened so fast. A hundred years later, and her memories were little more than a jumbled mess.

  The attacks had come simultaneously. Keriath and her mother had been outside the city wards when they’d been ambushed by Jenia. They’d been visiting the Lady Kylar’s mother in her cas
tle to the north. Both had died so that Keriath could live. The shame of that knowledge was a millstone around her neck. It had been easier for Taelyr. He’d been too young to remember any of the horrors. His father had remained up at the palace in Revalla with his infant son. They’d been ambushed by a single Shade. That had been enough to kill the Lord of the Isles, but his sister had escaped with his son and heir.

  While Keriath fled, the Shade King’s lover on her heels, Darklings had descended upon Ciaron. The Dragon High Chieftain had fallen. His father too. One of their own had turned on them, stabbing them in front of his children. He’d used his dying breath to warn the other Clans. Faolin had barely escaped with his life. Even then, his suffering paled compared to his sister’s. Dorrien had watched the Darkling Queens invade the Temple and tear their mother apart. She’d been six years old with next to no control over her powers. Terrified for her life and already grieving for a mother who still lay screaming in agony, she’d cried out with her mind for help. Every Graced being in the world saw what Dorrien saw that day. The sight of that shredded body still haunted Keriath’s nightmares sometimes. She knew that, even now, Dorrien saw it every time she closed her eyes.

  Keriath was little better. There wasn’t a day went by that she didn’t picture her mother’s mangled corpse lying on the cobbled streets as a red-eyed, red-haired demon stalked towards her. She’d fled, preferring to take her chances with the waterhorses than Jenia of Elucion.

  Théon and Illyandi had fared no better in Illyol. They’d been dragged from their beds by a member of the Royal Guard. Forced to hide while they listened to the dying screams of the Queen and her Prince Consort. Keriath had seen Théon’s memories of that night. Seen Théon singing the same lullaby to Illyandi, over and over again, just to drown out their mother’s screams. When dawn had broken, and the Nightwalkers had been driven away, a single surviving guard had released them and escorted them from the city. They’d never seen their parents’ bodies.