Dead Moons Rising: First in the Honest Scrolls series

by Jack Whitney

  But she never even felt the heat.

  —The screech of her raven echoed in the room.

  Her eyes opened just in time to see the blue flames consume its black body.

  “NO!”

  Black feathers fell in the air in front of her in slow motion. The flames recessed back into Rhaif’s body, but she barely heard him stepping backwards.

  Her raven was gone.

  “No…”

  Her heart shattered.

  “No—no!”

  Her raven’s ashes were in a pile at her folded knees.

  She screamed as a feather fell in her trembling hand.

  “NO!”

  Her raven. Her namesake. The first creature to ever speak with her. The one that had been with her since she was a mere three years old.

  Dead.

  Its ashes stained her shaking fingers.

  She barely heard the clip-clapping of her brother’s shoes on the stone as he left her screaming on the floor.

  “NO!”

  Reduced to ashes.

  By her own brother.

  She couldn’t stop the agonizing screams emitting from her throat. Her shaking hands curled around the black feathers before her, and tears poured down her face.

  Strong arms grasped her from behind. She continued to scream, not even aware of the audible sobs and horrifying noises emitting from her insides.

  An emptiness filled the void of her core.

  She surrendered to the arms around her and buried herself in what she realized was Draven’s chest, clutching his shirt in her hands.

  Every emotion she’d ever suppressed boiled to the surface.

  “You were right,” she whispered into Draven’s chest.

  “About what?” he asked.

  “Your being here when my wall came shattering down.”

  His arms hugged tighter around her, and he kissed her forehead. “I didn’t mean like this.”

  She didn’t know how long they sat there. But Draven didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just held her there, occasionally rubbing her back or kissing her forehead.

  Aydra swallowed hard as she sat up finally, avoiding Draven’s gaze. Her eyes found the ashes of the raven again and she bit back another bout of tears.

  “She was the first creature I ever heard,” she managed as she reached out to the ashes again. “I was three. She was only still a baby herself.” A small smile rose on her lips at the memory. “I found her in the hanging tower. She’d tried to fly out of the nest, but she was too small to keep up with her siblings. Her mother left her there. You should have seen Zoria’s face when I brought it back,” she remembered fondly.

  “I’ll take her back to the Forest,” he promised.

  She met his eyes. “Why the Forest?” she asked.

  “Ravens are all born in darkness. The only reason they are not part of the Noctuans is because they do not share the blood thirst.” He reached down and took one of its feathers between his fingers. “The Sun commissioned them long ago to be the bridge between the light and the dark.”

  Aydra frowned. “How do you know this?”

  “The Honest Scrolls,” he answered.

  She swallowed hard and suddenly realized they were not the only ones in the room. The crows she’d heard earlier were all perched around the Chamber. A hundred of them at least, all sitting quietly as though in mourning of the one slain.

  “Take me with you,” she breathed.

  Draven sat up slowly, his eyes narrowing at her. “Is that what you want?”

  “I cannot stay here. Not after this… He’ll make up something and have me in chains by the end of the month,” she said. “And Nyssa should come as well,” she begged.

  “I doubt your sister would agree to that.”

  Aydra looked at the ground again and nodded. “Then I must go to her and explain.”

  “And Dorian?”

  “He will understand.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  “YOU’RE LEAVING, AREN’T you?” Lex asked in her doorway.

  Aydra stopped moving, inhaling the tears that had just fallen down her cheek. “I am,” she whispered.

  “Will you allow me to come with you?”

  Aydra shook her head and turned to face her best friend. “I need to know you’re here protecting my sister. You know what he is capable of. I need someone I trust to look after her.”

  Lex nodded as she crossed the space between them. Her hands reached out, and squeezed Aydra’s hands in hers. “I swear it.”

  Aydra hugged Lex then, wrapping her arms around her tightly, realizing it would be the first time she would be away from her for longer than two weeks. She wasn’t sure what to say to her.

  “I know it will not be the last I will see of you, and as such I will not tell you good-bye,” Lex said into her hair.

  “I would let you do no such thing,” Aydra said as she pulled back. “Thank you. For everything.”

  Lex leaned in and kissed her then, cupping her cheeks in her hands as a tear stretched down her cheek. “My Queen,” she whispered.

  Draven appeared in the door soon after, with Nyssa and Dorian at his side. Nyssa crossed the room and wrapped her arms around Aydra with force.

  “Dorian told me everything,” Nyssa whispered in her hair. “I’m so sorry I didn’t know.”

  Aydra pulled back and wiped the tear from Nyssa’s face, giving her sister a small smile. “It wasn’t your place to know, to try and protect me. But I cannot stay here. You understand why?”

  Nyssa nodded. “I do,” she whispered.

  Nyssa hugged her again, and then Dorian’s hand came to a rest on Aydra’s shoulder. She couldn’t hold back the emotion as she wrapped her arms around him.

  “You remember what I told you?” she said into his hair. “Keep her safe. Keep yourself safe. Lex will be here with you.” She pulled back and wrapped a hand around his cheek. “Take care of your sister. Let me know of anything that happens. I will be back for the next meeting.”

  Dorian’s jaw tightened, but he nodded nonetheless. “Okay.”

  She hugged him tightly again, fighting the tears that threatened her insides.

  Lex took Nyssa and Dorian away from her not long after. Draven stayed, helping her finish packing her bags. And when she was done, he took her hand and kissed her palm.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, hoisting her bag onto his shoulder.

  She took one more look around her room, making sure she did not miss anything, and also taking in the home she’d always known.

  “I am.”

  He held her hand as they walked from her room and down staircases and halls through the castle, not saying anything more as she memorized every stone around her. Her home. Her kingdom.

  And she was forced to run from it.

  “Fleeing off to the Forest, are you?”

  The noise of Rhaif’s voice made her fists curl as they reached the last hallway. Draven snapped around at her side—

  The bag on his shoulder fell to the ground. Draven’s fist collided with Rhaif’s face, and the noise of Rhaif’s breaking nose vibrated in Aydra’s ears.

  “Ah!” Rhaif grunted and stumbled backwards, hands clenching at his nose. Flames pulsed to life at an instant, but Draven didn’t care. He shoved Rhaif backwards and Rhaif fell onto the floor on his back.

  “Little shit of a King—” His fist railed into Rhaif’s face again— “Is this how you rule? Cowering behind your fire like a—”

  “Draven!”

  Draven grabbed Rhaif up by his shirt and slammed his back into the ground, the wind billowing around them and pushing Rhaif’s flames low. His arm drew back again, but Aydra grabbed Draven’s arm before he could strike into her brother a third time. The noise of armor sounded in her ears, and she pulled Draven to his feet, pushing herself between the pair.

  “Not now.”

  Draven’s nostrils flared down at her. “You would rather I do nothing after what—”

  “I don’t want t
o see you in chains,” she said through gritted teeth, just as she noticed two Belwarks come around the corner. “Wait for me at the gates,” she pleaded with him.

  Draven swallowed hard, the veins in his neck pulsing as he stared at Rhaif over her shoulder.

  “Draven, please—”

  Breath left him, and he stepped forward again, towering over her. She thought for a moment he would push past her, dive into Rhaif’s face again, but then he took a step back and met her gaze.

  “If you’re not with me in five minutes, I’m coming back to slit his throat,” he promised.

  Draven turned on his heel.

  —Every great double window in the hall burst as the wind broke through their glass, and Draven slammed the door behind him.

  The two Belwarks at the other end of the hall stopped in their strides, hands on their swords. Aydra held up a hand to them.

  “Go back to where you came,” she demanded. “There is nothing to see here.”

  The pair gave her a short bow and turned on their heels.

  Aydra watched Rhaif pick himself up off the floor. He held to his bleeding nose, flames and ashen skin receding back.

  “He will pay—”

  “Come after he or I, and you’ll never daylight again,” she promised.

  Rhaif stared at her and wiped his face with his sleeve, gaze fuming through her. “Go ahead, sister. Have your fun in the forest. But when he hurts you, don’t come running back here looking for your crown.”

  “My crown comes with me,” she argued. “I go to the southern realm not only to get away from you but also to help them protect our borders, to fulfill my duty.”

  “If you leave this kingdom, you forfeit your place as Queen.”

  Aydra stared at him. “That crown is my birthright.”

  “For the Queen of our realm, yes. But if you leave, you’ll no longer serve this realm.”

  “That is not up to you to decide,” she shouted. “You cannot demote me simply because I choose to leave the abuses of this realm to protect our people.”

  His eyes cut at her. “Is that what you think this kingdom has done to you?”

  She clenched her jaw, not wanting to start with hearing the manipulation she knew was coming. “What I think…” She paused and shook her head, allowing the emptiness she’d felt these last years to wash through her.

  “You’ve been raping me since we turned fourteen. Threatening to end my life simply because our mother spent more time with me, because you were jealous. I am sorry she treated you as such. I am sorry she turned you into this person and made you feel inferior. But… I cannot blame myself for it any longer. We promised to love each other, to be better. We promised each other we would not be the kings of our past. And now look at you—”

  “How would you know what love is?”

  She paused, biting back the lump in her throat, and she shook her head at the floor. “I know it is not anything I have ever felt whilst living here in these walls,” she managed. “You have become your own poison, Rhaif. I cannot stand to be swallowed whole by your fury.”

  He stared at her a moment. “Then I am sure your sister will—”

  Her blade pulled from her waist and she shoved it beneath his jaw before he could blink. “You dare touch our sister… I will kill you.”

  “Then do it,” he dared. “Strike me down as you know you want to. Secure your place as High Queen. Take what you have long waited for.”

  “I have never wanted the High crown. I have never thirsted for the power as you do.”

  “Then what do you want, sister?”

  She released him as hot iron burning her skin, and his feet clapped on the floor upon his landing. She took a step back, feeling herself blink back the bewildered feeling in her core.

  “Freedom,” she breathed.

  Her crown thudded on the stone floor at his feet.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  HER PALMS WIPED her face harshly as she emerged from the doors, her head feeling empty, core void of the queenly title she’d grown to know. Draven’s eyes narrowed as she descended down the steps to his side.

  “Where is your—” Draven paused from placing the bags on the saddle and stared at her as his face began to pale. “Your crown. Where is it?”

  “Forgotten,” she said sternly. “I can protect my people just as well without a crown as I can with one,” she said as she took up tacking on the bag to the saddle.

  “Wait—what?” Draven reached for her arm and whirled her back around, his eyes widened at what she’d just said. She swallowed the tears threatening her eyes.

  “I am no longer Aydra Ravenspeak, Promised Queen,” she managed. “I am simply a daughter of Arbina, a survivor of Magnice.”

  “He took your crown?”

  Aydra didn’t respond.

  “That crown is your birth—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she interjected softly. “What’s done is done.”

  She met his eyes, and he swallowed hard.

  “Then I feel no hesitation in offering you refuge within my realm, my Queen,” he said as he took her hand in his and kissed her palm.

  “I am not a queen,” she whispered.

  “You’re the only one of your past siblings to have ever earned the title,” he breathed back.

  “You’re just saying that—”

  “You should know well by now I do not say any words simply because of what I feel for you,” he interjected. “I would have said it a year ago.”

  Her jaw clenched and she felt herself inhale deeply. “Let’s go,” she managed.

  Aydra tried not to look around her as they made their way through the shop streets, the sight of their Queen without her crown accompanied by the two Venari leaders she knew was bewildering to every Dreamer walking their streets.

  She wondered what lie Rhaif would come up with when people began to ask where she’d gone.

  As the fortress gate closed behind them, Aydra paused and turned her horse around. She gazed up at the kingdom she left behind. The white stone castle. The halls she’d grown up playing in. The merchants she’d grown to love and cherish. The Dreamers she’d sworn to protect.

  She reminded herself she could still protect these people from the southern shores. That this was not the last time she would look upon the brilliance of the kingdom she loved so much.

  Magnice had been her home, her entire world. Her giver was there. Her kingdom. She’d sunbathed on the shores and grown up speaking with the seagulls and the crabs that would dust the shores.

  Her home that she could call home no longer.

  Red hair caught her gaze at the highest tower.

  She held up a hand and brought her fingers into a tight fist. She saw Dorian join Nyssa in the doorway, and she hoped he would heed her warning.

  “Drae?” she heard Draven said from behind her.

  She swallowed hard and tore her gaze around to him. “Yeah,” she managed. “I’m ready.”

  Aydra didn’t speak much as they rode across the Hills of Bitratus. Draven didn’t ask anything of her. He and Balandria spoke their usual banter, speaking of their plans once they returned and what needed to be done around their kingdom. She was grateful he did not push her, try to make her talk to him about what had happened.

  As they talked and ate, she simply sat by his side. Occasionally he would reach over and squeeze her thigh or graze her hand. But he never crowded her. He packed the pipe every night, but despite smoking the herb she craved so much for escape, all she wanted to do at night was try to sleep.

  For four days they traveled, and on the night they finally reached the edge of the Forest, he begged her to eat something more than a few bites of bread. But she couldn’t. Her heart ached for the comfort of her raven, to hear its voice in her ears, its screech over her head as it watched over her.

  “Can I do anything?” Draven finally asked once they’d settled in for their final night on the road.

  She looked up at him, and he simply kisse
d her forehead, not needing to hear anything from her lips. She sighed into his arms and laid her head on his chest, unable to even breathe words on her tongue.

  As she laid there against his chest, she heard him humming the Wyverdraki song. Her eyes closed and she nuzzled her head into his chest.

  “What will your men say when I return with you?” she whispered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he replied softly.

  “It does.” She sat up and looked at him. “To me. It does.”

  He sighed heavily, his thumb brushing her hands. “After you helped us with the ships, I think my men have earned a new respect for you,” he replied. “Once they learn of what you sacrificed to be there, you will find no other more loyal group of people.“

  She reached up and kissed him then, the first time she’d kissed him since their leaving her castle, and she threaded her fingers in his beard, savoring the taste of his lips.

  “Thank you,” she whispered upon pulling back.

  He squeezed her waist. “Only for you,” he breathed.

  She laid back against his chest once more, and he hummed the Wyverdraki song again. Laying in his arms, the safety of the Hills around them, surrounded by darkness and fire light…

  She wanted to tell him.

  She wanted to tell him everything.

  Her heart began to beat loudly in her chest. She almost vomited at the thought, but something inside her had the urge to get it out. The humiliation of her truth tugged at her core. But this was Draven.

  And she needed to say it.

  “Draven…” she managed, squeezing his hand. “I need to tell you something… something I should have told you a long time ago.”

  He brought her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles gently, brows furrowing on his forehead. “What?”

  She sat up then, allowing her hair to fall over her face, avoiding his eyes as the shame she felt cracked and splintered her numb body. “Do you remember the darkness you said I knew nothing of?” she asked in a shakier voice than she knew herself capable of.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Draven, please…” she begged.