Ravenna mouthed in return, never surrender.
* * *
Esmerelda ran to the window. All through the night she’d lain awake, listening to them build the dais upon which Ravenna would endure the unthinkable for hours. It was because of this that she’d heard Ravenna slip out of the cell with the guards, not returning until dawn.
Esmerelda believed Ravenna when she said she’d gone to appeal to Oldwin, but she knew Ravenna had hedged around the truth. To protect her, which she could forgive, but that lie limited Esmerelda in how she could protect Ravenna in return.
She could not protect her from the day ahead, and that failure burned deep in her empty belly. It was hard to remember a time when she’d harbored such animosity for Ravenna, jealous of her free way in the world, of her easy sexuality and confidence. Circumstances had bound them together, and there was nothing now that could sunder that bond. For Ravenna, she would not look away from the horrors she’d witness beyond her tiny window. If Ravenna needed strength, and looked up to find it, she would be at the other end of her gaze, no matter how hard it would be to bear helpless witness.
Esmerelda pulled the chair to the window and slumped in it. The child growing within her was restless, and it stole what little strength she had remaining.
Ryan would never meet his child.
Jesse would never meet the baby he devoted his own life to protect.
And nor would she, for there was no one here to challenge Oldwin and the king.
She reached into the bodice of her dress and felt for the small blade. She’d found it stitched into the pillow. It wasn’t much, but it didn’t need to be much, if it landed well.
Esmerelda closed her eyes and hummed a song her mother used to sing to her as she waited for the Langenacht to begin.
* * *
Atop the dais was a plush pile of bedding, mountains of furs and velvet, more grand even than what she had in her own lavish bedchamber at Midnight Crest. Torches stuck in the ground boasted high, emerald flames, which were not exactly as the greenlight fires were high in the Northerland Range, but not that different, either. Both were created by magic.
Oldwin had crafted a careful illusion for the Rhiagains who had left the seclusion of their chambers at Duncarrow to witness the unusual wedding festivities.
Ravenna was led down the rocky path toward the dais without restraints. She’d agreed to do this willingly and was surrounded by enemies. And how many Rhiagains there were! Until she’d laid eyes upon the couple hundred pale-faced redheads gaping at her in indifference and confusion she’d assumed Duncarrow was home only to the king and his closest relations.
Oldwin awaited her at the end of her path. His flowing white robes gave the underlying feel of a man of faith, of the Reliquary. A creature like Oldwin had no faith, but from the way the Rhiagains threw him awestruck glances, he’d calculated this move well. It didn’t matter who you were, only who others believed you were.
A fierce wind ripped through the gap in the rocks. She nearly lost her footing on the uneven ground as she drew closer. It was startling how little the Rhiagains had done to address the harsh aesthetics of the craggy isle. Hundreds of years and they’d only cleaned up and carved out one small, pitiful courtyard. No flowers or trees. No color, no joy. Only patches of half-dead grass.
Oldwin held a hand out to her as she climbed the two steps, joining him. The ice passed from him and through her, into her. The shock of it forced a gasp from her throat.
“It has been too long since the Rhiagains have held a ceremony within the rocks of Duncarrow. Too long since we have had the mettle to declare the rest of the kingdom uninvited!” Oldwin called out. His voice carried across the wind, echoing through the gathered. “The Right of Choosing failed not because of a wayward kingdom, but because it was not ours. Not us, here, together, celebrating on our own land, with our own people!”
Wan faces exchanged fearful glances. They didn’t know what reaction he wanted from them.
Ravenna looked down to see a line of men, some of them boys, all in white robes. She counted ten of them. They shivered in the cold breeze. Had they come willingly? Did they want to partake in this? Some shifted their gaze away as she regarded them. One looked at her with aggression burning in his eyes. The violence in his irises made her a promise for later. She hoped he went last. By that time, she’d be delirious enough not to notice his cruelty.
“This Ravenwood has come a long way to join two houses that were sundered long before the Rhiagains came to this kingdom,” Oldwin continued on, waving his arms over the crowd as if performing a great blessing. “To show our gratitude for this bold act of selflessness, we will grant her the one thing she has asked of us. We will grant her the tradition the Ravenwoods hold so sacred. The Langenacht.”
While Oldwin explained to the gathered Rhiagains what they could expect, Ravenna chanced a look up at the tiny windows of the sky dungeon. She thought she saw Esmerelda’s face peering down, but it was too far to know whether her sister was there, or if it was only her heart summoning more courage.
“One by one, each of you will take your place. You will lay with Lady Ravenna, the future wife of your great king, not stopping until your seed has spent itself. King Eoghan will take his place last of all. He will climb these steps and claim his bride. I cannot predict the outcome of this day, and which man will light the future queen’s womb. But I have the greatest faith that King Eoghan will emerge victorious, and today will be the day the Guardians at last grant him an heir!”
Scattered applause greeted the proclamation. Ravenna looked among them, breathless with fear, wondering if any could see the truth written upon her face. That she had fled her home so that she could choose the men who came to her bed, grasping forward into the future of her choice, not the one forced upon her.
If any did, they gave no signs. They seemed more put upon to have been forced out in the cold.
“Gilford Rhiagain, will you come join us as we begin our sacred ceremony?” Oldwin called out.
A young man, hardly older than her, shuffled past the other robed men, eyeing his feet as he climbed the stairs. He tripped on the top one, careening into her. When he looked up, she saw the fear in his eyes matched her own. She was not the only victim on this day.
“It’s time,” Oldwin whispered in her ear. She glanced around once more. Was this truly her fate? To lay with ten men, and then a king, while these strange people watched, indifferent to her pain?
“Now,” he urged. “Or our promise is forfeit.”
Ravenna nodded through her anxious exhale, wrapping her cloak tight. But Oldwin ripped it away and nudged her toward the pile of bedding. She dropped to her knees on the furs and cried out when Oldwin yanked her by the arms, flipping her onto her back.
He held her from above and nodded to the boy, Gilford. “Don’t be shy, Gilford. Pull up her dress.”
Shame burned in Gilford’s eyes as he shuffled closer. A guard shoved him and he fell into the furs. His mouth hung slack as he struggled with the thick fabric of his robe, pulling it up and over his head.
He crawled toward Ravenna on his hands and knees.
“You can let go of me,” Ravenna hissed to Oldwin, pulling at her arms.
“I will stay with you until the end. I want to experience this with you. Feel what you’re feeling.”
“That is not part of the Langenacht.”
“I have some things I would like to say to you, as you take in this experience I have crafted just for you,” Oldwin purred. He snapped his fingers and Gilford fell down over Ravenna. His hot breath smelled stale. She felt him reach down between both their legs and after a moment he found his way. Eyes closed, Gilford pushed into her, and when he did, his fear, his shame drifted back into the wind. He moaned into his rhythm as he took his pleasure of her.
“Don’t embarrass yourself, Gilford. Take your time, boy. You will never again in your life fuck a queen,” Oldwin told him, and then lowered his voice, these next words
just for Ravenna. “I cannot kill you. Surely you know that already? Just as you cannot kill me. We are forever bound from the mortal harm of each other. But that does not mean I cannot destroy you.”
Gilford moved faster inside her, grunting through each inexperienced stroke now. Ravenna bounced beneath him from the force of the act. She grimaced as sweat from the boy’s brow landed upon her face. She was desperate to wipe it away, but Oldwin had her pinned.
“What is broken can be remade,” Ravenna replied through clenched teeth. “You cannot destroy me, Oldwin, not if you made me to lie with every man and beast in this kingdom. For that is not where my soul lives.”
Gilford affected a series of jerks and then fell upon her. A bitter warmth spread within her. The first one was over.
“You will regret not taking your time, young Gilford,” Oldwin chided as the boy stumbled away, sleepy-eyed. “And now we call Thane forth to lay with the future queen.”
This man was older and far less unsure compared to the inexperienced Gilford. He approached the dais with swagger in his step and reached beneath his robe to grab his cock before he’d even made it to the bed.
“You’re wrong about your soul, Ravenna,” Oldwin whispered. He nodded at Thane, who reached down between Ravenna’s legs and shoved several fingers inside. Thane shook his head with a laugh, and when Ravenna looked down, at the cock lying in the palm of his hand, she understood why.
Stars exploded in her head when Thane slammed into her. She arched her back as if it might snap if she did not, but Oldwin held fast to her. She had never known such pain as this sensation of being ripped in half. Her courage faltered as hot tears burned the back of her eyes.
“Don’t spoil your experience, as Gilford did. We are not bound by time here. The ceremony lasts until each man has finished,” Oldwin said to Thane. Oldwin’s fingernails dug into her flesh as his words grew more harried. “I will let them all fuck for you for days, even if it kills you. Since I cannot, I should let them do it for me. But I will not. For the child that will grow in you is mine, and so you are mine, until you give it to me.”
“The child will never be yours. I will throw myself into the sea before I allow you to even lay eyes upon it.”
Oldwin looked up. “Slower, Thane. Allow the queen her enjoyment.”
Thane eased his pace, but this did nothing for the pain. She knew why Oldwin had chosen this one for her, and if she survived long enough to take the next man, it would be his magic alone that enabled this.
“Do you know who I am, Ravenna?” Oldwin said to her. His spittle dotted the side of her face. She couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it, but she knew that he’d grown hard from seeing these men take her, from the physical connection binding them as he felt her pain pass through her flesh and into him, where he feasted upon it.
“You’re a monster.”
“Yes, but who am I?”
Ravenna closed her eyes and looked away from him, but he pressed his lips to hers and turned her face back.
“You have asked yourself far too many times why you were not like the others at Midnight Crest. Why you could not fall in line, and do as duty commanded. You may not know what sets you apart, but your mother does.”
“You know nothing about my mother.”
“I know your mother as only a man can know a woman.”
Ravenna’s heart ceased beating long enough for the pain to overcome her momentarily. “You’ve never left Duncarrow.”
“I found her in the Forest of Lycana. Did you know that she once loved the boy who failed his father? Hadden’s Bane. Holden. She’d found the courage to leave him, leave him before she gave herself to him and destroyed her future. That’s when I discovered her. Only when she looked upon me, she saw the man she’d broken her heart to leave. Just this once, I begged of her, but it was not the begging that saddled her into my lap, was it? And when you were born, she knew what her sins had wrought. As did Argentyn.”
Thane seized her by the hips, lifting her as he drove into the final leg of his turn with her. As he did, a scream was birthed from deep within her. It tore through her veins, piercing holes through every place it bounced off, snapping against the cock of the man who would have killed her if she let this continue. The sky went dark and all she could see were thousands of feathers, floating, landing softly upon her, upon the man above her screaming that she was killing him, upon the others who had stumbled away in their fear.
Ravenna angled herself toward the sky and exploded.
* * *
“You could still put halt to this,” Assana pleaded as she watched her husband make jerky strides across his chambers. “Even Oldwin’s power has limitations.”
Eoghan stopped and spun on her. “He was your choice. Yours.”
Assana should have cast her eyes away, but she did not. She was done ingratiating herself to him, and fealty would not serve him anyway. It was time for him to find courage. Real courage. “There was no one else. You needed counsel.”
“What does a woman know about counsel, or what a king needs?”
“The only true counsel you’ve known has been from women.”
Eoghan reached for her dress and clutched it in his fingers. This close, she heard the wheezing of his desperate breaths. “I should kill you.”
Assana gritted her teeth and leaned down. “Then why don’t you?”
Eoghan shoved with a burst of ineffective strength. She stumbled back a few steps, but it was not the outcome he’d imagined. She could almost see into his dark mind, where he killed everyone who was better than he was, or had bested him. How many times had he killed her?
He clutched the table, sucking in air. “Why don’t I kill you, you say?” He left the question hanging between them, unanswered.
“Oldwin’s power is drawn in secrecy and closed rooms,” Assana said, approaching once more. She was no longer afraid of him. She dropped her hands onto the table, leaning to look at him; she demanded his eyes. “If you go out there now, if you call a halt to this farce, standing before your people, he cannot challenge you. He will never challenge you before them all.”
“What care you of the fate of Ravenna Ravenwood?”
“You know it is not only Ravenna’s fate at stake today. If you grant this authority for him, he will take until there is nothing left.” Assana scoffed. “Do you really intend to allow him to kill an infant?”
“It would not be the first time Oldwin dispatched of a child.”
“Yes, but that child lived! That child is out there, somewhere—”
“Plotting, planning, ready to take my throne!”
Assana shook her head. “I do not think so, nor do I think you believe it. For, this man, if he still lives today, would be old enough to be your own father, would he not? He has had all the years of his life to come usurp this crown.”
Eoghan’s face was bright red and strained when he turned it toward her. The veins around his face were like worms desperate for escape. “You do not know the will of a Rhiagain. What we would do for this crown. What we have done.”
Assana slid her hand over his. “You did what you had to with Darrick. He left you no choice. He would have let it all be dismantled, Duncarrow torn apart, stone by stone.”
Eoghan dropped his head, closing his eyes. “There are rumors he lives.”
“Nothing but!” Assana exclaimed, laughing. “He’s been gone five years. Let him go! Let Dain go. It is only you now, husband, and the kingdom that belongs to you. There is no one else.”
He nodded at her belly without looking at her. “There must be someone else, or others will seek to take the crown for themselves. We have no choice. Have you any signs yet?”
Assana smiled through her lie. “Some. We will know soon.”
“Do you know what the guards told me?”
She shook her head.
“Last night, while the moon was high, Oldwin summoned Ravenna to his chambers. She did not leave until dawn.”
Assana’s mout
h parted in a light gasp. “What do you think... they are not allies, surely? Not after what he does to her now, in the courtyard?”
“I think he has lain with her himself.”
Assana’s heart raced. She was thrilled to be the king’s confidante. But it came with the fear that she would say the wrong thing and lose her ground. “Do you think she went to him willingly?”
Eoghan curled his lip into a snarl, clutching his hands so tight around the edge of the table they turned a deep purple. “He does not intend for Ravenna Ravenwood to bear a Rhiagain heir. He intends for her to bear his. He neglected to mention that it was his seed he blessed. Not mine.”
Assana took a sharp intake of breath. She should not have been so shocked. She prayed he did not take this as a sign of weakness, of a lack of guile. “Then... then why hold the Langenacht at all?”
Eoghan shoved away from the table. “Because he hates the Ravenwoods, that’s why. He loathes them, has always loathed them. It was always about this. How could I not see it?”
“I don’t see how you could have known,” Assana said, shaking her head. “It was mere chance that he was even able to apprehend her, it—”
“No. It was not mere chance. He only wished for it to seem so, to me.”
Assana straightened herself. “Then if this is the truth, his truth, your truth, what will you do?”
“What will I do?”
Assana pointed to the window. “Yes, husband. What will you do to show Duncarrow, and the entire kingdom, that it is Eoghan Rhiagain who sits upon this throne and not Oldwin of Ilynglass?”
* * *
Esmerelda gaped in horror as Ravenna soared up and away, a whirl of feathers and blood and fire. She didn’t know where to look, what to make of what she was seeing. She’d seen Ravenna transform before, but this was nothing like that. What she’d seen before was a raven.
This was a phoenix.
Voices in the hall pulled her attention away from the window. The guards fussed with keys, and the steps drew closer. Esmerelda wiped her tears away and felt again for the dagger at her breast. She hesitated before withdrawing it. Her father had not taught her much in the ways of men, but he’d avowed that no Warwick would ever be caught unable to defend themselves. Not man, nor woman. She had never felt closer to him than those nights in the stables as he guided her through the quick jabs into the piles of hay.
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