Raven Thrall

by J Elizabeth Vincent

  Bria threw her arms around Mariah, and she laughed in response. “Sorry, I didn’t get you anything.”

  “Mari, you’re the best.”

  Stepping back, she smiled, hoping she wasn’t blushing, and dug into her little coin purse. She handed the last of her coppers over to Wakely.

  He took them, tucked them into his pocket, and looked at her silently for a moment, his face transforming into something more serious. “Are you going back soon?”

  “I think so, if Gwyn will let me.” She grinned again, trying to bring the bright mood back.

  “Your grandmother, she’s a good woman. Please, Mari, come back sooner this time. She won’t admit it, but she hurts with missing you when you’re away for very long. I think your presence brings her a little more life.”

  His request surprised her and confirmed her suspicions about his relationship with Gwyneth.

  “Sure. Of course I will.” She bundled the toys up and waved to Wakely. “Thanks again. The kids will treasure these forever, or at least until they lose them up a tree.”

  His lips turned up at the corners, but she could tell his heart was no longer in the gesture.

  Bria grabbed her by the arm. “We need to make one more stop.”

  “What? I thought we were done.”

  “No, just one more stop. Now, hurry, before Rissa wakes up.”

  CHAPTER 7

  HIGH EXPECTATIONS

  Late the next morning, Mariah sat on her bed, holding the leather pack that Bria had given her and running the soft skin of the flap between her fingers. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she tried not to think about what had just happened by the river.

  Instead, she concentrated on the backpack. Like she herself had done with Wakely and the carvings, Bria had commissioned the leather bag from Wess Langdom, the local leatherworker. She wasn’t sure she had ever owned something so well made outside the clothes Bria sewed. Her own craftsmanship was good enough to get the job done, nothing more. She just didn’t have the patience to worry about details that didn’t make a piece more functional.

  The backpack was both functional and beautiful. The cords were loose and had to be tied, so the pack could go over her shoulders or be tied at her waist to sit snugly across her lower back, where it would stay off her wings. It was large and sturdy enough to hold the supplies she had obtained in Wellspring, including the three pairs of tunics and trousers that Bria had made for her, but thin enough that it would not weigh her down. On the outside of the pack, Wess had sewn a sigil that was carved into the thick leather with the picture of a hawk’s wings. Like Wakely’s, his work was exquisite. Seeing the work both of them had made for her in one day had been a little much.

  Mariah knew that many of the people of Wellspring were her friends. She had always been happy to help them out with anything that she could, and they had paid her in either coin or trade. However, somehow, these pieces were more than that. They made her feel like the townsfolk actually cared about her, that she really belonged. She wasn’t sure if she was ready for that.

  The door to the cottage slammed shut. The sound brought her back into the present and smack into the situation that she had been avoiding. She put the backpack down beside her. She wasn’t really ready to face Gwyneth’s wrath either, but she had no choice. It was only a matter of time. Her reprieve in the house had lasted only a matter of minutes. The old cat must have sprinted back from the river.

  “How many times will you run from me?” Gwyn’s voice carried to Mariah before she appeared in the open doorway to the bedroom. She was still breathing heavily, but it didn’t stop her. “How many times will you run from yourself? You lose your temper like a girl half your age!”

  Gwyneth herself was red in the face.

  “You took my knife. Again. You’re lucky I caught anything,” Mariah muttered.

  This time, her mentor had taken her to the river instead of the forest. She had taken her father’s knife away and insisted that she fly over the widest part of the river south of Wellspring and catch fish for their morning meal. She wouldn’t even give her a spear. Gwyn had been goading her into frustration again by putting her in a situation that was impossible in her present—permanent—form, trying to force her to change, which she couldn’t.

  Well, she had succeeded in frustrating her charge. Mariah had stayed high and circled over the river, her anger circling as well. She wasn’t used to fishing. Rabbit and deer were her main prey on the mountain. The rabbits she hunted with traps, the deer with a bow and arrow. She didn’t have those either.

  As she circled above the river, she could see the fish below the surface. That wasn’t the problem. Whenever she caught sight of one close enough to the surface and dove out of the sky to catch it, it either fled at the sight of her huge body or wriggled away, out of her soft, slippery hands. She had tried over and over until she was sure that her muscles would give out and she would just land in the water and sink to the bottom.

  The last time had been the worst. As she came out of the sky above the water, she wasn’t sure she had ever moved so fast. It felt like it did when she dove off the mountain with her wings tucked close, but this time, she had her arms stretched out in front of her, her hands curled into claws, ready to catch the fish. She misjudged and came up with a face full of water, almost soaking her wings in the process. Spluttering, she flew back to Gwen on the shoreline, landing in front of her, water dripping down her face and hair and onto her tunic. The fish was gripped tightly in her hands. Her mouth fell open in shock. She had actually caught the damn thing.

  Screaming, she threw it down at Gwyneth’s all too human feet. “Here is your damned fish! And see?” She spread her arms. “No change! This is ridiculous. Stop asking me to be something that I’m not.”

  Gwyneth stood there, her own mouth ajar and her eyes wide. Mariah had smarted off before, sure, but she had never ordered her to do anything. Although she meant every word, she was ashamed of herself for speaking in such a manner to the very woman who had helped her get on her feet, literally and figuratively, after her mad flight from Varidian, the woman who had acted as her grandmother ever since.

  So, she had turned her back and flown off upriver, back to Gwyneth’s cottage. The old woman usually gave her time to calm herself but not today. Today, she had followed her back at full tilt.

  “Look at this, Mari. Look at this.” Gwyn scrambled around in the sack she carried, trying to get a hold of something. Whatever it was proved too difficult, so she brought it over and dumped it out onto the blanket beside her. At the last second, Mariah lifted her wing out of the way and jumped up. Turning back to see what it was, she sighed. It was the stupid fish she had caught. It was dead now, its silvery scales coated in a layer of slime. It was already starting to smell, so she turned her face back to Gwyn.

  “Why’d you put that thing on my bed? I’ll never be able to sleep there now.”

  “Mariah.” Gwyneth’s voice was deadly calm. “Look.”

  She forced her gaze back over to the bed. The silver fish, which was about the length of her forearm, lay there, its large eye cloudy and staring. In the middle of its body were three small, neat holes, one smaller than the other two. She stared at it, confused. “What?”

  Gwyneth took the fish by the tail and turned it over, again laying it on her bed. Mariah winced as it left a trail of water and slime. She didn’t say anything, though, and instead looked at the dead fish. There was one hole on this side, precisely in the middle.

  “I still don’t understand what you’re trying to show me. Did you poke holes in the fish?”

  “You know very well that I had no weapons. Your weapon was here.” She gestured to the table nearby, where Mariah’s knife belt and her father’s knife lay.

  “So?”

  “So, did you know that this was possible?” Gwyneth held up her hand to Mariah’s face, and suddenly, there was a paw in its place. Her forearm had been replaced with fur and muscle, an
d she flexed her claws. They were a little too close for comfort, and Mariah stumbled back.

  “Are you saying you clawed the fish? Why?”

  Transforming her arm back to its fully human appearance, Gwyn sighed. “Child, your stubbornness and refusal to see the truth will be the end of me. This fish was like this when you dropped it at my feet, but the holes were still bleeding.”

  Mariah’s eyes focused on the other woman’s golden eyes for a moment and then back at the fish on the bed before going to her own hands. She held them out before her. “What? Do you think I … I don’t have claws. … That’s not possible, Gwyn. Maybe another bird tried to get him before me.”

  “Another bird? I thought you said you were neither bird nor human.”

  “I did, and I’m not. Stop trying to turn my words around. I did not do that!” She pointed at the fish and then at her own hand. Her fingernails were neatly trimmed and hardly capable of that kind of damage.

  “Mariah, we’re running out of time.” Gwyneth sank down on a nearby stool, slumping over, fingering something in her pocket. Mariah had never seen her look so defeated. “I have been so patient, too patient. If you don’t get this soon, it will be too late. You’re needed, but in your present form, you’ll be no good.”

  Confused, Mariah let her gaze stray to the fish again before she turned back to Gwyn. “What are you talking about? I can still catch my own dinner. I don’t need claws to do that.”

  “It’s Xaecor. That boy needs your help.”

  “Why could he possibly need me? He can transform just fine, and Bria and Zach will let him stay as long as he needs to.”

  Gwyneth reached out and laid a soft hand on Mariah’s arm. “Patience. You do not yet know the whole tale. Xaecor is from Glenley. His father was a hat maker there, and his mother took care of their family in their home above the shop. They managed to shield the children for years. But a month ago, someone found out what they were.”

  They?

  “Their home was invaded by Rothgar’s soldiers. Someone had given them up. His parents were arrested. As they were being taken from their shop and toward the castle to face the king, Xae transformed and was able to slip away. His father screamed at him to fly, to get away.” Mariah swallowed hard, and her skin became clammy and cold. She didn’t want to listen anymore. “The last thing Xae saw of them was his father being cut down by one of the soldiers and his mother and his sisters screaming and weeping.”

  Mariah bit her tongue, and she slumped down onto the bed, heedless of the fish. Images of her father’s face, strained and sweating, filled her head. “You must run! You must fly!”

  “That’s … terrible,” she said out loud. “Xae flew all the way from Glenley?”

  “Yes. Once he was able to get away from the city, he found a flock of ravens flying southward and tried to blend in. It worked. He was able to get to the border and across the sea.”

  “What does this have to do with me?”

  Mariah watched as Gwyneth rose, gathered the fish up into its bag, and left the room. She returned a moment later, wiping her hands on a towel. She laid it carefully down where the fish had been and sat down on it next to Mariah, laying a hand on her thigh.

  “When Xaecor found out that there was another Ceo San in Wellspring, he asked to be brought to me. He told me his story and asked for help. His sisters, Mariah, they are Ceo San as well, ravens like Xae, but they refused to leave their mother, so they did not escape.” Her hand absently rubbing Mariah’s leg, she continued. “He needs help. He wants to return to Varidian, to find and rescue his sisters, but to go alone is certain suicide. But he is afraid to leave his sisters where they will become slaves in service against their own kind and whomever else the king goes against next.

  “If you won’t help him, I’m certain Xae will go on his own. He’ll become another casualty of King Rothgar’s war on the Ceo San.”

  Mariah barely heard the last bit. She stared at Gwyn through glassy eyes. “He’s waiting for me? What did you tell him? That you’d magically teach me to be like you? That I would transform and fly off to Varidian with him? Back into the hands of the ones who took my family away from me?”

  “But you can do it, Mari. What you did today proves it. The fish.”

  “I did not do that. If you wanted my help, you should have just asked me straight out and not wasted my time and yours.” She stood and turned to face Gwyneth, her fists balled up at her sides. “I have never refused you. The fact that you hid it from me shows that you knew that it was wrong to even think about asking me this. Instead, you played games with me, acted like it was in my best interest to become something I’m not, and all the while, you just wanted to toss me back to the wolf on some impossible mission. Let Xae go back. At least he is a proper Ceo San. And when he returns, if he returns, he can be your new student.”

  At that, she snatched the leather pack off the bed and started gathering her belongings.

  “Mari, what are you doing?” Gwyn didn’t rise. Her voice was tired. “You’re the only one who can help him. Will you leave those girls in the hands of the king and his minions?”

  “What? Are you saying that I should go back so he can kill us both? It isn’t my concern. No. I’m going home.” And home had not been in Varidian for a very long time.

  She pushed the last book into the top of her pack and pulled the strings tight to close it. As she walked out of the room, she secured the strings around her waist and rib cage. Gwyn was behind her as she grabbed her empty waterskin off the table and headed out the door. When she stopped at the well to fill it, the old woman put a hand on her arm. Her face was drawn.

  “Mariah, please. He needs you. I’m too old, and I can’t fly.”

  “Don’t ask this of me, Gwyneth. I can’t go back … ever.” Her parents’ faces filled her vision, her father’s twisted in agony, her mother’s sneering and full of derision.

  Shaking away the images, she secured the skin at her waist and wiped at the tears on her cheeks, only to have more replace them. Without another word, she began running toward the bordering field. As soon as she was clear of obstacles, she spread her wings and took to the air, turning northward and away from Wellspring, away from Gwyneth. She did not look back.

  She had said that she wanted to go home. Then why did it feel like she was leaving it?

  CHAPTER 8

  RAVEN’S CALL

  Mariah had been back at Firebend for only three days, and although she had thrown herself into her routine, her thoughts kept turning back to Wellspring and to Gwyneth and the request she had made. It didn’t help that most of Mariah’s supplies had come from the village or from the old woman herself.

  The very pots she used to brine venison and rabbit had been a gift from Gwyn shortly after she had decided to strike out on her own. The hike up the mountainside to bring them into Firebend had been well worth it, as she had used them many times to preserve food, especially for winter. She was laying in the last strips of the deer she had killed early that morning when she heard the first gravelly warblings of a bird above.

  Mariah groaned. Really? It hadn’t left yet? Most birds, especially the local raptors, tended to avoid her cave. Apparently, she smelled enough like a hawk to warn them off.

  She rose from her knees and walked over to the tarn to wash off her hands. The sound started again, and this time, it was accompanied by the incessant rustling of leaves. Wiping her hands on her trousers, she looked up toward the mouth of the cave, but now that the sun had set, it was difficult to see past the light of the three-legged torch lamps she had set up in the middle of the room.

  She shook her head and moved over to the alcove to retrieve one of her books. They all reminded her of Gwyn, so instead of picking one to read, she took a few sheets of paper, a quill, and a little inkpot and settled herself on the floor where the pool of light created by the lamps was best. She often spent her evenings, when the light had faded outside, reading or drawin
g. As she had done before, she began by sketching the broad, strong curve of her father’s jawline. After all these years, she wasn’t sure her sketches actually resembled him, but it helped her remember. There were other sketches, ones of the smithy, of Gwyneth, Bria, and the children, and of Wellspring and her mountainside. There were none of her mother.

  She had only one thing from Ashanya. Dropping her paper onto the stone floor to her side, Mariah rose and went back to the rough-hewn wooden bookshelves. She gently picked up a small text covered in brown leather and sat down on the edge of her hammock. Before she opened it, she gently traced the gold lettering on the cover, The Dragon King: First of the Ceo San. Gwyn had read the origin story of her people out loud so many times during Mariah’s recovery. She had given it to Mariah when she left Wellspring. It was her most treasured possession, although the backpack from Bria had already gained a special place in her heart as well.

  Inside the book, tucked between the last pages, was a folded square of paper, creased and softened with age and use. Letting the book fall to her lap, she opened the paper carefully. It was the hand-drawn map her mother had given her, the one that had been intended to lead her into Glenley and Rothgar’s hands. It had been the map to her doom. She still wasn’t sure why she had kept it or why she had looked at it so many times over the years.

  Maybe to remind herself that even family would betray her because of her curse. Then again, besides her father’s knife, it was all she had left of home. She studied the map again. Eaglespire was a small dot at the bottom. Lines to the northeast and southwest ran from the village. According to her mother’s map, she would have had to travel the northeast road for a while before leaving it and turning more northwest on another road halfway to Kannuk.