Raven Thrall

by J Elizabeth Vincent

  A man was walking toward her. He was of medium height but well-muscled and stocky. He looked like he could take whatever came at him. His hair was the color of rust, hanging in a long braid down his back. As he got closer, she could see that his eyes were a startling shade of green, and the pupils were slitted like a cat’s. She couldn’t quite pin down his age. He looked like a man just out of his youth, but the wrinkles at his eyes spoke of centuries of wisdom.

  Despite that disconcerting detail, she felt drawn to him and was sure he would be friendly to her. It didn’t make sense, and part of her was disturbed by her sudden trust of the stranger, but nevertheless, when he put his hands out to her, she reached out and squeezed them like she was greeting an old friend. His hands had an odd cool feel to them, as if they were covered in hard, smooth scales. She wanted to run her hands up his arms to see if they would feel the same way. Would they hurt her if she rubbed them backward?

  “I see you, Mariah Griven,” the man said. “I am overjoyed that we have this chance to speak, but it pains me that you are so close because it means you have been captured.” When he spoke, his voice echoed, as if they were in a temple with high ceilings like the one she had seen in Kannuk. “This is not good,” he said, looking down at her tunic. A dark red stain spread in the middle of dried blood that had turned brown long ago. “Arrow wounds become infected quickly if not treated. Yet more the king must answer for.” Without asking permission, he lifted the bottom of her tunic and put a smooth, warm hand over her skin.

  A deep, soothing heat spread through her abdomen and her breath left her. She doubled over, but he held her up with his other hand.

  “What have you …” she gasped.

  “It was the least I could do.” He waited, and when she was steady, she used his arms to help leverage herself back up. This was a dream. How did it feel so real?

  “Mariah, you must know this. The king’s soldiers may have trapped you, but they cannot hold you. He cannot hold you.”

  Memories of the hard shackles around her wrist and the way they had shrunk until they held her small bird legs crushed her, reminding her that while her mind floated away, her body was still in the dungeon. “What do you mean? I can’t move! He does hold me!”

  The ruddy-faced man with his hard, alluring eyes met her gaze and held it. He shook his head in one short movement.

  “No. You are Ceo San. You have been born of gods and man. A man like the king cannot hold you. No man or woman can. Do you know why the Ceo San are called?”

  Still confused, Mariah stuttered her answer. “Gwyn says … she says that the Ceo San are called when there is a need … that they’re born to humans but come from … gods.”

  “She is correct. You are as much a child of the gods as you are of your parents. All Ceo San are. But you, Mariah, are unique among them all. Ceo San might be called for small needs. They might answer the prayer of a single family, but this time, the fate of Whitelea is at stake.” He closed the distance between them so that there was no more than a slice of air between them. One of his hands, which still looked normal but felt slick, let go of hers and cupped her cheek. “You, Mariah, will be our emissary. The Ceo San need a leader, a leader to break them free of the slavery that Rothgar has imposed so that they may fulfill their purpose.” He paused, bringing up his other hand to cup her other cheek so that he held her facing him, eye to eye. “Mariah, you have been chosen as that leader. You were born to it. When you have seen the raven children to safety, you must return to Varidian.”

  He said nothing of Shira or Ruby and Faylan.

  Come back? Again? She pushed him as hard as she could and turned away. Through gritted teeth, she said, “I will not.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, but the image of masses of Ceo San slaves filled her mind. There were children, beaten and dirty, working the fields, with their only hope of change cuffs and chains, a life of doing violence at the command of a power-hungry king.

  She also saw adults, men and women, their golden dragon cuffs wrapped around their wrists and surrounded by melted flesh. They had no will of their own, only that of their Trappers, which was that of the king.

  “You can’t make me return. I don’t know who you are or what you are doing in my dreams, but if I escape this mad land again, I won’t be coming back to do your bidding.”

  Mariah felt his breath on her ear. It was unnaturally warm. His hands came around the top of her shoulders and wrapped around them gently. “You will return when you are ready. Your people will be waiting for you. But first, you must escape the mad king’s dungeon, and to do that, you must remember: he cannot hold you.”

  He let her go and did not force her to look at him again. However, after she turned away, she peeked over her shoulder and stole a glance at him.

  As if they had been having a perfectly normal conversation about old friends, he smiled at her and said, “And let the old fox out, too. He has been in that dungeon long enough.”

  And with his words, the sky above her grew dark until she could no longer see.

  “But wait! What’s your name? What purpose are you talking about?” But she was speaking to empty air.

  The feel of grass on her calves was replaced by the rough poke of straw through her breeches. She was staring through the shadows in the dungeon, her arms still held in shackles above her head. She didn’t remember waking up or opening her eyes. Had she ever really even been asleep? Or was she going mad already?

  “Who are you talking to? You’ve not been here long enough to go crazy unless you were already, but you don’t strike me as the sort.”

  If he only knew. “There was a man … I think I was dreaming … He told me … He told me that the king couldn’t hold me.” She sighed, wishing she could rest her chin on her knees, but the chains and shackles on her arms kept her from really getting comfortable. “It was just a dream.”

  “Old Cat Eyes paid you a visit, too? Waste of time, that is. Tells me, hold on, hold on. The time will come when you’ll be free. Free?” He let out a loud harrumph. “And they think I’m crazy.”

  Cat Eyes? “You mean he’s real?” She heard shuffling noises as Tibbot rearranged himself.

  “Either that, or we’re sharing nightmares.”

  It seemed matter-of-fact to him that someone should show up in his mind and tell him to be patient. She had to be sure. “Tell me what he looked like.”

  “Well, you already know about the cat eyes. He’s got red hair, like a fox fell on his head, but much neater in that braid of his.”

  It really was the same man. That only made Mariah more frustrated. What he had said had frustrated Tibbot, too “Do you think … do you think maybe the king sent him? To give us false hope? To drive us mad?”

  Tibbot laughed, and it turned into a noisy cough again. It was a full minute before he could speak. “If his goal were to drive us crazy, he need do nothing more than leave us alone. As for giving us false hope, that seems just as pointless.”

  “Then, what’s his purpose? Why would some stranger come into our dreams and tell us things that can’t be possible?” She kicked her foot against the floor. Although it left her heel throbbing, it still made her feel better. She did it again and again and stopped only when her heel screamed in protest. At that moment, she realized that the pain in her stomach was gone. All that was left was her hunger.

  Mariah wanted to believe that the man she had seen was just a dream, a shared illusion created by their minds to keep them sane, but that made absolutely no sense. Of course, his being real and being able to enter their dreams and have conversations with them didn’t really make sense either. But he had been real, hadn’t he?

  Mariah sat silently in the darkness for a long time before she remembered why she had wanted to talk to the other prisoner. “Tibbot, Tibbot, you must tell me who else has been here recently. Were there children? Two girls with black hair? And a woman, middle age, with blonde hair? A Lishorani girl? Or man? P
lease, Tibbot, were they here?”

  His eyes glowed in the darkness, and for a few moments, he just watched her.

  “No one like that. There are never children, thank the gods. Most people who do come in here stay for just a little while. When the king himself calls for ‘em, I know what comes next.”

  “What? What comes next?”

  Tibbot’s sigh was loud. “Do you never stop asking questions?”

  “Please tell me. At least it’s a way to pass the time. Surely, you get lonely in here after all this time. Do you even know how long it’s been?”

  “Probably years. I know I didn’t have this cough when I came here, and I didn’t feel so old. I could run for miles without tiring, with the wind in my fur and the sun on my face …” He shuffled around again for a little while before he spoke again. “Well, all right, if you must know, when the king sends for someone, I know the screams will be next.”

  “What do you mean, the screams?”

  Tibbot’s voice was impatient and angry. “The screams of my dungeon mates, at least those that are Ceo San. The king never comes for the regular ones. Sometimes, they are left to die, and other times, some Trapper comes and gets them and takes them away. The Ceo San, though, the ones that come from having been free, the king gets them, and when they leave this room, they head to the screaming chamber. Course, I know what’s in there.” His voice had become so low that she almost couldn’t hear it. “Been there myself. Been the one to do the screaming.”

  She wanted to press him further, but she had the feeling that if she did, he would clam up altogether. So Mariah sat there and waited in the darkness until the answer presented itself to her.

  “The cuff? It has something to do with the cuff. The burns. I’ve seen them. Do you have it?” Her own voice was thin. Was she to be cuffed next? Her breath was coming in quick, uncontrollable gasps. She grabbed onto the slightest sliver of hope. “The king. We heard that the king left Glenley on another campaign. Maybe I can … Maybe we can get out before then. What if the cat-eyed man was right?”

  “So now you believe the man in your dreams is real?”

  “Well, don’t you? You’re the one who told me what he looked like. How can we have the same dream, with the same person, if it’s not real? And if it’s real, maybe there really is a way out, for both of us.” She knew she was rambling. Even she could hear the desperation in her voice, but she would do anything to avoid that cuff.

  That dragon-etched cuff, once it was on her arm, would be the end of everything she had ever known. She had already given up so much, her family, her life in the smithy, her father. If she became a slave of the king, if she wasn’t already, she would lose Gwyneth, Bria, Zach, Xae, and Shira. Even Ruby. She would lose them and all of the other people she had come to care about. She would lose the places that were important to her, like Firebend and Wellspring. There would be no more cool nights with her snuggled up under a blanket with one of Gwyn’s books. There would be no more quick jaunts into the village to collect supplies and see her friends. Once that cuff was on her arm, she would do only what the king wanted her to do.

  She would rather throw herself off the city walls without her wings than submit to King Rothgar.

  CHAPTER 31

  HE CANNOT HOLD YOU

  The days and nights that followed passed in a blur. Tibbot had been right. Servants seemed to come in at random times, sometimes even in the middle of the night, to bring them a hard crust of bread or some cold soup. Guards followed. They never talked to her or Tibbot. They just gestured and stared. They unlocked their shackles so they could eat but stood over them with swords unsheathed. There were always at least two guards for each of them.

  Mariah had never felt particularly dangerous, at least not until her encounter with the owl. Still, their precautions seemed ridiculous until she looked into her cellmate’s eyes. He kept staring at the guards’ throats as if he was just waiting for a chance to tear them out.

  With the lamp that the first servant brought in, she finally got a good look at Tibbot, albeit a quick one. He was a wiry man with a mix of red and white hair and a matching beard grown out of control. He changed into a fox before she could see more. The guards didn’t blink, just held their swords at the ready while the old man gulped his food down with a low growl in his throat. She understood why he had changed after the first such session. They were never given more than a few minutes to eat before the food was snatched away, and they were locked up again and left alone. Tibbot’s fox form allowed him to gulp down his food nearly whole.

  The turning of the key in the lock grated on her nerves, and her stomach growled. She couldn’t swallow well with her parched throat, and the few bites she’d managed hadn’t been nearly enough.

  There were mice running about in the straw, and she watched them as the hours ticked by, trying to figure out whether she could change quickly enough to catch one before the chains brought her crashing into the wall.

  Those thoughts, the desperate edge of them, pushed her to see what she could do about the change.

  The next time the guards left, after bringing them nothing but broth, Mariah began to experiment. She had gone twenty-six years of her life not knowing that she could transform, let alone bring her belongings with her.

  Now, her belongings were gone. Her backpack, along with her supplies and her mother’s letter, hadn’t been there when she woke up. Her father’s knife was gone, too.

  Mariah couldn’t give into the desperation she felt over losing them. She had to escape before the king returned to Glenley, or else her life would be forfeit.

  Thinking back to the day at the farm when Bria had kept telling her to change, Mariah remembered how frustrated she had been by her friend’s antics until she realized her goal. They had learned a valuable lesson about her magic, and it was a kind of magic, wasn’t it? It must be if it could hold onto things and keep them invisible but still with her when she changed.

  She just had to figure out how to manipulate the magic so that she could make the shackle and chain disappear as well. If she could somehow take them with her, she could deal with them elsewhere, once she had flown to safety. She thought wistfully of her father’s huge hammers and what short work they would have made of the chains.

  At Bria’s, they had come to the conclusion that if she was wearing an object, it would transform right along with her. However, she was wearing the shackles, and instead of transforming, they just shrank and even moved to a better location to hold her, from her wrists to her ankles. Tibbot insisted that there was some kind of magic on them. The king either knew some kind of magic himself or else had someone in his court that did. That thought sent shivers down Mariah’s spine. She hoped dearly that if that was the case, then whoever it was had gone away with the king.

  She stood up carefully, awkwardly bending over and twisting around so that the chains were crossed in front of her and she was looking at the wall. The chains were fastened to a metal plate about a foot above her head.

  Wear them, wear them. She wasn’t sure if the voice in her head was her own. Something about it reminded her of the man from her dream. Or was it a vision?

  Her shoulders burned as she was finally able to relax them somewhat. Mariah had stood up before, in much the same way, in a futile attempt to stretch her legs. The chains were not very long, and it was all very awkward. Even standing, the pressure on her shoulders was nearly unbearable.

  How could she convince her mind, or wherever the magic came from, that she was wearing the chains?

  “What are you doing?”

  Mariah jumped. She was sure Tibbot had been asleep. “I’m just trying to figure something out. Would you please be quiet?”

  Behind her, Tibbot grumbled and said something about her being ungrateful for his company.

  She couldn’t help but smile a little. She was growing on him, despite his words to the contrary. She walked forward a step and wrapped the chains around her
wrists, around the shackles, and held onto the black linked chains with her hands. She closed her eyes and pictured herself as a hawk standing on the floor of the dungeon with no shackles and no chains.

  The sensation of warmth followed by coolness was becoming familiar to Mariah, but the feel of her head hanging down and the sudden pull of gravity as the chains untwisted from around her skinny bird legs, jolting her as she reached their end, were anything but familiar.

  She hit her beak against the wall again, and it smarted. Tibbot chuckled. More quickly this time, she transformed back, glaring at Tibbot for a moment before twisting around to try again. This time, she wrapped the chains a few times around her wrist. She stepped as close to the wall as she could get and stood on her tiptoes.

  Again, she found herself swinging toward the wall. This time, she turned her face in time, and instead of her beak, the side of her head hit the wall. She didn’t want to think about the bruises she was going to have on her face, and she supposed it really didn’t matter. There was no one to see her face in the dark dungeon. No one to care if she was hurt. She didn’t really care that much herself.

  Her thoughts were more on her companions. As she changed once more and twisted herself back around, she sent a prayer to the gods who were supposedly protecting her and asked them to send their protection to Shira and Xae, Simone and Ruby, the children and Faylan. To get them all to safety.

  She whispered the prayer over and over again in her mind as she twisted the chains around her arms one more time. Fighting fatigue, Mariah twisted and pulled herself up one arm at a time until she was hanging from the wall, her feet no longer touching the floor, the links of the iron chains biting into the flesh of her arms. This time, when she pictured the Hawk, she pictured tiny iron shackles on what passed for her ankles but no chains. If she wore the chains, they would disappear with her humanity. She pictured herself in full flight circling upward toward that tiny window. She waited until the picture was clear in her mind before she let it go and let the magic take over.