The Raven Lady

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  Goosebumps ran over my skin, despite the balmy climate of the Gap.

  “Why do you . . .” I hesitated, and began again carefully. “What is it you hope to achieve with these experiments?”

  His eyebrows lifted, as if he was surprised by the question. “Elegant, complete transmutation. Preternatural evolution.”

  I stared at him blankly. My English tutors had not spent much time on the sciences, and my interest was never more than tepid. I was struggling to keep up with Doro’s explanations. Had he said that he wanted to improve upon nature itself?

  I couldn’t help wondering how well my father knew his new ally; the Elf King had always been violently opposed to any introduction of new technologies in Iceland. Machines that did make it onto the island were ever in danger of being tampered with by the Hidden Folk. The homes of all but the poorest Icelanders tended to have small junk heaps of contraptions that had been disabled by magic. Elves delighted in stealing them for trade with the dwarves. I’d traded a typewriter that had once played musical notes with each keystroke for a pair of custom-forged steel braces. The Elf King himself had disrupted the construction of a railway that would have operated between the capital city of Reykjavik and the town of Keflavík. The project had been abandoned—and the sinkhole my father created was declared sacred to the Hidden Folk.

  “Bran,” said Doro, addressing his creation, “fetch my apprentice from the lab.” Turning to me, he said, “We’ll hold a druidic ceremony.”

  It’s time to go. But go where? How?

  “Do we not require witnesses, my lord?” I asked.

  He dismissed this with a shake of his head. “Handfastings were conducted long before priests or bureaucrats ever set foot on this isle. The druidic vows and the consummation will ensure the marriage’s validity.” He fixed his gaze on me, smiling coolly. “I regret that haste is required. It is not what I had hoped for.”

  The full import of his explanation sank in, and I went from cold to uncomfortably hot. My hand moved again to my chest, even as a voice inside me urged, Let go.

  Doro turned to look after his servants, and I took a deep breath and held it. All the energy and emotion I’d been holding—the panic over Finvara and Doro’s accusations, the king’s unexpected marriage proposal, and the threat of an eternity bound to Doro—all of it now built inside my chest like a storm surge.

  When Doro faced me again, I let all of it go. This time it was not six. It was not a dozen. My furies were legion, pouring forth in a great inky cloud, snuffing the lamps, entangling themselves in the rigging, raking beaks and talons against my enemy. Doro’s voice barely rose above the raucous cries and beating wings as he shouted his protective spell.

  Covering my head with my arms, I ran for the ladder. I took hold of the rails and stepped onto the first rung, moving quickly but deliberately. As I climbed, I kept an eye on the hrafnathing. The nightmare flock continued to swarm over the deck and around the masts and sails like angry hornets. Those that drifted beyond the rigging disappeared into the starry black of the Gap.

  Doro was protecting himself with dispersion spells, like the one Finvara had used against my furies—there were just so many of them. Still somehow he remained calm, and his eyes followed me. I felt his stare like needles of frozen rain. Yet he did not attempt to pursue me. Perhaps he knew, as I did, that such a powerful spell—the most powerful I had ever cast—could not last. Perhaps he was only waiting for it to fade.

  Already the rending cries were lessening, the vivid, glossy bodies of the birds dulling to shadow. I was more than halfway up the ladder—almost to the top of the mast—and I began to climb faster.

  As I passed the top of the mast, my boot slipped and I yelped, sliding down several rungs, until my sweat-slicked hands managed to catch at an intersection of rail and rung. When I’d again found my footing, I continued the frantic pace to the top.

  I crawled onto the first of the stone steps and flung the ladder away from the edge. Then I ran up the steps, deeper into the cavern, two at a time.

  The cavern was warm and damp, and ferns and moss sprouted from pockets in the rock. The moss glowed faintly, and weak light filtered down from an opening above. Did the passage lead to Knock Ma’s grounds?

  At the top of the steps, I could see that magic was at work here. There was a round opening that appeared to be covered with water—though it did not run or even drip into the space below. Was there no way out? Was this why Doro had not pursued me? Raising my hand, I touched the surface of the water with one finger—it was very cold.

  What now?

  I attempted to draw my hand away, but instead felt myself pulled upward until I was kicking my feet at empty air. I struggled wildly, but soon my other arm was ensnared and I’d been drawn in past my elbows and then to my shoulders. I had just a moment to suck in a deep breath as my head too was submerged.

  Gritting my teeth against the bone-deep cold, I kicked furiously toward what I hoped was the way out—though something was already pulling me that direction. As I swam toward the light, the water grew warmer and panic seized me—there were thermal pools in Iceland that could boil you alive. I stopped kicking, though my need to breathe was becoming desperate. I knew a spell that might create a pocket of air—but it had to be spoken. The only spell I had ever cast without opening my lips was the one that released my furies, and they were of little use to me now.

  I had ceased all my struggling, and still I was being pulled into water that was growing truly hot. It was becoming difficult to think, let alone reason. I let the current take me. Then I stopped holding my breath. As water entered my nose and throat, three words bubbled gently to the surface of my thoughts.

  The Gap gate.

  THE RAVEN LADY

  Koli

  I woke with a start and then froze, listening. Water dripping onto stone. Small, scurrying movements of birds or mice. My own breath passing in and out of my mouth.

  Cold air nipped at my wet skin—nose, cheeks, fingers—but much of my body was numb.

  Pushing my shoulders and head up from the rocky ground, I surveyed my surroundings. Another sort of cavern, this one partly filled with stones and loose earth. Directly overhead I saw the sky, suffused with the faintly yellow light of dawn.

  Had I returned to Knock Ma after all? Would Doro follow me?

  I tried to sit up, and a hot pain exploded between my shoulder blades. My hands lost their purchase, and my knuckles scraped across rough stones as I caught myself. In leaving the castle, I had also left the king’s protective spells—and I had freshly defied my father’s ally. There was something different about this pain, though—it was a pulsing heat, like repeated wasp stings. In the spaces between the stings, my flesh tickled and itched, like there were indeed insects crawling around inside me.

  Moaning feebly, I sat up again, noticing my legs were resting in a shallow pool. I still couldn’t feel them. The itching between my shoulders, however, was becoming unbearable. I reached behind my back to scratch the irritated skin. My fingers bumped against something unexpectedly silky, and I recoiled.

  Dragging myself free of the pool, I looked around for the creature I’d touched—I saw nothing. The feeling was coming back into my legs, and I slowly stood up.

  A wave of vertigo swept over me and I swayed.

  Something feels very wrong.

  The itching grew worse, and again I reached to scratch. The silky thing was still there! I twisted my other arm around to my back, feeling with both hands. The thing had a rigid form—and it protruded from my own flesh.

  I jerked my head to one side, twisting my neck to look over my shoulder.

  “Wings!” The gasp I uttered was near bottomless. I fell to my knees, chest heaving, coughing.

  It’s a trick of the light. But I knew it wasn’t. I had passed through Doro’s Gap gate. I had undergone transmutation. I was lucky to be alive.
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  Or was I?

  Frantic, I scanned the inside of the cavern. I had to get out of here. I needed light and a mirror—and a fire. I was lost and disoriented, soaked through with no way to get dry, and Freyja help me, what had happened to my body?

  This place appeared to be no more than a hole in the ground. To one side there was a larger pile of rubble that I thought I might be able to climb, and I made my way over to it. My wet dress hung on me like a curtain of iron, dragging at my every step. It had also split down the back, and I curled my fingers over the neckline to hold it up. My new appendages—they were no better than dead weights against my back.

  I stopped in front of the rock pile. Under normal circumstances, it would be no real obstacle. In my current state I wasn’t sure. Even if I did manage to scale it, where would I go? Assuming I was anywhere near Knock Ma, did I dare return? I was in no condition to oppose Doro were he to come for me again. And what of the king? He would presumably be searching for me. What would he say when he found me?

  I closed my eyes, still gripping the front of my dress, shivering.

  The king would be relieved to see me. He would be kind to me, and would offer what help he could. But I was certain he would never make such a misshapen creature his queen.

  Finvara

  “The princess has been found in the forest, sire!”

  Treig had all but burst in on me as I was leaving my chamber, where I’d gone to finish dressing and arm myself—the initial search for the princess within the castle having proved fruitless.

  “In what state?” I demanded. Is she alive?

  “I’m not certain, sire,” Treig replied, frowning. “I know that she lives, though . . .”

  “What is it?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. The ones who found her are whispering of dark magic and won’t say more.”

  Why did I not heed Lady Meath’s warning?

  “Let us go,” I said brusquely.

  I didn’t have the patience for superstitious dread and therefore did not stop to interview the guards who had returned. Instead I went directly to the stables to saddle a horse. Morning had broken, yet the sun was no more than an indistinct orb behind a veil of gray. Treig and I set out briskly, our mounts snorting in the chill air. When the path became too rocky, we slowed and picked our way until we met with the patrol at the base of the steep climb to the vantage point.

  “Why haven’t you brought her back to the castle?” I demanded of the captain on duty.

  He did not shrink at my impatience. “We thought it best to consult you, sire.”

  “Why, in God’s name?”

  “Please, sire, I’ll take you to her.”

  Muttering a curse, I swung down from my saddle and followed him up the stone path—Treig in my wake. We climbed to the top of the hill and then made our way down the stairs on the other side to the destroyed barrow. I had ordered my men to burn the wight’s remains before my family’s arrival, but the inorganic elements of its physique still littered the scorched ground. The toe of my boot struck one of the saucer-sized goggle lenses, and a pile of assorted gears rested a few yards away. Beyond the debris was a depression in the ground—a crater that had once been the tomb. I saw a feminine figure standing near the rim of it, and relief swelled.

  Hunched between two of my soldiers, one of their cloaks draped about her, the princess had never looked so fragile. Our eyes met, and she set her jaw and straightened. In the movement, I caught a glint of pale flesh and realized that beneath the cloak she was naked.

  That devil will answer for this. And he wasn’t the only one.

  “Why do you fools stand there?” I barked at her guards, who also straightened at the sound of my voice. “If she dies of exposure, all of you will pay for it.”

  “Sire—” began one of the men.

  “We turned the castle inside-out looking for you, lady,” I said, ignoring the guard. “I’m greatly relieved to find you alive and well.”

  She didn’t answer, and watched me approach with what seemed to me a look of dread. Her face was drawn, her lips blue with cold, and there were dark smudges beneath her eyes. When I reached her, I unbuttoned my overcoat and waved Treig over. “Use the cloak to give her what privacy you can so she can put this on.”

  “Your Majesty, I cannot,” said the princess.

  “We’ll help you,” I replied, handing my coat to Treig. “Come, you must be chilled to the bone.”

  She backed two steps away from me. Her hands were gripping the cloak in the front, holding it closed, but suddenly she let it fall.

  At first all I saw was her. I confess my imagination had undressed her before this—most recently last night, while holding her close in the waltz and telling her the story of Lady Godiva. Then, the unusual events in her bedchamber had required a measure of physical intimacy—and ended in a marriage proposal. It did not matter that my suspicion about her and Doro had proved correct. At some point over the last few days, the woman had gotten into my blood, and even had she tried to cut out my heart, I doubt it would have changed anything.

  What I saw now did not exactly match my imagination. Her manner of dress had not emphasized her feminine assets. I had believed her to be reedy and strong like the firglas, and strong she was, yet here were curves where I had expected angles. Softness where I had expected steel. Her breasts were a lovely teardrop shape, with large nipples the same wine color as her lips. Her torso was too strongly muscled to pinch in deeply at the waist, but below, the lines of her hips opened out generously. I couldn’t stop staring at her.

  Noting the goosebumps on her skin, I did finally return to my senses. I took my coat from Treig and stepped forward—then froze as two black shapes rose, one on each side of her body.

  I faltered back, hand moving to my pistol. Then I saw that it was only the cloak she had worn to the masquerade. Looking closer, I realized that it was not.

  They were actual wings.

  “I am uninjured,” said the princess, offering a stiff smile, “but not unaltered.”

  “What happened?” I demanded, circling around behind her, trying to understand. “Has Doro done this?”

  “There is a Gap gate within the barrow,” she said. “Doro has been using it to transform beings into monsters. When I escaped through it, it transformed me.

  Breath hissed between my teeth when I saw the wings had sprouted right out of her back, obliterating the tree tattoo. Hardened tissue protruded from the skin, and at the base of each wing a gear was set. As the wings lowered slightly, the gears turned. My gaze followed the graceful movement of the feathered shapes until they closed over the rounded flesh just below her waist. My rage at the violence done to her body softened to a sense of wonder and awe. She had become a goddess.

  But the woman was probably in shock, and tired of standing in the cold.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked, gently touching the skin between her wings.

  “Not much now,” she replied.

  I knelt and raised the cloak again, draping it around her shoulders. Her fingers brushed my wrists as she took hold of it, and even the spare contact tugged at both my heart and my groin.

  “We’ll take her back down to the horses,” I said to Treig.

  Koli

  When we reached the bottom of the hill, the king took Treig aside and spoke with her in private before returning to lift me to his horse. I squirmed in the saddle until my wings had tucked in on either side of my hips. Then Finvara climbed up behind me. At another time the secrecy might have worried me, but I was numb and exhausted and happy to let them manage things.

  Finvara, though he had been kind as I’d predicted, had also been stunned—I had seen it in his eyes. There was a part of me that felt like a damaged creature—another of Doro’s broken things—and I was afraid the king would see me that way too. That he would finally be truly
repulsed by me.

  I bitterly regretted that the planned marriage had been spoiled. I wondered how the king would counter Doro’s schemes now. Would he resign himself to the marriage with his cousin?

  I knew my state of shock must be deeper than I realized when I discovered we’d been riding for some time in the wrong direction. Seated sidesaddle before the king, one shoulder resting against his chest, I tipped my face up to his.

  “Where are we going, Your Majesty?”

  “There’s a huntsman’s lodge on the edge of Knock Ma woods,” he replied. “The owner abandoned it when the earth spit up these hills and trees, after the seal was broken. Doro appears unable to leave the castle, so you should be safe there.”

  Lowering my chin, I rested my cheek against his chest.

  He dipped his head, and his chin brushed the top of my head, sending a cascade of shivers down my back. “I’ve sent Treig to the castle for your things, was that all right?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty. Thank you.”

  I was being expelled from the castle. It was the best thing for all concerned. Given the opportunity, Doro would seek his vengeance. And the king would want to shield his family, especially after what had happened to Elinor. This was likely a temporary measure, though, and I wondered what would come next.

  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. It had been decades since I’d seen the inside of a church, but how well I remembered the clear and commanding voice of Pastor Jón. His sermons had frightened me, yet he had been kind to me when the village children had not. He had urged me to be vigilant against the darkness I had inherited from my father. It was many years after his death before I understood what that meant.

  “How is Miss O’Malley?” I asked.