by Kira Brady
Inside, the Raven screamed. Corbette held himself back as he glared at his Thunderbird general, Lord Kai, errant head of the Western House, when what he really wanted to do was gut the man for taking his fiancée into danger and then marking her for all to see with his jacket around her shoulders. Former fiancée. He’d been thinking of her as delicate for so long that he’d failed to realize the moment she’d become a threat to his rule.
Directing his thoughts through the Aether, he sent Kai a message: Meet me at the sacred circle at dawn. The direct challenge to his authority had to be met with swift punishment. Even if Kai had done the right thing. Kai’s face tightened, but he nodded. Only one man could be alpha. Only the strongest and cleverest could hold their people together.
Ye gods, wasn’t the Spider tired of weaving his fate threads in such a painful tangle?
You can’t lead, his father’s voice echoed in his mind. You have no heart.
But what would he do with Lucia? He’d built the Kivati up from nothing, fought off the Drekar for over a century, protected their sacred powers with everything in him. He’d endured a lifetime of darkness and death with one hope guiding his hand: that the Harbinger of Destiny would finish the Drekar off once and for all. When that day came, when the Kivati lived in peace and stability, only then would he be free to relax his guard.
He recited the Spider’s prophesy in his mind, looking once again for what he’d missed.
In an age of Darkness, the Crane will bring a great light. The people who lived in the land of the shadow of death will rise up, and the Harbinger will lead them. Cast off your shackles, oh Changers! See, oh you blind ones! Follow the Crane to destiny, for behind her lies ruin.
How could the Lady have picked a weak young girl to vanquish their enemies? Lucia was no warrior. She could barely Change her skin. It would have to be her husband who wielded the sword. Corbette had determined that it would be him, but she hadn’t been content to sit by his side and be a calming presence. She was a willful, distracting, infuriating young woman. Yet the Spider’s words were clear: whomever she chose as a mate would lead their people into the future.
He didn’t have the luxury of letting her decide. Could he force Kai to take her after this rebellious display? He needed someone unquestionably loyal. Kai’s brother, Jace, would have been perfect. Unfortunately it was the black sheep brother who’d survived the Unraveling. Corbette’s life had been full of hard choices, but this last threatened to break him. Lucia might be happier with Kai. A man closer to her age. A man who shared her rebellious streak.
Corbette was not that man. He would never change for her, and she would never settle down.
Aether rushed through him, dizzying and hot. Corbette pulled the fraying edges of his self-control tightly around him before he lashed out. His vision fractured red. He had to get out of here. Away from the exodus of souls. Away from people he would hurt when the tainted Aether whipped out of his grasp. Away from Lucia.
“Will,” he said to his second in command, “take over.”
Will stepped up immediately and began barking out orders. “Kai, take her home now. Lucia, Change. Be quick.”
Corbette turned his back, unable to watch Lucia’s slow, painful Change to Crane. The Harbinger should have more raw power. The Raven wanted to soothe her, but Corbette couldn’t afford that weakness. If he hadn’t been the Raven Lord, tasked with protecting thousands of shape-shifters and the Gate between worlds, he might have tilted back her delicate pointed chin and kissed the fear from her mind. But too many lives depended on him. The best thing he could do was find her a keeper. Someone else.
“Emory—” Will called after him.
“I’ll see to Asgard,” he growled, voice full of Aether.
You can’t lead, his father’s ghost whispered in his mind. You have no laughter, no joy, no compassion.
Leniency for the Drekar had been his father’s downfall. Corbette wasn’t about to relax his guard even if this Regent showed different colors.
Corbette left Will to direct his men to comb the battlefield for survivors. He stepped over bodies of the dead and skirted the corpse of a giant dragon, the empty shell no longer dangerous, the entity within simply gone. Drekar had no souls to pass through the Gate. What would it be like to cease to exist? To be barred from the Land of the Dead and the Lady’s grace? He couldn’t fathom it; his world revolved around serving the Lady to protect the balance of the universe. A quest he’d failed when the Gate that separated the Land of the Living from the Land of the Dead had fallen under his watch. Would the Lady still let his twin souls through the Gate when his mortal clock ran down?
Soldiers and healers worked to clear the hill of the injured and dead. He passed by stretchers, then burning trees, then the great ditch where the Drekar Regent had tried to fight off the approaching army by dropping the towers of the Gas Works from the air. As soon as he passed out of view beyond the trees, he bent over and retched his guts out.
The demigod Kingu and his wraith army had lost. Kai’s men had saved the day. Corbette hadn’t endangered anyone with his own out-of-control powers. Now that Kingu was defeated, maybe the Kivati would have some measure of peace in which to rebuild. Maybe he’d finally be able to find a woman to rule at his side.
Not Lucia. His hands curled into fists, talons breaking through his fingertips to pierce his palms.
When he had himself under control, he climbed Kite Hill. At the top he found Leif Asgard, the Drekar Regent, who held his woman to his side while he watched his men light bonfires to burn the dead. No bodies could be left whole to tempt the wraiths to pilot them. Kingu’s force might have been defeated, but there were always more ghosts who refused to pass beyond the Gate when it was their time to go. The ghosts who stayed became wraiths, unable to taste or smell or touch unless they took over a living body.
The Regent’s human mate, Grace Mercer, growled when she saw him. Short, pretty, and pugnacious, she was a handful that would keep Asgard good and busy. Her hand flew to the knife at her hip, but Asgard held her back. “You rat bastard! Letting us fight your battles for you, huh? What would happen if we’d lost? Kingu would have taken you down next. There’s no excuse—”
“If I had come, I might have posed a greater threat,” he said.
“Kivati and Drekar aren’t in danger from wraiths.”
“But how about a demigod? Or even a demigod with the Tablet of Destiny? If Kingu had managed to possess me, you would have lost for sure. Is that a chance you’re willing to take?” He felt the violet in his eyes flare out to the killing edge. Asgard’s woman had fire, but she was smart enough to back up.
Asgard ran a hand through his blond locks. Like his brother Norgard, he looked like a Viking berserker. He’d fought taking the Drekar crown after the Unraveling. So far his actions set him apart from his notorious brother, but one Dreki was the same as the next. A soul-sucking, evil lot of them. It was only a matter of time before the man slipped up. “Why is that? We needed your Thunderbirds and their thunderbolts. We almost lost.”
“But you didn’t,” Corbette said. “You had the troops of the Western House under the direction of my best general. I don’t see the problem.”
“What are you going to do to Lucia?” Grace asked warily.
Corbette tilted his head. “As I’m not in the habit of harming women and children, nothing.”
“She’s not a kid anymore.”
He let his short bow hide his wince. “I know. Regent. Miss Mercer.”
“Wait, Corbette,” Asgard called after him. “There’s a problem.”
“Is there?”
“Astrid Zetian turned to Kingu’s side during the battle.”
Not surprising that the Regent’s adviser, the only female Dreki in the territory, had turned, Corbette thought darkly. The Drekar were a barely cohesive group, each one waiting to stab their leader in the back and take his place. One more reason to remind his Thunderbirds the price of loyalty. The strict hierarchy of the Kivat
i didn’t leave room for traitors, except maybe for Kai’s Western House. But his men had their uses.
“Her body is missing,” Grace said. Drekar could regenerate unless beheaded.
“Where are the Tablet of Destiny and Tiamat’s Heart?” Corbette asked. “You promised you had them well in hand.”
Asgard turned away. “Lost in the battle.”
“I see,” Corbette said. Aether lashed through his body with the force of his anger.
“I can vouch that Kingu was destroyed,” Grace said. “I bound him and broke him apart. But Tiamat’s Heart . . . I tried sending it back across the Gate too. I failed.”
He speared her with the Raven’s glare. She met his eyes and shook her head. Surprising. Few shape-shifters could stand his dominance, but this human woman wouldn’t be cowed. If she was the one showing Lucia how to fight, it would explain Lucia’s insubordination. He had to admire courage.
“You don’t sense the Heart somewhere in the Aether?” Grace asked.
“No.” But how could he be sure? The Aether was twisted and tainted and uncontrollable. Who could say that the Babylonian Goddess of Primordial Chaos wasn’t now swirling around their heads?
“Tiamat’s Heart contains all her god powers and manifests as a very powerful wraith,” Grace said. “If the Heart gets hold of the Tablet and a body, Tiamat could resurrect herself. She would be unstoppable.”
He turned his glare back to Asgard. “You stole the Tablet from our safekeeping and refused to share the location of the Heart. Now you tell me Chaos is almost inevitable. And you have the gall to ask for our trust and participation?” His vision swam red. The Raven came to the fore, and the need to Change rippled over his skin.
“We still need to work together,” Asgard said. “Now more than ever. The humans have only Edmund Marks to lead them, and his religion won’t allow him to see reason. We needed you to stop Kingu. We will need you more if Tiamat rises. We need to set up a task force.”
“Name the date, and I will send my emissary.” The Lady willing, he’d have enough time to find a strong enough fourth Thunderbird general to keep the Kivati together if something happened to him. He had only three experienced leaders for the four Sacred Houses—William, Theodore, and Kai, and the latter had just openly disobeyed him. That made two he could count on. He needed to shore up the leadership structure and fast, or the Kivati risked splintering at the first sign of trouble.
Lucia. He let the image of her drift through his mind and tip his control over to the Aether. Feathers burst through his skin in a flash of light, and he rose into the air. Rage reddened his Raven vision, and he streaked across the sky in a blaze of thunder. A kinder man would let her choose. He couldn’t afford that luxury. The entire fate of their race depended on it.
Chapter Two
“Get up, Lucy!” her sister yelled through the closed door. “You can’t hide in here forever.”
“I just fought a demigod,” Lucia muttered. “I can do whatever the hell I want.” She rolled over and buried her head under the pillow. Thin rays of sun fought their way through the crack between the drapes.
There was a loud thump, followed by muffled swearing. Another thump and a loud, ominous crack. The brass lock broke through the wood of the door frame and the traitorous door burst open. “Lady be damned,” Delia swore. “When did you become such a yellow-bellied coward? You’ve been doing so well too.” Delia stomped over and tore back the drapes. “You’re missing the sun. In November!” Her sister was a sun worshipper with the misfortune to have been born in the Pacific Northwest. There was no sin so great as staying inside on a sunny day, especially during the long, dark, wet season. “I swear, Luce, if you go back to moping, I’ll kill you myself.”
Moping? She hadn’t seen Delia on the battlefield. Lucia dug her fingers into the pillow, but Delia wasn’t content with pulling back the ivy-embroidered drapes. The telltale squeak of her armoire doors signaled Delia’s true quest. She shot up. “Get your dirty paws off my clothes!”
“What do you need them for? It’s an absolute crime to let art like this molder away.” Delia sighed wistfully. “I could hate you. Beautiful, pampered, be-frocked, and you don’t enjoy any of it. If I were the Raven Lord’s wife, I would never wear the same outfit twice.”
“There are people starving in the streets. You are so self-absorbed.”
“And how does hiding away in your bedroom help any of them?”
“I’m not hiding! Besides, I’m not the Raven Lord’s wife.” Lucia fell back in bed and held the pillow over her face. She wished she could shut out the memory.
“Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.” Fabric rustled in the armoire as Delia searched through the dresses. “You know nothing about men.”
Lucia held herself very still.
Delia sighed again. “I don’t mean that, sweetie. Rudrick wasn’t a man. He was slime. Every moment you spend letting what he did keep you from happiness is a moment he wins. Don’t let him win. He isn’t worth the spit on the soles of your boots.”
“You don’t know—”
“Lady be! You wouldn’t talk to me for months. Do you think I didn’t suffer knowing how he hurt you? But you just have to move on.”
Lucia set her jaw. She’d heard it before from her mother and aunts and cousins and well-meaning strangers. Move on. Choose to be happy. Like it was so simple.
“Wow. This teal is to die for. How come I’ve never seen you wear this dress? It would be awesome with my eyes.” Delia, with the same tact she always showed, moved on. “Or your eyes, I guess. Though mine have more green in them. Yours are just too blue. You should let me wear it.”
“Go ahead. Just go away.”
“I did that last time, and I’m sorry for it. I won’t do it again.” The mattress sagged as her sister sat on it. “Look.” Delia lowered her voice. The magnolia tree outside scraped against the windowpane. Come spring it would be full of large white blossoms, but now it was only a jumble of gnarled branches. Year-round it was the perfect place for crows and other birds to perch and watch and listen. Aether-strong Kivati could connect their consciousness to animals, and birds made the best spies. If Kivati were listening in, the thin walls of the old house wouldn’t muffle loud voices. “Mom and Dad are beside themselves that you broke the engagement. Even if it was your choice, no one understands why a girl, especially one with a certain . . . history . . . would turn down the most powerful match in the land for a disreputable Thunderbird. Personally”—Delia leaned close—“I’d let Kai rock my world any day. You have such an enviable choice. But why choose at all? Just imagine both of them together.”
“Delia!”
“Come on. Imagine it.”
“No!”
“Pity.” Delia sighed.
Heat rushed to her cheeks. She hadn’t, but now that Delia suggested it, images flooded her brain. The strict Corbette and debauched Kai and her and... “Okay, okay. I’m awake!”
“Seriously, though, people are talking about you.”
“You barged in here to tell me that? What else is new?”
“It’s different this time. You allied yourself to Corbette’s top general and joined the Drekar against Kingu. You’ve done a one-eighty again. After the Unraveling, you were so quiet I was worried you were broken.”
That made two of them. “I couldn’t stand by and watch Kingu win,” Lucia protested. “How could you? How could anyone?”
“And that’s why I back you and Kai in the race.”
Lucia stared at her sister. Delia had the same oval face but tanned skin. Sleek black hair, thick black lashes, and hazel eyes set her apart from Lucia’s paleness, especially after Lucia’s hair had grown in white after the Unraveling. She was glad Delia hadn’t gone anywhere near the battlefield. Worse than being there herself would have been seeing someone she loved in danger. “What race? The battle is over.”
Delia shook her head. “It’s only just begun.”
“I’m not siding with Kai against Corbette.”
“That’s not what it looks like.”
“But it’s the truth!”
“Truth is relative, Luce. We’ve been at the edge of revolution for a long time. The stifling edicts of the Raven Lord—”
“They keep us safe.”
“Do they? They didn’t stop the Unraveling. They didn’t defeat the Drekar. They haven’t stopped our blood from thinning and fewer and fewer Kivati being able to connect to the Lady’s sacred powers.”
“What would you suggest?” Lucia asked.
“Open up to the wider world. Why should we hide in the shadows? The Kivati are the last bastion of magic. We shouldn’t have to hide from the humans.”
“Now you sound like Rudrick.”
That brought Delia up short. She raised her chin. “Is that what he told you?”
Lucia looked away. “Corbette pinned his hopes on me. The Harbinger. The Crane. I can’t lead the Kivati into a bright new tomorrow. I can barely Change my shape. Rudrick seemed so persuasive.”
Delia hugged her. “He was scum of the earth. Forget every word he said.”
“Even if you’re saying the same thing?”
Delia pulled back. “I would never tell you to sacrifice yourself for the Kivati! I love you. If it were a choice, I’d tell everyone else to fend for themselves. You’re my sister. You’re irreplaceable.”
“Thanks, Del.” She wasn’t so sure her mom and dad felt that way. They’d been pushing her on Corbette since the first moment she’d walked out of the woods after her spirit quest with the totem of Crane.
“So you haven’t given up Corbette?”
“The engagement is off. Corbette was so relieved. His whole body relaxed like I’d been an albatross around his neck and he’d finally cut the chain. I’ve never been so embarrassed.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she wiped them away.
“Gods, Luce. I’m sorry.” Delia folded her in another hug. “But can’t you see? You have nothing to be ashamed of.” Lucia gave a choked laugh. “You don’t! You’ve always been so strong. I know I’m the ditzy sister. I’ve always been a little jealous of you with all the attention, but you took more than your share of public censure. I’d never have stood up to all that. And you disobeyed Corbette! You led the most disreputable Thunderbird and the Western House against a demigod!”