The Storm Crow

by Kalyn Josephson

  “Why don’t you sleep by the fire?” Ericen asked me one day in the carriage.

  “Why don’t you talk to your soldiers every night?” I returned.

  We both fell silent after that.

  The next night, I retreated to the carriage after dinner. Kiva came with me, though the seats were too short for her to lie across comfortably. The days of travel made sleep come easily, and I’d nearly drifted off when I felt it. A prickle at the back of my neck. A warning. Did the carriage feel warmer? My half-asleep brain fought to process the sense of heat building near my head.

  My eyes flashed open. Orange coated the inside of the carriage, flames dancing in the windows.

  The carriage shook, and my heart quaked along with it as I scrambled to sit up, to understand.

  The carriage was on fire.

  Move! The word ripped through my mind, but my body refused. In the firelight, I saw embers falling from the sky like rain. I felt ash coating my skin, my nose, my throat. I heard myself screaming.

  The memories clung to me like smoke, refusing to let me breathe.

  Kiva rolled to a crouch on the floor, seizing Sinvarra. People shouted, one voice above the rest. A familiar voice.

  The fire vanished.

  I sucked in a ragged breath, the sudden darkness startling me. My gaze stayed fixed on the nearest window, the afterimage of flames a vicious sunset every time I blinked. How could the fire just disappear?

  I felt myself trembling as Kiva threw open the door and leapt out. I hesitated, afraid for one senseless moment the fire would reappear to claim me. Then Ericen yelled. The carriage shook again. I sprang through the door, landing unsteadily on my feet. Kiva seized my arm, holding me upright, and I nearly collapsed against her, relishing the bite of the cold, fresh air.

  Ericen had one of his guards up against the carriage, one of the man’s hands pinned to the side, where it clutched an extinguished torch. Two other guards lay groaning on the ground, torches at their sides. Slowly, the scene came together.

  The carriage had never been on fire. It’d been a trick. A cruel prank.

  Fury twisted through my veins, disconnecting me from myself. It chased away the pain and the fear and the guilt that threatened to swallow me whole until my insides burned hotter than any fire. Distantly, I was aware of my shaking hands picking up one of the discarded torches. Without a sound, I stepped ghostlike toward the prince and the remaining guard and swung with the force of a hundred repressed screams.

  Ericen barely had time to dodge before the torch connected with the guard’s ribs. Something crunched, and he wheezed, dropping his torch and crumpling to the ground. I drew back to swing again, my arms burning with the need to strike and strike and strike until the fire inside consumed me.

  “Anthia!” Ericen seized the torch and spun me around in one swift move, taking it from my grasp. My chest rose and fell in short bursts, my eyes finding his. Slowly, I became aware of the pressure of his hands on my arms, of Kiva appearing at my side, pushing him away. He barely stepped back, gaze still holding mine.

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. Kiva tugged gently at my arm, and I allowed her to lead me back into the carriage. I felt like a kite someone had cut loose, left to the mercy of the slightest breeze that could tear me apart. Kiva shut the door behind us. Rather than return to our respective benches, she organized our blankets on the floor, and we settled down together.

  I lay there for several hours, trying to remember what it felt like to be safe.

  * * *

  The next morning, I woke feeling hollow. Several of Ericen’s guards were bruised and battered, and the one I’d struck glared murderously at me every time I looked at him. Was this what it would be like for me in Illucia?

  We packed quickly and moved on, Kiva riding close to the carriage. Ericen lounged across his bench as he always did, but there was an edge to him now. The silence turned the air thick with tension, like the moment before a lightning strike, until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Why did you stop me from attacking him?” I demanded. “You were doing the same.”

  He surveyed me coolly. “Because you’re my responsibility, and I didn’t give them permission.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Were you hoping for something more?” The ice in his gaze melted, and he smiled in a way that made me feel like a mouse in the claws of a cat.

  I hated it. Hated the way it made me feel bared and the fact that I couldn’t shake the voice in the back of my mind that whispered it was a lie. He was deflecting.

  “You know,” I said quietly, “you’re not quite so perfect a liar as you think.”

  Something flickered across his face, his lips parting, but he said nothing. I allowed myself a small smile.

  I’d told Caliza I wanted to ride with Ericen to get to know him, to be better able to handle him. Maybe it was time I learned to play his game and saw where it led me.

  Eleven

  The deeper into Illucia we got, the more the landscape changed. We were due to arrive in Sordell in the late afternoon, having just passed through the Etris Forest into countryside of rolling green hills and small villages of thatched cottages.

  A few hours later, during which my stomach had tied itself into several knots, Ericen shifted closer to the window. “We’re here.”

  I leaned over beside him, peering out. The city had been built on top of a cluster of hills, a ripple of stone and color. I couldn’t see the end of it. Overhead, a blanket of storm clouds floated, dark with the promise of rain. At least those I could relate to.

  Ericen sat back to give me more space, and I pressed closer to the window.

  The stone buildings were tall and narrow, shoulder to shoulder like soldiers. Clean cobblestone streets had walkways on the sides for people to keep out of the way of carts and horses. Everywhere I looked, there was green: moss growing on the sides of buildings, vines snaking along roofs or up lantern posts. Yet it all looked perfectly manicured and carefully designed, as if the city’s inhabitants had recognized they couldn’t make it disappear, but they could damn well organize it.

  The Illucians were obvious, dressed in crisp clothes with sharp edges. Nearly all carried swords or other weapons, and they walked straight-backed with their heads held high, like soldiers prepared to salute a commander at any second. As the carriage passed, some of them did.

  Then I started noticing the other people. The men and women with the dark hair and bronze skin of the Jin or the golden skin and fair hair of the Ambriellans that didn’t match the bright gaze and pale complexion of the well-dressed Illucians they accompanied. The bent-backed, downcast-looking ones who trailed a few steps behind or else hurried along alone without lifting their heads.

  With their economies decimated and their towns destroyed, many of them came to Illucia looking for employment, others to follow children conscripted into Razel’s army. They were paid, though probably not enough. From the downtrodden looks they wore like cloaks, I doubted any amount ever would be.

  I sat back from the window, barely noticing the lingering smile on Ericen’s face slip away as he registered my disgust. Three years ago, Illucia had decimated Jindae, murdering its royal family and destroying the lives of its people. The children had been funneled into Illucia’s army, raised as soldiers in a strange land that held no respect for them and their art. The adults worked tirelessly, both here and at home, trying to survive beneath Razel’s suffocating taxes and the knowledge that everything they produced went straight to supporting the army that had broken them.

  Two years before that, the Ambriels had fallen under Illucian control with little protest, and Razel had allowed the nobles to keep playing at having their own government. Still, a great many of their people suffered the same fate as the Jin.

  I wanted to lean out and yell that something was being done, that we were fighting ba
ck, that they hadn’t been forgotten, but I swallowed the words.

  The carriage carried us through the city and up a sloping hill to the castle. I’d lost interest in looking out the window, and it all flew by in a flurry of gray. As we pulled to a halt, everything about Ericen changed. He sat taller, more rigid, his head held high. Even his eyes hardened. He leapt out of the carriage to hold the door for me, and I followed, then instantly wished I hadn’t.

  It was cold.

  I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth, my loosely knit woolen sweater doing little against the rising evening chill. Caliza had had some warmer clothes made for me, but they were packed away in my bags, and they were supposed to be for winter. But if summer was this chilly, I had a feeling they wouldn’t be sufficient for the colder months.

  “Here.” Ericen removed his cloak and dropped it over my shoulders.

  I pulled it tighter, staring at him in confusion. “Thanks.” I caught Kiva’s disapproving look as I faced the castle but ignored it. It. Was. Cold!

  The castle loomed like a great dark beast with spikes. Instead of towering high in the air like the castle in Rhodaire, it sprawled across low, sloping hills, some parts lifted higher than others by the uneven ground. Black stone towers and spires sprouted on either side like sharp talons and jagged teeth.

  The guards we’d brought were shown away to the barracks. Only Kiva remained, regarding the castle with open disdain. I glanced back, my eyes finding the trunk with the egg in it as the bags and boxes in the wagons were unloaded. I silently prayed they treated everything with care.

  Ericen strode past, gesturing for us to follow. He led the way through two stained-glass doors depicting massive black horses before a backdrop of golden sky.

  Inside, the castle was beautiful, though dark and rigid. As we passed through the entrance hall and into a corridor with windows crowded by trees, the castle closed in on me. The hallways were narrow and the windows small, not built for crows to pass through. The deep, rich colors accenting everything grew even bolder in the filtered sunlight. It was a cave.

  “Is it going to rain?” I glanced at the darkening sky.

  Ericen shrugged. “Maybe. It always looks like that. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn’t.”

  Kiva and I exchanged looks. Clouds without rain? Days of dark and dreary weather?

  Longing for the broad, open halls and warm weather of my home swept through me, threatening to lock my knees and pin me to the spot. I forced my feet forward, but the hallway gaped like the dark mouth of some mythical beast, the wall torches flickering like fiery teeth. We passed Illucian soldiers in the hall, the look behind their eyes sharp as glass. Judging. Evaluating. Condemning.

  These people were my enemies, and they surrounded me.

  I forced a deep breath, then released it. The urge to run quieted but didn’t leave. Would it ever? My life had changed so much since I’d discovered the crow egg. I’d moved forward, but the depression I’d been battling for months still sat like a coiled snake in the back of my mind, waiting for me to falter.

  I won’t.

  We stopped outside a set of thick oak doors. The guards posted on either side saluted Ericen, though their movements were delayed, as if they’d thought half a second about not doing it.

  “I’m going to introduce you both to my mother,” he said. “Don’t say anything stupid.”

  I snorted. Now that sounded more like the Ericen I knew. He faced the guards, and I swore he took a steadying breath before they pulled the doors open.

  We stepped into a simple yet elegant throne room. A white marble floor stretched before us, meeting walls adorned with golden metalwork. Gilded curves rose and fell, swirled and twisted along the walls like dancing ribbons. Massive black hearths burned with crackling fires on either side of the room, filling the air with a rich, earthy smell I’d experienced once in the Ambriels: peat.

  I stared at the flames. They were huge, filling the hearths like a blaze in the mouth of a fire crow. I’d stopped walking without realizing, my breathing quickening. Someone tugged on my arm, and my head whipped around. Kiva met my gaze, holding it unrelentingly, her hand tightening on my arm. I forced a deep breath in, then out, and nodded. We started walking again.

  A dais sat in the center of the room, two gleaming black thrones perched upon it. One was empty, but in the other sat the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

  Queen Razel had long, rose-gold hair that fell to her waist in loose ringlets, framing a thin face with delicate features and porcelain skin. She stood, revealing a slender, muscular frame, and smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes.

  She embodied everything wrong in my life, and I had to stand there and pretend to be pleased to meet her.

  The prince led us forward as she descended the dais. As we stopped before each other, her eyes scanned us all in a quick evaluation, their color pale blue as frozen ponds. A chill prickled at the back of my neck. Her eyes were like glass, cutting through me to see what was inside.

  Despite wearing a deep golden dress with long slits up the sides of her legs, the grips of two weapons strapped to her back stuck up over her shoulders. Like most everyone in Illucia, she was a soldier, and her graceful step and powerful bearing reinforced the image with every motion.

  Razel swept Ericen into a hug. I was surprised to see him stiffen until she let go. “Welcome home, my son,” she said. There was something about her voice that made me uneasy, a sweetness turned rancid.

  Ericen stepped aside without looking at his mother, his shoulders back, hands clasped behind in a soldier’s stance. Her eyes fell on me, and she smiled again. The sudden urge to wipe it off her face forced me to concentrate on not fisting my hands. “Welcome to Sordell, my dear.”

  The feeling came again when she spoke, as if each word carried a warning behind the pleasantries. A warning to remember I was very far from home.

  “Thank you.” I forced the words out and performed a small curtsy.

  The queen didn’t even spare Kiva a glance and continued, “I’m glad we were able to reach an agreement. It will be best for both of our kingdoms.”

  Afraid I wouldn’t be able to control what came out if I opened my mouth, I simply forced a tight smile.

  Razel laid a hand on Ericen’s shoulder, and he stiffened again. As if recognizing the effect her touch had on him, she gripped him tighter. “We’ll talk more at dinner. I’d like a moment alone with my son. Auma will show you to your rooms.”

  I’d traveled across kingdoms at her whim, and she had dismissed me already. I forced my hands to relax, refusing to let her make me feel like an unimportant pawn, and turned the way she’d indicated.

  I nearly jumped. A thin Jin girl had appeared beside us. Even Kiva hadn’t noticed her, judging by the uneasy look on her face. The girl wore a simple gray smock, the only color coming from a ragged red-and-gold scarf around her neck. She was pretty, with glossy black hair and dark eyes. She didn’t speak and kept her head slightly bowed.

  “Thank you,” I said through gritted teeth.

  As Auma led us out of the throne room, I glanced back. Razel spoke earnestly to Ericen, who still refused to look at her. Then the doors swung shut.

  We retraced our steps, and Auma took us down a left-hand passage and up a flight of stairs. I eyed the girl as we went. Something was off about her.

  Without Razel around, she walked taller, her shoulders back like a tree straightening after a strong wind, but it wasn’t that. I blinked, realizing she was studying me as much as I was her. She turned away without a flicker of expression.

  What life had she led before coming here to serve a foreign queen, and what desperation had driven her into the heart of enemy territory? Employment? A conscripted family member? She didn’t have any tama, the marks Jin earned when they apprenticed themselves to a guild, which meant she’d likely been in Illucia since before her
sixteenth birthday. Either way, she’d lost everything, something Kiva and I could relate to. Did the echoes of her past haunt her too?

  Auma slowed outside an ornate wooden door where two Rhodairen guards had been posted. They bowed as we approached, and I nodded in return.

  “His Highness sent word you would prefer a shared room.” Auma’s voice was quiet but not soft, like the gentle grumble of a jungle cat. She opened the door.

  The chambers consisted of four rooms joined together. The entry opened to a sitting space with large, comfortable red couches set before an already roaring fire, which I eyed warily. Massive rugs stretched across portions of the stone ground, and behind one of the couches sat a round dark wood table and chairs. At the back of the room, a door led in each direction.

  Another overture of friendship from Ericen. I was thankful he’d thought of it; I didn’t want to be far from Kiva.

  Auma followed us inside, then moved to the center door at the back of the room and opened it to reveal a large bathing chamber. Then she pointed to the doors on either side of her in turn. “These lead to the bedrooms. Your things are inside.” Quick. Blunt. She certainly didn’t mince words.

  “Thank you,” I said as she retreated.

  She paused at the door. “Her Majesty requests your presence for dinner in an hour. I will return to escort you.” She bowed and left. I stared after her, finally realizing what was so strange: her footsteps didn’t make any sound. Where had she learned to walk like that?

  “She’s an odd one.” Kiva’s gaze lingered at the doorway. “Cute though.”

  I smirked and, recognizing my luggage, dashed across the sitting area to the room on the left. Sona lamps lit a spacious room of dark wood draped in blue and gold. Two tall, narrow windows let in the fading sunlight, and a plush black carpet warmed the dark floor at the foot of a massive bed piled high with pillows.

  Kiva filled the doorway as I dropped beside the trunk with the egg, fishing the key from my pocket and unlocking it. Carefully, I pulled away the blankets, my mind filled with images of cracks and scattered shell pieces. The last blanket fell away, revealing the egg, whole and in perfect condition.