The story said the Wandering Wood was an ancient well of magic that only appeared on the full moon. During that time, it allowed the chosen to come and go as they pleased, but you had to be out of the wood by sunrise, or else you’d be trapped until the next full moon.
Right now, that didn’t sound half bad.
Caylus set his cup on the desk. “You would have known the crows well, right?”
His question plucked at a heartstring, sending a quiver through my chest. “Yes.”
His eyes lit up, and for the first time, he met my gaze fully and unwaveringly. “Can you tell me about them?”
For half a second, I remembered Ericen asking me the very same question and the way my entire being had revolted against the idea. But with Caylus, the curiosity in his eyes, the light—it made my heart beat faster and my stomach turn in anticipation, an echo of the feeling that engulfed me moments before a flight. To my surprise, I wanted to tell him.
I leaned against the workbench. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
So I told him. I told him about the types of crows, from how a shadow crow could deceive your perception of space, camouflaging itself in night, to the way a sun crow’s golden touch could heal a wound in minutes. I told him how a battle crow could turn its feathers to metal and release them on command and about the black-gold weapons the Turren masters made from it.
He asked questions, more than I’d ever been asked. He was quick, easily picking up on the patterns of their magic and remembering the smallest details.
“So a water crow could turn water to ice?” he asked, and I nodded. “Could they create mist then too?”
“Yep. On especially hot days, riders would drop mist from the sky to cool workers in the fields.”
“And your students at the riding school. Not all of them became riders?”
“Only about half.”
Becoming a rider took a lifetime of dedication. Even before contenders entered Kalestel, the riding school, crows would have been their lives. They’d have been raised working with them, learning their strengths and weaknesses, the extent of their abilities, the history of their wings. And after all that, less than half of them would become riders.
Typically, it was a mantle passed down from parent to child, uncle to niece, staying firmly rooted in familial lines. Anyone could apply to Kalestel, and they frequently took students outside of established rider families, but it was rare for a crow to form a connection with one.
In the end, they became involved in other ways. Working at Kalestel, turning to wing-specific trades focused around the crows, like the Garien leatherworkers who crafted the finest saddles.
Caylus tapped his fingers on his leg, absently moving them about for the kitten to pounce on. “It’s strange that it stays mostly in families. I wonder…” He trailed off, his brows furrowing and his head tilting in a way I’d come to understand meant he was faced with a problem he couldn’t solve.
“Wonder what?” I asked.
He blinked. “Sorry. I wonder if forming a bond with a crow has an impact on a person’s physiology somehow. Something passed down generation to generation.”
I grinned. “You’re good. Some Rhodairen scholars thought the same thing. They called it magic lines.”
He leaned forward, eyes bright. “But then the question is what exactly is passed down.”
“Crows form bonds with their riders,” I said, excitement prickling my skin. “Unbreakable bonds, as strong as a real cord strung between them. This journal I read thought it might be related to them.”
He nodded enthusiastically, not even noticing as the kitten pounced, digging his tiny claws into the back of Caylus’s hand. “But the question is, do the chosen riders already have magic, or do the crows grant it to them when the bond forms?”
He leaned back, one finger stroking the kitten’s head as he retreated into another silence. It wasn’t until the room was quiet that I realized what I’d just done. I’d talked about the crows, and I’d done it without spiraling into a pit of dark emotions.
Something about Caylus had made me feel comfortable enough to share, and from there, our shared natural curiosity had driven away any lingering doubts. I wanted to know, and so did he.
A three-beat knock sounded on the workroom door. Caylus rose quietly, crossing the room to open it. My heart thudded with each step, the distance between the threshold and me stretching. Suddenly, I couldn’t remember all the things I’d wanted to say.
A figure slipped in, a hood obscuring her face, as Caylus closed the door behind her. I stood facing her. She wore a simple half-white, half-black mask split down the middle, like the ones worn in the Ambriels during Catternon, meant to symbolize the split between the sea god, Duren, and his dark sister, the Night Captain.
“Princess Anthia,” came a hard voice from beneath the mask. She wore all black, her clothes thick and concealing. Leather gloves and heavy boots adorned her hands and feet, every inch of her obscured. Even her eyes were dark as obsidian.
This was it. This was happening.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“You may call me Diah.” She had the easy bearing that came with knowing your place at the top, and I longed to project the same.
“After the Night Captain?”
Diah nodded. “I represent the Ambriellan rebels. We were contacted by one of your people. I was told you wished to negotiate an alliance.”
“We do.” Despite the confidence I projected, inwardly, I analyzed everything. My posture, my expression, my tone. This was the beginning of Rhodaire’s salvation—or its end. I needed her to hear me, to trust me.
Diah chuckled. “The mighty Rhodaire seeks our help. Now that Illucia threatens your borders, your people. Where were your armies when the Ambriels fell? When Jindae fell? Where were your crows?”
“I—” I stopped. What explanation could I possibly give? My mother had sent minimal support to both kingdoms, and it hadn’t been enough. We’d opened our borders to Jin and Ambriellans fleeing Illucia, gave them food and shelter, but nothing more.
“You abandoned us,” Diah said. “Why should we not do the same to you?”
The nervous tension strung through me snapped, pooling sharp and cold in my chest. It struck me that I didn’t know how to do this. Talking to people, negotiating—this was Caliza’s world, not mine. What could I possibly say that would sway her?
I looked from Diah to Caylus, who had leaned back against the door, his hands tucked behind the small of his back. He looked up, meeting my gaze through curls of messy hair, and I saw that familiar something in them. Something that had led me to tell him about the crows.
Something painful. Something broken.
So many broken people.
This had begun because I didn’t want to marry Ericen. Then it became about protecting Rhodaire. But it was bigger than both of those things. Illucia had to be stopped before they were all that was left.
I drew a breath. “You can’t defeat Illucia by raiding transports in the Verian Hills. Jindae can’t defeat them with their court scattered to the wind. We can’t defeat them with the remnants of our army. Alone, none of us will win.”
I straightened. “I don’t know why my mother refused to send aid to the Ambriels or Jindae, but it was wrong. We had the power to help, and we didn’t. I won’t make her same mistake. Either we work together, or Illucia will destroy us all.”
Diah was quiet for a moment, her depthless eyes betraying nothing. She held my gaze, as if searching for the truth inside me. At last, she inclined her head in the smallest nod. “I require time to consider what you’re offering. I will notify Caylus when I have an answer.”
I nodded, and in a flutter of dark cloth, Diah turned for the door. Caylus moved out of her way, closing the door once she’d passed.
I released a he
avy breath. “I can’t tell if that went well.”
Caylus smiled slightly. “Diah is…very critical. She didn’t refuse you outright. It’s a good sign.”
“I hope you’re right.”
One kingdom down; three to go.
Seventeen
A letter came from Caliza during breakfast the next morning. Lighting a candle and setting it on the dining table, I read quickly through the visible text describing how much she missed me before sprinkling black dust over the back of the letter. I held it as near to the flame as I dared, and the invisible ink materialized.
Thia,
The king and queen of Trendell have agreed to host an alliance meeting. They’ll hear us out, but they want to see the crow. They’ve set a meeting date for near a month from now, on the Trendellan holiday of Belin’s Day. We have to hatch the crow by then.
Things here are growing more precarious. Skirmishes have broken out on the border, and the Illucian army has raided as far south as Mycair. We can hold them off for now, but they’re choking our supply lines, and the latest report on crops isn’t good.
We’re running out of time.
Please stay safe.
Love,
Caliza
The letter crumpled in my fist. We’d acquiesced to all Razel’s demands, and yet she was still terrorizing my people.
Kiva plucked the letter from my hand, read it, and then crossed the room to toss it into the fire.
“Well, at least Trendell has agreed to host the meeting,” she said. I’d updated her on the meeting with Diah. Things were finally moving. “The only question is how do we get there.”
“And with a hatched crow,” I said. We’re running out of time.
Standing, I left my breakfast untouched and went to my room to pen a return letter for Caliza, writing in invisible ink that I had a lead on the egg and would update her soon. Then I wrapped the egg in a blanket, set it gently in a bag with a book and sweater to disfigure the shape, and returned to the common room.
Kiva nearly dropped the teapot she’d been pouring from. “What in the Saints’ name are you doing?”
“Taking the egg to Caylus.”
She set the teapot down with a thump. “Did I hit you too hard sparring this morning?”
I rolled my eyes. “You read Caliza’s letter. We’re running out of time. Caylus is with the rebels. If we can’t trust them, this is all for nothing anyways. And right now, he’s my only chance of hatching this egg.”
Kiva looked like she wanted to argue, but in the end, she let out a grumbling sigh.
“Send this out for me?” I handed her the letter.
She took it. “I hate that I’m stuck here.”
“At least you can spend more time with Auma.” I shot for the door before she could throw something at me.
* * *
Caylus had just finished up a shift when I arrived at the bakery, his hair and skin dusted in flour like powdered snow. He smiled when I entered, and we went upstairs to his workshop. He sat down at one of the workbenches beside the kitten, who lay curled on a blanket near the sona lamp. “Is something wrong?”
“I need your help.” I pulled the bag at my hip onto the workbench, then paused. Despite what I’d said to Kiva, trusting Caylus was a risk. But he already knew about our plans with the rebels. If he was going to betray us, he would have already.
I unwrapped the blanket, revealing the egg.
Caylus’s eyes widened, and he ran quivering fingers along the smooth shell. I gave him a moment. When he finally looked back at me, I said, “We need to figure out how to make it hatch.”
He blinked. “You think it’s still alive?”
“I’m hoping.” Praying. “Can you do it?”
Caylus regarded the egg, head tilted. “I have no idea. This is uncharted territory. Though maybe if I…” He shook his head. “What makes you think it’s still alive?”
“I can feel it. It hums when I touch it.” He felt the shell, and when he didn’t react, I added, “Kiva couldn’t feel it either, but I swear it’s there.”
“I believe you.” Caylus sat back, rubbing the side of his face with one massive hand. “Well, what do we have to go on? Don’t they have to hatch on the winter solstice?”
“That’s just tradition.” The words came quickly. I felt jittery and unsteady. Was he actually agreeing to help? “They can hatch anytime. But something makes them hatch, and I don’t know what.”
“Are you…asking me to experiment on it?” he asked.
I nodded. “Chemicals. Herbs. Anything that’s not likely to damage it. Maybe the egg will react somehow.”
He hesitated, and my heart seized. “Will you help me?” I asked.
He ran his fingers over the egg. “I don’t know if I can do much, but I’ll try.”
Relief swept through me in a cool wave. “Where do we start?”
An hour later, I sat beside Caylus with a paper and pen in hand. He alternated between laying out ideas and allowing the kitten to attack his fingers while I translated everything into an actual plan, taking quick notes.
With every new idea one of us suggested, the mountain we had to climb grew taller. By the end of our discussion, the idea of hatching the egg felt impossible. One step at a time. The familiar phrase calmed me. Right now, we planned. Then we tested.
We started with herbs. Murkwood root and dried delladon vine, lavender and monkshood. We crushed them before laying them on the shell, Caylus watching for physical indicators while I focused on the humming. Then we cleaned the spot and tried the next one, moving on through powdered metals and basic liquids.
I’d told him that it seemed to have something to do with the royal family, but simply willing the egg to hatch didn’t have an impact. So either it was something else about me or there was another factor. With each new thing we tried, I focused on willing the egg to hatch, but nothing changed.
As we worked, we talked. Or rather, I talked. Well, asked questions that Caylus answered in as few words as possible. He didn’t seem to mind them; he just didn’t have much to say. He was nineteen, his mother taught him to bake, the kitten’s name was Gio, and yes, he made his own vests. Even getting that out of him was like prying open a crow’s beak.
I also learned he was from Seahalla, the capital of the Ambriels, where the corrupt remnants of the high council still pretended to rule under Razel’s control. The real power there was the Drexel family. They called themselves rebels, but they were just a vicious gang profiting off the slowly crumbling nation.
“How long have you been doing this sort of thing?” I asked from my seat in one of the workbench chairs as Caylus sifted through a pile of papers.
“All my life,” he said.
“Ever sold anything?”
He paused, his scarred fingers curling around the edge of the stack of papers he held. “Some.”
“Ever answer a question in more than three words?”
“Only during high tides.”
I blinked, and he smiled over his shoulder at me. I really had to get used to his deadpan delivery. “Funny. You’re funny.”
He found the paper he was looking for and returned to the chair beside me. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“I like to know stuff.”
“So do I, though I usually ask books.” He patted a nearby stack. “They’re more reliable.”
“But not as fun.”
“Less liable to get annoyed.”
“More liable to get chucked at you when someone does get annoyed.”
“You sound like you speak from experience,” he said.
“Books are very underrated weapons.”
He laughed, the sound rich as molten chocolate. It pulled a grin across my lips and brought a flush to my cheeks that felt strange and unfamiliar but pleasant.
He smiled faintly, his eyes bright as spring leaves. “You’d have gotten along with my little sister.”
“Does she live in Seahalla?”
His smile faded, his expression clouding. When he didn’t answer, I started to ask but clamped my mouth shut when I caught the look in Caylus’s eyes. The same look that always seemed to be there, only ten times darker: pain.
“You support the rebels,” I said quietly, “but you aren’t one. Why?”
His hands closed into massive fists in his lap. “I’m…tired of fighting.”
My eyes flickered to his scarred hands as I remembered the way he’d dislodged Ericen’s grip on me with ease. I’d thought he was a street fighter or a soldier. Maybe he had been, once. I didn’t ask, smothering the urge to run my fingers along the lines of his scars like I had so often done my own, as if it might help me understand them.
We spent the next hour waiting for a mixture to brew, during which Caylus made tea. A light rain tapped against the window as he delivered a cup of steaming bergamot tea to the only clear space on a workbench beside me, a fresh scone beside it.
Hours later, the only thing we’d learned was the shell seemed to have an affinity for iron. It stuck to the slippery surface like tree sap, and I couldn’t be sure, but the humming seemed slightly stronger.
“This isn’t working,” I said at last. My eyes were tired, and my hand cramped from writing.
Caylus sat back. “It isn’t working yet. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Caylus locked the egg away in a padded trunk. Though the idea of leaving the egg anywhere I wasn’t made me uneasy, transporting it in and out of the castle was too risky. Still, as I climbed into the carriage to return to the castle, I felt like I’d left a piece of myself behind.
Eighteen
The next couple of days followed a similar pattern. Caylus worked at the bakery in the morning, so Kiva and I used that time to train. That morning, I found her already at the training grounds, Auma a nearby shadow, watching her dance with Sinvarra. They’d continued to have lunch together despite Razel’s warning.
At first, I’d worried she might get the girl into trouble, but when I mentioned it to Kiva, she said she’d already tried talking Auma out of it for that very reason. Auma had made it very clear that she could take care of herself and would make her own decisions.
The Storm Crow Page 17