Flight of the Raven

by Morgan L. Busse

  His smile made her heart do a weird flip inside her chest. Selene turned around and headed for the closest dummy as her face heated up. “I would like that,” she said without looking back and began her drills on the straw-stuffed canvas.

  The familiar rhythm came back to her, the flow between her body and her blades. Her muscles had grown soft over the weeks, but they would be strong again soon. She hit the dummy with consecutive moves, each hit emitting a muffled sound.

  From the corner of her eye, she spotted Damien warming up nearby. But instead of using a practice dummy, he first stretched out his body, then went through a couple of motions with his own sword in the middle of the room. Her heart did that weird flip again. His physique, while not necessarily muscular, was certainly athletic. His moves were controlled, smooth, and potent—not wild with brute power.

  Selene went back to her warm-up and wondered if Damien’s fighting style would be similar to Amara’s one-sword technique or different. Her lips quirked to the side. She was looking forward to this.

  “Ready?” Damien asked ten minutes later.

  Selene turned around, sweat beginning to form along her skin. “Yes.” She joined him in the middle of the training room and raised her right hand and longer blade and held it above her head while she staggered her feet, the majority of her weight along the back leg. Her left hand, holding the shorter blade, was held out in front of her.

  Damien gripped his sword between his hands and held it between them, point up, his feet apart and knees slightly bent. “Ready?”

  Selene nodded. “Ready.”

  She blocked Damien’s first move with her shorter blade, then brought her longer blade around. He caught it with the side of his sword, pushed her blade away, and went for the opening. She blocked again.

  The strength of her style was in her dexterity while Damien’s power came from strength itself. She danced and weaved around him, moving in when she could, bouncing back and blocking when he went for an opening.

  He was strong. Stronger than Amara. Stronger than her mother. Stronger even than the highwaymen.

  Selene sucked in another lungful of air. Heat radiated off of her body like a warming brick. She blocked again, but her movement was a hair slower. Did he notice?

  Damien wiped the side of his face, then brought his sword up again.

  This time, Selene attacked first, charging with her shorter sword and catching his as he lifted his own up to block. She went to jab him with her right as she pushed his sword away with her left, but he pulled out of her grasp, angled up, and knocked her sword to the side.

  Before she had a chance to reset her swords, he was pointing his blade at her heart.

  They stared at each other, panting, with sweat streaming down their skin. His dark hair glistened, and his eyes appeared even bluer next to his flushed cheeks.

  Damien slowly lowered his sword, his eyes still on her. “You’re very good with your blades. For a moment, I thought you were going to best me.”

  Selene dropped her hands, letting her new swords hang at her sides. “Apparently I haven’t lost all of my skills. But I was still defeated. You’re the strongest opponent I’ve ever fought.”

  “So it wasn’t because of the blades?”

  Selene held the right one up and looked across the edge. “No, they are well made. Thank you.”

  Damien wiped his brow with the side of his sleeve. “Feel free to practice anytime you want.”

  She glanced up. “Are you sure about that? I’m not like other ladies, Damien. My time at Rook Castle was spent training to fight, dreamwalk, and infiltrate a room at night. I have no idea how to embroider or paint or serve tea—”

  Damien closed the gap between them and cupped her chin, lifting her face to meet his own. “Those kinds of things don’t matter to me.”

  Selene couldn’t move or breathe. It was like her body had forgotten how.

  He raised an eyebrow. “If you want to learn any of those pastimes, feel free. But they are not what make a lady.” His thumb stroked her cheek. “All right?”

  “Yes.” The room was beginning to spin, and there was a rushing sound inside her ears.

  He opened his lips as if he was going to say something more, but then he froze. Selene stared back, her heart beating inside her head, her chest, her entire body. His eyes grew more intense. The pull between them was like lodestone and iron. His head moved slightly forward, his lips parted—

  Then he dropped his hand and took a step back.

  Selene stepped back as well, confused by the sudden rush of emotions inside of her. She’d wanted to kiss him, and not, at the same time.

  “I’m going to wash up in the baths and head back to my study. Join me if you like.” His face turned bright red. “In the study, that is.”

  She blinked, confused, then her own face heated like a thousand suns.

  There were muffled sounds behind her, and the door to the training room opened.

  “. . . and then this raven appeared in my dream—Lord Damien!”

  Damien looked over her shoulder. “Sten, Cedric. It is good to see you both.”

  “My lord, we didn’t realize you were in here. Would you like us to come back later?” Sten asked.

  Damien walked past Selene, his eyes firmly ahead and not on her. “No, Lady Selene and I just finished our routine. The room is all yours.”

  Selene turned toward the table with the weapons to place her own down. She could feel the heat of her own face still blazing.

  “You can take them with you,” Damien said.

  She glanced over her shoulder and spotted him between the table and outer door.

  “I also had a scabbard commissioned, but it is not done yet. In the meantime, feel free to store your swords in your room.”

  There was still a tinge of red to his face, causing him to look more like a young man than a grand lord.

  Suddenly she wanted to laugh, both to ease the awkwardness from moments before and at the look on his face. But she refrained, although the corners of her lips twitched. It was good to know Damien was an ordinary man, despite his title. “Thank you.”

  He gave her a small bow and left the room.

  After exchanging pleasantries with Sten and Cedric, Selene left the training room. For the first time since arriving at Northwind Castle, she felt hope for the future burgeoning inside her heart.

  20

  A week later, Selene held her heavy cloak close to her body as she trudged through the snow toward Baris Abbey. Snowflakes fell thickly from the sky, coating the pine trees in blankets of white. To her left, the sea was grey, barely moving below the cliffs.

  As she walked, her mind drifted like the white snow around her. She had spent the last few mornings with Damien in his study, catching up on the news from Rook Castle and the responses from the other houses. She wasn’t really surprised about what had all come to pass, given the secrets she knew, but it still saddened her: the assassination of House Vivek, the lies her mother had spun about Damien’s disappearance, the call for each house to mind its own business and not provoke the empire. Now the question was, what would her mother do next? And what about Amara? Had she come into her gifting? Was she training to be a dreamkiller?

  Had Selene’s escape been for nothing?

  Then there was Damien. She thought there had been a breakthrough between them. They had talked, even laughed, during those times in the study. And they had sparred again. She’d even caught him looking at her from the corner of her eye when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. That kind of look sent her mind and heart spinning.

  But then the last two days he seemed more and more lethargic: the blank stares, the shuffling of papers even though he hadn’t looked at them, the repeated questions. No more spark to his eyes, no smile tugging at his lips. This morning Taegis told her Damien wasn’t feeling well and would be in his room all day.

  Was Damien really ill, or was it something else?

  She rubbed her nose and sigh
ed. Moments later, the cheery lights from the abbey windows appeared through the snowfall. Selene walked faster, and she could hear the crunch of Karl’s boots behind her. No doubt he was as cold as she.

  Selene reached the door, pressed down on the metal latch, and pushed inward. A blast of heat and light greeted her as the door creaked open. Monks stood in the main room, conversing or reading near the massive fireplace. She spotted Cohen, talking to a shorter monk. Then again, everyone was shorter than Cohen.

  Both men looked over, and Cohen broke out in a huge grin. “My lady, you came to visit today.”

  “Yes.” Selene stepped inside and stomped out her boots as Karl shut the door behind them.

  Cohen and the other monk walked over. “Lady Selene, let me introduce you to Brother Aedan. He leads us in our morning and evening chants.”

  “My lady,” the older man murmured and bowed his head.

  “Brother Aedan, it is nice to meet you. I heard the Chant of Light not long ago, and it was beautiful.”

  “Thank you. It is one of our oldest chants.”

  “Can I get you some tea?” Cohen asked.

  Selene rubbed her hands, not quite ready to remove her gloves. “Yes. I was also hoping to read anything you might have about the birth of the Great Houses.”

  Cohen wrinkled his brow. “I might have to look around, but I’ll see what I can find. I know there are some old tomes in the vault below, but many of those are sealed until we can copy them and preserve them.”

  “I understand.”

  Aedan spoke up. “I will be happy to make tea for Lady Selene if you would like to find what she is looking for, Brother Cohen.”

  “Thank you. I will start with Pallion’s writings. Lady Selene, feel free to take a seat at the table near the fireplace, and I will bring you what I can find.”

  She took a seat at the end of the long table, then removed her cloak and gloves and laid them beside her. Karl stood by the fire, his body turned so he could keep an eye on her and warm himself at the same time. Not for the first time she wondered why Karl had been assigned to her since her arrival at Northwind Castle.

  The gentle hum of conversation combined with the snap and crackle of the fire. Selene leaned forward, her body slowly thawing from the trek here.

  “I heard Lord Damien is feeling ill today.” One of the monks spoke softly.

  “Not surprising. He was the same way this time last year as well.”

  Selene remained still as she tuned into their conversation.

  “Do you think he’ll ever recover from the death of his family?” the first monk said in a low voice.

  “His parents, perhaps. But it was Lord Quinn’s death that hit him the hardest. They were close.”

  “Ah yes, Lord Quinn.” There was a sad chuckle. “He was the sun to Lord Damien’s moon. One fiery and hot, the other cool and level-headed. And now the sun is gone. I sometimes wonder why the Light allowed the young lord to pass.”

  “One of many questions that humankind has been asking for a millennia. I think even if we were able to stand in the presence of his brilliant light, we would still not be able to comprehend the ways of the Light.”

  “You speak truth, Brother Eoin.”

  Selene stared wide-eyed at the fire. Was today the anniversary of the passing of Damien’s brother Quinn? A vision of a dark-haired young boy climbing an oak tree with Elric Luceras filled her mind. His laughter, his smile, his adventurous attitude. Then her memories switched to the pale young man in a bed much too big for him, with Damien kneeling nearby, his head bent. And the way Damien wept when Quinn breathed his last. Such a bond between siblings, unlike anything she had experienced, even with Opheliana.

  When Quinn died, it was as if part of Damien had died with him, a severing she had felt within Damien’s dreamscape.

  Even now, she could feel Damien’s sorrow swelling up inside her own heart. Selene pressed a hand against her chest. No wonder Damien had seemed listless.

  She watched the flames flicker and dance in the fireplace across from her. Should she do something when she arrived back at Northwind Castle? Was there even anything she could do?

  And why do I care?

  She turned her gaze to the table surface. There was this deep and powerful urge to comfort Damien, something she had never experienced before.

  Strange. What did it mean? Now that she no longer hid herself behind an icy shroud, was it possible her heart was returning to her? Or was it something more? Some kind of connection that had formed from her dreamwalks?

  “Here you are, my lady.” Cohen carefully placed a leather-bound book as thick as three fingers on the table in front of Selene. “These are the writings of Pallion, one of the first scholars to write about the Great Houses.”

  A leather cord held the tome closed. Selene fingered the tie, then began to work the loop. “So his work is set before the razing of the empire?” she asked as she undid the knot.

  “Yes. I’m not sure how far back since I have not personally read or copied any of his work. But it might give you a starting point.”

  Selene pulled the leather cord away from the tome, then paused. She looked up at Cohen. “Could I also see any books you have on the Light? Perhaps something that explains who or what he is?”

  “Certainly. The best place to start is with Father Dominick’s personal essays. His are the most easy to understand. He wrote them in conjunction with the sacred texts as a way to help young monks learn the basics of the Old Ways. I’ve also seen him share his work with some of the people from Nor Esen.”

  Selene nodded. “That would be wonderful. Thank you, Cohen.”

  Cohen grinned as he bowed. “My pleasure, Lady Selene. If you have any questions, please let me know.”

  “I will.” Selene slowly opened the tome, careful to keep her fingers on the very edges of the parchment. The calligraphy was superb, each letter exact and straight. She began to read, but in the far back of her mind the shadow of Damien’s sorrow over Quinn’s death hung over her.

  Selene and Karl made their way through the snow hours later, reaching Nor Esen’s gates just as they began to shut. The sky grew darker by the minute as the wintry night came and more clouds gathered, plump with snow.

  The tip of her nose and her fingers were numb, despite the gloves. She pulled her cowl farther down her face and pushed on through the streets with her head bowed. No one was out this evening. And probably hardly anyone would be venturing out once this storm hit. She was grateful she had been able to visit the abbey and read before more snow came and kept her bound inside Northwind Castle.

  Her toes were as numb as her nose by the time they reached the inner gate and entered the courtyard. Karl opened the front door for her and spoke to the guards inside. Selene stamped out her boots, then headed toward her own room to change into warm, dry clothes.

  “Lady Selene.”

  Selene turned around and found Taegis approaching from one of the other hallways.

  “Hello, Taegis. Karl and I just arrived from Baris Abbey.”

  “Good. I was about to head out and escort you back.”

  Selene began tugging at the tips of her gloves. “How is Lord Damien doing?” she asked, hoping Taegis would tell her more about what was truly ailing Damien.

  Taegis stopped in front of her. “He is still in his room. But he should be better in a day or two.”

  “I see. Thank you for letting me know.” Selene finished pulling off the gloves and turned just as Taegis called out again.

  “My lady.”

  Selene turned back.

  Taegis opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “If I may say, you might be able to help him.”

  “Help him?”

  Taegis stepped closer. “Two years ago today Damien lost his brother and parents and became grand lord of House Maris.”

  Selene stared down at her gloves. “I overheard the monks talking about it.”

  “Forgive me for not telling you beforehand
. Damien wishes to be left alone during this time. A dual loss and responsibility like that is a heavy burden. The people know he is grieving today, but it is more than sorrow. There is a hole inside of him he keeps hidden away from everyone.”

  She lifted her head. “Everyone but you?”

  “I’ve known Lord Damien since he was a little boy. There is very little he can hide from me.”

  A hole inside of Damien. Selene recalled the hint of darkness she sensed within his luminous soul in his dreamscape. Was that the same hole Taegis spoke of? The loss of his family?

  “I’m not sure what I can do.” She knew nothing of this kind of hurt or love. Still, that same powerful urge from the library swept over her again, the desire to comfort him. But how?

  “Be with him. I’ve talked to Damien before, but I am his counselor and guard and can only do so much. Perhaps, as his wife, you can speak to his heart in ways I cannot.”

  Speak to his heart? Selene almost laughed. Taegis knew nothing of her past. What did she know of speaking to someone in pain? She only knew how to hurt others and find their weaknesses in the dreamscape.

  However, she had helped Damien during his fever when they first arrived at Northwind Castle. But he wasn’t sleeping at the moment. And neither of them had spoken of that night.

  “Please, Lady Selene,” Taegis implored. She could see the love in the older man’s eyes for his lord, and it touched her heart. So many people loved Damien and cared about him. So different than the mountain people’s reaction to House Ravenwood.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  His shoulders sagged, and he gave her a small smile. “Thank you, my lady.”

  Selene turned and headed down the hallway, her emotions a tangled knot inside of her, causing her stomach to clench. What do I do? How do I help someone? Do I talk to him? Dart’an, I don’t even know what to say! Maybe I should head to my own room.

  But she couldn’t do that. The weight of that thought was even heavier. So she bypassed her own door and stopped in front of the one that led into Damien’s room.

  She stared at the thick grey door while the candles flickered in the sconces along the corridor. Her heart pounded inside her chest, a constant thump.