Her raven was gone.
“No…”
Her heart shattered.
“No—no!”
Her raven’s ashes were in a pile at her folded knees.
She screamed as a feather fell in her trembling hand.
“NO!”
Her raven. Her namesake. The first creature to ever speak with her. The one that had been with her since she was a mere three years old.
Dead.
Its ashes stained her shaking fingers.
She barely heard the clip-clapping of her brother’s shoes on the stone as he left her screaming on the floor.
“NO!”
Reduced to ashes.
By her own brother.
She couldn’t stop the agonizing screams emitting from her throat. Her shaking hands curled around the black feathers before her, and tears poured down her face.
Strong arms grasped her from behind. She continued to scream, not even aware of the audible sobs and horrifying noises emitting from her insides.
An emptiness filled the void of her core.
She surrendered to the arms around her and buried herself in what she realized was Draven’s chest, clutching his shirt in her hands.
Every emotion she’d ever suppressed boiled to the surface.
“You were right,” she whispered into Draven’s chest.
“About what?” he asked.
“Your being here when my wall came shattering down.”
His arms hugged tighter around her, and he kissed her forehead. “I didn’t mean like this.”
She didn’t know how long they sat there. But Draven didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just held her there, occasionally rubbing her back or kissing her forehead.
Aydra swallowed hard as she sat up finally, avoiding Draven’s gaze. Her eyes found the ashes of the raven again and she bit back another bout of tears.
“She was the first creature I ever heard,” she managed as she reached out to the ashes again. “I was three. She was only still a baby herself.” A small smile rose on her lips at the memory. “I found her in the hanging tower. She’d tried to fly out of the nest, but she was too small to keep up with her siblings. Her mother left her there. You should have seen Zoria’s face when I brought it back,” she remembered fondly.
“I’ll take her back to the Forest,” he promised.
She met his eyes. “Why the Forest?” she asked.
“Ravens are all born in darkness. The only reason they are not part of the Noctuans is because they do not share the blood thirst.” He reached down and took one of its feathers between his fingers. “The Sun commissioned them long ago to be the bridge between the light and the dark.”
Aydra frowned. “How do you know this?”
