Or they had journeyed north to join the Acolyte.
He arrived almost twenty years ago, whenshadow wolves began to appear in the north, destroying farmlands and crops, devouring innocents in the outlying villages each night when the sun fell.
The symbol began to appear in shadowed places across villages and towns.
Two dark wings.
No one knew their origin.
But it soon became clear it was a call.
And those who understood its meaning laid down their love for the gods, and marched north to join the Acolyte.
His stronghold was hidden in the Sawteeth Mountains, as far north as one could go in Lordach. Protected, at all times, by a storm of pure shadow.
He hadthousandsof shadow wolves. And all those who had disappeared were found with him …changed.They called themselves Darksouls, with their black eyes, and strange, twisted magic. The strongest ones rode winged hybrid monsters, raphons, into battle. A battle that King Draybor, the ruler of Lordach, had led against the Acolyte for nearly twenty years now.
Sometimes, the warfront felt like a faraway, distant dream.
Like a nightmare concealed by frozen mist and shadow, where few knew the whole truth of what went on. There were hardly any survivors that returned south. And the stories that reached her tower had always felt too wild to be true.
They claimed the Acolyte had created some sort of dark religion, a following that turned their lifelong adoration of the gods into something twisted.
Something hungry for blood.
Still … some part of Ezer had always wondered what it would be like to go north.
She was born there, after all, had nearly died there too.
She longed to see a bird as large as a sea wyvern. To see if her connection to the common ravens would carry across to a beast as fearsome as a war mount.
She doubted so, for Lordach’s war eaglesandthe Acolyte’s raphons were only commanded by people with true magic.
She had vapors, if anything at all.
‘Well now,’ Ezer said to the very normal raven who perched before her. ‘I suppose the only birds I’ll ever connect with will be like you, little corvid.’ It blinked up at her with dark, trusting eyes. ‘Not that I’m complaining. We’re perfectly safe here in the south, far from those awfulmuttsthat attacked my village.’
Ezer shuffled across the tower and dropped the bloody scroll through the small slot on the door. It tumbled into the basket beside the others, where the prison master would come for it sooner or later.
‘Stay the night,’ Ezer said as she turned once more to the raven. It looked exhausted, its wings drooping and its eyes already shining a bit less than moments before. ‘Get warm and dry and fed, and we’ll worry about what to do with you come morning. I won’t be sending you back to Carvist any time soon. We’ll choose another route instead. Perhaps one that leads to the gold mines out west?’
The raven cawed joyfully.
As if it heard her words and understood.
They’d always had a love for shiny, shimmering things.
Perhaps that was why Ezer so adored the moon.
Sometimes, she stared out the window for hours, wondering what it would be like to be outthere.Seeing the places her ravens had been, the places written about in books. Doing more than only taste the wind, or stare into the distant darkness, wondering what it was like beyond these rounded tower walls.
There had to be more than this.
More toherthan ravens and scrolls.
She squeezed her fist over her mother’s ring, a comfort as she crossed to the small cot she’d set up in the corner of the room. With a grunt, she pulled her chains upon it, then lifted her scrap of a worn blanket to her chin and listened to the wind as it whistled past the window. She wouldn’t dare close its shutters, for fear of locking out a weary bird that had given its all to reach her with a message tied to its leg.
But she certainly wanted to.
