Lowen appeared in the doorway, his sleek coat catching the muted morning light. His golden eyes found mine, and I felt his presence in my mind, not words, not exactly, but emotions. Support. Loyalty. The absolute certainty that he would follow wherever I led.
“Come,” I said. “Let’s show my aunt what death-blessed means.”
The courtyard was silent when we emerged.
The clan had gathered. I noticed them watching from windows and doorways, black-haired and sharp-faced, their expressions ranging from curiosity to fear to something that might have been awe.
The elders stood near the gates, their ageless faces set in disapproving lines. They’d argued against this confrontation, saying we should let the guards handle it, that the Queen of Ravens shouldn’t dirty her hands with human affairs.
They didn’t understand.
This wasn’t human affairs. This was personal.
I walked across the flagstones, the ice in the ground calling to the ice in my blood. I’d left my shoes behind deliberately, wanting to feel the ground beneath me, the connection to the earth and stone and the ancient bones that lay beneath the castle. The cloak billowed behind me, caught by a wind that hadn’t been blowing a moment ago.
The ravens came.
Hundreds of them. They landed on the flagstones around me, perched on my shoulders and outstretched arms, settled into my hair and on the folds of my cloak. Their weight should have been uncomfortable. Instead, it felt right. Natural.
A living cloak of feathers and claws and archaic knowledge.
Sister, they whispered in my mind.Queen. Ours.
I walked to the gates with an honor guard of ravens, and the clan members who saw me coming stepped back. Not from fear, or not only from fear, but from recognition.
From the understanding that something sacred was moving through their midst, something that belonged to the Realm and the cold and the spaces between life and death.
The gates were closed. Iron bars thick as a man’s wrist, reinforced with magic and ancient oaths. Beyond them, Mabyn sat on her pale horse, her hired swords arrayed behind her.
“Open them,” I said.
The guards looked at the elders. The elders looked at Cador, who had followed me across the courtyard with Lowen at his heels. He said nothing. Just nodded once.
The gates swung open.
I stepped through.
The guards moved to follow, hands on weapons, ready to protect their queen.
Cador’s voice rang through the courtyard. “Stand down.” He didn’t raise his voice, but every guard froze.
“Let her go alone.”
“My lord—” one protested.
“She doesn’t need protection from humans anymore.” His certainty was absolute. “Watch. Learn what your queen can do.”
Mabyn’s horse shied back, ears flat, nostrils flaring. The animal could smell what I was, could sense the wrongness, the death, the Realm made manifest in human form. The mercenaries shifted, hands moving to weapons, their faces going pale as they took in the ravens covering me.
“Olwen.” Mabyn’s voice was cold. Controlled. She’d regained her composure, forced her expression into somethingresembling concern. “I’ve come to take you home. To get you the help you need.”
“I am home.”
The ravens stirred. Ruffled their feathers. Made sounds deep in their throats that weren’t quite words but carried meaning anyway. Threat. Warning. Mine.
“You’re sick,” Mabyn continued. She dismounted, smooth and graceful, her black skirts settling around her ankles. “Delusional. That creature has done something to you, twisted your mind, made you think you’re something you’re not.”
“But it’s not too late. I’ve brought physicians. They can help. They can fix this.”
