Mine.
Mabyn stared at him. At me. At the frozen mercenaries who couldn’t even whimper. Her face had gone the color of old bone.
“Monster,” she whispered.
“Yes.” I walked toward her. The ravens parted before me, then closed ranks behind, always keeping me wrapped in their living protection.
“Iama monster.Youmade me one when you put poison in my tea.Youmade me one when you buried me alive.Youmade me one when you thought you could take everything my father built and leave me to rot in the ground.”
I stopped in front of her. Close enough to see the broken blood vessels in her eyes, the roots showing through her dyed hair, the desperation carved into the lines around her mouth.
“But you were wrong about one thing,” I said. “I didn’t rot. I evolved.”
I reached out. Touched her forehead with one pale finger.
Frost spread across her skin in delicate patterns, crystallizing in the shape of feathers. Ravens’ feathers. Dozens of them, spreading outward from where my finger pressed, until her entire forehead was covered in a white frost-burn that would never fade.
And at the center, where my fingertip rested, the frost deepened. Darkened. Took on a shape that would mark her forever.
A raven’s skull.
White against her pale skin, perfect and permanent. The mark of someone who had been touched by death and found wanting. The mark of someone death had rejected.
I pulled my hand back. Mabyn stumbled, gasping, her hands flying to her forehead. She touched the frost-burn and whimpered.
“Keep the inheritance,” I said. “File your death certificate now. Tell them you found my body in the woods. Take the money. I have a kingdom now.”
I could have drained her. Could have left her a frozen husk on the road and let the ravens pick her clean. But then I’d be what she tried to make me. A corpse defined by her violence.
I refused.
“Keep the house. Keep everything you killed me for. I hope it was worth what you’ve become.”
I turned away. Walked back toward the gates where Cador stood, wings still spread, waiting.
“But know this,” I said over my shoulder. “If I ever see you again, if you ever come back to these lands, if you ever speak my name, if you ever even think about what you did…I will find you.”
The ravens on my shoulders screamed. The sound echoed off the mountains, harsh and knowing and full of promises.
“Go. Before I decide I’m hungry.”
Mabyn turned and ran.
She scrambled back onto her horse, kicked its flanks hard enough to make it scream, and rode. I released my hold on the mercenaries as her horse disappeared into the mist. Theycollapsed gasping, scrambling to their feet, stumbling after her on legs that could barely hold them.
I walked back through the gates. The ravens lifted from my shoulders and arms, returning to their perches on the towers and walls, their job done.
Cador’s wings folded slowly against his back, the feathers settling, his skin beginning to lighten.
But his eyes stayed bottomless, fixed on me with an intensity that made something low in my belly tighten.
The clan members in the courtyard stared. The elders stood frozen, their disapproval warring with something that looked like fear.
Even the guards had taken a step back, hands loose on their weapons, as if uncertain whether they should be protecting the clan from me or me from the clan.
I met Cador’s gaze. Let him see what I’d done. What I was capable of now that the transformation was complete.
“She’ll tell everyone,” I said. “What I am. What I did. The whole human world will know there’s a death-blessed queen in the Raven Lands.”
