Even though gravity isn’t dragging me downward, I grip the rock, more lizard than woman.
I’m about to yell for help when something gleams on a narrow ledge below me, a black arrow protruding from its breast. My scream dies before it is born, and I blink.
The gorge vanishes, and I’m back within the confines of my bedroom, squatting in front of my bed, fingers curled around the wooden frame, knuckles white, thigh muscles drumming as hard as my biceps.
My lips flutter with breath after breath.
Was that a vision?
Am I having visions now?
Is this what assaults Mamma’s mind and riles her up?
Even though I’m no longer dangling tens of meters over a gorge, I straighten with caution. I’m loathe to admit I glance at the floor to make sure it’s still there. Sure enough, the slats of hardwood glint like raw honey.
I finally lift my gaze back to the crow and sigh. “I think I know where to find your next friend.” I spear my fingers through my hair, pressing the locks out of my face, and glance toward the window. In two strides, I’m standing beside it, drawing the curtain open to peer at the smog-swathed peaks. “I think he lies in a gorge somewhere in those mountains.”
A shudder rolls through my marrow. If Racocci is reputed to be a perilous place, the chain of mountains that separate the two sides of the kingdom is reputed to swallow whole all those who dare venture into its rocky folds.
“Maybe Bronwen can assign this mission to someone else.” I turn back toward the crow, scrutinize the citrines embedded into its head before trailing my gaze along its stubby neck and black wings. “Or better yet, why don’t you fly out there and succor your friend?”
The crow’s eyes seem to narrow, so I narrow mine in turn.
“I don’t see why my suggestion merited such a look. It’s not the least bit outrageous. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve neither wings nor magic.”
My forehead prickles as though the skin has gone numb. I rub at it, attempting to expunge the strange feeling, when I find myself standing in night-soaked woods before Bronwen and a saddled horse.
I jolt. Slam my lids closed. When I pry them back up, I’m back inside my bedroom, clutching my curtains like a life rope.
What the Cauldron was that?Anothervision?
And if it was, who sent it to me? One of our gods? Bronwen herself? Is Bronwen a goddess? An oracle? An enchantress? Is she an evil spirit? She certainly looks like something otherworldly with her melted face and unseeing eyes, something wicked.
Oh, Gods, what if she is an evil spirit come to destroy the world through me?
The history of Primanivi funnels into my mind, setting my enthusiasm awhirl. What have I done? What am I doing?
Thirty-Six
Ieye my bed. Eye the crow which eyes me right back. I lunge and crouch, hook the leather satchel I stuffed underneath and slide it out, and then I grip the obsidian spikes, one in each hand, and jump to my feet.
Before the crow can flit off its perch, I raise my arms and strike. Again and again. Every time I think my spikes will encounter flesh, they sail through black smoke.
Sweat glazes the nape of my neck and drenches my dress, my muscles drum, and the sting between my thighs has taken epic proportions, and yet I don’t stop my assault on the wicked crow.
I’ve never inflicted harm on an animal, never wished one harm either, but I’m now more than ever convinced that the bird I awakened is no animal.
“What are you?” I growl between hard pants, weapons raised.
The malicious thing has the audacity to scowl. What I cannot understand is why it hasn’t flown away . . . why it taunts me so. Can’t smoke fit beneath doors?
Exasperated, I unlatch my window and fling it wide. The breeze that wafts in cools the perspiration beading on my upper lip. “Get! Get, and find Bronwen. Tell her that I’m not her puppet. I neither needher, noryouto capture Dante’s heart. We’ll be together, crown or no crown.”
I’m still holding on to the pieces of broken black stone, but my fingers are loose and shaking.
“Go!”
The crow stares down at me from the top of the armoire.
