“Now, now,” she said, her voice deceptively soft and...what was it with hot Irish people stepping in to protect me? Also, the raven had never been Irish before. “That’s not playing nice, Uncle Albert. Got to follow the rules if you want to win.”
Fearson was staring in horror around us, at the remnants of energy she’d dissipated. When he finally turned back to stare at her, it was with annoyance, his face set in a downright belligerent scowl. “It isn’t my fault he’s weak-minded. I’m?—”
“Cheating?” she asked, smiling a smile that frankly terrified me, even though she was on my side. “Very well. If you can’t fight the war without your little artifact to boost your power, then we just have to even the field, don’t we?”
With that, she turned her back on him and stalked toward me. It was probably for the best that I was frozen in place, because my instinct upon her walking up to me was to shriek, turn, and run away. I was an ant, about to be stepped on by a human whose house I’d accidentally found my way into. Her boots would crush me into the carpet of the world.
Except...this was my raven. My friend. The one I’d known and chatted with for as long as I could remember.
She would never step on me.
She was wearing rough homespun clothes that almost looked like they’d been made and then picked apart at the seams. What was it they called that style? Deconstructed? Threadbare pants tucked into sturdy, shiny brown leather boots, and a beige shirt that laced up the front, like buttons were too complicated to bother with. Her hair was even redder than mine, and cut in a spiky, short style that made her look like a pixie.
An evil pixie, maybe.
All that, and shining green eyes that were so terribly amused right then.
“It’s all right, mo dhragún,” she promised as she reached me. “The aspect is too much for humans and the like. ’Tisn’t just you. Rather worse for them, in fact.” She motioned around us, and for the first time, I realized that Fearson and I were the only people still standing. Everyone else, even my mother and Davin, were at least on their knees. Some of them—including all of Fearson’s men—were all the way face down in the grass, trembling like terrified children.
“Aspect?” I asked, and even to myself, I sounded like a complete jackass. Like, shouldn’t I know what she was talking about?
That just made her smirk, and damn, but that little smirk reminded me of Davin. So sexy. Was it an Irish thing? “Nonetheless. If he insists on using his little artifact trinket to overcome your mind, then ’tis only right you have an artifact of your own. I fear I haven’t any human-made ones, so you’ll have to settle for a gift of my own devising.”
She held a hand up above her head, closed into a fist, and brought it down as though banging a staff into the ground. When her arm went parallel with the earth, she suddenlywasholding something, and its end did thud into the dirt with something that felt like finality in my bones.
It wasn’t a staff, though. It was a spear, made of slightly rough wood, a leather thong tied around the spot where the shaft met the socket with shimmering raven feathers tied to the ends. And most of all, a deadly shimmering point that seemed to reflect the golden morning sun, even though it was still the middle of the night.
“This ought to do.” She shifted forward, and somehow it seemed to move the whole world around her, as she was suddenly directly in front of me, pressing the spear into my nearly-numb fingers. “Here we are. Now we’ll have no more sneaking into your head. We like a fight, but only a fair fight.” Reaching up, she brushed the fingers of her free hand against my cheek. “If he acts cleverly, my chosen will always win a fair fight. So it’s a good thing you’re a clever arsehole, isn’t it?”
That, finally, reminded me of my friend the raven.
Because thiswasher.
She’d apparently never been a raven at all, but at the same time, she was still that.
A second later and she was gone, and so was the spear.
Except that it wasn’t gone. I could still feel it in my hand, even if I couldn’t see it.
Maybe not even in my hand. Just . . . there. Inside me.
I could almost feel her presence, too, still there with me.
My chosen, she’d called me.
Then Twist was beside me, in her enormous panther form. She growled at Fearson, who was still staring at me in horror. “My father is the chosen of the queen of nightmares, foul near-dragon,” she told him. “You should soil yourself and surrender, before he’s forced to destroy you.”
Oh, queen of nightmares. That sounded . . . nice.
It also didn’t fit the friendly raven I’d spent thirty years of my life sharing food with.
That was when I realized that I could see what she had been talking about. Fearson’s power wasn’t simply coming from his mind the way Sexton’s had when he’d tried to invade my brain. This was coming from his inside jacket pocket.
Twist’s pocket if he’d been me, so I could hardly blame him for keeping something dangerous there. But my something dangerous was a sentient creature I cared for, not an artifact that allowed me to invade people’s minds with ease.
Frankly, the idea was disgusting.
Also, Sexton would feel better about being so easily overpowered when he heard this.
