I spread my arms. I pictured messy hair, burn marks on fingertips, and whispered giggles across a nursery. The magicwithin the approaching bird lit up with sparkling light. The darkness disappeared. Death’s shroud lifted.
“Serafina, are you saying that raven is—?”
I closed my eyes.Come back to me, brother.
A chest crashed into mine, but arms wrapped around me before I could fall back. Laughter brighter than morning bells rang in my ears. Mint and fresh smoke filled my nose.
“Sera!” Not a croak, a voice.
He lifted me off my feet and spun me around. My laughter mixed with his. Only on the third rotation did he put me down.
I pushed off his chest and looked up. I met mossy eyes, black waves that hung to his shoulders, fewer freckles than I remembered, seven years of age added to his face, but…
Endre. It was Endre.
He gave me a big kiss on the cheek before breaking the hug. Riyan stood still, his face white.
“Riyan!” Endre called with a wide smile. “You shrank!”
Riyan’s eyes watered. “You were a raven this whole time?”
The drop in Riyan’s voice tugged on my heart, but Endre laughed. His dark green cape fluttered behind him as he ran up to Riyan and jabbed him in the neck with two fingers, pantomiming a bird’s beak. “I tried to tell you! Not my fault you were too thick to take the hint!”
Riyan’s smile banished his tears. He wrapped his strong arms around Endre and crushed him to his chest.
Endre laughed. “You could not bother to put on a shirt?”
Riyan chuckled back. “The cloak wouldn’t fit around my shoulders.”
“Show off.”
Chains clinked behind me. The fortress gate was rising for its Baron.
Endre broke away from Riyan and ran for me. “Rosaline and Evereon are behind me.” He grabbed my hand and we rantogether toward the open gate. “Ev knows the way even in the dark, so I flew ahead as soon as I felt your magic at midnight.”
I held my chemise as I struggled to keep his pace through the courtyard. “Does that mean you know about my—?”
“Erik!” Endre shouted. “Get your feathered ass out here!”
We stopped at the bottom of the keep’s steps and soldiers flooded out of the keep to greet us. Then a woman taller than all the soldiers stepped into the moonlight. Brietta wore a crimson robe over her nightgown, her eyes shining as soon as she saw me.
My heart sank for only a moment—Annalisa had told her about my bargain.
But she did not know my eternal servitude was not with Ganora.
Brietta stood at the top of the steps and shouted back into the keep. Annalisa appeared, the hem of a lacy nightgown skating around her calves. A pink-beaked raven was perched on her shoulder.
Annalisa’s eyes brightened when she spotted us. She sprinted down the keep’s steps and Erik bobbed as she nudged her shoulder up. “Go, Bird Brain! Go!”
Erik quietly took to the air when Annalisa was in the middle of the steps. I extended a hand and lit up Erik from the inside.
I closed my eyes. The violet flames beneath my skin danced with the memories of a stern voice, charcoal-stained hands on top of drawing paper, and a soothing story during a storm.
I released the command with my breath.
“I do not approve of any of this,” said a deeper voice than I remembered.
I opened my eyes. Erik’s black eyes beneath his heavy brow stared down at me—eternally serious as always. I still smiled.
