Malicine twisted their lips. The iron bars surrounding them closed in. They wondered, in the raven’s dreary efforts to survive, if he had turned blind enough to not notice their entrapment.
“I don’t know how to find something like that. Even if I were to figure it out, I can’t break free.”
“Ah, but yes, you can.”
“Because I have his blood?” they spat. “Clearly, that has benefited me well so far.”
The raven’s eyes shone like beads. He looked intensely at them, like he could peer beneath their skin.“Because I can feel the anger boiling inside of you. And where I come from, you can do many things with anger.”
Malicine went quiet. A rock sat at the pit of their stomach, one they hadn’t dared to uncover. A distant rumbling buried inside their chest and threatened to burst.
They jumped at the scraping sound of a wooden hinge opening. Moonlight spilled onto the floorboards. Three shadows emerged from the door, laughing in unison. Pale women with cheeks flushed in feigned demureness and footsteps as light as the fresh air they breathed from outside.
Clover slapped a hand over her chest in mock surprise, as if she hadn’t the faintest idea that they’d trapped Malicine down here for years.
“Oh, what a shame you missed our trip. Our meeting went exceedingly well,” she bragged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the king asked us to live in his castle by next sunrise.”
“Let’s not be presumptuous,” said Dahlia, trailing behind her. “The official ceremony won’t be until his daughter is born. Then our gifts will be put to the test.”
“The family already adores us. Why wait for something we know will happen?”
A pair of keys jangled in the air. Brass rings twirled around Iris’s finger as she let the skeleton key rattle in her hands. The toothed end smiled wickedly at Malicine.
“Don’t worry. When we move into the castle, you can still live with us. Maybe your new cage will be made from gold.”
Raucous laughter scraped Malicine’s ears like the dead trees of winter nights. They felt the rumbling in their chest again, a heat of molten lava threatening to erupt. As Iris turned to the cage, Malicine leapt forward and shot their hand through the iron bars. Sharp nails scratched across their sister’s pale face. Fresh blood spurted in the air as Iris screamed. Malicine’s fingers curled into fists, bits of flesh wedged beneath their nails.
“Any kingdom ruled by your advisory will be in shambles,” they said. “Those humans deserve the devastation that’s coming to them.”
“How dare you!” Iris screeched. She shot a burst of light through the iron bars. Jolts of electricity flared across Malicine’s spine like they were struck by lightning. They seized on the ground, sparks biting into their skin. Flames burst from their ribs and spread across the rags of their clothes. They pounded their fists against their chest, but fire kept reigniting. They couldn’t even gasp. The air was getting sucked out of them.
“Enough! We have to keep it alive,” Dahlia snapped. “Put the fire out, Clover.”
As flames licked Malicine’s ribs, they spotted in the corner of tear-stung eyes Clover’s figure turning around to fetch a bucket. She filled a wooden pail with water, but as she stood back up, her gaze met the raven perched at the window.
Screeching, she hurled the bucket at the creature. The raven flapped his wings and dove forward. His sharp beak drilled into Clover’s eye as she erupted into a glass-shattering scream. Dahlia thrust an open palm to the walls and pulled splinters from the wood so that they pierced the bird midair. He collapsed to the ground, spitting out Clover’s eyeball. Limp on the floorboards, the raven gave a low, gurgling croak as he writhed in pain. Dahlia crushed his wing under her heel.
The crunching sound of bones snapped Malicine to their senses. The fire had burned the last remnants of their pain away, and they choked out a scream. “Get away from him!”
The world spun in the heat of their rage. They breathed in the fire, letting it become a part of them and swallow them whole. They didn’t realize they had torn through the iron cage until they were already on top of Iris, the gnarled claws of their nails digging so deep they could see exposed bone in her cheek. Her shrieks were muffled in their ears. Dark blood dripped from their clawsand crystallized into a dim shade of violet, transforming from skin to scales. Their wounds tingled and tightened, prickling from shoulder blades until wings sprouted from their back.
They rose higher, towering over the faeries, their body stretching like a snake. Their head smashed through the ceiling of the cabin, splinters stabbing into their scales, but their wrath was too strong to feel anything else.
Malicine craned a long neck to take in their peripheral vision, wide and vast. They saw a world covered in snow, the tops of the trees in the forest, the specks that were their sisters, so tiny and weak against the volume of their rage. The faeries cowered under Malicine’s immense shadow, and they understood why they had been contained in a cage, kept small and frail, the fire dampened inside of them.
The faeries had been afraid of what Malicine was. Of what Malicine could be.
Fire boiled in their stomach, warm and tingling. They twisted their long neck around a cluster of trees like a serpent hunting its prey. Sharp teeth bared, fire building in their throat. Malicine’s scream came out as a monstrous roar. A tidal wave of fire spewed from their mouth, tearing down every tree in its vicinity. Branches burst in walls of crimson. Snow melted as the entire surface of land collapsed into ash. The world lit itself into a burning hell, and it was so delightfully warm, Malicine could make a bed within the flames and sleep in it.
They twisted back to the pile of debris, hulked over the raven’s body, and clamped their wide mouth over him. His heart pulsed faintly inside their snout. Black feathers drifted out of their teeth as they carried him into the sky. The two of them blended into the night, leaving behind a trail of menacing laughter.
Even after he healed, the raven stayed beside Malicine. Perhaps the bird had been drawn to them for a reason. The two of them were kindred souls. Ravens were special creatures because their grudges burned deep. They never forgot those who had wronged them.
Like the raven, Malicine did not forget. And they certainly did not forgive.
CHAPTER 11
CORIN GASPED AS the terrain surrounding her shifted under Malicine’s magic. Mountains sank below the ground and drifted toward the horizon, dipping lower until it hollowed itself out as a valley. At the same time, the ground they stood on lifted higher, transforming into a hill. Blankets of snow slipped away like grains of sand. Her boots sank into solid surface, a winding pathway slicked with ice and cobblestone.
