by Jack Whitney
They arrived back to his home in the trees before dawn. He took her sleeping body into his own quarters and left her in his bed. She never even stirred as he moved her.
“How do you think she did it?” one of his men, Dunthorne, asked as Draven laid her in the bed.
Draven’s eyes narrowed back at his curly haired friend leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. “Did what?”
“Pulled herself out of the Spy’s void,” Dunthorne answered. “We’ve nearly lost men to it before. How would someone not of our kind figure it out?”
Draven looked back down at Aydra’s sleeping figure, his jaw tightening as he looked over her peaceful face. “I don’t know.”
Draven only went to check on her once during the day.
He’d napped only for an hour on the small extra bed on his roof before being awoken to the protests of his people in the clearing below his treehouse home. Word had spread that they’d rescued the Sun Queen from the darkness, and that she was now held up in their own King’s home, injured. They voiced their fear of her brother invading their realm, asked Draven to send her back immediately or even just to kill her and say she was taken by the wrath of the Noctuans or the Infi. Draven refused. He squashed their doubts the best he could, assuring them if Magnice did in fact send an army, that they would be ready to fight, but that he would happily give back the queen at the first word of it.
“She would not have done the same had you been injured in her realm,” argued Balandria, Draven’s Second.
“And what have I told you about our people?” Draven asked with tightened fists.
Balandria’s weight shifted, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “That we have to be better.”
“Right,” he affirmed, clapping her shoulder. “Besides, I may have a way she can help return the favor.”
Balandria’s jaw tightened. “I don’t like it,” she told him. “She’s as likely to tell her brother you kidnapped her as she is to help you with whatever plan you’ve come up with.”
Draven nodded knowingly. “We’ll see.”
His people’s doubts reigned in the back of his mind throughout the day.
He spent the daylight sorting out the things they would be using for trade in two days. The Bullhorn would be coming through that night, as he always did on the third night of the dead moons cycle, and it never failed that his nerves shook him to his core.
Around mid-afternoon, he went upstairs to change into something warmer for the night, and to check in on Aydra.
When he checked on her, he made a mental note to remind himself of the look on her softened face. This would be what he would force himself to think of when he would inevitably want to kill her upon her waking in a few hours time.
The soft curls of her stark ginger hair splayed out on the brown linens. He could tell she was dreaming by the darting of her eyes beneath their lids. It had been a long time since he’d looked upon her face and not seen her jaw tightened, her bow-shaped lips not pulled into a taut sour purse, or her biting the inside of her cheek.
The thought of her made his fist tighten. Her brother had been the bane of his existence since their childhood. And she… she’d hated him since their first fight, even though she’d won.
Despite her gangliness as a teen, Aydra had fashioned herself into a woman, by all standards, by the age of twenty. And now, eight years later, she’d grown into the attitude she wore on her sleeve on a daily. Tall. Fearless. Passionate. He dared to think he could have cut his hand on her sharp jawline or entangled himself within the confines of her fiery gaze. He found himself thinking about her curves in that dress from banquet on more nights than he dared admit.
She stirred just slightly and rolled over onto her side, grasping the linen blanket in her hands as she curled into a ball.
His eyes squinted at the bruise on the back of her neck, barely visible beneath the raven silhouetted triad tattoo marked on her throat that signed her place as Arbina’s Promised daughter.
He placed the cup of water he’d brought up with him on the table at the bedside and turned on his heel to change his clothes. He didn’t want to be the first thing she saw when she woke up.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AYDRA WOKE IN the unfamiliar bed, the smells of dirt and trees filling her nostrils. Her first instinct was to balk at the smell, but as she lie there, unable to move from the pain shooting through her ankles, she allowed the smell to reverberate through her pores, and a warmth spread through her that she’d never felt before.
Around her was wood. A tree sat at the edge of the room, and the walls were built around it. She squinted at the wide opening across the room from her on the other side of the tree, like a doorway into the forest. She could see the trees outside past a wide deck.
The noise of men outside perked her ears. A tall wooden staff with a small post on the side, a crutch she realized, was leaned against the bed. She turned towards the edge of the mattress and tried to stand, but almost fell as her weak ankles gave out on her. She cursed herself as she looked down and saw the purple whelps around her ankles, the red scratches on her feet.
A few moments passed, and she surrendered to using the crutch to help herself out of bed, taking one step at a time, falling twice, and then finally crawling out to the deck. It was sunset, which told her she’d slept at least one day. A stench radiated through the air as she reached the outdoors. Like wet dog or bear.
One look down into the clearing told her exactly what it was.
The Bullhorn was standing in front of Draven.
The Bullhorn was one of the Noctuans most familiar. He was the only one of his kind. A great beast no less than eight feet tall. It towered over Draven by almost two feet, a double-headed axe in its elongated sausage fingers, long pointed nails like daggers digging into the wood of its hilt. The Bullhorn had the head of the Ulfram, the lengthy tree-limb like magnificent grey horns of the bull, and the torso of a man. Its lower body was more like the haunches of the bull, but it stood on its wheel-sized hooves upright. The black thick fur that covered its entire body was thick around its hips, and splayed out as a mane around his head and down his back in a V. His darkened purple eyes stared at Draven, and Aydra could feel the pull of the great beast’s core in her own.
She closed her eyes and listened for his voice, for the groan and ripple of its vibration. And then she heard him.
—idiot like Parkyr before him, the beast was saying.
Aydra snorted and quickly clapped her hand over her mouth upon hearing it. She couldn’t comprehend what Draven was doing, or what he was instructing his people to do around the Bullhorn, but she heard the Bullhorn continue to insult Draven.
Why do you follow if you think him such? she called out to it.
The Bullhorn’s head rose slowly, and she was met with his penetrating gaze. His eyes blinked slowly at her. Daughter of Arbina, he acknowledged.
You have met us before? she asked.
Only such could converse with me.
What is your name?
Cees.
I am Aydra Ravenspeak. Why do you follow these men if you think they are idiots?
On my life will theirs be taken.
Draven was staring at the Bullhorn, apparently bewildered at the low grunts emitting from his throat. Aydra pulled herself between the slats beneath the deck rail and allowed her legs to dangle off the side.
“He says you are an idiot,” she called down.
Draven whirled around and did a double-take up at her. “Excuse me?” he spat.
“Cees. The Bullhorn. He says you are an idiot,” she repeated.
The ivory horn Draven was holding clenched in his fist. “And you would know this how?”
“Because I can hear them,” she said with a tired shrug. “I would have thought someone who thinks he is as smart as he is would have figured that out by now. Especially after last night.”
Draven’s jaw tightened. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“I can manage just fine,” she argued. “Do you have an extra horse? I expect one ready to ride within the hour. My sister and Second will be looking for me. I need to meet them on the Preymoor.”
A deep chuckled radiated from Draven’s lips, and he turned to face her, arms crossing over his chest. “Who exactly do you think you’re speaking to? Your steward?” he mocked with a shake of his head. “I take no orders from you, little princess.”
Aydra’s nostrils flared. “I am your Queen. And if not—”
“I have no queen,” Draven interjected, his dark gaze pouring through her. “So before you get all mighty and start giving out orders, remember who’s realm you’re injured in.”
A rustling came from the wood, and emerged three more Hunters, all with their weapons in hand, daring her to mock another word.
Aydra looked to Cees.
Are you sure you would give your life for his? she asked it.
Cees gave her a nod. Idiots. But my life remains his should he need it.
“Stop putting words in their heads,” Draven snarled. “They are not yours to lead.”
Aydra rolled her eyes. “Believe me when I say this, Hunter: I would not call on them were it the day of my death.”
She stayed outside and watched them a bit longer before retiring once more to the bedroom. She had to crawl back. Such was something she dared not reveal to the Venari King below, for she did not want to hear the mocking words from his lips when he saw her crawling on her hands and knees.
The crutch helped her rise to the bed once more. With a huff, she surrendered onto the middle of it, cursing that she had let herself get hurt.
Draven’s room was cool. The breeze of the tree canopy continuously swept through it. She wondered how the Venari ever heard anything on the wind if it was constantly blowing as she felt.
Or perhaps it was that Duarb knew she was there, and he didn’t approve.
Her boredom quickly set in. The only thing interesting in the whole of the room was his great desk that he had by the door, stacks of papers and maps piled atop it. There was shelving behind the chair, rolled parchment in the boxes stacked as tall as the ceiling. She wanted to snoop, allow her curiosity to get the best of her.
But when her feet gave out from under her upon her making herself rise, she cursed the day and simply surrendered to the bed once more.
The howls of the Ulfram echoed off the trees. And then she heard something she’d not heard before in all her years. The great song of the Wyverdraki dragon family.
A smile rose on her lips as she allowed it to fill her ears.
She’d just sank back onto the bedspread to listen when she heard footsteps coming up the staircase.
Draven appeared on the deck, and he paused in the great opening, a tray of what she assumed was food, in his hand. “Good. You’re awake,” he mused, stepping inside. “Are you hungry?” he asked as he sat the tray of food on the small eating table to the right of the door.
Her stomach growled, and he raised his brows at her in response. “I suppose,” she managed.
He nodded and then crossed the room to a dresser where he immediately took his shirt off.
She wished she could say that she looked away as he changed clothes. But she didn’t.
The muscles of his back rippled as he moved his arms to take the shirt off and then search for a new one. She hated her body’s response to seeing the dimples at his hips, the chisel of his shoulders. It was her favorite thing on a man, and Draven’s exceeded expectations. She squinted at the crude black marks on his shoulder blade, like lightning streaks on his skin that stretched from the back of his forearms from the phoenix mark on his hands and up to the top of his collarbone.
“Would you like me to turn around or is this how you usually seduce your women?” she asked in a low voice.
“I should think we’re both old enough to have more tricks up our sleeves for wooing prey into bed than just the lure of body parts,” he replied as he turned towards her. His sage eyes danced in her direction as he pushed his arms through the snug long sleeve tunic and then stuck his head through the top.
“Why? Were you seduced?” he mocked.
Her nostrils flared. “You’re insufferable.”
He chuckled under his breath. “Do you think you can make it over to the table or shall I have to carry you over?”
“Can you not bring it to me?” she grunted.
“Food is not served in my bed,” he told her. “That is reserved for a different splay.” He paused a moment, slowly taking a step towards her as he said, “So my question, Sun Queen, is can you walk to the table.”
She looked down at the swell of her ankles and cursed herself for the words she knew were about to come from her mouth. “No,” she said in such a voice she barely heard herself.
“What was that?”
“I said no, okay?” she nearly yelled. “I can’t walk.”
She dared to look up at his face, but what she saw was not amusement or mockery in his gaze, but rather a softened expression she didn’t understand. He finished crossing the space between them and bent beside her. He tucked his arm around her waist and brought her arms around his neck. Her breath stilled as he lifted her off the floor, waist in his hand, her toes never even touching the ground as he walked across the room to the table as though she were simply a bag on his shoulder.
Her pride fell as he sat her in the chair and then poured her a cup of wine.
She hugged her arms across her chest and sank herself as far back as she could into the seat. “Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“What?”
“Being nice,” she replied. “Helping me.”
He paused a moment and then placed the cup in front of her. He didn’t speak, instead simply taking the seat across from her and taking a long sip of his wine.
“You hear them,” he said as more of a statement than a question.
“Who?”
He pushed the food tray in front of her and she reached for the baguette.
“Creatures.”
She met his narrowed gaze and she swallowed the bread in her mouth. “I do.”
“All creatures?” he asked.
She nodded just as the raven squawked outside, and she felt a smile rise on her lips.
“I take it she’s yours?” Draven asked.
“Why would you think that?”
“Because she showed up here this morning.”
He paused and swirled the wine in his cup a few times. “Can you communicate with them?” he asked after a few moments.
“Why are you so interested?”
“Because I have a lot of creatures in my realm who cannot converse with me. It might be nice on occasion to have someone who can.”
“I’m not your servant, Venari,” she argued. “You cannot summon me to do your bidding.”
“Perhaps we can come up with some sort of trade. Your help for mine.”
“I have no need for your help.”
His brows raised. “Really? So you and your horse are both better now? A miraculous recovery after only one night. I did not know it possible.”
She glared at him. “Fine,” she mumbled before taking a long swig of her wine. “What do you need?”
An elongated sigh emitted from his lips, and he allowed his cup to tap on the table a few times, avoiding her gaze. She watched him as he stood, and he hovered over her a brief moment. “Get some rest,” he said. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE ONLY THING Aydra remembered about her second day in the Forest of Darkness was Draven bringing her breakfast.
He’d brought up a tray at sunrise of roasted potatoes, and he’d urged her to eat it all before drinking the thick liquid he’d brought up as well.
“Trying to poison me, Venari?” she asked him.
“Poison is not how I would kill you,” he promised. “I would have thought you’d know that by now.”
She eyed him, but trusted hi
s words nonetheless. “So what is it?”
“Potion the Nitesh taught us to make,” he said as he rummaged through some of the papers on his desk.
She brought the cup to her lips and sniffed it, immediately regretting the decision. “This is disgusting.”
“You’ll drink it unless you’d like to stay here longer than the dead moons cycle,” he told her.
A great annoyed huff emerged from her nostrils, and she started to pick at the potatoes. He left her without another word after finding whatever map or letter it was he’d been looking for.
Her raven flew inside and perched itself on the chair across from her. She did a double-take as it stared at her and the food she wasn’t sure she wanted.
Is it poison? she asked it.
Drink the potion, it told her.
She was standing in the streets.
Children came running up behind her, nearly knocking her off her feet.
But the sight of the bright red ringlets on the girl’s head made her do a double-take at the children.
“Drae!”
The noise of a little boy’s voice filled her ears, and she watched as a black-haired boy ran beside her and then engulfed the small red-headed girl in his arms. Their giggles echoed in her head as he lifted her off the ground in a sideways hug.
“You left me!” the young Rhaif declared.
“Bina told me to run,” she had said, referring to their mother, Arbina. “She said you wouldn’t catch me.”
“I will skin the both of you!” came the sound of Willow’s voice. Aydra turned, remembering the way Willow had run after she and her brother when they were children.
Rhaif leaned over and whispered something in young Aydra’s ear that Aydra didn’t remember him saying. But her younger self grabbed Rhaif’s hand, and they fled off down the street giggling, ignoring Willow’s shouts after them.
