Raven Thrall

by J Elizabeth Vincent

  “Knowing something to be right and wanting it are two different matters, child. You are meant for greater things. I guess I hoped that we would have a little more time before you left me to face the world.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Gwyn waved a hand in the direction of her bedside table. “Inside. There is a paper.”

  Mariah pulled on the rough wooden knob and found a worn, folded piece of paper inside the otherwise empty drawer. She picked it up and held it out to Gwyn.

  The old woman shook her head. “No. It is yours. It was on you when I discovered you unconscious in that gutter in Tennedore, before I brought you to Wellspring.”

  Her brows knitted together in puzzlement, Mariah started to open it, but Gwyn stopped her with a hand. “No. Please. Wait until you are far from here. I do not want to see the disappointment in your eyes when you learn what I’ve been keeping from you for so long.”

  “Gwyn, I …”

  “Please, humor an old, frail woman.”

  “You’re not frail!” Mariah insisted. “By the time I return, you will be running those cougars off by the dozen.” She knew it was ridiculous, but just saying it brought her comfort.

  Gwyn smiled. “Then, wait. For me. That way, I’ll be stronger when you come back full of steam over all of the secrets I’ve kept.”

  Secrets? Mariah looked curiously at the paper in her hand, turning it over several times. In the end, she nodded and tucked it into her pocket.

  “I will wait until I am on the shores of Varidian, where you will be safe from my wrath.” She chuckled. After everything they had been through, now that Gwyn was out of danger, she couldn’t imagine anything the old woman could have done that she wouldn’t be able to forgive.

  CHAPTER 11

  CROSSING

  Mariah had awoken after a partial night’s sleep and was slipping into her cloak in the darkness when a quiet rap came at the front door. She gathered her pack and waterskin and went into Gwyn’s room. In cat form again, the old woman was curled into a ball, sound asleep. They had talked long about many things and said their goodbyes before Mariah had turned in for the night.

  She leaned down and kissed the fur on the top of her mentor’s head, careful not to touch her still healing shoulders and neck. “Thank you, Lady Gwyneth. I hope we will meet again soon.”

  A soft rumble sounded from deep within the cat’s chest, but she didn’t wake.

  The rapping sounded again. Mariah sighed and made her way out of the cottage.

  It was still dark. Xaecor waited on the front porch, his cloak hood pulled up over his newly shaven head. He paced in the small space, obviously eager to get moving but quiet as usual. The whole village was quiet at this time of morning.

  She pulled the door closed softly and gestured him onto the dirt road in front of them. They began walking and remained silent until the buildings to either side of them became less frequent and the road curved, heading northward on a path parallel with the Wells River. Its rushing, gurgling voice was soothing to Mariah’s nerves. A flood of anticipation threatened to overwhelm her, quickening her pace.

  They could have talked then, but Mariah didn’t know what to say to the boy. He had been taciturn before, except for those odd moments when everything seemed to spill out of him, but now, he just stared straight ahead at the road, frequently checking the sky. They couldn’t really get going, get flying, until they could see better, but they could still put some distance between themselves and Wellspring on their own feet before the sun rose.

  The morning breeze was cool, and a hint of gray touched the sky when they reached the place where the road crossed over the river and curved away east toward Werth. The river itself turned northwest toward its origins in the mountains near Edana. Mariah stared at it for a moment, longing for the safety of Firebend.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Xae watching her, his black eyes intense. His shoulders kept twitching, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Just a few more minutes, I think.” She set off over the bridge, turning her back on the view of the mountains, her mountains. Their footsteps seemed overly loud on the wooden planks, but the sound, along with the rush of the river, soon faded behind them.

  To fill the silence, she reminded Xae of the plans they had made the night before. “Remember, once we change, give one long call if you need to rest or eat. Two short calls if you spot easy food.”

  They had decided that they should hunt or scavenge wherever they could. Or rather, she had decided. He had argued against it, but it made sense, so she had stood firm. There was only so much they could wear, especially since she had discovered that her waterskin had to be in her pack to become part of the change. When she added that to a small supply of dried food, one change of clothes, some basic bandages and ointments, a few other small items, and the coins Zachariah had given her, her pack was bulging at the seams, as was Xae’s.

  “What if there is danger?” he asked.

  Mariah bit her lip. He had asked her the night before, and she really didn’t have an answer. If one of them spotted danger, a cry to the other might give them both away, especially in Varidian. “Let’s just try to keep an eye on each other, okay?”

  He nodded, but the deep frown on his face told her that he wasn’t satisfied with her answer.

  “Hey, this is all new to me, too. The last time I went farther than from Firebend to Wellspring was seven years ago. And I don’t remember much about that trip. I was lucky to have survived. Forget having to travel with a companion that I can’t even talk to.”

  “All right.” His voice was tight, but he didn’t argue with her further.

  “What are the waypoints?” she asked.

  He sighed and kept walking. “Werth. Eiocliff. Grof. Kannuk.” He paused. “Glenley. If we get separated, always find an inn. Wait outside if you have to.”

  Ignoring the mocking sing-song tone he used, she nodded enthusiastically, as if he were a child that had learned a particularly impressive skill. “Great.”

  “I don’t want to wait if we get separated. We need to get straight to Glenley and find out where my sisters are being held. Can’t we just meet there?”

  “We’ve been over this, Xae.” She put a hand on his shoulder as they walked. “I would never be able find you in a big place like that. I’ve never even set foot there. And what if one of us gets hurt or, worse yet, captured? The other will be deep in enemy territory before they even realize they are alone.”

  He nodded stiffly, his eyes on the road before him.

  “It’s time,” she said, using her grip on his shoulder to pull him to a stop.

  Xae looked up, and his shoulders dropped as he saw that the darkness had almost receded. It was enough. She pulled him closer to her and tugged at the straps on his backpack and made sure his cloak was tied securely at his throat before checking her own belongings.

  When she looked up, Xae had already changed and taken off. “Xae!” she screamed and started running down the road. He kept flying, ascending even as she ran after him. Having no choice, she shifted, shivering a bit at the warmth that ran over her skin only to be followed by an icy quiver. Relief flooded her when she realized that it still worked. Would she ever get used to it?

  Taking advantage of her superior speed, she caught up with the boy, or bird, quickly and nipped at his tail feathers in frustration. He faltered in flight, and for a moment, she feared he was going to tumble out of the sky. But he righted himself quickly and croaked at her before turning his back and resuming his flight.

  She followed, suddenly grateful that she was naturally faster than he was in bird form. Otherwise, she might have lost him in the first hour of their journey.

  * * *

  When Eiocliff came into sight and she could smell the salt water in the air, Mariah screeched loudly at Xae, circling around him twice to make sure he actually landed this time. She dove for the cover of a small copse of pine trees bes
ide the road and landed roughly on the forest floor, rolling in her hawk form through a bush and down a slight incline. She transformed midroll, and the sudden change in weight stopped her. She landed on her back, and the lump of her pack pressed sharply between her shoulder blades.

  She jumped up, searching for Xae in the shadows. A rustle on a nearby branch caught her attention.

  “You come down here right now, or I’ll come up there after you.” She would get used to landing soon in such a light form, she hoped.

  Her stomach rumbled loudly, but she ignored it, as she had been forced to do all day because the boy had refused to stop.

  Lightly, Xae hopped down to the ground. He stayed there for a moment, cocking his head and looking at her questioningly.

  “You’ll talk to me now, Xae, or by the gods, I’ll string you up by your knobby little feet.” She made a grabbing motion toward his claws, and he stumbled back, transforming as he did so. He landed with a thump on his backside. Mariah found immense satisfaction at the sight.

  “What do you think you’ve been doing? You ignored every one of my calls to stop for a rest, even my calls for food.”

  “I wanted to make sure we made it to Eiocliff by nightfall.”

  “Well, here we are, a short walk from the city, and it is at least two hours until sunset.”

  “We could start the crossing early.” His voice was eager, too much so.

  “What? Are you insane? If we do that, we’ll be caught over open water in total darkness. We need a whole day—in good light—to cross.”

  “Well, at least this way, we’ll get a good night’s sleep.” He didn’t look like he’d be restful anytime in the near future. He kept looking up at the sky as if he was ready to leave again at any moment. How was she supposed to help him save his sisters if he was determined to kill himself?

  “Xae, you can’t do this. If we spend days traveling like this, we’ll both be so hungry and exhausted that we’ll never make it to Glenley, let alone be able to rescue your family.”

  He stared at her, his face sullen. She waited for an apology, anything, but he didn’t answer.

  Shaking her head, Mariah sighed. “We’ll camp here. I’d rather not draw unwanted attention, even while we are still in Cillian. Besides, we need to make our coin last. We don’t know how long this will take.”

  The bigger truth was that she didn’t want to deal with strangers. Despite her time in Wellspring, she was still a solitary creature. The longing she had felt earlier in the day for Firebend intensified. There would be little solitude until this journey was done. After the day that had passed in silent flight, she wondered if Xae was solitary by nature as well.

  She took off her pack and sat on a nearby rock. After taking a long drink from her waterskin, Mariah began rummaging in the leather bag for the dried mutton strips that Bria had given her. Xae was sitting nearby with his back against a tree, looking off into the distance. She ate only one strip of meat, anxious to conserve what little food they had.

  She had been sitting only a few moments when she rose again, leaving her pack on the ground. She threw her waterskin at Xae’s feet. “Find somewhere to fill that and your own. I’m going hunting.”

  A couple of miles into the woods, Mariah found and killed a large black snake that had been sunning itself on a rock. The silence she was able to maintain in her new form, the swiftness of the kill—it was exhilarating. She hadn’t realized what she had been missing in her hybrid form.

  She brought the snake back to Xae to share. Because it was easier to use sharp beaks and claws than to bother trying to skin the thing with knives and big clumsy hands, they ate in bird form before shifting again. They took care of their necessities in silence. There was a small forest pond nearby where they washed up before they rolled themselves in their cloaks as the sun set, ready for sleep, their packs serving as pillows.

  Mariah was exhausted, and she fell asleep quickly. The night passed comfortably, the ground soft beneath her, and she managed to get a good amount of sleep with her stomach finally full.

  When she woke, she realized that the day before had simply been practice. Maybe Xae’s behavior had been a blessing after all. Once they were out over the ocean, there would be no stopping unless they were lucky enough to spot an island or atoll that wasn’t on the map.

  The boy was already up and ready when she opened her eyes. He was leaning against a tree, his cloak on and his pack settled at his feet. She didn’t rush, but she moved efficiently. For breakfast, she settled for another strip of mutton and a honeycake that Bria had made. She didn’t waste time hunting. They needed as much time as they could get to make the crossing between Cillian and Varidian.

  Before they began their flight, she put a hand on Xae’s arm. “Remember, if we follow an almost straight trajectory north, we will arrive near Grof. Past the village, the coast curves northward, so if we don’t find it as soon as we land, we should be able to tell where we are by the way the land curves. If we keep an eye on the sun, we should be able to tell where we are. If it’s late, we might have to wait until morning to move. Today, we likely won’t be able to stop. Let’s stick together, and everything should be okay.”

  He nodded. “All right. We will.” His tone seemed conciliatory, and she smiled in relief.

  A strong wind gusted between the trees and pushed her hood off. It tickled the top of her head and ruffled her short hair. A pale orange strand caught her eye and surprised her for a moment. Bria had rubbed her head with a concoction of some kind that smelled like carrots. She still stood out, but even orange was a more common hair color on a young woman than silver. The wind blew toward the north.

  Mariah laughed and said, “Maybe the gods are smiling down on us today, after all. If this wind keeps up, it may carry us all the way to Varidian.”

  “I hope so,” Xae replied.

  “Check your pack, then, and let’s go.”

  In a moment, they were in the air, flapping hard to rise above the trees and catch the natural currents of warm air. The sun was bright as it peeked above the eastern horizon. Putting it on their right, they aligned themselves northward. Soon, they passed over the last bit of the steep, rocky coastline that gave Eiocliff its name. Silently, Mariah said goodbye to the land that she had called home for the last seven years.

  * * *

  The warm spring winds buffeted the two birds northward, over the gray waters of the Granite Sea. The currents carried them, making much of their trip effortless. Mariah was able to keep Xae in front of her and slightly to the right. As the sun rose and climbed toward its zenith, the sea sometimes seemed endless, stretching on forever in every direction, its silver, sparkling surface mesmerizing. They passed other animals, breaching whales and dolphins, flocks of birds that passed over, under, and beside them. Mariah didn’t know whether she was imagining the curious looks the other birds gave them, a raven and a hawk flying together. More than once, she spotted fish jumping out of the water and resisted the urge to try to catch one or two. She had nowhere to stop and eat anything she did catch anyway.

  In the afternoon, however, they did spy a few tiny, uncharted islands. Some were little more than rocky outcroppings, but a couple held trees and small, sandy beaches. She considered calling to Xae to take a break and maybe hunt, but she wasn’t sure how far they had to go yet. None of these small islands had been on the map, so she had no way of gauging how close they were to the Varidian coastline. She didn’t want an innocent break to put them over open water in the dark.

  So, they flew on as the afternoon waned and the wind picked up, pushing them involuntarily eastward. The wind shifted north, then east, then north again, and back to the east. The puffy clouds, which had seemed harmless a quarter of an hour ago, seemed to hold danger as their color deepened from white to dark gray. Mariah pulled ahead, as close to Xae as she could manage without hitting him, watching him even more carefully, afraid the wind would tear them apart.

  The c
louds moved faster, driven by the accelerating air currents. When they passed over the sun, the sky darkened to a dismal gray and blended into the sea, the horizon blurring. Mariah tried to find the light, but the clouds had thickened, and most of it was gone. Her eyes scanned intently ahead, looking for any hint of coastline. It was as if the two birds had flown into the sea itself and were now surrounded by roiling gray water.

  Then, the clouds opened up, and Mariah was yanked and pushed in three different directions, north and east by the wind and down by the rain, jerked around like a leashed dog by a small, impulsive child.

  The wind and water buzzed in her ears and blinded her. She called to Xae and flew a short distance in front of him, flying up and then turning around to see if he was following. Could they make it above the clouds before it got worse? It was already too late. A powerful gust of wind caught the tip of Mariah’s left wing and sent her careening through the rain, spinning to the east. She righted herself only just short of plunging into the turbulent sea.

  When she looked up, Xae was gone.

  She called to him, but all she could hear in return was the deafening howl of the storm. She tried again and again, but when she got no response, she aimed her body upward, propelling herself through the thick mist. She emerged above the pillowy layer of storm clouds several long moments later and found peaceful, pale sky above. The light from the sun was weakening in the west. She circled once, hoping Xae had also gotten above the storm, but the sky was clear for miles in every direction.

  For another hour, Mariah flew, exhaustion from her short battle with nature threatening to drain the last of her energy. She kept the sun to her left and circled to look for her charge whenever she could. Every so often, she dipped below the clouds, back into the storm, to look for land before ascending again.

  When the coastline finally became visible, she almost missed it. Everything was so dark. Murky gray was the only color still existing in the world below the clouds. The village ahead was distinguishable only by the sharp edges of small boats and docks lining the shore a few miles ahead. Everything but those edges blurred together into an endless wash of gray.