Raven Thrall

by J Elizabeth Vincent

  Still breathing heavily, she said, “Bad dream. Sorry.”

  This time, she scooted her pack around under her head and laid flat on her back. She wasn’t taking any chances this time. How would she sleep now? The fear that she would spontaneously shift kept gnawing at her, even as Xae started to snore lightly beside her.

  * * *

  At some point in the dead of night, exhaustion must’ve won out over paranoia because Mariah was awoken by a rattling noise before the day’s light had even started to filter through the trees. Blearily, she opened her eyes. Shira was still in her place nearby, her face to the sky and her chest moving up and down in a regular rhythm. Xae was gone. Had he gone to take care of his necessities? The fire still smoldered nearby.

  Mariah finally spotted the boy near one of the man-sized lumps close to the fire. He was squatting over something, his head down. The firelight glinted off something in his hand. Was that his knife?

  Before she could stop herself, she blurted out his name. She would’ve taken it back for anything. A soldier at the far end of the camp started running in their direction.

  “Hey! What are you doing, boy?” It was Zirana. “Stop, thief!”

  Shira was at Mariah’s side when she scrambled to her feet, but she kept going. She ran past her, grabbed Xae by the arm, and backpedaled faster than Mariah thought was possible, dodging the stirring soldiers like she had done it a hundred times before.

  “Captain!” the lieutenant shouted as the trio grabbed their packs, ducked between the trees, and started downslope.

  “What were you doing?” Mariah huffed as she ran. She could hear pursuit behind them, soldiers waking, yelling orders. An arrow zinged by through the trees yards from her.

  “I was looking for information … orders … anything.”

  “Then why did you have your knife out? What were you thinking?”

  Her feet slipped as Shira yelled, “Would you two just shut up already?”

  Mariah’s backside hit the ground, and she thought she was dead for sure, but Shira was pulling to her to her feet almost as soon as she stumbled. Another arrow whizzed past, this time closer.

  As they sidled down the steep hill, Shira said, “We have to hide. Whatever you do, stay with me.”

  Mariah was sure that only the confusion of being woken so suddenly had kept the soldiers from capturing them already, but the clamor of men and weapons through the trees told her it wouldn’t be long. She followed, trying to keep a hand on Shira as the woman tipped her nose up in the air and inhaled as they moved. The sky beyond the trees was just beginning to glow.

  “I know this place. Hurry. We can make it.” Shira angled their descent toward the left and then slid on her behind down a particularly steep embankment. Mariah and Xae followed suit. The innkeepers’ daughter took a sharp turn, doubling back around the hill until they were angling around the bottom of a short cliff face. A wall of briars covered the ground beside them, creeping up the rough stone wall.

  After checking behind them, Shira pushed headlong into the brambles, disappearing. Mariah and Xae gasped, halting in their tracks. “Shira … what?”

  “Just come on!” she hissed.

  “Relian, check west. Fortiere, east.” The lieutenant’s voice carried through the trees. It was close. Too close.

  Mariah took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and, pulling Xae behind her, moved forward into the briars at the same spot where Shira had entered.

  She opened her eyes when her skin wasn’t immediately assaulted by thorns. Shira had found a hidden path through them. How …?

  “Keep going!” Her companion was just ahead, so Mariah continued on until she and Xae came to an opening in the stone, hidden by the screen of brambles. Shira was waiting just inside.

  The opening in the stone was only a sliver, really, and they had to squeeze single file down a short passage. Fortunately, they all managed to get into the shadow of the small cave before the pounding of boots came rushing past. They listened to Lieutenant Zirana yell again, trying to pinpoint the fugitives’ location, but the soldier’s voice was moving away. Mariah was grateful that the darkness was on their side. It would make it harder to track them. She doubted that it would last much longer.

  “Breathe,” Shira whispered. “I told you last night that I knew a place.”

  CHAPTER 19

  SECRETS

  Gray light filtered through the trees as they waited, still tucked inside the small cave, still standing in case they needed to run. Mariah looked toward the rear of the cavern briefly, but there was only darkness. Was there another way out?

  Shira didn’t speak but laid a hand on her shoulder, and Mariah found it comforting. Again and again, the woman had saved their lives, and all they had given to her in return was distrust. That would change now.

  Her back was stiff and her knees were cramping when Mariah finally spoke in as low a voice as she could manage. “How will we know when it’s safe?”

  Xae did not respond. He stood next to her, his head toward the crevice in the stone wall. He hadn’t spoken since they had escaped from the camp.

  Instead, Shira answered her. “I’ve been thinking about that.” Her voice was a low rumble. It reminded Mariah of the bear that hid inside her. “If we had a scout …”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If one of us could go … as an animal, of course … If one of us could go back to the camp, we could see what’s going on, make sure no one is close by, see if it’s safe for us to move.”

  Mariah’s shoulder ached in response, denying her even the tiniest desire to fly again. Not yet. “That’s a good idea. I wish it could be me, but … And you… You’re so big. How could you get close enough without being seen?”

  In response, they both looked at Xae.

  Without looking away, Mariah said, “I don’t know. Can he go back to the camp without causing more trouble? Without doing something rash? He’s the one who got us into this mess.”

  Xae didn’t look up, didn’t answer aloud, but she saw his body stiffen at her words.

  “Come on, Mari. Give the kid a break. It was folks like that who took his family, killed his da.”

  The boy slumped against the wall and sank to the floor. His head fell to his knees. Mariah’s anger disappeared in an instant, and she lowered herself next to him, leaning her head onto his shoulder. “I’m sorry. Shira’s right. But, Xae, we have to be more careful. How can we help the rest of your family if we get killed before we even find out where they are?”

  The boy nodded. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have … I don’t know what came over me. I was just convinced that they’d know something, but all I found was this …”

  He held out a little scroll, and Mariah took it. Finding it nearly impossible to open with a single hand, she gave it to Shira, who held it up over Mariah’s head, toward the light, and squinted.

  “Captain Odrin, Sixteenth Battalion, to report to Kilgereen before the summer equinox. Assist Captain Graves of the Ninth Battalion to gather, recruit, and trap. All troops, including the Sixteenth and Ninth Battalions, to report to Westholde by summer’s end.”

  “The summer equinox? That’s only a couple of days from now,” Mariah murmured.

  “Unless we’re really important, which I’m hopin’ we’re not, they’ll be wanting to move out.” Shira tucked the scroll in her belt without asking for Xae’s permission.

  “Let’s hope that’s true. Only one way to know for sure.” Mariah looked back to Xae.

  He nodded. “You can trust me, I promise.”

  That was all he said, but it was enough.

  * * *

  They decided to wait until an hour had passed before they sent the raven winging back toward the camp with promises to stay as silent as he could.

  After he was gone, Shira gestured toward the back of the cave and took Mariah’s hand. “Follow me, and hold on.”

  Mariah gasped as Shira’s e
yes suddenly glowed, reflecting every bit of light that made it into the cave from the forest outside. Shira didn’t stop to explain herself. Instead, she moved into the blackness as it sloped downward into the mountain. After a couple hundred steps, Shira stopped. Mariah looked back and saw the sliver of light from the opening far behind them. She would have never guessed that the cave was so big.

  Her eyes filled with that eerie golden light, Shira said, “We can wait here. Less likely to be seen or heard. It’s safe, but I don’t want to light a torch. They’re cracks in the roof. Pretty far up, but troops might spot the smoke.”

  Testing the ground with a hand first, Mariah slowly lowered herself and waited until she felt Shira’s knee touch her own before she let out the breath she had been holding. How long would it take for Xae to return?

  “I didn’t lie to the man,” Shira said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s my favorite spot. I keep it ready for my trips through here. Have a nice little firepit of my own. As long as the other bears don’t move in and scatter all my kindling, it works well. Too bad we can’t use it.

  “On my first journey west, I spent the night in the soldiers’ camp. Learned right quick who it belonged to. Longest night of my life. I was sure somethin’ would give me away, that I’d grow stray whiskers or somethin’, and that I would never see my folks again.”

  Mariah nodded in sympathy and realized the other woman couldn’t see her. “I know what you mean. Thank you, by the way, for helping us … again,” Mariah said. “How did you do that thing? You know, with your eyes …”

  “I thought we could all do that. You know, just change a part. I learned how to do it with my eyes the first time I got lost in the dark. Just kinda happened. My bear sees a lot better than I do at night.”

  Mariah suddenly understood. Shira had changed her eyes into their bear form, like when Gwyn had changed just her arm into a furry paw and very sharp claws. It was like …

  “I should have thought of that. Up until about a fortnight ago …” She took a deep breath. It was time to trust someone else with her secret. Shira had earned it. Besides, she missed Bria, craved the camaraderie only another woman could give her. “Up until about a fortnight then, I was just a woman with wings. I didn’t learn to shift, didn’t even know that I could, until … until I had to.” Her heart fluttered when she thought of the desperation that had filled her when she thought she wouldn’t get back to Gwyn in time.

  “Wings? You’re a hawk. Of course you’d have wings.”

  “No, I mean, I mean …I always had wings. From the time I was born, even though the rest of me was human. They were almost as big as me, dragged the floor when I walked. My parents told everyone in town … that I was deformed. They all thought I was a hunchback. I bound my wings and always kept them covered, except in my own bedroom.” Which had no windows.

  Shira didn’t respond right away, and then, she mumbled as if to herself, “No, that can’t be … Not after all this time. Hey, lady, where’d you say you were from again?”

  “I didn’t. I live in Cillian now, but I grew up in Eaglespire, if you call being locked up in a smithy all day, every day growing up.”

  “You’re her! You’ve got to be.”

  Mariah’s eyes widened. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “There’s stories about you. I heard one my first trip west. At the tavern in Kannuk. I like to sit and make friendly with the locals, ya know. Buy a gent an ale or three, and you’re sure to hear all kinda tales. Hey, it’s a good way of learning things without attractin’ suspicion, you know.”

  “Your point?” Mariah was growing impatient.

  “You want something to eat?” Shira asked, and Mariah could hear the sounds of the woman rummaging around in her pack. “It’s too dark to mix up your potion. Besides, I think that boy drank most of our water last—”

  “Shira! What stories?”

  Although Shira was still only a shadow at her side, Mariah could have sworn she heard a smile in her voice. “Oh, right. Yeah. So, I was at the Dragon in Kannuk, trying to let the sawmiller’s apprentice know, gently like, that I wasn’t goin’ home with him. Tried to distract him by askin’ him to tell me about Kannuk. Said I didn’t know about life away from the sea, and I wanted him to tell me. Then, in walk a couple of Trappers.”

  “Trappers? What are they?”

  Air hissed between Shira’s teeth. “Ya don’t know?” Her voice had turned serious. “Ah, yeah. I guess that makes sense if ya been in Cillian this whole time. Trappers’re soldiers, like the ones in the camp. Only they’re … special. After the Ceo San Proclamation, the king started training ‘em to capture rogue chosen. You can tell them by the dragon on their breastplates.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “So these Trappers come in, and my friend is suddenly silent. He waits until they are settled across the room before he begins his tale. He says that way back, when the Trappers were brand new and didn’t really know what they were doing, a couple of them were sent to Eaglespire.”

  Mariah’s heart suddenly seemed to have relocated into her throat.

  “The king had received a letter from a woman in the village–”

  The wife of the local blacksmith, perhaps? Bile rose up to meet her heart.

  “The village baker, I think,” Shira continued. “Said that the blacksmith’s daughter was Ceo San, that her parents had been hidin’ her, claimin’ she was just misshapen at birth.”

  “But that’s not … My mother …” Mariah’s head began to ache, and she put her hand to it.

  “What? What about your mother?”

  “Nothing,” she whispered. Her mother had sent her out of the house that day, down the road toward Glenley, into the hands of the soldiers. But the map … the map she had been given didn’t match the one from Zach … It didn’t lead to Glenley.

  “Well, as I said, these Trappers, they were brand new—probably didn’t even have their dragons yet—but they weren’t expecting any trouble. They were expecting to collect the girl, give the reward to the baker, and escort their charge to Glenley, where she could be trained up for the king’s army.

  “So, they’re almost to the family’s house, and the girl they’re lookin’ for starts walking down the road toward ‘em. Didn’t know who she was until the panic in her eyes gave her up. They yell at her to stop, but she turns tail and runs in the other direction. So, there she is, runnin’, and she pulls off her cloak, rips the top of her dress open, and”—Shira stretched out the word—”wings as ‘wide and majestic as the sea’ spread out, slap the guards down, leavin’ ‘em sprawled in the dirt. Before they can do anything else, the girl with wings launches herself into the air and disappears, never to be seen again.

  “She’s the reason all the Trappers carry bows now. Story still makes the rounds to this day because she’s the only Ceo San they’d ever seen that was half and half instead of a shifter. They never found her. Even though there’s a rumor that the king’ll pay anyone a thousand gold for her capture. Like she disappeared.” Shira waited for the space of three heartbeats. “Sound familiar?”

  The memory of the fear, the fear of arrows slinging up through the sky and lodging between her shoulder blades, was as real now as it had been then. She had been lucky in so many ways that day, in so many ways except one. She had still had to leave her father behind. And her mother … her mother’s betrayal had broken her heart. Her betrayal … her secrets …

  Gwyn’s secrets. The paper. Gwyn said she had found the paper on her after she had escaped, but Mariah didn’t remember ever having it. The only paper she’d had when she flew from Eaglespire was the map her mother had drawn and her instructions for the alchemist. She had lost the instructions before she had even had a chance to look them.

  Her breath coming quick and heavy, she shook her pack from her shoulder to the ground and opened it with her good hand. She had tucked the paper in the pocket of her spare trousers. Her cheeks warmed when she realize
d that she hadn’t changed or bathed in days. What had it been? A week? More?

  Well, she couldn’t bathe now, so she went back to her task. Items came out of her pack and began to clatter and disappear onto the uneven stone floor.

  “What in the names of the gods are you doin’? Guess you didn’t like the story? Maybe somebody just made it up–”

  Rough wool brushed Mariah’s fingertips. Her pants!

  “Shira, Shira, help me!” She pulled the trousers out of her bag and pushed them toward the other woman. “The pocket, in the pocket, there is a piece of paper. I need it.”

  “Hey, be quiet, would ya? We’re not out of the woods yet … well, if you count the cave as out of the–”

  “Shira! Please. Just get me the paper. I need it.”

  “Right now? What do you need paper for right now? I don’t know about you, but all I can see is shadows. You’re not gonna be able to read anything on it.”

  Mariah tasted blood as she bit down on the scream threatening to form. “Please,” she breathed.

  “Oh, all right.” There was a brief pause before Shira’s hand found hers and placed a small square of paper into it.

  “Thank you. You’re a true friend,” she said, rising.

  “Aw. Thanks, Mari. You know, you’re … Where’d you go?”

  Mariah was already almost to the lip of the cave, where the light of the day was strongest. Sitting with her back against the wall near the entrance, she shook out the paper Gwyn had given her and pressed it open on her lap.

  The sheet was soft, worn as she remembered it being from that night in Gwyn’s cottage. The words on it were faded, and some were missing or blurred, water spots surrounding the empty spaces.

  Mariah,

  She recognized the handwriting. Even after all this time. Ashanya had always left her notes when she went to market, directing Mariah which about chores to take care of at the house and the smithy while she was away. The letter was in her mother’s hand.

  They’re coming for you, girl. It’s my fault. That fool baker woman couldn’t mind her own business. I couldn’t bear the things she was saying, and I told her to keep her mouth shut about you. You’re worth ten times that boy of hers … been gloating, starin’ at me a bit too hard, and I just know. Maybe her boy followed you … creek some …