The Raven Lady

by Sharon Lynn Fisher

  She stopped at the sound of my voice.

  “I’m relieved that you are safe,” I said.

  I held my breath—she did not turn. I watched her continue to climb, and when she reached the top, an immense silhouette moved into the light.

  Ulf, the hairy bastard. He said something in Elvish, and there was no mistaking the affection in his tone. She replied in a voice so different from the one she’d just used—so similar to the one I had been graced with perhaps only hours ago—that I felt seasick, and had I anything in my stomach, it would have come up.

  She stepped out of the doorway without once looking back. The door swung closed with a heavy thud.

  Koli

  “Are you ready, hrafn?” asked Ulf.

  My heart pounded as we made our way toward the keep, where my father waited. He and his attendants were conducting their business from the smaller of the two halls.

  “Does it matter?” I replied.

  Ulf didn’t answer. Both of us knew there was no point.

  We reached the closed door and stopped for a moment outside. It was a trick worthy of Loki that I would face my judgment in the same chamber where I had first dined with the king.

  I had convinced Ulf that I’d turned on Finvara, and he had made my father believe it too. I’d told Ulf it had been my plan all along—to outmaneuver Doro and take the crown for myself. Moreover, my apparent affection for Finvara had been a ruse, one that I’d dropped as soon as I’d ensured the legitimacy of our marriage could not be questioned. I was not proud of myself for taking advantage of the fact Ulf wanted to believe all of this to be true.

  My friend fixed his eyes on me. “I cannot say what he will do. Only that you need not fear for your life. You’re strong, remember that.”

  The fact that he had to assure me that my father would not kill me only painted in stark contrast the difference between my new relation and the old ones.

  I had never before defied my father. The mark on my back was intended to prevent me from doing so, yet its effectiveness had never been tested until I came to Ireland. After my mother was driven to her death—and before I suspected my father of letting it happen—I was grateful that the Elf King had sent Ulf to keep me safe. I was grateful to be given a home and shielded from the fear and hatred of the people in my village. I had determined to embrace my immortal relations, and I was relieved to finally learn how to use the gifts I had inherited from them—to grow strong, so that I’d never need fear my enemies. Obedience had seemed a small price to pay. I had given nearly two decades of obedience to the church, and its attempts to protect me from its flock had, in the end, proved feeble.

  But my mother—she at least had loved me, despite the fact that my birth had taken everything from her. In my father’s house, I had been taught that she was weak. Had she been stronger, she could have survived. Why had she accepted the mantle of shame the villagers bestowed? She should have taught them to fear her, or let my father do it for her. Instead, she became a martyr.

  My father possessed not a single tender feeling for her. He did not even pity her. If he knew the truth about Finvara and me, he would despise me for such weakness, and I would face worse than punishment. A crime of defiance was small in comparison.

  I nodded at Ulf, and I raised my fist and rapped once on the door. It swung inward, and he stationed himself beside it as I went inside.

  The room was lit by the blazing fire and the large, round bracket of candles that hung over the table, throwing long shadows along the walls. Incense smoked from the mantle and filled the room with the familiar scent of thyme, which I associated with the court of the Elf King—it had always made me feel safe.

  My father stood at the casement that opened onto the conservatory. As the door swung closed behind me, he turned.

  He was even larger than Ulf, the distance between his shoulders twice that of mine—he would not have easily passed through the door, or any door in this castle. He wore his dark hair close cropped, but his beard was long and thick and elaborately plaited. The top half of his face was masked by alternating stripes of black and rust-colored paint, which gave his eyes a feral glimmer. His most striking feature, however, was the set of great, black horns that curved up from either side of his head.

  “Father,” I said, bowing deeply.

  Though he made no sound, I felt him moving closer.

  “Daughter.” His voice rumbled like thunder and I shuddered. The spells he uttered could rend the very ground and roil the surface of the ocean, crack boulders and the ice on frozen lakes.

  “You’ve been to see him?” he asked.

  “I have, my lord,” I replied. “The dwarf metal holds. He is no threat to us.”

  My father gave a low grunt, and I glanced up. He motioned to someone behind me, and two attendants, silver masks covering their faces, moved forward out of the deep shadows of the room. My stomach knotted, and a chill rose along the back of my neck.

  “I commend both your strategy and execution,” he said. “You have served me faithfully for most of your life. I’m gratified that you have avoided your mother’s weakness, and that Gunnhild’s ambition runs thicker in your blood than it did in hers. One day you may be strong enough to cross me—even to displace me—but that day has not yet come. And I’m afraid I cannot allow disobedience to go unanswered.”

  “I understand, Father, and I submit.”

  My eyes darted right and left as the attendants moved toward me. Two took hold of my arms, and another loosened the strings of my bodice, slipping my gown off my shoulders.

  My father came closer. My heart thundered and my breaths shortened as he bent to examine my back. It was the closest scrutiny I’d received from him since the day my mother died, when I was brought to his court for the first time.

  I jumped as I felt the hot pads of his fingers tracing around the base of my wings. “Yggdrasill no longer troubles you?”

  “No, my lord,” I admitted, and I cursed the tremor in my voice.

  He moved away again and I let the breath fill my lungs. A moment later he muttered a fire spell, and a searing lash whipped against the small of my back. The pain was equal to the worst of the punishment inflicted by yggdrasill in my chamber, and I cried out and doubled over—only the tight grip of the king’s attendants keeping me on my feet.

  I was better prepared for the second lash and determined to make no noise, but it caught the sensitive flesh just above my hip and I uttered an even higher-pitched cry.

  When the third lash landed above the other hip, I gritted my teeth and swallowed a moan. Tears squeezed from under both of my eyelids.

  “Shall we say one for each decade you’ve served me?”

  Five more, Freyja help me.

  The attendants released me and I straightened, pulling my gown back over my shoulders and tightening the bodice strings. As I squared my shoulders and turned, the tender flesh of my lower back burned.

  “You are forgiven,” said my father as I faced him. “We won’t speak of it again.”

  He waved his hand, dismissing me, and turned his back before I’d made it out of the room.

  I found Ulf waiting outside.

  Searching my eyes, he glowered and said, “I’m sorry, hrafn. You’ve done well. They didn’t have to carry you out, and he won’t forget it.”

  He offered his arm, and I shook my head. “I need air.”

  “The stairs in the great hall go up to the roof of the keep,” he said. “Shall I take you?”

  “I know the way,” I replied, laying a hand on his arm. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

  He nodded and left me.

  The great hall was dark and quiet, but tomorrow evening my father intended to show the subjects of Finvara who their new liege lord was. There would be a feast, and entertainment into the small hours. Had I intended to remain here that long, I would sit at my
father’s right hand as Knock Ma’s new queen—though everyone in attendance would know that I too served Alfakonung.

  I approached the stairway that provided access to the upper floors of the keep and the battlements—the same one I had climbed with Finvara on my first evening in the castle.

  So many stairs. I took a deep breath and began ascending before I could change my mind.

  By the time I reached the top, sweat had soaked my gown and my back was aflame. My breaths came so hard and heavy I had to grasp the stone wall for support.

  When I’d recovered, I found another stairway that climbed to the top of the turret extending from the north side of my tower. It was an even higher vantage point, and unlike the towers themselves, it was not topped with battlements.

  Here, I found no guards—they all watched from the parapet and towers below. Corvus still slumbered over the castle grounds, washed in moonlight. With the breeze, I could hear the occasional creaking of the rigging.

  have you brought all your courage? The goddess’s voice, light with amusement, still hit me like a battering ram, knocking me against the low wall around the turret’s perimeter.

  “All that I have left,” I muttered, panting.

  Brushing tears from my cheeks, I straightened and gripped the edge of the stone wall. I raised one foot and placed it on the narrow ledge—it was about half the width of my foot. Closing my eyes, I whispered a prayer to Freyja, and I shifted my weight onto the foot resting on top of the wall, slowly lifting the other foot away from safety. If the Morrigan was wrong, I would fall probably a hundred feet to the moat below.

  Before I could rise from my crouching position, I teetered, and I raised my wings on instinct to correct my balance. With my wings unfurled, I could feel the cool breeze against my back even through the fabric of my dress. I hovered there, letting it soothe my scored flesh while fear wrung my insides.

  It was not the first time I had risked a fatal fall, but I had never before done so while in terrible physical pain, or while running away from my father. And I had certainly never done so while another’s fate rested in my hands.

  Slowly I let go of the wall and stood up, raising my wings higher.

  The breeze stiffened suddenly against my feathers, unbalancing me, and I half jumped, half fell, from the turret.

  NEW MAGIC

  Finvara

  No one else came, not even to bring water, and I began to wonder whether they’d forget about me. Surely she wouldn’t.

  But “sure” was the last thing I was—about anything, except the fact I’d made a hash of it, just as I’d feared. Queen Isolde had put her faith in me. In my arrogance and naivete, I had banished my ancestor, unwilling to live out the rest of my life with an immortal sharing my head. A few short months later, and the fledgling kingship that I’d never wanted was lost. The enemy I was ordered to guard against was literally within the castle walls. And all I had to show for it was a queen who was strong enough to rule without me.

  As a smuggler I had been in scrapes—had been boarded by both English and American naval officers, as well as more thoroughgoing pirates, and had survived to smuggle another day. An easy laugh and a friendly demeanor had carried me far in life, and I had generally escaped with no worse damage than a dent in my profits. Until the Elf King and his daughter.

  It wounded me more than I liked to admit. Letting the queen down, certainly—for Izzy and I had grown close in the years since her mother died. She had come to depend on me for information from abroad, and she was wholly unconcerned with my illegitimate birth. But also I’d failed my cousin Edward and his new wife—with all they had suffered in the Battle of Ben Bulben, and well on their way to starting a family. Not to mention my father, my brothers, and their families, and my mother, whom I often imagined might be watching me from the stars.

  Yet the most painful wound was Koli. My instincts had always been good—they had kept me alive during those years at sea. And I had a gift for reading people. All of that had failed me with Koli and Doro.

  Had she felt nothing? Thoughts of our time together in the cottage kept returning, despite my attempts to banish them. She was my wife now, by any estimation. I had held her and touched her, and she had responded beyond my wildest imaginings. Was it possible I’d been deceived even in that?

  I closed my eyes—the drip, drip, drip was driving me mad with thirst. There was a cistern below the tower, but no way of accessing it from my cell.

  Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink . . .

  Something caused me to open my eyes and look at the pile of little machines in front of my cell. They might not be living, but neither were they quite dead. There was a low murmur of continuous noise—creaks and clicks, ticks and tocks, even the occasional pop. What had drawn my attention there? It had been a noise that contrasted with the others, like the squeal of a rusted hinge. I noticed the mechanical raven resting on top of the pile. Had its head turned slightly toward me?

  I stood up, groaning at the stiffness in my back and shoulders, the pain in my jaw, and I picked up a wooden spoon I’d found while inspecting my cell. Holding it between my bound hands, I worked my wrists and then my arms between two bars. I swung the spoon experimentally several times, both overhand and underhand, gauging the distance. Finally I let it go. It sailed toward the pile in an arc, then struck the bird’s back with a thunk.

  The raven slid down a few inches and came to rest. Sighing, I looked around for something else to throw.

  Suddenly a shrill voice shattered the silence. “Brisingr, slepp bandingjann.”

  My head snapped up and I saw that the raven’s eyes were burning bright.

  I jumped as the links of the chain around my wrists widened, causing the chain to slacken and then drop to the stone floor.

  “Fly, fly, fly!” cried the raven before its eyes again went dark.

  I stood with my mouth agape, staring at the thing—what had just happened?

  Your bride is trying to save you, idiot.

  But how was I to get out of this bloody cell? Reaching through the bars for the dozenth time, I got a better purchase on the bolt with my newly freed hands and yanked it hard—the lock still wouldn’t give.

  The elves had emptied my pockets—I’d noticed the missing weight of my mother’s compass—but I dug my hands into them anyway. My fingers grazed something thin and hard at the bottom of my left pocket—a key!

  I curled a hand around to the front of the cell door and carefully inserted it. It wouldn’t turn, no matter how I jiggled it. I pulled it out to try inserting it again—before I could, it slid from my sweaty hands.

  “Bollocks!”

  The key struck the flagstones and bounced. I knelt and thrust both hands through the bars. The light in the dungeon was low, but the brass of the key had accumulated vibrant verdigris, and I could see it less than a yard away. I lay down on my stomach and reached one arm between the bars, all the way to my shoulder. I stretched, holding my breath, and my fingertip just touched the edge of the handle. I reached farther, feeling the rusted bars biting into my shoulder, and managed to press my fingertip just into the hole in the key’s handle. I dragged it a couple of inches toward me and then, with a better grip, snatched it up.

  I rubbed the key between my palms, hoping it would pick up some oil along with sweat and move easier inside the lock. I reached through the bars again, and the key clicked home this time. I turned it, drew the bolt, and kicked open the door.

  Then I ran for the stairs.

  Koli

  I had not truly been ready for the shock of the fall. I’d told myself that even if my wings could not be made to fly, they would likely at least make it possible to land safely. But even that required that I keep them extended. Once I was plummeting toward the ground, I lost all control—they went limp and folded around my body, and I panicked.

  are you beaten?
>
  The taunt came from the goddess while in midair, and it was just the countershock I needed. Her booming voice focused my attention on uncurling my wings, flinging first one, and then the other as far out from my body as I could. The pressure of the air against my expanded surface flipped me over, and I stopped falling, instead gliding gradually down toward the forested hills below the castle. The wind whipped against my face as the treetops rushed closer.

  Experimentally I raised and lowered my wings, and the wobble this caused was terrifying.

  you’re not a bellows, elf maid!

  Suddenly I found myself engulfed by an inky black cloud—my furies filled the air around me, keeping pace with my progress, gliding then flapping, their necks twisting occasionally to watch me. I noted their wing movement, and it struck me that it was more like rowing. I tried again, pushing forward before digging down and back. My feet were all but dragging the highest branches of the oaks, but I kept this up, making small adjustments to my movements as I got a feel for it. Soon I was rising again.

  Despite the assistance of the gears near the base of my wings, the amount of exertion this required was incredible. Sweat soaked me, and my shoulder blades burned. I wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long.

  Fortunately I didn’t have far to go.

  Corvus’s position was higher than the turret I’d leapt from, but I had now glided west of the ship. To reach her, I had only to regain altitude and turn back the way I’d come.

  Easy. Right.

  After pumping my wings a few more times, I lifted one slightly, until my flight path began to curve. Soon I was pointed roughly in the direction of the ship. I was flying into the wind now, and I began to rise faster than before—the wind was giving me lift. I was dizzy and nauseous with fatigue—just a little farther.

  I pinned my gaze on the balloon suspended between the floating square rigs, ignoring the panicked messages my body was sending, and as soon as I could see deck beneath my feet, I relaxed my wings.

  Again I was falling instead of flying, and I struck the deck hard despite the short distance. Pain shot through one hip and elbow, and I scrambled to my feet.