The Raven Heir

by Stephanie Burgis

  Even more trees had been slaughtered beyond the tents, then left carelessly abandoned with broken nests and shattered eggs lying on the ground nearby.

  If she’d had Mother’s powers, Cordelia would have attacked. But swifts couldn’t rain down magical vengeance upon anyone. The only thing Cordelia could ever control with magic was her own shape – and even now, her tiny flying body was driven by an irresistible need to explore and understand everything.

  So she bottled up her outrage and dived, silent and graceful, over the rippling moat, where snakes bobbed watchfully and the water was flecked to swift-sight with dots of hours-old blood. It beckoned to her – Come, sip on the wing! – but she fought the instinct and only nabbed an insect in mid-air.

  Stashing it in the back of her throat, she landed on the ground beyond the moat and hopped awkwardly forward on her three-clawed feet towards the closest fire and the big men who surrounded it. They sat with their massive backs to her, rumbling to each other in words she wasn’t close enough to understand.

  Slowly, quietly …

  Cordelia forced herself to stop and peck pointlessly at the ground every few moments, just in case anyone was watching, while all the other birds hid in the trees, out of sight.

  The whole forest felt as if it were holding its breath.

  Closer … Closer … Almost there …

  That was when everything went wrong.

  Today’s attack really had made Connall impossible.

  He slammed open the front door and portcullis of their smoke-enveloped castle. Black and purple shadows swirled wrathfully around his lanky figure, which stood utterly alone in defiance of all Mother’s orders.

  ‘Cordy! Get back here, now!’ he bellowed as soldiers leaped to their feet all along the banks of the moat.

  He made a quick, twisting gesture with one hand. A tunnel of tightly funnelled air formed before him, visible to birds but not to humans. It offered a safe passage across the water, perfectly shaped for one small brown swift to fly through, protected from arrows or any other attacks … just as Cordelia had been forced back to safety at least a hundred times before by his long arms and overprotective spells.

  Why did he always have to interfere with her adventures? Snarling inwardly, Cordelia hopped away as his searching gaze swept the clearing. The men by the fires were all shouting loudly. She would hide behind their big bodies until he gave up, and then—

  Her older brother’s voice slammed into her ears, magically directed this time and loud enough to make her flinch. Now, Cordelia! Don’t make me get Mother to drag you back. If you come now, I won’t tell her what you were up to.

  Ugh! Cordelia spread out her wings in furious preparation to launch back towards her ridiculous brother, who never trusted her to look after herself.

  Lightning cracked across the moat beneath the cloudless sky. It came from the clearing full of soldiers.

  There were sorcerers among the invaders too.

  If that lightning had struck Connall’s shifting cape of shadows, it would have bounced aside without harm. Cordelia had seen it repel magical attacks before, when Connall had practised it with Mother in their courtyard. But this sorcerer wasn’t aiming at Connall … and apparently, when Connall had come running to save his sister, he hadn’t expected anyone behind him to need a shield.

  The lightning shot over his head and through the arch of the open doorway.

  A terrible scream sounded inside.

  ‘Alys!’

  It was Connall who shouted her name, whirling around, but Cordelia screamed too as she flung herself into the air.

  … Too late! The safe tunnel of air her older brother had shaped vanished the moment that his concentration broke.

  Black arrows shot in a murderous cloud across the moat, their steady thwack … thwack … thwacks filling the air with an inescapable percussion. Connall’s back was still turned, blocking the sight of whatever was happening inside their home. Arrows bounced off his shifting cape and off the smoke-wrapped stone walls of the castle, showering into the moat as snakes hissed and dived for cover. No one even noticed Cordelia’s small brown body amidst the chaos, flying frantically back and forth as she searched for any possible angle of approach.

  Archers lined the banks of the moat. Even bird-sight wasn’t powerful enough to find a way through their combined attack.

  ‘Why would you ever take such a risk?’ Connall shouted at their invaders. Cordelia couldn’t see him any more through the cloud of arrows, but she could hear him, and his voice was choked with horrifying tears. ‘You may hate me and my mother, my lord Duke of Arden, but that’s your sister who was struck just now!’

  ‘Rubbish!’ The bear-leader stomped out of the central cluster of tents with a young squire scurrying after him, still fastening the last plates of armour around his enormous chest. ‘I have no sister any more. Even if I had, Alys was raised in a fortress. She’d never be fool enough to stand so close to—’

  ‘What have you done?’ Mother burst past Connall through the door, throwing out her arms to create a transparent bubble of protection that no arrow could pierce. ‘You shot a lethal curse into our home?’

  Scowling, Arden crossed his arms with a clank of armour. ‘Lune? What nonsense is she spouting now?’

  ‘There is no need to fear, Duchess.’ The wolf-leader, already fully armoured, had been standing on the other side of the bank, but he held out his hands now in a signal that finally halted that steady shower of arrows.

  As the archers lowered their bows, Cordelia’s whole body jerked with the instinct to seize the moment and fly through the open air. But her mother’s bubble was too strong. It would hold her out too.

  And she needed to hear the answer to this question.

  The wolf-leader scooped off his helmet and held it out before him like a peace offering. ‘We have the spellcaster right here,’ he said, ‘only waiting to remove the curse that she laid. You know we would never choose to cause irreversible harm to anyone. All you need do is ask us to heal whichever poor soul bore the brunt of this unnecessary battle … A battle, I might add, that was brought about by your own treasonous choices.’

  ‘All I need do is ask?’ Mother’s voice was flat with disbelief. ‘And what exactly will happen if I do ask for your help in saving my dearest friend’s life?’

  ‘Why, then,’ said the wolf-leader, ‘we will be more than happy to enter your home and instruct our caster to reverse her curse, healing your friend completely … the very moment you surrender to us.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How could this have happened?’ Mother’s strong voice wavered for the first time in Cordelia’s memory. ‘How was this door even opened in the first place? Connall, if they attacked, why didn’t you call me to deal with them?’

  Connall didn’t reply out loud. But a moment later, Cordelia shook in mid-air with the gale of her mother’s voiceless reaction.

  CORDELIA!

  She had expected the blast of fury that shot through their connection. She’d braced herself for it. But she had never expected the terror that accompanied it.

  Mother wasn’t ever supposed to feel fear.

  ‘Mother,’ Connall said, ‘if we don’t let them in, Alys will die.’

  Mother looked across the moat at Cordelia’s small hovering body, past the line of archers. She looked back inside. Then she closed her eyes.

  Run. Her silent order shot through the family’s connection, calling to all three triplets at once. Run as fast and as far as you can. Giles, Rosalind, take the tunnel out the back. Meet Cordelia in the trees behind the castle. Now!

  Stay safe, stay together, and stay far from sight. I’ll come for you as soon as I can. I swear it.

  I love you all so much.

  Her shoulders slumped. She opened her eyes … and then, as Cordelia stared in disbelief, she sank to her knees before the invaders.

  ‘Very well,’ she said out loud. ‘The siege has ended.

  There were no human words in Cordel
ia any more. She wheeled away from her family’s castle and the soldiers flooding into it with no rational thoughts left in her mind. Only flight.

  She opened her beak and screamed a wordless swift-scream as she dived into the shadows between the trees, ready to lose herself within them.

  But the trees pressed much too close together. Their sweeping, tangling branches slowed her down. She couldn’t fly nearly fast enough to take away the pain. So she dropped to the ground and turned fox instead. Then she ran. She needed the burn in her muscles. She needed the lunge, and the pounce, and the bite.

  So she caught, again and again – but then she couldn’t eat her prey. Her stomach burned and twisted each time that she sensed their panic. Again and again, she let them go with high, sharp barks of frustration.

  Her world was scent. It was rage. It was fear. It was …

  Scent! She knew those scents. Two of them, so familiar and so hers that they pulled her towards them through the trees before she could even remember what they meant. Until …

  ‘It’s her! I told you she’d be running wild.’ It was a girl’s voice. Family. Sister.

  Irritating. But Cordelia didn’t flinch or back away when the girl’s strong fingers closed in the thick fur at her nape, anchoring her in place. The boy fell to his knees beside her a moment later and wrapped his arms tightly around her back and chest. His face tipped, wetness trickling through her coat.

  ‘Come on!’ said the girl. ‘Hurry up and turn human!’

  ‘Not yet,’ said the boy. ‘Just one more minute.’ He hugged Cordelia even closer.

  She should have twisted to free herself, like any sensible fox. Instead, she found herself leaning into him for no reason she could understand. A low whimper escaped her throat, although her body felt no pain.

  ‘Oh—!’ The girl let go of Cordelia and swung around, bashing the closest branch hard with the long stick that she carried.

  ‘Quiet!’ The boy jerked upright. ‘We can’t make any noise!’

  Giles was complaining about noise?

  It was no good. With her triplets bickering around her, there was no way for Cordelia to hide from reality any longer. An inescapable wave of memories and awful, helpless humanness broke through her wild foxness like a dam shattering.

  She shifted. Giles’s arm fell away as she straightened, kneeling on the bumpy forest floor and breathing hard. ‘How long has it been?’ Her voice sounded hoarse.

  She’d screamed in swift form, hadn’t she? That would explain why her throat hurt now. She couldn’t remember much that had happened since that moment when …

  When …

  ‘Too long. You were supposed to come right here, remember?’ Rosalind smacked her stick irritably against one leg, peering around the gathering darkness suspiciously. ‘We could have started out half an hour ago, if you’d only been waiting where you were supposed to be.’

  ‘We wouldn’t be here at all if she ever stayed where she was supposed to be,’ Giles muttered.

  At that, the urge to run – again – rose up within her in a surging wave, trying to propel her to her feet. Cordelia’s hands clenched into fists on her knees, holding herself down. ‘Is Alys all right?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Giles’s fingers rattled against his side, playing an invisible, agitated tune. He’d followed Mother’s orders, she saw; not a single lute strap hung over his shoulder. How he must have hated leaving all of them behind. ‘Haven’t you felt it?’

  ‘Felt what?’

  ‘Try talking to Mother,’ Rosalind told her.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do it!’

  Cordelia reached out in her mind. She felt … nothing.

  Emptiness.

  She sucked in a harsh breath.

  ‘You see?’ Rosalind’s knuckles whitened around her stick. ‘She’s gone.’

  Goosebumps popped across Cordelia’s arms. ‘What do you mean, gone?’

  ‘They did something to her,’ Giles said. ‘They haven’t killed her. They couldn’t have. We would have felt it if they had! But they’ve stopped her magic somehow. We can’t reach her, and she can’t reach us either.’

  ‘And we didn’t even try to protect her!’ Rosalind whirled around, lashing out with her stick and sending leaves scattering to the ground from nearby branches. ‘She wouldn’t let me help, and I was stupid enough to listen. Now, all because I was a coward—’

  ‘What could you have done?’ Uncontrollable shivers rippled through Cordelia’s skin. ‘That stick of yours can’t stop magical lightning.’

  That terrible scream …

  Alys is all right. She has to be. They’ve healed her.

  Cordelia’s sister glowered at her. ‘You didn’t listen when Mother said to stay back.’

  ‘And look where it got us!’ Giles pointed an accusing finger in the direction of home. ‘Now Mother’s a prisoner. They have Connall and Alys. And they’ll come hunting for the three of us next!’

  Cordelia flinched.

  Rosalind dug her stick hard into the ground. ‘Connall told them we were only servants. Remember?’

  ‘But they knew he was lying.’ Giles gave a groan of frustration. ‘We’re the reason they came! They’re not going to give up just because we didn’t wait for them at the gates. How are we supposed to stop them from taking us when they do come? With your pretend sword? Or one of my ballads?’ He snorted, his shoulders hunching and his head ducking down. ‘It’s absurd.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ Rosalind’s eyes narrowed. ‘You want to give up without a fight? Surrender?’

  ‘Mother did.’ Giles’s hands clenched and unclenched in the shadows. ‘How are we supposed to fight them if she couldn’t?’

  ‘She didn’t want us to fight.’ Cordelia’s throat felt full of pebbles. ‘She told us to run.’

  … Just before she’d sunk to her knees. ‘I love you all so much.’

  Cordelia knew how to be furious at her mother, but she didn’t know how to carry all the feelings that roiled inside her now. They were too big and complicated. They hurt.

  ‘I’m not running from anyone,’ snarled Rosalind. ‘I’m going to rescue Mother and Alys and Connall too.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot!’ Giles’s voice rose to a whisper-shout. ‘This isn’t a ballad, and you’re not a real knight! You’ve only ever fought Mother’s practice-shadows. Real people are different! And you ran just as fast as I did through that tunnel to get away.’

  ‘I know I did.’ Rosalind looked away, her voice thickening. ‘I can’t bear to remember it.’

  ‘What tunnel?’ Cordelia scowled up at both of them. ‘Mother never showed me any tunnels under the moat.’

  ‘Well …’ Rosalind wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sniffed hard. ‘Of course she didn’t. She’s not a fool.’

  ‘She showed us because she knew we wouldn’t use it unless we had to,’ Giles said impatiently. ‘She didn’t dare show you because you would’ve used it to sneak out every time you got tired of following the rules. None of us can ever trust you to stay put!’

  If he had any idea how hard she’d fought to follow those stupid, suffocating rules – to sit trapped inside the castle’s walls on so many days when the sky rose high and wild above her and that hook tugged piercingly hard inside her chest …

  The need to shift was a wail within her bones as Cordelia surged to her feet, glaring at her brother. ‘I’m trying,’ she said, ‘to follow Mother’s rules right now. She said to stay out of sight until she comes for us.’

  ‘But what if she can’t?’ His shoulders sagged as if all the fury had drained out of him, leaving him limp. ‘Just … think about it, both of you. We’re in the middle of the forest. We don’t even have anything to eat – and those men came to make one of us their king or queen! I know Mother didn’t want it to happen, but … wouldn’t it be the easiest way to make them let her go?’

  Rosalind’s shoulders squared, and she set her jaw. ‘It would be a betrayal of Mother’s honour fo
r us to turn ourselves in without a fight – especially after she fought so valiantly on our behalf!’

  ‘We’re not doing anything that those dukes want,’ growled Cordelia.

  The bearish Duke of Arden didn’t even care for his own family. How could he be trusted with anything else? He’d cast aside strong, kind Alys as if she were of no value.

  Families argued, but you couldn’t just pretend that they didn’t matter.

  She’d already had one brother be taken captive, and the pain of that thought made her breath turn ragged and her head spin as remembered moments flashed past her in vivid accusation. Connall had tried so hard to protect her …

  She wouldn’t let either of her triplets throw themselves away now.

  ‘We can’t just go running in with sticks to rescue Mother and the others,’ Cordelia told Rosalind. ‘They have real swords – and we don’t even understand what’s happening.’

  If only any of the adults back home had ever answered any of her questions!

  ‘What are we going to do, then?’ Giles wrapped his arms around his skinny chest. He looked already defeated – and smaller too, without his usual swagger.

  It felt wrong to see exuberant Giles so cowed. He should be dancing around composing epic songs about their adventures, not crumpling into himself like a tree ready to topple. Rosalind stood fiercely on guard, which was normal … but the pale fear and guilt on her face felt horribly off-kilter too. Rosalind was always supposed to be absurdly overconfident, no matter how wrong she might actually be.

  Everything had fallen apart tonight … and it was all her fault.

  But she wasn’t going to let herself think about that, ever. Instead, she said, ‘Everyone needs rest so we can think. I know a den nearby that’s empty. Connall and I found it last time I went exploring. You’ll both be safe enough sleeping in there.’