The Raven Heir

by Stephanie Burgis

  It was impossible to argue. The goblet settled in Cordelia’s hands with the solid weight of comfort. Delicious steam rose to fill her senses, and she closed her eyes to savour the sensation.

  Then she snapped them back open, forcing herself to lower the goblet before she could take a single sip. ‘We have to talk about Mother first,’ she said, ‘and Connall and Alys and how we can get them all free from those horrible dukes. They need us! If we don’t—’

  ‘Your mother,’ said Grandmother, ‘made her own decisions long ago without a thought to the consequences for anyone else. Now.’ Her voice hardened, and her long fingers closed around Cordelia’s smaller hand, raising the goblet firmly to Cordelia’s chin. ‘Drink!’

  Cordelia’s lips parted in surprise. Obediently, she tilted the cup under the pressure of Grandmother’s strong fingers. The first taste met her tongue in a splash of delight.

  A loud thump! beside her made her lower the goblet with a start. Rosalind’s chin had slid off her fist and sent her toppling forehead-first on to the oak table. Even that impact hadn’t woken her, though. She sprawled out, snoring, with her arms and legs outflung at angles that looked horribly painful.

  ‘Silly,’ mumbled Giles on Rosalind’s other side. ‘Making all that noise!’ His eyes had only half opened at the sound; he closed them again now as he slid further and further down, until he’d curled his long limbs comfortably across the round table, resting his head on their sister’s prone body. ‘Jus’ lie down for a nap, that’s all, no fuss or performance …’ His voice trailed off into a drifting snore.

  ‘Poor dears,’ Grandmother murmured gently. ‘You’re so tired from your adventures all alone in the forest. But you can rest now. You’re with family again.’

  Family. That much was true.

  But Cordelia’s head was spinning with the steam from her drink, and the images before her warped and melded into senseless combinations against her will. Giles and Rosalind both spread out before her, loose-limbed and vulnerable. Their grandmother, with their mother’s familiar eyes and nose, smiled victoriously down at them …

  … Grandmother, who had waited twelve years for this moment, and whom no one else in the family had ever mentioned.

  Dread crawled on spider legs through Cordelia’s stomach. Her voice came out as a whisper as she rose from her seat, setting the goblet back on to the table. ‘What were you waiting to do, all these years?’ she demanded. ‘And why would my drinking this make everything easier?’

  ‘Oh, dear. And here I thought you might be the clever one!’ Sighing, Grandmother put one hand on Cordelia’s shoulder and pushed her back down into place. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Drinking this will make everything easier for me, because it’ll stop you from trying to escape! My daughter caused me so much trouble over the years with her attempts. But do you know what, my dear?’

  Grabbing Cordelia’s chin in her free hand, she leaned even closer, until her hawk nose bumped against her granddaughter’s, and her familiar/unfamiliar face filled Cordelia’s vision like a waking nightmare. ‘I’ve had twelve years to learn from my mistakes,’ she murmured. ‘This time, I won’t allow any accidents to happen. So I will be the one to hand you, personally, to the Dukes of Arden and Lune tomorrow, to win back all the wealth and power that your mother stole from me for your sakes – and no one, especially not my own grandchildren, will stop me!’

  Cordelia’s head was still spinning, but that couldn’t stop her now. She lunged forward, screaming with all her might—

  But Grandmother was too strong. Grabbing Cordelia’s nose with one hand, she pinched it tightly shut. Long fingernails jabbed into Cordelia’s skin. Then she lifted the steaming goblet to Cordelia’s mouth and pushed.

  Cordelia’s screams were full of bubbles. She couldn’t even focus enough to shift shapes. Everything turned into a desperate, wordless blur as she twisted and struggled in her grandmother’s iron grip. Sweet liquid gushed down her throat no matter how hard she gagged and tried to spit it out.

  The last thing she heard, as sleep closed smothering arms around her, was her grandmother’s sigh of perfect satisfaction.

  ‘Cordelia. Cordelia!’

  Still deep in sleep, she whimpered with frustration. Would her bothersome family never leave her alone? Connall wouldn’t stop shouting no matter how hard she tried to stay wrapped in blissful dreams of dappled leaves and rippling streams.

  Didn’t he understand that she was tired?

  ‘Cordelia!’

  ‘What?’ she finally snarled – and woke with a gasp at the eerie, echoing sound of her own voice. Her back hit a cold stone wall, hard.

  Her eyes shot open.

  She sat in a tiny room that she’d never seen before. It was as round as a kitchen well, lit by dim streaks of sunlight, and barely two paces wide. A latticed grate covered the single high window, its bars criss-crossing like the dark latticed beams that had covered Grandmother’s white cottage …

  What had happened to Grandmother’s cottage?

  Where was she?

  ‘Finally.’ Connall’s big hands closed around her shoulders and gripped hard. He let out a shuddering breath.

  She yanked her gaze away from the barred window and finally took in her older brother’s face. Heavy shadows sagged beneath his dark brown eyes, and his thin face looked tight with strain. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!’ He gave her shoulders a gentle shake. ‘Where are you three hiding, anyway?’

  He really didn’t know. She could see it in his face.

  Nothing about this made any sense.

  ‘Where are you?’ she demanded. ‘Is Alys all right? Where’s Mother? And where are we now?’ Pulling free, she turned in place on the bare stone flooring and stretched out her arms to brush the ends of her fingertips against both curving sides of the miniature room. Cold seeped through the rough stone walls and down her arms – not quite as solid as reality, but far more true than any natural dream. ‘Is this where you’re being kept prisoner?’

  He shook his head. ‘This room is a memory of mine from before you were born. The place I’m being kept this time is … different.’ His voice tightened. ‘Alys was healed. I saw that much, but I haven’t seen her since. I don’t know where Mother is, either. She can’t touch her magic, so I can’t reach out to her. I was lucky they only had one collar prepared, so they couldn’t trap my magic the way they trapped hers – but I’ve only just gathered enough of my strength back to try reaching the three of you.’

  He shook his head, looking infinitely weary. ‘I don’t know why I thought back to this room when I cast the vision to bring all of us together – it’s where I was kept long before you were born – but—’

  ‘Wait.’ She stared up at him. ‘You were kept a prisoner in this room before I was born? But you were only little, then!’ Her brows bunched together. ‘Does this have something to do with Grandmother?’

  Connall gaped down at her, fingers loosening from her shoulders. ‘What do you know about our grandmother?’

  She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘If anyone had ever bothered to answer my questions—’

  ‘Please,’ her older brother whispered, ‘tell me you haven’t actually met her. Tell me she doesn’t have you three in her grasp now.’

  Cordelia didn’t answer.

  A sickly-sweet fog was wrapped around her most recent memories. What had happened just before she’d come here? She’d been asleep – she knew that much. And she had been at Grandmother’s house before that. She remembered stepping inside that white-and-black cottage. She remembered sweet steam clouding everything, blurring her thoughts and turning into a thick fog of sleep.

  Sweet steam, choking liquid, and Grandmother’s eyes, dark and predatory and triumphant …

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Connall asked sharply. ‘Why are you shaking?’

  Shivers rippled convulsively through her body. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold them in. ‘There was something in the drink she gave all of us. It
made us fall asleep. I tried not to drink any of it after I saw the others, but she – she—’

  ‘She forced you,’ Connall finished grimly. ‘Of course she did. Lady Elianora never lets her family deny her will. That’s why she took me prisoner last time. Mother tried to say no to getting married a second time.’ His lips twisted. ‘And that’s why you were the only one I could reach with my summoning now. You struggled, so her potion didn’t take you under completely. The others trusted her, so they never had a chance.’

  ‘But she’s family!’ The words tore out of Cordelia’s mouth like a cry of pain. ‘We were supposed to be safe once we found her!’

  ‘Those dukes are family too. Hadn’t you realised?’ Connall took a step back, running a trembling hand over his hair. ‘Your father was a first cousin to both of them. Every high family in this kingdom has mixed and tangled over the years – but all we are to any of them is pawns in the game they’ve been playing for decades, ever since the Raven Crown first cracked.’

  ‘Cracked?’ Cordelia frowned up at him. ‘What do you mean? There are still kings and queens, so—’

  ‘The original Raven Crown is what started this whole nightmare in the first place.’ Connall groaned, turning away and rattling off the words like a lesson that he’d learned by heart long ago. ‘It was created with old magics at the first founding of the kingdom, and it bound the ruler and the land together for everybody’s sake. It stayed that way for centuries of peace. But thirty years ago, it cracked and fell off King Kalmen’s head because he’d broken the old contracts with the land beyond repair.

  ‘Of course, every high family in the land said that they should be the ones to rule after Kalmen’s failure … and since then, the fighting has never stopped, because without that original crown, there’s no magical proof to seal any choice for good. Not one heir has ever managed to wear it, no matter how many sorcerers tried to mend it with their spells.

  ‘By now, no one’s even trying to fix it any more. They just buried the broken pieces at Raven’s Nest, high in the mountains where the oldest spirits of the land are still hiding and holding all our deepest secrets safe. Everyone’s given up on those founding magics nowadays. The six great houses – Arden, Lune, Harcourt, Solenne, Breville and Mordaunt – only care about the wealth and the power of the throne. They don’t mind who gets hurt along the way.’

  ‘So we can’t even trust our own family?’ Cold was seeping all through Cordelia’s body now. White mist curled at the corners of her vision, obscuring the grey stone walls. Her nose twitched as an unfamiliar smell drifted past, distracting and unsettling.

  ‘Trust me,’ said her older brother fiercely. ‘Trust Mother, trust Alys, and thank all the surviving spirits of the land that you and Giles and Rosalind are still together. But you have to understand …’

  He let out a long breath. ‘Mother would never have fled into the forest if she could have helped it. You know how she hates to back down from any fight – but she knew she couldn’t protect any of us if she stayed. First my father was killed in one of these stupid, endless battles over the crown, and then Lady Elianora took me hostage to force Mother into marrying again.’

  He took a shuddering breath, then shook his head hard. ‘Mother got me back, though, when she agreed to remarry for the family’s sake. And your father – oh, Cordy, if you’d only known him! Grandmother might have chosen him for his position, but the way he loved Mother and loved me – we both ended up loving him too. How could we not? He said he was my father, no matter how we’d come together. He made family feel safe. But then he died fighting for a different heir. No one can ever hang on to that throne without the Raven Crown to seal it!

  ‘Mother swore she wouldn’t let any of her children be stolen from her ever again, by her mother or by the throne – but everyone knew by then that she was pregnant. None of our families would ever let any heirs out of their grasp. I may not remember much from that time, but …’

  His face twisted as he glanced at the cold stone walls that curved around them. ‘I remember enough – and I swore, even then, that Lady Elianora would never get hold of me again. I would have done anything to stay safe from her and keep you all safe too.’ His hands fisted at his sides. ‘We had to get out, no matter what it took.’

  ‘But why didn’t Mother just explain all that to us?’ Cordelia demanded. ‘If she’d only—ahh!’

  White mist was suddenly curling up her legs, thick and sticky and cold, stretching tingling, grasping fingers towards her hands and arms to pull her down within it. Lurching away, she kicked out desperately – but that only made the mist cling even more closely to her gown and her shoes. The rough stone walls of Connall’s vision should have pressed firmly against her back, but all she felt now was a damp and spongy sensation, like cloudbanks rising to suck her in.

  ‘We’re running out of time.’ Connall’s jaw clenched. This time, when he reached out for her, she couldn’t feel his fingers against her skin. They passed through her like ghosts. ‘The sorcerers here must have felt what I’m doing. They’re already trying their best to break my casting. They’ll be here any moment now.’

  ‘What will they do to you?’ Cordelia demanded.

  ‘Don’t worry about that. Just … I tried so hard to protect you all these years! That’s why I listened to Mother and kept those secrets from you. I just wanted you three to grow up feeling safe! I never wanted you to be afraid. Not like …’ His face twisted in anguish as he glanced around the fading prison cell. ‘Just get free of Lady Elianora. No matter what it takes!’

  ‘But how?’ Cordelia demanded. ‘Mother didn’t give any of us magic lessons. We don’t know how to—’

  ‘You all have your own powers.’ His voice was growing faint, but the desperation in his tone rang through. ‘Remember Alys’s river stone! Every spell can be broken if you find the right key. You just have to get out – and then run, as fast and as far as you can! Don’t turn back for anything. Just go.’

  Thumps sounded in the distance, beyond the wavering stone walls. Panic flashed across his face. His lean brown cheeks hollowed.

  ‘We’re going to rescue you,’ Cordelia promised her older brother. ‘Don’t worry. You won’t be a prisoner for long. We’ll come back for all of you.’

  ‘No! Don’t you dare, Cordeli—ahh!’

  White mist billowed through the stone room like a snowstorm …

  … And Cordelia plunged awake – truly awake, this time – gulping deep, harsh breaths that nearly burst open her chest as the echoes of her older brother’s panicked shout rang in her ears.

  Utter blackness surrounded her. Connall was gone.

  Stale air tickled against her nose and mouth. There wasn’t nearly enough of it. Something heavy lay on top of her, crushing her chest and legs and pushing down into her face until it nearly smothered her. Itchy fabric brushed against her cheeks and forehead. Something hard and painful pushed into her lower back. Why couldn’t she see?

  All she could smell was sweat and grime and …

  Cedar!

  Cordelia shoved and squirmed, panting with effort. Her chest burned. Her muscles screamed with discomfort. Finally, she managed to wriggle one arm free to reach out through the unrelenting blackness.

  She touched wood scant inches from her face.

  Now she knew exactly where she was.

  Grandmother must have piled her, Giles and Rosalind into that massive cedar chest and left them there, all packed neatly in place to be delivered to the dukes. That was one of Giles’s knobbly elbows bruising her lower back right now, while Rosalind’s own strong back pressed down against Cordelia’s face … and neither of them had so much as shifted in place no matter how roughly she’d struggled in these last few minutes.

  The spell still held both of them fully in its grip … and Cordelia was squashed between them. Trapped.

  Or at least, that must be what Grandmother thought.

  Cordelia’s upper lip lifted in a wolfish snarl.

&nbs
p; Lady Elianora should have taken the time to learn more about her younger grandchildren as people, not just as pawns in her own plans … because Cordelia’s fear washed away under a tidal wave of fury as she lay crushed in the pitch darkness between her triplets.

  This time, there was no sweet-smelling spell-steam to confuse her. This time, she could focus … and she had sworn never to allow herself to be trapped again.

  A moment later, Rosalind landed on Giles with a soft thump as Cordelia’s human body vanished from between them. A tiny black beetle scuttled on six swift legs up the flat sides of the chest. It slid swiftly out through the keyhole, squeezing easily past the big old key that sat so smugly in the lock.

  Cordelia was free and uncaged once more … and Grandmother was about to discover just how troublesome her long-lost grandchildren could be.

  From her perch on top of the locked cedar chest, Cordelia looked around Grandmother’s cottage with multifaceted beetle eyes and saw a dozen different views at once, arranged into a dazzling puzzle before her. Every different shape loomed overwhelmingly high; all the angles were off balance, and Grandmother was nowhere to be seen. Was she even in the cottage any longer?

  Cordelia reached out with two thin, secretive antennae and tasted the air, testing it for information.

  She couldn’t hear anything in beetle form, but she felt the vibrations like a drumbeat. Grandmother was definitely here and moving around the floor.

  If she’d been the one to train Mother in magic, she could turn Cordelia human again in a heartbeat.

  Shifting forms, Cordelia fluttered up into the dusty rafters high above the room to listen and wait for the perfect moment. A dull grey moth wouldn’t be noticed hiding among all these cobwebbed beams above the dangling tapestries – and moths, unlike beetles, had brilliant hearing. Picking a dark corner to perch in, she wafted her sensitive wings to catch every scrap of sound that floated up to her from below.