The Raven Heir

by Stephanie Burgis

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Stop,’ she gasped. ‘Wait! We can’t. Go any further. Soldiers! Waiting for us.’

  Her head throbbed with agony. She clutched it with both hands, desperately filtering through all the different competing visions.

  ‘The mist –’ she panted – ‘a wall of mist – they’re so close now … No, they’re waiting right in front of it. Lying in wait! They know we’re coming.’

  ‘How could they possibly know that?’ Rosalind demanded.

  ‘Oh … I know the answer to that question.’ Giles’s weary sigh ruffled against Cordelia’s tangled hair. ‘Remember? The very first moment we met those farmers, Cordy asked them how to get to Raven’s Nest. The farmer who reported us to the soldiers must have told them about that too.’

  ‘So that’s where the real attack is waiting.’ Rosalind smacked her sword-stick against one palm with a thwack! ‘They think we’re walking into a trap.’

  ‘We almost did.’ Giles’s voice tightened. ‘The real question is, how did Cordy know about it?’

  Cordelia couldn’t answer. She could barely even breathe. Now that the land had forced its way back into her head, that old hook inside her chest was back as well. At home, it had only tugged her to escape her castle walls, to escape into the freedom and the wildness outside – but this time, it had a more specific goal in mind.

  It yanked, again and again. A whimper of pain huffed through her throat.

  Her right foot moved forward against her will.

  Rosalind grabbed hold of her arm. ‘Wait up! You can’t fight them when you’re like this.’

  ‘Who wants to fight trained soldiers at all?’ Giles’s voice spiralled upward in disbelief. ‘We have to run and hide, like Connall told us. If it’s not safe for us to go to Raven’s Nest—’

  ‘We have to!’ Cordelia’s eyes flew open, but she could only glimpse the outlines of her triplets through a thick fog. Mist and flashes of weaponry filled her vision.

  And beyond all those …

  Raven’s Nest.

  It was waiting. No, it was calling to her, promising every answer she had ever sought about her family, about their past, and about the whole broken kingdom that stretched around her.

  They were so close. Almost there. The hook in her chest wouldn’t let her turn away now. Not for anything.

  She could turn into a bird to fly straight there—no! She dug in her heels and glared at her triplets’ foggy silhouettes.

  ‘We’re all going there together,’ she said stubbornly. ‘You promised.’

  ‘Argh!’ Giles threw up his hands, shifting shadows in her vision. ‘How are we supposed to deal with armed soldiers?’

  ‘Well, you can probably take care of most of them yourself.’ Rosalind’s brisk words made both of her triplets turn to stare. She sounded perfectly calm, though, as she continued, ‘You’ve been practising all the way here. Why not just use your sorcery again?’

  Giles lurched backwards. ‘I … No, I can’t! I really can’t. Half the time, it won’t even work! That first time, I was just so scared, the magic burst out of me.’

  ‘Well, then, let yourself feel that scared again.’ Rosalind shrugged, swinging her sword-stick in lazy sweeping circles. She bent her legs in preparatory stretches, still holding Cordelia’s arm with a firm grip. ‘If it doesn’t work, they will definitely capture us. Remember that part, and you’ll be more than scared enough to let your magic free again.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Look at her!’ Rosalind sighed and yanked Cordelia back into place beside her. ‘She’s not turning around, no matter what we say. Even if we drag her with us, she’ll just turn back and head here on her own the instant we stop holding her. Do you want to let her walk into a group of grown soldiers all on her own?’

  Giles didn’t answer.

  Rosalind’s voice turned to steel. ‘I am not running away like a coward again – and I’m not letting any more of my family be taken prisoner! You can leave us both behind if you like, but I’m staying with Cordy.’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ Giles whisper-shouted …

  But Cordelia’s shoulders relaxed, because she knew they had won. Giles had never turned away from their family in his life, so – at least for now – they would all keep moving forward together.

  They all took turns peering over the curve of the final foothill, crouching together behind a massive mossy boulder that would have reached Cordelia’s nose if she’d been standing.

  The vast slopes of Mount Corve loomed before them, covered in an unbroken dark green treeline. Only faint swirls of white mist curved near its top, but a massive circle of much denser mist surrounded all its lower slopes, ignoring every law of nature.

  Soldiers in tunics blazoned with bears and wolves walked along that shimmering shield again and again, pacing an endless, watchful circuit. Like the knights who’d hunted the children in their forest, these ones had abandoned heavy armour for stealth and speed. It must have been obvious to everyone that three unarmed children could present no danger to them.

  ‘I count five.’ Rosalind’s voice was, for once, a tightly leashed whisper.

  ‘I saw five too.’ Giles’s fingers jittered against his knees as he rocked anxiously back and forth on the ground, his arms wrapped around his legs.

  ‘There are nine,’ Cordelia told them both with utter certainty.

  Her vision had finally cleared, as if the land had settled down now it knew she was listening to it once more. But it wasn’t the view before her that gave her conviction.

  The land was still murmuring into her head, its voices softer now but no less clear and intent.

  Giles leaned even closer to peer down at her, his whisper hot against her face. ‘How do you know these things? What else aren’t you telling us?’

  ‘Shh!’ Rosalind hissed. ‘Save talking for later. All we need to know now is there are nine guards waiting. They all know the direction we started out from, but they’re not all waiting here together – so there must be more than one way we could be coming.’

  ‘The main road split off a while back,’ Giles muttered, rocking in place even faster than before. ‘Remember? Cordy told us which way to go. Again.’ The look he gave her was narrow-eyed.

  ‘So maybe there’s another longer route we could have taken, if we hadn’t had Cordy with us as a guide.’ Rosalind frowned with concentration. ‘We just have to figure out where that one would’ve come out. Cordy, where are all those other guards waiting right now?’

  Cordelia’s arm swung left without a thought.

  ‘Got it!’ Rosalind smiled fiercely. ‘So, that’s where our voices should be coming from. Go to it!’ She clapped Giles on the back.

  It sent him rocking into the boulder. ‘Careful!’ Clutching his nose, which had taken the brunt of the impact, he glowered at them both. ‘Save the bashing for our enemies, Ros. And if Cordy would just trust us, for once—’

  ‘After the battle,’ Rosalind snapped. ‘Now, go!’

  ‘Sisters!’ Giles groaned the word. Then he closed his eyes, drew that familiar deep pre-performance breath …

  And Rosalind’s voice rang out in the distance, pathetically high-pitched with fear. ‘Help! Oh, help me, Giles! I am too afraid to fight!’

  The real Rosalind’s jaw dropped open in outraged disbelief. Cordelia bit the inside of her cheek to stifle a laugh.

  ‘I’ll save you, Ros!’ Giles’s voice yelled. ‘Now that I’ve got us safely away from all those soldiers who scared you …’

  Rosalind snarled soundlessly.

  Cordelia’s lips tugged into a mischievous grin … until she heard her own voice call out faintly, moving away from the others, ‘I don’t care what you two do. I’ll go my own way, just like always! I don’t need anyone else.’

  Rosalind gave an appreciative huff.

  Cordelia’s fingers clenched against the cool, soft moss on the boulder before her. Did Giles actually believe—?

  Armed
figures shifted in her head. ‘They’re moving!’

  A man’s voice bellowed indistinctly in the distance, summoning his comrades to help.

  That voice, Cordelia thought, belonged to the Duke of Arden, not to any of the soldiers who were here – but it did the final trick. Inside her head, the line of figures turned, one after another, to run towards their waiting comrades. One, two, three, four in a row …

  Oh, no. ‘One of them is staying here!’

  ‘Seriously?’ As Giles’s eyes flew open, the triplets’ voices began to fade in the distance.

  ‘Keep going!’ Rosalind ordered, rising up on her haunches. ‘I’ll handle this one.’

  ‘How? You still don’t have a sword!’

  ‘Just remember,’ Rosalind murmured as she adjusted the sword-stick in her hand, ‘if you let that voice trick of yours stop, I’ll have five soldiers with real swords to deal with on my own. Keep going!’

  Giles groaned as he closed his eyes again. Cordelia was too busy making rapid calculations to say anything at all. If she turned into a bear … No – she would get shot by another arrow before she even finished lumbering down the hill. But if she stayed girl until she and her sister reached that final soldier, and shifted just before Rosalind could try to swordfight a grown man with that stupid stick …

  In one fluid movement, Rosalind leaped to her feet and threw the sword-stick. Cordelia jumped up, panic a wild rush within her—

  And saw the single remaining soldier crash to the ground, his sword falling uselessly from his hand. Rosalind’s heavy sword-stick rebounded and fell on to the grass nearby.

  Cordelia gaped at her sister.

  Rosalind gave her a ferocious grin. ‘You see? Handled. You two should finally learn to have faith in me! I keep telling you I’m good.’ Reaching down, she yanked their triplet to his feet. ‘Now, run!’

  They ran, skidding and stumbling all the way. The soldier ahead was starting to shake his head as he lay on his back, moaning and feeling for purchase on the ground beside him with his eyes still shut. Rosalind’s sword-stick lay on his opposite side. His own long metal sword glinted on the grass by his awkwardly bent legs.

  The wall of mist behind him glittered and sparkled in the sun as if it were filled with a million tiny diamonds.

  ‘That is definitely not natural,’ Giles panted.

  ‘We’ll get through it.’ Rosalind bared her teeth at the mist ahead as if it were just another enemy waiting to be bashed.

  ‘It’ll let us through,’ Cordelia promised.

  ‘Barred against anyone without magic or royal blood …’

  Cordelia might not know exactly whose blood she carried, but every one of the triplets had been born with some kind of magic … and that hook in her chest was reeling her tighter with every breathless moment.

  Raven’s Nest wanted them in its grip.

  It was waiting for them.

  ‘Hey!’ Between them and the mist, the fallen soldier had opened his eyes. He pushed himself up to his knees, letting out a low grunt of pain. ‘Hold!’ He clapped one hand to his side, groaning. ‘Your Highnesses, halt immediately!’

  Cordelia veered wide to the left of his big hunched figure.

  Ten more feet to go to that sparkling wall of mist … Eight …

  ‘They’re here!’ he bellowed, stumbling to his feet. ‘Sir Alina, they’re back here!’

  Footsteps thundered towards them from Cordelia’s other side. Men’s and women’s voices shouted threats and commands.

  Six more feet …

  ‘This is for your own good!’ The soldier scooped his sword from the grass. ‘I can’t let you three pass!’

  Lunging forward, he grabbed Giles’s closest arm with his free hand.

  Giles let out a cry of shock. His arm looked as thin and breakable as a twig in the man’s grip.

  Cordelia changed course to run straight at them, claws and fur readying for battle within her.

  ‘Leave him alone!’ Rosalind shouted. Her eyes flashed. She threw her right hand up into the air …

  And the big metal sword flew out of the soldier’s hand, knocking him backwards with the force of its release. Cordelia stopped, gaping.

  Rosalind too had finally found a way to make her own abandoned magic work with her true passion.

  Giles twisted free of the soldier’s loosened grip as the sword shot in a high, sweeping curve. Rosalind caught its pommel neatly in her outstretched hand and then ran forward to shoulder Giles towards the mist. ‘Go!’

  Their brother ran into the shimmering white wall and disappeared into it. Cordelia couldn’t even see his outline through the blinding sparkles.

  ‘Go now, Cordy!’ Rosalind spun around and dropped into a ready position, swinging her new sword in a wide, threatening curve as soldiers thundered towards them from both directions.

  Cordelia hesitated.

  ‘If you’ve ever loved me, you will find some faith in me!’ Rosalind gritted.

  Nine adult soldiers closed in a shrinking semicircle around her figure.

  Cordelia sucked in a frantic breath through her teeth. Then she turned and leaped into the mist.

  It closed around her in a chilling full-body embrace. Sparks shot through her veins and exploded through her scalp. Wings and claws and fur and scales all tried to burst out of her skin at once.

  Blindly, she stumbled forward through the choking, tingling wet air. White stretched endlessly before her. She couldn’t suck in any breath. Her skin burned with cold. Her teeth chattered wildly.

  She couldn’t even feel her feet any more. Cold prickled at her head, burrowing under her hair as if it were trying to peel her open … and then dissolve her into the surrounding mist.

  She knew that mist. She recognised it. It was the same powerful mist that had wrapped around her during Connall’s summoning, pulling her back against her will into her own body. It was a power even greater than her own family’s magic—

  And now, it was trying to take her over completely.

  As her head began to swim from lack of air, she shoved her mental walls back into place, using all the skills that she’d been building across her long journey.

  I am me, alone. I am Cordelia.

  I belong to myself. I will never be trapped again!

  The prickles disappeared from her scalp in a rush. The voices of the land emptied out of her head. With a sudden bright burst of energy, she surged forward, and the tips of her fingers poked through into open air.

  Long, strong fingers closed around them.

  Giles! It had to be.

  Thankfully, she allowed herself to be yanked through that final stretch of ancient, magical mist. The moment she broke through into the fresh air of the forest beyond, she fell forward, her head hanging by her knees. Her long hair trailed against the damp mossy ground as she sucked in impossibly noisy breaths. Free … I’m free!

  The land was whispering against her head again, but she gave a gasping half-laugh of relief as she realised just how muffled those voices had become. Her inner walls were well fortified after her battle through the mist. She couldn’t even make out the land’s words any more. Free.

  Cordelia clasped one knee for support with her left hand as she hung on to Giles’s surprisingly big hand, just beside her, for the reassurance of his warmth. Before her, just a few feet away, she glimpsed the tips of his familiar pointed shoes, dappled now with shifting shadows from the thick cluster of branches overhead …

  And pointing directly towards her.

  Wait.

  Giles wasn’t the one standing beside her after all.

  So who …?

  Dread swept in a cold rush up through her body.

  ‘Barred against anyone without magic or royal blood …’

  She’d been right: those soldiers couldn’t pass through the magical wall of mist. But she and her triplets weren’t the only ones who could.

  Slowly, painfully, Cordelia rose to her feet. She met Giles’s horrified gaze across the ach
ing feet of distance between them, and she swallowed hard. Her brother stood as still as if he’d been frozen, his freckles vivid against his chalk-white face like open wounds. Still not allowing herself to look around, Cordelia gave her right arm a sudden, hard jerk to pull free …

  But Lady Elianora’s grip on her hand only shifted to clamp tightly around her wrist.

  ‘What a pleasure it is to be reunited with my dear grandchildren.’ As Rosalind tumbled through the shimmering wall of mist to land, panting, on her knees by their feet, Lady Elianora’s lips curved into a smile of vicious satisfaction. ‘This time, I promise you, our little family visit will end very differently!’

  Cordelia shifted in an instant. Fur and muscles and sharp, predatory teeth—

  ‘Ah-ah-ah! I don’t think so.’ Magic shot through their linked arms in a piercing blast of cold. Gasping, Cordelia landed hard on her knees in her own true form. Lady Elianora shook her head down at her pityingly. Her grip was an iron clamp around Cordelia’s wrist. ‘You really thought I wouldn’t prepare for this encounter, after all that you revealed to me last time?’

  ‘All that you revealed …’

  A convulsive flinch ran down Cordelia’s spine. Her gaze flicked swiftly to Giles – still watching them with panicked blue eyes – and to Rosalind, who was pushing herself heavily to her feet with the long metal sword in her grasp.

  Behind them rose the sparkling wall of mist, their only protection against the waiting soldiers. Before them rose the trees that covered Mount Corve, all clothed in a mysterious and primeval dark green, their ancient trunks knotted and looming. No birds called in those powerful twisted branches, but Cordelia could feel hidden eyes fixed upon her and her family, silently watching their human catastrophe unfold in the shadowed, murky mountain air.

  ‘Oh, but how interesting,’ Lady Elianora murmured. ‘I find myself wondering: have you actually shared with your – siblings – all that you learned from me?’

  ‘Step away from our sister, Grandmother.’ Rosalind was still flushed and panting from her own trip through the mist, but she raised the heavy sword in a practised move and aimed it steadily at Lady Elianora. ‘Let Cordy go.’