The Raven Heir

by Stephanie Burgis

  White clouds of mist snapped apart, leaving Cordelia reeling. Her breath was a burning bellows in her chest. Panting, she blinked and blinked again …

  And found both of her triplets standing with her on the high slopes of Mount Corve, with all her own horror reflected in their faces.

  The past and the present blurred in all their eyes …

  And a broken silver crown, engraved with starflowers, lay in three pieces on the grass between them.

  Giles moistened his lips with his tongue and swallowed, his face bone-white. ‘No wonder,’ he whispered, ‘you didn’t want to tell us. You really were trying to protect us.’ His lips stretched into a painfully false smile. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, Cor—Your Majesty. I’ll just—’

  ‘No!’ Even Cordelia was startled by the force of her own panicked bellow.

  It was too much. Everything was too much. She’d spent her life trying to find out her family’s deepest secrets, but none of the pieces of the past made any sense as they whirled around her now. The unmistakable feeling of her brother’s retreat was enough to tear away her last anchor.

  ‘It’s not right,’ she said. ‘It can’t be right! I’m not the Raven Heir.’

  Even Lady Elianora hadn’t believed that. She’d been more than ready to put Giles or Rosalind on the throne.

  No one would ever want to offer Cordelia a crown … least of all herself.

  ‘But you are. Of course you are!’ Giles’s lips twisted. ‘How could I not have seen it before? You weren’t talking to Mother or Connall after all. You’ve been talking to the land all along, haven’t you? That’s how you knew what was happening in our forest – and it was the land that healed you too.’

  ‘So maybe I was the one who started out as an animal! That’s what you two always called me, remember? Everyone knows I’m wild and feral. I’m just—’

  ‘You’re tied to the land. You always have been.’ Rosalind shook her head slowly, her eyes shuttered and impossible to read. ‘That’s why Mother –’ she bit her lip, then forged onwards – ‘I mean, why the Duchess could never keep you inside our castle. The land was calling to you all along … Your Majesty.’

  Lowering her head, Rosalind dropped heavily to one knee on the grass and placed her sword before her in submission.

  ‘No!’ Half sobbing, Cordelia lunged forward to drag her sister upright. ‘Don’t do that!’

  ‘Why not?’ Giles’s tone was terrifyingly empty. ‘We’re only your loyal subjects. What else can we be?’

  She could see him preparing to turn and walk away. She knew him. She knew them both to her very core.

  How could she ever have doubted their true relationship?

  ‘Lady Elianora told me I wasn’t your real sister,’ she said, ‘but I should have known better than to believe her. She’s never understood what family means! You were right before when you told her it doesn’t matter how we first came together. Our father told Connall the same thing – and I should have understood it from the beginning. Real family is about love and loyalty, not blood!’

  ‘But why didn’t Grandm—I mean, Lady Elianora tell us Mother was only carrying one child when she first ran to the woods?’ Rosalind tugged free of Cordelia’s grip to clutch her sword with both hands. ‘If she could tell that Mother wasn’t really carrying triplets, couldn’t she tell there was only one baby, not two?’

  ‘I know the answer to that question.’ Giles’s voice was dry and bitter. ‘She said it herself, didn’t she, Ros? You and I were the ones who were foolish enough to trust her. Cordy sensed the truth from the beginning – so Lady Elianora knew the two of us would be easier for her to manage once she got one of us on to the throne. She didn’t care which of us was her real grandchild.’

  ‘She said she knew Mother’s magic as well as her own.’ Cordelia’s chest twisted at the unhidden pain on her brother’s face. ‘When she saw all three of us together, she must have guessed that Mother had cast a spell like that as a ruse.’

  ‘But then why didn’t Mother – the Duchess – bother to use it?’ A fierce sob choked Rosalind’s voice. ‘If she was never really our mother all along – if she only brought in me and Giles to give you cover whenever the soldiers finally made it past all her spells … then why wouldn’t she let me fight by her side, in the end? Why would she even care whether I was hurt?’

  ‘Maybe she had another plan by then. Nothing else had changed, had it?’ Giles’s lips curved in an unhappy twist. ‘We were still the two spares that she planned to give up to keep her real child safe.’ He exchanged a long look with Rosalind over Cordelia’s shoulder. ‘If real family is about love and loyalty … then I think we all know where we stand now. Don’t we?’

  Panic spiralled in Cordelia’s gut.

  She could lose them both right now. She could feel the connection that had held her steady all her life just waiting to snap.

  ‘She didn’t give you up, though. She told all of us to run. She said that she loved us all.’ Cordelia fixed her gaze on Giles’s ashen face, willing him to listen. ‘There has to be more to it than we saw.’

  He shook his head, looking unbearably weary. ‘Who knows? We can’t ask her about any of it now – and she never answered any of our questions anyway. But we all heard what she said in the beginning, and there’s nothing that you can say now to change it.’

  He was right: words had never been Cordelia’s speciality. Those belonged to Giles, as fighting did to Rosalind. All that Cordelia had was her own inherent wildness. Her connection to the land.

  … The connection that the other two had gifted her when their spirits had fused with hers. That was why the magic she’d inherited from Mother hadn’t turned into ordinary sorcery, as it had for all her siblings. Instead, it had fused with the first natures of her triplets. She’d given her inherited human sorcery to them, and they’d shaped her nature in return, giving her the gift of their wildness.

  They were just like the pieces of the broken land itself. Each of them held their own singular powers, but they would always be strongest when they worked together.

  Desperation gave her strength. She grabbed their hands and refused to let go when they both tried to pull away.

  ‘Make a circle,’ she snapped. ‘All in one. Exactly like those first founding magics wanted.’

  She’d told them earlier that she couldn’t reach out to Mother. It had been the truth, as far as she had known at that point. She didn’t have the power to cast summonings, not like Connall.

  But she had let the land in now. She had accepted its claim.

  Together, she and her triplets formed all three parts of the triad that it needed.

  Heart – that was Giles, and it always had been: the open, overflowing heart of the whole family, breaking now before her eyes. She had to fix it.

  Protection? That part could never be in any doubt. Rosalind set down her sword reluctantly to take Giles’s free hand in hers. She squared her broad shoulders in visible preparation for any battle ahead.

  Spirit … Cordelia took a breath and flung herself wide open.

  Power rocked through her like the wildest of storms. She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped her triplets’ hands hard to stay upright on the rough mountain path as ancient green magic filled her to overflowing.

  Overwhelming. Terrifying. Incredible. The feeling made her head spin and her body shake like a tree caught in high winds.

  We’re all here, she told the land. I’m yours, just as you wanted. Now show her to us! I know you can.

  Giles’s hand tightened around hers as Cordelia shook with the power that raged through her body, like a willow tree whipped back and forth by a storm. Rosalind let out a harsh breath and shoved one strong, bracing shoulder against Cordelia’s side to keep her from toppling.

  Green and blue snapped into place and filled Cordelia’s vision as her mind’s eye hurtled through the miles. Blue sky ahead and a green landscape below.

  That landscape moved faster and faster, b
lurring with speed as all three children flew high above it. They passed sprawling army camps, hopelessly burning fields, and groups of refugees streaming down the long roads. Finally, in her mind’s eye, they swooped over a set of strong stone walls into a dirty, crowded city with a sprawling castle at its centre. Bear and wolf flags flew from its ramparts. Armed guards marched threateningly along its square towers – but none of them seemed to glimpse any of the three children who soared through the air towards them.

  Cordelia’s feet were still planted on Mount Corve. She felt her triplets’ solid hands in hers, anchoring her as always. But behind her closed eyelids, she was swept through the air, and Giles and Rosalind flew invisibly beside her until they finally came to a halt, peering down together through the high tower window where the land had brought them.

  It was a tiny arched opening without any glass, laced with brutal iron bars. It looked down into a suffocatingly small rectangular room, where a familiar figure paced the stone floor like a wild animal trapped inside a cage.

  Mother’s hair must have fallen out of its plait long ago. It whirled around her now in a wild, tangled cloud as she spun to stare upward with bloodshot dark eyes. ‘Who’s watching me this time?’ she snapped. ‘Mother? Is that you again? I’ve told you, your tricks don’t work on me any more.’

  A spark of gold glinted around her neck, half hidden beneath her hair. Mother had never worn necklaces before. Why would her captors give her jewellery?

  That isn’t jewellery. Cordelia sucked in her breath, squeezing down hard on her triplets’ hands. That was a collar pinching tightly around Mother’s neck – the collar that Connall had mentioned in his summoning.

  Air hissed furiously through Rosalind’s teeth.

  ‘So that’s how they stopped her reaching out to us.’ Giles’s voice was low and sad.

  Cordelia could sense it too: the sickly burning pulse of that tight collar as it held Mother’s magic trapped, helpless within her body. No wonder she looked so drawn and sick.

  It was more than wrong to see Mother without her power. It was wicked.

  But that collar couldn’t keep her body still. Mother lunged forward, eyes widening and hands flying up to clench the stone wall below the window. ‘Giles? Is that you?’ she asked hoarsely.

  For once, Giles didn’t utter a single word. Cordelia couldn’t see him in her vision, but she could hear him – and his quick breaths sounded jagged. Broken.

  She said as steadily as she could, ‘It’s all of us. And, Mother …’ She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘We know.’

  ‘Cordelia?’ Mother’s eyes narrowed as she rose on tiptoes to reach higher towards the barred window, still hopelessly far out of her reach. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘We know why you never answered any of our questions about the past,’ Cordelia said quietly. ‘We saw it all: how Giles and Rosalind first came to us … and what you planned to do to them.’

  Mother’s jaw dropped open. She stumbled backwards, her hands falling to her sides. ‘Cordelia, I … Children …’

  Head bowing, she reached out one trembling hand to balance herself against the curving stone wall. Mother had always been a pillar of strength – fierce and sure and infuriatingly immovable. Now, she looked years older and suddenly horribly uncertain.

  ‘Have you even been eating?’ Giles’s voice shook on the words. ‘Or have they been starving you in there?’

  Mother was thinner than she had been, Cordelia realised. It was part of what made her look so frail and breakable.

  She shook her head without looking up. ‘I’ve eaten,’ she said dully. ‘I have to make myself eat to stay strong.’

  ‘Strong for what?’ There were tears choking Rosalind’s voice now. ‘You’re a prisoner. They’ve trapped your magic. What can you do any more?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Mother’s head swung up, her gaze ferocious even as tears sparkled like fallen stars in her dark eyes. ‘I have to stay strong so I can escape and find all of you! I need to get free to protect you.’

  ‘You mean you need to protect Connall and Cordelia,’ Giles muttered.

  ‘Giles!’ Impatience rang in her voice as she dashed one dirty hand over her eyes. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘I’m just telling the truth!’ Of all the triplets, Giles had always had the easiest relationship with their mother. He’d never entered into any of the blazing rows that had flared between her and Cordelia; never complained as Rosalind had whenever she couldn’t get the weapons that she’d wanted for her training. Now, Cordelia heard true heartbreak in the unfamiliar rage that suffused his voice. ‘You don’t need to pretend any more. Ros and I know that we’re not your real children. You never cared about us at all.’

  ‘Don’t you dare say that!’ Mother straightened away from the wall, eyes flashing. ‘That’s a lie, and you know it.’

  ‘We heard you say it,’ Giles said, ‘in Cordy’s vision.’

  ‘We saw and we heard,’ Rosalind added.

  ‘Wait,’ Cordelia breathed. ‘Wait.’ They had all heard what Mother had said. But … ‘We heard what Alys said too. Remember? She said it didn’t matter how you two started: that you were Mother’s children from then onwards. Just as Connall was Father’s too.’

  How could it possibly be any different? All three triplets had slept curled together from the first night she’d been born. They’d shared the same air. They’d grown in each other’s light.

  They were family in every possible way.

  ‘Well, your mother said that that couldn’t matter,’ Giles snarled back at Cordelia. ‘She said she’d have to sacrifice the two of us anyway.’

  ‘I was wrong!’

  Mother’s words were so unexpected that all three of them fell silent in pure shock.

  Mother never admitted to any mistakes. She never gave up on any argument, no matter how small.

  Now she said bitterly, ‘I was a fool. Alys knew better from the very beginning. She let me do what I had to when I was mad with grief and fear, but she understood the truth even before I did.’ She shook her head, face drawn and haggard. ‘I think you – all of you – were less than a week old when I realised exactly what an idiot I’d been. To nurse a child with my own milk – rock them to sleep in my arms – and then leave them to their death?’

  She shook her head sharply in dismissal. ‘I would have cut off my own limbs before I let any of you be hurt, even back then, when I scarcely knew you. Now that I’ve raised you –’ she gave a harsh, broken laugh – ‘have I ever given you any reason to believe I cared less about any of you? All four of you, with Connall, are my heart. You are my reason for everything I do! I could never sacrifice any of my children, no matter what the cause.’

  ‘But your mother could,’ Cordelia said. ‘Couldn’t she?’

  Their mother’s face tightened. Her words ground out through clenched teeth. ‘My mother knows nothing of family. I only learned what it meant when Connall was born – and your father taught me the rest when he embraced Connall as his own. I fled to the forest instead of staying to fight because I wouldn’t let my true family be twisted as my first family had been. As so many families have been twisted by that blood-soaked throne over the years! Everything that I’ve done since then has been designed to keep all four of my children safe. That’s why I never told any of you the truth. How could I bear to hurt any of you like that?’

  So many families … Cordelia thought of Alys and the bear-duke brother who had cast her off so completely. ‘I have no sister …’

  As long as the Raven Crown stayed broken, more and more families would tear themselves apart through their terrible battles for the throne … and the land would break more and more grievously every time.

  ‘No one is going to hurt any more of my children,’ said their mother fiercely. ‘I’d happily give up anything to keep you all safe. I’d do anything to free Connall. I’d be a prisoner for all my life if it would help! Just stay together now, please. Protect each other!
And run as far as possible from that terrible throne. Even if you can never forgive me, at least promise me that you’ll do that.’

  ‘I … Oh, you know we love you too, Mother.’ Giles’s voice was muffled with tears. He sniffed hard, forcing them back. ‘You should have told us everything. You should have trusted us to understand! I’m going to be angry at you for a really long time about that. But … we do love you too. Of course we do.’

  Rosalind gave a choked snort of agreement.

  Cordelia said firmly, ‘We all love you. But we still won’t make that promise.’

  ‘What?’ Their mother stared wildly around the air, following the sound of Cordelia’s voice and grabbing out, uselessly, with one hand. ‘Cordelia, don’t you dare consider even for a single instant—’

  The vision vanished with a snap as Cordelia let it go.

  ‘Real families don’t abandon each other,’ she told her stunned-looking, tear-streaked triplets on the shadowy slope of Mount Corve, where the deepest and most dangerous secrets had finally come out into the light, ‘and our family hasn’t broken after all.’ She squeezed their hands tightly in hers. ‘So it’s time to save the others and make things right. Together.’

  On her own, Cordelia would have had to beg the land to lead her, listening for directions with every step she took. Having her triplets by her side made everything so much easier. While she had trotted in horse form across the kingdom, keeping her focus on the mountains, and Rosalind had stayed alert to human threats, Giles had apparently drawn maps in his head and taken amazingly detailed mental notes of everything they’d passed.

  ‘I recognised the city where Mother’s being held,’ he told them as they walked back down Mount Corve, ducking under twisted overhanging branches and avoiding brambles. ‘It’s only two days from here, but that army wasn’t camped outside the walls when we passed it two days ago.’

  Rosalind scowled consideringly as she pushed another branch out of her way. ‘Those flags in the army camp around it – they were boars, badgers and falcons, weren’t they? So, the Duchess of Solenne and her allies are gathered there, trying to take the city for their own heir.’