A King Of Crows

by T L Drew

  ‘Yes, the rumours appear to be true.’ The King of Askavold’s voice quietened. ‘She makes her threats. Caeda vows to burn our lands into ashes unless she speaks with the King of Askavold, and I pray for an alliance, a chance at peace.’

  ‘I hope you get the alliance, though I guarantee it won’t be so easy.’ Jorgen said, his body beginning to tremble; he tried to conceal it from the eyes of Andor and his sister, but he could scarcely hide it. They could see the fear on his face, the guilt that came with it, the thoughts of what had happened to him that night racing back, as Jorgen thought about the girl he had last laid eyes upon when they were both fourteen-year-old children in desperate love, caught in the middle of a devastating war, a cursed girl and a mortal boy.

  Jorgen had spent six years searching for his wife before he accepted her likely death, and now that he knew where she was, and that she was very much alive, North Rock was the last place in which he wished to tread. He couldn’t think about Caeda now; he was in the middle of a war, due to marry another woman, desperate to take revenge for the father had had lost.

  ‘I’ll tell her that you’re alive, if that pleases you.’ Andor said, his eyes glossing over to Abigail, wondering if she knew what he knew. By the look on her face, he was certain she did. Jorgen had told Abigail much of what had happened, but not everything.

  Jorgen bit his bottom lip between his teeth. ‘She is definitely alive? I searched for her for nearly six years before I told myself she was dead. I gave up, and I found Nora.’

  ‘Caeda’s alive, and she’s ready for war.’ Andor was certain, although he did not show the western king the letter he had received from North Rock.

  ‘I thought as much.’ Jorgen said quietly, his thoughts trailing back to that night in the north, a night he so desperately tried to forget, but never quite could. ‘A rider from the south died in Solvstone not long before Hakon Grey came to our home. He died in the cells, plagued with a curse that I had only ever seen around Caeda – she can do terrible things, Andor. I have seen them, even back when we were young and when she could barely understand them, and although her heart is good, she has a fiery temper. If she so much as distrusts you, I fear she–’

  ‘–She’ll kill me? I’m sure she won’t hesitate.’

  ‘What she can do is worse than death. When you die at her hand, you won’t stay dead for long, and when you wake, you’re trapped between life and death, endless pain, unable to control your own body.’ Jorgen insisted, his gut twisting, remembering. ‘She was not born the same way as her brothers and sisters were. They can become all manner of things, but Caeda…she stays the same, but her curse is worse than any of theirs.’

  Andor’s lips turned into a smile, trying to hide his fear. ‘I am sure it won’t take me long to find out.’

  ‘Do you have a death warrant?’ Jorgen interjected, gazing down at the King of Askavold, his voice raising over the roaring winds across the flat field of white.

  ‘Of course he does.’ Abigail responded, her eyes dancing with anger and fear, dropping Jorgen’s hand and gazing into his black eyes. ‘I have begged him for weeks not to go – help me change his mind, brother.’

  ‘There is no changing my mind,’ Andor said surely, his eyes finding Jorgen’s black, marble eyes, ‘and yet I have not come to discuss my troubles in the north – I come because I need your help.’

  ‘I’m your friend, and I worry about you sailing to North Rock – if you wait, I could come with you – she would not harm you if I vouched for you.’ Jorgen urged, although the thought of sailing to the place that haunted his nightmares sent chills running through his broad body.

  ‘Wait for you to end a war that has barely begun?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jorgen’s said surely, his face growing evermore serious. ‘I won’t back down until your uncle is dead.’

  ‘It is what we all want.’ Abigail interjected.

  ‘Hakon’s death is the only thing that can make everything right.’ Andor agreed, scratching the beard upon his chin. ‘I was going to have him put on trial, believe me, I was, but I had to come to Caeda’s call, for the fate of my realm…and now this has happened, in my home. I need your help. I cannot turn back now.’ Andor took a crunching step forward in the crisp snow, his voice softening, his eyes on Jorgen. ‘In the meantime, I need your help, I’m begging you. I will continue my journey north; allow me to ride to Whitehold and apprehend the Thorn Maiden and several other of Hakon’s ships from the docks outside of his Hold. It will make my journey swifter, and I will be able to return to your aid. I swear to you that I will not attempt to take back Whitehold; as far as I am concerned, it’s yours. In the meantime, I urge you to ride further south – it should not take you long to reach the capital, and I cannot let Hakon and my wife keep it under their control. Margot murdered Emery Steel, so I heard. They hold Nazir captive–’

  ‘–They have Nazir?’ Jorgen said with fret on his tongue.

  ‘So I have been told.’

  ‘What do you ask of me?’ Jorgen asked. ‘I will do what I can.’

  ‘Take back my city from those who stole it from me. Free Nazir from his chains.’

  ‘You wish for me to attack the city?’

  ‘Yes,’ Andor said bluntly, his eyes more serious than Jorgen had ever seen them. ‘I need you to take my city back for me, and Hakon Grey is yours.’

  ‘Many people will die,’ Jorgen said with certainty, ‘and the one man who should be dead is still very much alive.’

  ‘We have to make sacrifices, for the greater good, and the greater good of this realm is for my uncle and my wife to die – I see that now.’ Andor said, his body trembling. ‘I urge you, storm the city, use your rings power…and kill my wife and my uncle, and rid the world of their cruelty once and for all.’

  GORAN

  Goran reminisced about his mother – she was someone he had yet to think of since he had arrived on Solitude Island, only thoughts of revenge and escape plaguing his every waking moment as his body was raked in pain from the top of his bleeding head to his bottom of his broken, purple toes. He could barely remember her face, her porcelain skin, her hair as black as ebony ore and the deep green of her eyes were the only things he could remember as he raked his brain for something, anything about her. The only clarity he had was the calming sound of her voice, when she used to sing him to sleep as a young boy…until the day she died on a cold winter’s morning, bloodcurdling screams bursting pass her lips before she had been killed. Murdered, by my brother, Goran Grey thought bitterly.

  The Prince of Askavold had only been two years of age when Andor Grey had been born, ripping his way into the world, slaughtering her in her bed. Every time he had gazed at his younger brother it reminded him of his mother, the way Andor had killed her, coming into the world. He had always hated him for it. Goran supposed it was irrational, but knowing that it was not truly Andor’s fault made him hate him no less; the self-proclaimed king had still butchered their father, and it was something the prince could never forgive. First his mother, then his beloved father had died because of Andor Grey.

  His thoughts ran wildly as the Askavold Prince followed the Master to his haunting castle of Demonhold through the vast, deep green forests with the smell of fresh pine shrouding him with apprehension; everything felt like a dream, or a nightmare, that he could barely wake from. His mind was clouded and blurry, like he was drunk, as the giant man with golden skin – and wearing a mask crafted from human flesh – led him to the entrance of the ebony spiralling tower, without words.

  ‘Please let their words be true,’ the prince prayed under his breath as he thought about the Master’s words, agreeing to sail south with him, to take back what was his. Goran Grey had earned the right to not be so trusting of the white-eyed men. However, they were true to their word; they fed him until he could eat no more, gifted him with fresh water, and had new clothes ready for him once he had been washed and his wounds tended to; even still, it did not ease his tension, and held onto the
ring on his finger for dear life. He would not let them know it was the ring that gave him power – he feared they would just betray him and try to take it for themselves.

  For the first time since Goran had stepped onto Solitude soul, he was warm. Too warm. He decided to pray to his gods for the first time since he had sailed to the haunting island as he lowered his battered body into the hot, steaming water and felt the sting of the scolding bath burn at his open wounds and turn his skin from a pale white to a fleshy pink. He did not take the ring off of his finger as he gazed around the dark room, lit only by the dim light of the burning ebony lanterns. He noticed the rough black walls held endless rows of golden tapestries, each telling a different tale, from when mankind first came to Askavold and took the Afterling’s lands, to when the foreign men met them in war centuries before, when the cursed men forced the survivors to Solitude Island, where they were forbidden to leave, and finally, on the last gold and black tapestry was a dark time for the late Askavold King, when King Kodran began to send slaves into the arms of the Afterling, to use the Afterling and the new era of slavery for his own gain, sending all those who would have died on the headsman’s block into a worse fate. Despite the kingdom’s uproar and sudden tension with the western lands of Balfold, Goran was proud, for a fourteen-year-old boy who barely understood; now he knew all too well what Kodran’s choices meant and how many people had to suffer for it.

  The depiction of Goran’s late father appeared to resemble nothing of what the old king had looked like the last time he laid eyes upon King Kodran; he was thinner then, a decade younger and fit for battle, his rounded face seemingly gaunter and void of his grey whiskers. There was more colour in his eyes. Goran remembered fighting with his father in the Great War; it was a memory that filled him with fear and warmth at the same time. His first and only battle, how he idolised his father as the late king swung his giant battle-axe at the men and women who could do inhuman things. Since his father had won and taken the capital and the crown, the pleasures of becoming king and taken a toll; he had grown fatter, lazier and unkempt, filling himself with feasts of food and rich wines. All the king’s problems were sent away, farther than the eye could see, to Solitude, and as his problems were out of sight for the people of Askavold, they were out of mind. Although it had brought a decade of peace, Goran was starting to question whether peace was worth the suffering on Solitude.

  His thoughts haunted him as he gazed at the tapestries. The prince grimaced as he gradually lowered himself deeper and deeper into the boiling bath water until his shoulders were entirely submerged, trying to think of anything but his father, his mother, and the brother who killed them. The bath was not fragranced with oils like he was used to back in the Stone Keep; no sweet smells filled his nostrils, only the disgusting scent of his own filth as it was washed from his body. Two large Afterling women sat ungracefully behind the deep bath on the solid slate floor of the dark room, eyes as white as the rest of the exiled beings and clothed in a rich golden silk. With rags in their hands, they dripped them into the hot water and placed the hot clothes upon Goran’s open, sore wounds, washing away the dried blood and grime that stuck to his battered body like a parasite. His own shrieks of pain echoed through the room with each contact the fabric made against his deep lesions, burning, scratching sensations with each touch. They washed the dirt and blood from his back where dozens of lashes plagued him, although they healed faster than most with the ring on his finger.

  ‘Stop moving, m’lord,’ one of the women shrieked over Goran’s own cries of agony. He didn’t stop as the pain rushed through his body to the core.

  ‘King,’ he corrected through gritted teeth. ‘I’m the rightful king.’

  He thought about the throne – it was the strangest thing to miss from the Stone Keep, but it he did miss it. He missed the way his father would sit slumped on the throne of bones, a sign of his victories, and a sign of his power. There had been outrage at the time, even from those who had fought for Kodran in the Great War, but Goran had always been fond of the old chair, and as a boy dreamed of the day he would sit on it, the bones of those his father had defeated. Although at the time, it was hard for the boy to admit to himself that the only time he would become king would be with the death of his beloved father. He wondered if Andor had dismantled it, knowing his brother’s dismay for the throne crafted from the dead.

  The women broke his thoughts as they scoured the rest of his broken body for wounds and painfully cleaned the dry blood from them. He was dressed in fine golden silk around his hips and golden sandals to cover his blistered feet. Thankfully he was accustomed to the cold as his torso remained void of the comfort of warm furs and tunics. They did what they could to make him look like them, although in comparison, he stood out amongst the Afterling, a man among giants. His skin was icy white where their skin was golden. He was at least a foot smaller than most, even the young women. His first day on Solitude as a free man brought a new kind of discomfort.

  It was the first of many days of freedom upon Solitude Island. The Master ordered a fleet to be built off of the docks of Thiesal – and suddenly all Goran had dreamed of since his arrival on the haunting island started to become a reality, but he knew, as did the Master, they had little less than a month to leave the island before the king’s army came for them.

  More days passed Goran by. He had been gifted his own golden blade, if the time came that the king’s army arrived on the island and they were still without their ships. The progress of the fleet was slow as slaves died crafting them. Goran was given a room Demonhold, laced with more golden silks and fine furs on his bed, as well as a woman to warm it. Goran had found sweet solace in the white-eyed girl who shared his bed. The Master had given her to him as a gift, to pass the time until the fleet was ready, even as progress was slower and slower by the day. She didn’t have a collar around her slender neck. Her hair was as black as Margot’s and her body was slender but curved like a bottle of wine. He hadn’t asked the girl her name; she was the girl he came to at night when he was tired and desperate to leave Solitude, who would make him forget his troubles, even if it was only for a night. Although her eyes haunted him and she barely spoke words, the Afterling girl brought Goran comfort that no other had brought since his arrival on Solitude Island.

  As days passed him by, he felt as though Solitude was becoming more than the island where he had been subjected to a wicked life of slavery and unimaginable torture.

  In the few weeks he had spent in the cruel company of the Afterling hordes, being treated as one of their own – and often better – the Prince of Askavold found himself learning a great deal about the white-eyed men he had once thought nothing of but savage slavers, knowledge which more than once forced Goran to reconsider allowing the Afterling freedom across the six kingdoms, should he succeed. Although Goran had heard hundreds of tales of the freakish hordes before his arrival on Solitude, no fable had quite grasped the truth, as Goran had heard as he sat with the highest ranking Afterling chiefs around the fires in the Demonhold. Tales of the first Afterling, who had been spread across the six kingdoms of Askavold and the two kingdoms of Balfold before the arrival of Goran’s ancestors and the first cursed men upon Askavold soil haunted him; tales of the tribes who came first from the northern sands, men and women who ate their own young for initiation, and brutality that not even Goran had experienced on Solitude. The tales sickened him to his stomach – and he sudden realised that his life on Solitude Island during his slavery was nothing compared to what the Afterling had done before the first cursed men had isolated them on one island, where their evil could not spread to the rest of the world.

  ‘These lands truly belong to our kind,’ the Master told him as they sat in the fiery circle, the night’s sky looming over Demonhold with thousands of stars shining, ‘and you will give our lands back to us.’ The Master’s white eyes narrowed. ‘You are not Afterling, but you will be the Afterling King, in exchange for our freedom, for our way of life
to be what it once was.’

  Afterling King, Goran thought with a chill running down his spine, exposed to the wintry chill. He scarcely thought about what a world with the freedom of the Afterling would be like – he didn’t want to think about it, he didn’t want to think about the horrors that they would inflict upon the world, those they would butcher and consume, those they would torture for sport, those they would enslave as he had been enslaved – but still, Goran Grey found himself consumed by more dominant thoughts of revenge, and taking back the kingdom that had been stolen from him The dream of his brother’s spilt blood dominated his every thought, and became his every desire.

  Goran found himself slipping slowly into the Afterling way of life, becoming one with the men who had once tormented and tortured him. As time passed, he found himself forgetting what they had done to him, what they continued to do to others on the island with their golden whips and inhuman instruments of unimaginable torture, and of all the tales he had been told. He hunted with them and ate with them, whatever food they placed in front of him, and dared not to ask where the meat on his plate came from. The more he ate, and the more time that passed, the more he didn’t think of it, becoming like they were, becoming almost savage. After several weeks, the thoughts barely crossed Goran’s mind – it’s just food, he thought, just food. He even watched one night as a slave was still alive as they butchered him for meat. Afterling children watched as though it was a show, laughing and pointing as the man screamed in unimaginable agony, hacking and sliced with cleavers and knives.