by E Hall
The kid wriggles loose and scampers off, yelling obscenities when he’s safely away.
“Forgot to mention, in Raven’s Landing, watch your pockets. Lots of young thieves. They look innocent enough but are brutal. We call them tealeaf skimmers or just skimmers for short.”
“Were you one of them?” I ask with a wry smile.
“Most would argue that I still am,” he answers darkly. “Though perhaps to different ends.”
Figures a Peace Officer would align with a common criminal. Then again, according to him, the king is the felon. I don’t know who to trust and will have to find out for myself.
My mother commended me for being resourceful and determined, capable and clever. She also said I was stubborn and loyal. If any of that could help me out now, I’d be thankful. Another hairline fracture slices through my heart at the thought of losing her. I press my fists into my eyes as I race to match the Viking's stride. We duck down narrow lanes, taking a wide arc around the castle.
“Where are we going?” I ask as vendors open their stalls, placing everything from well-used household items on display to finely crafted pieces of jewelry, leather pouches, and hand-thrown cups and bowls.
He lifts a plank in front of a vacant weather-beaten stall and produces a long fishing rod with a line attached to it. If the fish here are anything like the people and buildings, we might remain hungry.
“The silver king never comes down to the market or Docks otherwise he’d have everything you see here thrown into the ashpit. All that hard work. Poof,” he says, ballooning his hands. “Leith doesn’t appreciate enterprise unless it directly benefits him. Ow.” He flinches and then mumbles, “The price for running my mouth.” He draws a deep breath and then goes on, “The patrol let the shopkeepers and merchants get away with it because, well, they were all like us once.”
“If the silver king is so bad how does he have followers?”
“If a man has the option of becoming one of his soldiers, he’ll pick that over turning to stijl and becoming a dowsy, living in squalor, and wondering where the next meal will come from…”
“That’s terrible.”
His eyes glint darkly. “That’s not even the whole of it,” he mutters. “But there are a few of us rebels left, thankfully. But only a few.”
“Then I take it you weren’t among the king’s men?” I ask.
I catch a scowl on his lips as the sun glints off the dirty glass and dirtier stones and bricks. Our shadows follow us along the street as it turns into rutted, cobbled stone with patches of mud and puddles running between the low spots.
“Hey, Blackthorne!” someone calls over the rush of waves crashing against the rocky shore and the labored bustle of pedestrians, workers, and shopkeepers. “Blackthorne,” the call comes again. “Hey!”
He stiffens but doesn’t slow. I match his pace until a figure in rags throws herself at him, practically bouncing off his mass like a pebble. “Blackthorne,” a woman gurgles as she brings a thin glass bottle to chapped lips.
The Viking stops. “What business do you have with me?”
“Scriv told me to find you,” Her plea stalls. “I have to get out of here.”
According to the message from the demon and confirmed by my mother, we all do. War is on the way.
“Good idea,” he says dismissively. “And good luck.”
“Can’t you help? Scriv said—” A tattered shirt reveals the thin plate of her chest. Her breath wheezes as she continues to plead.
He scoffs. “Scriv is as honest as a mullocker.”
“It’ll be the ashpit next for me. I’d rather—” she starts.
“You’d probably rather not starve to death in the wilds and that’s the only place I know to get out of here alive, at least temporarily, but unless you have a map or a guide, you’ll only get as far as the Silver Strand.”
“Can’t you lead me?”
He shakes his head. “You’re better off getting on a boat and sailing far from here.”
“The boats are at the bottom of the sea,” the woman says with a rattling cough.
“Then build one.” Soren shakes his head, annoyed.
The stick woman snorts. “Build a boat?” The bottle meets her lips again in what appears to be a thoughtless gesture. “My husband was a shipwright. Then demon. Now dead. Building a boat is as likely as flying away on a raven’s back,” she slurs.
“Sail, fly, do what you must. There is no man or map that I know of that can help you.” He pauses, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck.
The words echo. But what about a woman? I don’t know how I can help but only that I must. The message buried in my pocket floats into my mind.
As though reading my thoughts, the Viking seems to soften. “I’m sorry,” he says to the woman. He reaches into his coat and passes the woman a burnished coin.
She stares at the coin and then at him before whispering, “Thank you. Your kindness won’t be forgotten.”
“Yeah. Right. Just don’t call me Blackthorne.”
We’re both silent until we reach the breakwater at what he called Battersea. His step hitches as we pass a row of slender cottages lined up like sticks. Their cheerful paint is chipped away by the salt and faded by the sun. No lamps burn in the windows.
The Viking strides across the black sand shoal and we clamber over rocks to the end where the broken, crumbling walls of a cylindrical structure remain.
Over the waves slapping the rock jetty he says, “That’s the old lighthouse. A beacon. It used to guide the ships into the harbor of Raven’s Landing. The great raven empire.” The wind speeds over the water, blowing his long hair away from his face.
We round to the other side of the crumbling beacon. He sits down, staring out to sea before turning to me. His voice is softer when he says, “I come here sometimes to imagine what’s beyond.”
“And you go to the hills on the other side to—?”
“To imagine what’s beyond.”
“Having just been there. I can tell you. There’s nothing but ice and water and frigid air.”
He works his lip. “But that’s not the direction of any known portal.”
“The what now?” I ask.
“The portal between realms. If you came across the ice, how did you get here?”
Surely, he can’t be expecting an answer because I only recently came to know where here is. Then again, I’ve never seen the Northlands or Raven’s Landing on a map. If there’s a portal, maybe I can get home.
“What’s that way—?” I say, pointing to the rolling waves.
“You heard. No boats. All of them were destroyed, set aflame, or sunk—and the stories go that the few people who’ve tried to swim or otherwise float past the breakwater drown and not because they’re unskilled mariners.” He casts a wary eye over his shoulder toward the castle.
“Why did that woman call you Blackthorne?” I ask when I really want to say and why did you tell her not to?
“It means you don’t want to be associated with me if you want to live long,” he says in a tone that suggests there was once an amused lilt to his voice.
Chapter 6
Soren
Her otherworldly eyes slide over me. “What’s your name then? What should I call you besides Viking?”
A vision of her naming me sweetly skips across the surface of my mind. I knock it loose like an irksome fly and opt for the obvious. “You can call me Soren.”
“Not Blackthorne?” she asks. “Why?”
I resist the reflexive urge to throw a punch. Not at her. I hate what the word suggests. It’s like faetcher for the fae. Derogatory. Meant to hurt.
“Because my mother died during childbirth. Because King Torsuld disappeared. Because the silver king came into power. Because of the Grievous Fires that swept through the townships.”
Her expression riffles through questions and curiosity.
“After the fire destroyed nearly everything in its path, there was little in the wa
y of establishing my identity. My father and I didn’t even look alike. There was no way to prove I was his—” I draw a steadying breath against the bitterness of my status. “There was no way to prove that my mother was my mother because she was gone. I was lumped into the undesirable category. Under the silver king’s reign, if you’re not him, you’re guilty of something: treason being at the top of the list. He’s punished poets, healers, craftspeople, laborers, orphans, all for,” I throw my hands into the air, “existing.”
Her mouth forms a downturned crescent as she tries to understand this.
“If I had better sense, I’d tell you to make your own way because every day I have to ask is it worth it?” I rake my hand through my hair.
“Does that mean you’re willing to help me?” she asks.
I don’t answer.
“My mother used to always say that we have to stick together like the snow, ‘the closer we are, the stronger we become.’” Her face falls slack with sadness.
My response is a hesitant whisper, “I hope that’s true for us someday too, united, but as it is, we’re worse than divided.”
“But king—”
I hold my hand up for her to stop, shaking my head furiously as I anticipate the burn of ink on my skin. “Never speak his name. I’ve already said too much. The silver king is exceedingly skilled at picking out the words spoken by the disloyal.” My voice is rougher than I mean it to be.
“But I’m not loyal to him,” she responds sharply. “I told you. I’m from New York, New York, USA. We have a mayor and a governor and a president. Listen, I don’t know why or how I’m here, but only know that I’m supposed to do something to save the realm.”
“Help is futile.” I lower my voice to a whisper and lean closer to her, breathing in her fresh wintery scent. “Up there in the hills and out here on the breakwater, our thoughts are nearly our own, but not entirely. Best be careful.”
“They’re always your own,” she counters with ice in her voice.
I shake my head. “Sadly, no. Not in Raven’s Landing. Your words aren’t free.”
She gets to her feet. “I don’t accept that.”
“It’s not a choice.”
Her eyes flash cold this time, the glitter beneath them fearsome rather than lovely. “What does the Shadow Army mean to you because it sounds pretty nasty.”
I actually do a double-take. “What did you say?” This time the force of my words seems to shake her.
She drops to sit and leans close. “I got a note from this demon dude. Believe me, I’ve seen enough madness in my city with the demons running amok to know that they’re bad news.” She tells me about the note she received that her mother confirmed while she was in a strange, cold, and icy place.
She pulls a slip of paper from her pocket. The written word is a rare sight in Raven’s Landing. “Tell me what you make of this. ‘Demons shadow thieve, while the fae court grieve. Four sisters to find. One compass to bind. Four crowns to take. One curse to break. Before twelve moons turn, else the realm will burn.’”
Chills work their way across my skin. “The demons steal fae shadows. There used to be numerous fae courts, but they were either disbanded and destroyed or went underground after the Wicked War. Twelve moons equal a year,” I say. Simple enough.
“The compass? The curse?”
“The ink curse probably,” I say.
“But you said that the wolf shifters were also cursed. I can’t believe I just said that like it’s normal.”
I ignore the jittering in my leg over the rumors I’ve heard slipping between the narrow buildings in Raven’s Landing about a Shadow Army. But I cannot ignore the weight of history.
“Have you ever heard of the Wicked War?” I ask.
“World War?”
I shake my head. “No, the Wicked War. Led by Count Anton Bortimal. He was bent on separating the fae from their shadows. Dirty business. The Borea realm had been rid of him, but if there’s a Shadow Army in the making, maybe someone is out to finish what the count started.”
“Can’t something be done about it? Like, talk to your military or—?”
“We’ve tried to change things, trust me. There are only the king and his guards.”
“I take it they’re not the good guys.” Her shoulders rise and fall as though with defeat.
“What should I call you?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“You can’t tell me your name?” My eyes widen. It sounds like a fae thing to me. “Can I guess?”
She snorts a laugh. “Good luck.”
I cast my fishing line into the water and my mood loosens with the prospect of a meal. “I’m not sure what I think of luck,” I mutter. “Okay, how about Astrid?”
“Nope. Cold.”
“Erika?”
“Colder.” She shakes her head.
“Let me think. You seem like you could be called Sylvi?”
“Not even slightly warm. Even if you guess, I won’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother said not to ever tell anyone my name.”
Then she must be fae because of the true name law. Their names are secret and using them can leave them vulnerable to grim mage magic. I feel a tug on the fishing line and pull it in.
She snorts a laugh. “You can stop trying to guess though. My friends call me Kiki.”
“Are we friends?” I ask.
She raises an eyebrow. “Now, tell me what I need to know about Raven’s Landing and its ruler.”
“Rumor has it he’s a vampire. Never seen in daylight.”
She laughs like I’m joking around.
“There’s not much I want to risk saying about Leith, but there’s also not much known.” I put the striddly in my bag and send the fishing line out to sea before wedging it under a rock and turn to the remaining wall of the beacon. The midday sun illuminates the remnants of what was once a mural.
Kiki brushes her fingers against the outlines of the ravens. “Is this black bird a raven?”
I nod. “They were the symbol of Raven’s Landing. There are many stories about ravens, but the one I remember best is about a pair of them. Thought and Desire. Mind and heart. Knowledge and love. They carried messages between the old king, called the golden king, Torsuld, and the rest of the world, ensuring peace among the four kingdoms—North, South, East, and West.” I pause, recalling Dad slipping into the sea at the end of the breakwater. He was loyal to Torsuld through and through. I push against the fight in my chest. “Supposedly the golden raven protects the fae but I guess it can’t come inside these walls. Likely another curse.”
“I said I saw the golden raven when I teleported here or whatever,” she says.
“Teleported?”
“I don’t know. The portal. Whatever. However it was that I appeared here.” She waves her hands around. “I was home and now I’m here on some kind of quest. I thought that was just for video games and old books.”
“Well, I’ll tell you a story then. Years ago, the golden king disappeared then the ravens went to the mountains. No one has sighted one for years—my whole life, in fact. And good thing too because the silver king has a bounty on them.”
“What happened to the golden king?”
“No one knows. One day, Torsuld was gone. Disappeared as though into thin air. There are theories: he went crazy and was subdued by his mage, he wandered off and was carried to the mountains by the ravens, he fell into the sea and drowned...” Like Dad.
“What do you believe?” she asks.
“I don’t go in for rumors.” The truth is I don’t know and it doesn’t matter anyway because now we’re stuck with the silver prince, er, king. I choose my words carefully. “Leith, the current king, took Torsuld’s place and the result is,” I lift my thumb over my shoulder. “Fjallhold.”
Her gaze lifts and then drops to the raven’s eye on the wall. “Does the silver king believe in mages, magic, and all that?”
“Magic?
It’s officially outlawed. Fae are outcasts. Ravens? The silver king supposedly wants to eat them for dinner. And if we want to eat this fish for dinner, we best get on. Demon’s hour grows close.”
Chapter 7
Soren
As we scramble back along the breakwater, I can’t help but feel watched, eyes and ears tracing my movements and listening to my every word. Perhaps they are, given the tender evidence of ink on my flesh, but this is different, not as sharp though, but just as foreboding. It feels like a warm wind in the winter, welcome, but its strangeness raises bumps along my arms nonetheless.
The castle looms high as we skirt the lower banks of the moat that spills into the sea. We’re nearly to the Flats when Kiki pauses, looking past the stone steps to the gauntlet and the gates of Fjallhold.
“Is the silver king watching us?” she asks.
“Always assume that he is.”
“What does he look like?”
“I’ve only seen him a few times, but he wears a long black cloak, with a veil over his head and a silver crown on top.”
“So you’ve never seen his face?”
“I’ve only heard about his eyes. They’re as black as the coals in the ashpit.”
Kiki shivers.
“Best not to talk about things like that around here,” I warn.
“Yes, but I must see him. The message said to seek—”
I answer by picking up the pace, regretfully leaving the fresh salt air at my back. I’m torn between wanting her to wake her up to the truth and letting her figure it out on her own since she doesn’t seem to believe the danger I’ve already warned her about.
When she catches up to me I breathe a sigh of relief. “I want to help you. I want to help the people of Raven’s Landing, but please trust me when I say if he takes one look at you—”
Kiki coughs. “What’s that?” She points to a large, rectangular opening in the center of the commons to one side of the castle. A faint haze of heat rises off the embers within.
“That’s the ashpit.” My voice is hollow.
She steps perilously close, peering inside the deep opening, covered in iron bars.
