Page 74 of Sticks and Stones and Broken Bones

Well, fuck me. Did not see that one coming.

I pulled my blade out and looked into the starry puddle.

Hold on, princess. I’m coming.

Then I jumped into the portal and felt my body being pulled apart at a molecular level.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Raevyn

Asnap of wings brought me back to reality with a thud. My head pounded and my body felt like it had been thrown down a hill. I opened my eyes to a dark, low light and what appeared to be a damp brick room. It smelled old, and there weren’t any windows as far as I could tell. Just the single light at the far end of the room. I sat up and winced. Had I hit my head?

I felt around my skull but couldn’t feel a bump or anything.

“It’s from the forced portal.”

I shrieked and jumped. The fuck? “Corvus? Is that you?”

“Sorry,” he said as he hopped into view. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“How did you get here? And why do you look so small?”

He was about a fifth of his normal size, which probably made him seem more like a normal-sized raven.

He hopped onto my thigh. “Just thought this was more… inconspicuous.”

“Yes, probably,” I said with a snort. “Any idea where we are?”

“You’re at the abbey ruins.”

“Near my home?”

Corvus bobbed his head. Shit. This wasn’t good. The ruins were a powerful place, sat on intersecting ley lines it had always been a place to boost power. We had always held our most sacred rituals here, including the one where I’d been sacrificed. I had to get out of here. And fast.

But how?

“Come on, hop up.”

Corvus jumped up to my shoulder and I stood to look around the room. It was bare except for the small cot I’d been placed on, and there was a single chair and small table that were the only other pieces of furniture in the room.

I walked over to the door and was surprised when the handle turned, and the door opened. I popped my head through the entrance, letting my magic feel down the corridor for any other signs of life. I couldn’t sense anything, but I kept my power sitting in my fingertips just in case I needed something to attack with.

I continued down the hallway until I reached to door at the end. I knew where I was now, the walls and bricks of this place familiar from all the times I’d explored this place in my childhood. And, knowing my grandmother, she’d be up at the grand altar waiting for me.

I made my way to the ruins of the great hall and followed the flame lit path all the way to the alter.

“Hello Raevyn,” my grandmother hissed, like my name was poison in her mouth.

“Grandmother,” I said softly. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“It’s time you came home.”

Well, that wasn’t going to happen. I had started to accept my mother’s part in my tragic upbringing but there was no way that I was ever going to have anything to do with my grandmother ever again. Oddly, I thought I’d feel some sort of fear stood here, at the same spot where she’d driven a dagger through my heart, but I felt calm. Probably because I wasn’t trying to make excuses for what she’d done anymore. Growing up I had always thought she’d done the things she had for the good of the coven, to strengthen us and protect us, but I knew differently now. There was nothing forbidding about her anymore. She was just a selfish old woman.

“No,” I said, answering her question.

“No?” she snarled.

---