Page 69 of Raisa's Cursed Ravens
Onyx lays his head against my hip, purring like a cat.
Rune draws more symbols on my arms, and I swear I can feel them healing old scars.
Sable teases my toes with his wing, nipping gently with his beak, his eyes brighter than I’ve ever seen them.
Talon curls behind me, his hands wrapped around my waist, chest to my back, his heartbeat steady.
Grim and Shade sandwich me in on the other side of him, each claiming a leg, a piece of my soul.
We lie there, a tangle of feather and flesh and sweat and tears, until the world slows, the air grows soft, and I believe, for the first time, that I could be loved.
I sleep, dreaming not of blood or pain or memory, but of seven ravens, wings spread, hearts open, circling in the sky above me. And in the dream, I’m not a monster. I’m not my father’s daughter or his creation. I’m just a girl, and I’m theirs.
12
The Weight of Shame
Sable
It’s been three dayssince Raisa learned what we are, and I haven’t cracked a single joke. Not once. Not even when Bran tripped over his own bootlaces and splashed boiling water down the front of his pants.
I watched him hop around, cursing in three different languages, but my mouth wouldn’t work. There was laughter inmy chest, but it wouldn’t rise, like I’d swallowed a stone, and it was dragging everything else down with it.
Instead, I took my breakfast and vanished into the trees.
That’s how it’s been every day. I slip a little further from the center of the circle with each passing hour. My brothers don’t chase me. Maybe they think I’m brooding for effect. They’re used to my moods by now, and anyway, there’s a lot to be said for being the least predictable person in a cursed flock of birds.
But even I have to admit, this is a new low. I’m sitting on a rotten log at the edge of the world, turning my best knife over and over in my hands, scraping it against a river stone until the edge is sharper than my tongue.
It’s a pointless exercise.
I already sharpened it yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. But the repetition soothes me. There’s something nice about the drag and hiss, the perfect predictability of steel on stone.
When my arms get tired, I stop. For a moment, I think I’ll walk back to camp and join the others, maybe even try out a new joke on Shade. But then the memory comes back, as fresh and raw as ever.
The queen’s scream echoing down the stairwell, the bright spray of blood, the sound her body made when it hit the marble floor.
My hands start shaking.
I dig the tip of the knife into my thigh just to anchor myself.
The scar on my back throbs in time with my heartbeat, a reminder of the king’s arrow. Sometimes, I wonder if the curse left a little piece of that arrow inside me, just to make sure I never forget what I did. It aches most when I’m alone, when I can’t silence the guilt with laughter.
I try to breathe, but the air out here is too thin. I want to scream, but my mouth is still stuck.
I stare at the knife. I think about the way the queen’s eyes rolled back in her head, the little white crescents showing beneath her lashes. I think about how I was the one who sent her tumbling.
I can’t even look at Raisa without hating myself.
I freeze when I hear a twig crack. It’s not an animal. The sound is too quiet. Too deliberate.
I press the knife flat to my thigh and wait.
After a few seconds, Raisa emerges, still walking like she expects the trees to swallow her whole, her hands jammed deep into the pockets of Bran’s coat. Her hair is loose and wild, a black waterfall down her back. She doesn’t see me at first, or maybe she does and just doesn’t want to admit it.
She stops a few feet away, arms crossed, lips pressed together. There’s a weird energy about her today, like she’s been wound up so tight that if you touch her, she’ll snap.
For a second, neither of us speaks.
