Page 54 of Raisa's Cursed Ravens
It’s cold. Colder than anything should be.
He crumbles under my hand.
I flinch away, the need to vomit rising swiftly, but nothing comes up.
The brothers gather around, silent, waiting for me to do something—cry, scream, or run. I do none of it. I just stare at the men I killed and try to understand what I am.
Shade steps closer, his hand hovering at my shoulder. “There’s magic in your blood, Princess,” he says, as if that explains anything. “It came from your father.”
My laugh is a brittle crack in the quiet. “He never told me.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Bran says, wiping blood from his mouth. “Why tell you when he could cage you with it instead?”
My stomach churns again, so many things I never understood now flickering into focus. The picture they paint hurt in a way nothing ever has. I always knew I lived in a kingdom of secrets and lies, but learning your entire existence is one of them is a different kind of pain.
Onyx kneels by the nearest statue. “They won’t be missed for a while, but we should go before the next patrol comes.”
Shade agrees, his voice back to steel. “We move, now.”
Rune helps Bran to his feet, and the others fan out again, but this time they keep their distance from me. Even Sable, who’s never been scared of anything, won’t meet my eyes.
We leave the bodies where they fell. The stone men watch us go, their faces forever twisted in shock.
My hands are still trembling, but I don’t say a word. I walk at the front of the line, not looking back, not looking at the brothers, not looking at myself.
I don’t know what I am.
But I know what I’m not: safe.
And neither is anyone else.
The silence that followsin our wake isn’t peaceful. It isn’t comfortable, either.
Sable hums once or twice, but the sound dies on his lips. Bran walks just behind me, his wound still oozing despite Onyx’s bestefforts to stitch it. I glance back, but he waves me off, his usual sarcasm drowned by something rawer.
We stop when night falls, sheltering under a slab of stone that stinks of mold and old fires. The moss is thick here, muffling the world into a green-brown fever dream. Rune and Sable vanish into the dark—probably to scout, maybe just to escape me.
I should eat, but I can’t. I keep seeing the statues in my mind, faces frozen, skin webbed with cracks.
Shade tries to light a fire, but his hands keep slipping. He growls, a low animal sound of fury, and slams the flint against a rock until sparks finally catch. The anger in him is new. Before, he wore his violence like a suit. Now, it leaks around the edges.
I sit, legs pulled up to my chin, arms wrapped tight around my knees. I want to ask what happened to me, but I’m afraid if I speak, the magic will come out again.
Onyx and Bran sit across from me, their heads close together. Bran is pale, sweating, but his eyes are locked on me the whole time. Like he’s waiting for me to do something—explode, run, cry.
After a while, Grim sits next to me. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that I smell the blood on his hands.
He speaks first. “You should rest.”
“I’m not tired.”
He watches me, and for a second, I almost believe he cares. Then I remember the way he looked at me after I turned those men to stone—like I was some new kind of monster.
“Tell me what’s happening to me,” I whisper, the words splintering.
He shrugs. “You’re a princess in a magical realm.”
“That’s not an answer.”
