Page 24 of Rage of Her Ravens

Ember pouted, picking a frayed piece of straw from her doll’s head. “They wanted to keep us safe.”

I squeezed their shoulders. “There are better ways to keep us safe than tricking us.”

Aurora looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes. “Is our mama really alive?”

I swallowed back a knot in my throat while fighting tears that threatened at the backs of my eyes. “I believe so.” All this time I’d mourned my dear twin, and she’d been alive! I hated my parents for lying to me and tearing our family apart.

“Can we go to her?” Ember asked.

I frowned, squeezing their shoulders. “Right now, we have to find someplace safe.”

Aurora crawled onto my knee, straddling my leg while resting her hands on my shoulders. “From the bad man who wants to take our memories?”

I brushed a strand of her chin-length hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “From lots of bad people.”

Ember climbed onto my other knee, gently handing her doll off to me like it was a real live baby. “Like the king who killed our papas and the queen who tried to kill Pappo and Yaya?”

“Exactly,” I murmured. I didn’t want to give them false hope by telling them that their papas might be alive, too—not until I knew for certain.

Nikkos and Blaze shared startled looks, and I suspected they didn’t like their queen being lumped in with the ‘bad people,’ which was why I couldn’t trust my mates. Blaze mumbled something about getting more wood, leaving us alone with Nikkos. I wondered if Blaze truly needed more wood, or if he didn’t want to be around us while we insulted his queen.

Aurora wobbled on my leg, and she hissed when I tried to steady her by clutching her arm. Guilt washed over me when I realized I’d forgotten about the cut on her arm.

“Get off me, girls,” I said as I handed the doll back to Ember. “I need to examine Aurora’s arm.”

To my surprise, Nikkos knelt by my side, his wings drooping behind him. He looked from me to Aurora. “Do you mind if I look?”

I nodded when Aurora looked to me. Actually, I didn’t mind at all. After we lost Tari, my mother had become the family healer, though she had no magical gifts. She was good at making poultices, and I had never paid enough attention to remember what herbals went into them.

Nikkos pushed up Aurora’s sleeve, frowning at the wound. “It looks infected.”

I gasped when he twisted her arm to show me. The area was even more swollen than before.

Aurora winced, trying to pull away. “It hurts.”

Nikkos loosened his hold on her arm. “Will you let me clean it out and heal it?”

She looked to me again.

“You’re a healer?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I inherited some of my mother’s green witch powers.”

Blissfully unaware of personal space, Ember leaned against him. “Our mama is a green witch.”

He smiled down at her. “Is she? I thought she was a white witch.”

The girls gave me confused looks.

“All white witches start out as another color,” I said to them. “Your mother was a green witch last we saw her, but her powers were growing, and she may be a white witch by now.”

“Can you talk to animals and heal people when they’re dying?” Ember asked him. “Our mama can.”

My heart ached at how she referred to her mama in present tense, at how easily she accepted that Tari was alive. I prayed it was so, and that Malvolia’s goons didn’t kill her.

“No,” he said as he unfastened a leather satchel, “but I can heal cuts so that you don’t need stitches.” He pulled out a flask, a bowl and pestle, and three velvet bags that smelled like herbs.

After he ground up the herbs and then added water until it was a sticky paste, he looked back at Aurora. “I’m going to have to clean your wound and add a poultice first. I’ll try to be gentle, but it might hurt.”

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