Page 48 of Feathers so Vicious

“Is she?” Sebian stopped and turned to face me, cocking his head slightly. “She’s a skinny girl with no gift and no ravens left to shift into… who happens to have black hair. Is she still a Raven, Galantia? Or is she now a human?”

That question took me aback, mostly because I had no answer, and… and now that buzzing energy was gone!

“I don’t know,” I bit out, annoyed by how this evening was taking a rather depressing turn. “What I do know is that this is war.”

“That easy, huh? Goddess help me, you’re so terribly obstinate sometimes.” His features hardened in a way I’d never witnessed on this man before, all his usual aloofness cracking away against his sharp cheekbones. “Is that what you tell yourself to justify the atrocities your father had committed against us? Still? After everything you read? Heard?Saw?”

With waning effectiveness. “What about your atrocities? You kill and pillage just the same. And yourape. Not a single woman in that village was sparedthatatrocity.”

“I have never—” he cut himself off, muscles jumping above his jaws. “Ask me how my sister died.” When I remained still, he took a step toward me, clasped my chin between his thumb and pointer, and lifted my gaze to that swirl of emotions that sat at the depth of his green irises. “I said… ask me… how… Zaima… died.”

A foreboding chill trickled down my spine. “H-how did she die?”

“A hit to the head, because she wouldn’t stop fighting off the man who grunted over her like a beast. Even after her heart had stopped, he fucked into her, ripping her little body apart from the inside.” He held my gaze as though he wanted me to see the agony in his eyes, the pain he’d hid so perfectly behind his easy smiles and aloof demeanor. Until now. The sight fractured my heart, leaving no doubt that he spoke the truth. “I heard it all over a distance too far for my arrow to reach. Not that it would have mattered, because she was already dead. She was eleven, Galantia. A child who hadn’t even bled yet. Do you want to know who did it?” Against the way I shook my head, he leaned in closer, bringing his lips to my ear. “YourhonorablePrince Domren.”

My body went ice-cold. “It can’t be.”

I shook my head again, clinging to my ignorance as if my life depended on it. Because it did! How could I ever share a bed with Prince Domren now that I know this? How could I bear his children? How could I evenwantsuch a man to love me?

“Oh, sweetheart, you are so naïve, I can’t decide if it’s adorable or increasingly annoying.” He inhaled deeply, visibly trying to regain his mellow demeanor as he slowly blew out a long breath. “Say it. Say,it is war.”

The words sat on my tongue for long moments, bitter, foul, rotten. “It is war.”

“Oneyoustarted.” The sound of my words resonating back to me shook me to the marrow in my bones until Sebian jutted his chin back toward the barbican. “Turn around.”

My surroundings shrunk as though the high walls were creeping toward me. “But… but why?”

“You’re going back to your chamber,” he said as he grabbed my shoulder and bodily spun me around, just as faraway lightning scattered along the horizon. “Naïve little girls shouldn’t be out here once the sun sets.”

ChapterSeventeen

Galantia

Present day, Deepmarsh Castle, Galantia’s chamber

Palms pressed to my ears, I startled when another flare of light illuminated my chamber, lengthening and distorting the shadows that moved across the floor, creeping, crawling.

“Stop acting like a scared child,” I mumbled to myself, my pulse thrashing wildly right above my sternum. “It’s just a storm. Nothing but lightning and—”

A roar shook my bed.

My spine snapped straight, tossing me onto my back just in time to watch hazy black tendrils fade from the ceiling. Righteous terror settled cold onto my skin, slithering all the way to my bones with the wails of the wind.

Within seconds, my bladder seemed to fill to bursting. Gods damn this place! Not a single fucking tree to break those constant howls scratching along the castle, loud enough I heard them through the violent crashes of thunder that echoed across miles upon miles of open marshland.

The next lightning strike nearly blinded me, putting black and white specks into my vision—and they weren’t the only things that shifted in the room. Right there, on the little square cutout where wall met ceiling, the tangles of leather strips shifted. Maybe the wind.

Maybe not, because a fading flicker of light reflected a set of beady eyes. They filled in the shadows of the nares that sat at the top of a long black beak.

A raven.

I yelped, legs frantically kicking until my back pressed against the wooden headboard and my quilt gathered around my naked feet in a crumpled mess. “Go away!”

The raven took flight, only to land on the floor near the glowing hearth. In one quick move, too fast for my eyes to follow against the ebb and flow of light, it shook the water off its feathers. Then, the beast hopped toward me.

I scooted toward the edge of my bed. “I said, go away!”

The raven stopped and tilted its head, revealing something that sat clasped in its beak, shiny and long. The animal watched me, turning and angling its head as though it listened to the frantic little breaths that fanned along my lips. What was this thing doing here? Where did it belong? Or rather… to whom? Malyr?

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