“Rumor has it he’s a vampire. Never seen in daylight.”
She laughs like I’m joking around.
“There’s not much I want to risk saying about Leith, but there’s also not much known.” I put the striddly in my bag and send the fishing line out to sea before wedging it under a rock and turn to the remaining wall of the beacon. The midday sun illuminates the remnants of what was once a mural.
Kiki brushes her fingers against the outlines of the ravens. “Is this black bird a raven?”
I nod. “They were the symbol of Raven’s Landing. There are many stories about ravens, but the one I remember best is about a pair of them. Thought and Desire. Mind and heart. Knowledge and love. They carried messages between the old king, called the golden king, Torsuld, and the rest of the world, ensuring peace among the four kingdoms—North, South, East, and West.” I pause, recalling Dad slipping into the sea at the end of the breakwater. He was loyal to Torsuld through and through. I push against the fight in my chest. “Supposedly the golden raven protects the fae but I guess it can’t come inside these walls. Likely another curse.”
“I said I saw the golden raven when I teleported here or whatever,” she says.
“Teleported?”
“I don’t know. The portal. Whatever. However it was that I appeared here.” She waves her hands around. “I was home and now I’m here on some kind of quest. I thought that was just for video games and old books.”
“Well, I’ll tell you a story then. Years ago, the golden king disappeared then the ravens went to the mountains. No one has sighted one for years—my whole life, in fact. And good thing too because the silver king has a bounty on them.”
“What happened to the golden king?”
“No one knows. One day, Torsuld was gone. Disappeared as though into thin air. There are theories: he went crazy and was subdued by his mage, he wandered off and was carried to the mountains by the ravens, he fell into the sea and drowned...” Like Dad.
“What do you believe?” she asks.
“I don’t go in for rumors.” The truth is I don’t know and it doesn’t matter anyway because now we’re stuck with the silver prince, er, king. I choose my words carefully. “Leith, the current king, took Torsuld’s place and the result is,” I lift my thumb over my shoulder. “Fjallhold.”
Her gaze lifts and then drops to the raven’s eye on the wall. “Does the silver king believe in mages, magic, and all that?”
“Magic? It’s officially outlawed. Fae are outcasts. Ravens? The silver king supposedly wants to eat them for dinner. And if we want to eat this fish for dinner, we best get on. Demon’s hour grows close.”
Chapter 7
Soren
As we scramble back along the breakwater, I can’t help but feel watched, eyes and ears tracing my movements and listening to my every word. Perhaps they are, given the tender evidence of ink on my flesh, but this is different, not as sharp though, but just as foreboding. It feels like a warm wind in the winter, welcome, but its strangeness raises bumps along my arms nonetheless.
The castle looms high as we skirt the lower banks of the moat that spills into the sea. We’re nearly to the Flats when Kiki pauses, looking past the stone steps to the gauntlet and the gates of Fjallhold.
“Is the silver king watching us?” she asks.
“Always assume that he is.”
“What does he look like?”
“I’ve only seen him a few times, but he wears a long black cloak, with a veil over his head and a silver crown on top.”
“So you’ve never seen his face?”
“I’ve only heard about his eyes. They’re as black as the coals in the ashpit.”
Kiki shivers.
“Best not to talk about things like that around here,” I warn.
“Yes, but I must see him. The message said to seek—”
I answer by picking up the pace, regretfully leaving the fresh salt air at my back. I’m torn between wanting her to wake her up to the truth and letting her figure it out on her own since she doesn’t seem to believe the danger I’ve already warned her about.
When she catches up to me I breathe a sigh of relief. “I want to help you. I want to help the people of Raven’s Landing, but please trust me when I say if he takes one look at you—”
Kiki coughs. “What’s that?” She points to a large, rectangular opening in the center of the commons to one side of the castle. A faint haze of heat rises off the embers within.
“That’s the ashpit.” My voice is hollow.
She steps perilously close, peering inside the deep opening, covered in iron bars.
I know well enough not to look at the smoldering bodies it’s sure to contain.
Suddenly, boots slide on stone. I reach an arm out, grasping the hem of Kiki’s coat and pull her to my side.
Her chest heaves and she coughs again. “What is—?” she repeats. Her face pales, and her eyes crimp.
“Punishment. Slowly roasting to death. Best not to get too close,” I say, meaning both to the ashpit and to the king.
We walk in silence as the stench of burning flesh refuses to leave my nostrils. I send my thoughts to the hills and the sea, stilling my mind against the ferocity that builds in my chest when I think about how many people I’ve known who’ve fallen victim to Leith’s cruelty.
“We should get out of here,” I say, glancing over my shoulder at the castle, feeling as though his blazing yet empty eyes are on me and mocking the punishment covering my skin. I detour us back through the Basin, taking
