She stared at him, feeling the raven watching her from the top of one of the chairs, waiting on its orders to attack. But she didn’t give it.
She stood from the chair and walked deliberately around him, and she answered in the only way she knew might save her from war.
Lies.
“Patience, brother,” she replied slowly. “Allow them think they have a place at our table. Bide our time. And then eventually… once we have them where we want them, we strike. Hard. Take the southern realm as ours.” She started to pace around him. “Can you see it?” she whispered. “Hunters on their knees at our feet. A summer castle on Lovi’s shores. After we have the south, we can set our eyes on the eastern mountains. The Blackhands will never know our strength. They will not stand a chance. And when they are ours, we will only have one piece to conquer. Haerland’s own Martyrs would rather kill themselves than start a war. You will be king of all Haerland.” She rounded in front to him again and pressed her hands to his cheeks. “Arbina’s roots will freeze. The Nitesh will grant you immortality for your sparing her people. You, my brother, can be the King who never dies.”
“Immortality, you say?” he repeated, his gaze hazing over as he looked out the window.
“A gift for your generosity,” she whispered. “For the greatest and last King Haerland will ever know. Rhaifian Sunfire. Ruler of the Seven Realms. Conqueror of Ghosts. Defender of the Lost.” She pulled back and stared determinedly into his eyes.
“High King of Haerland.”
Her brother grasped her cheeks softly in his hands, smiling proudly, his pupils dilated with darkened glee. He leaned closer, his lips tickling hers, and she waited for the moment in which he would kiss her crudely as he’d done before.
And then he laughed under his breath.
“Lies.”
He yanked the roots of her hair and threw her backwards into the table. Her hip hit the edge of it, and she winced, her hair falling over her face.
“Why—why would you lie to me? What are you up to that you would need to create such an elaborate false scheme?” he growled.
“Because I knew it was what you wanted to hear. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that you would actually believe me when I say I love him,” she blurted.
His brows raised. “You—” a chair flew away from his hand and crashed into the floor “you actually… love him?” he dared ask as he continued stepping towards her.
Aydra straightened herself up, her chest heaving. “I do.”
Blue fire pushed up from beneath his gambeson and onto his neck as his breaths became shorter and shorter. Black engulfed his fingertips and began splintering up his arms. Aydra felt her eyes fluttering back, and she heard the crows echoing in her ears.
“Stand down,” she warned him. “Don’t make me do this—”
“No, my sister,” he said as the black reached his eyes. “Don’t make me.”
And then he screamed.
Windows shattered. She flung herself to the floor into a ball and shielded her head in her hands. She heard the rapture of her crows dive into the room. She expected the flames to engulf her, to take her into their grasp and burn her alive.
But she never even felt the heat.
—The screech of her raven echoed in the room.
Her eyes opened just in time to see the blue flames consume its black body.
“NO!”
Black feathers fell in the air in front of her in slow motion. The flames recessed back into Rhaif’s body, but she barely heard him stepping backwards.
Her raven was gone.
“No…”
Her heart shattered.
“No—no!”
Her raven’s ashes were in a pile at her folded knees.
She screamed as a feather fell in her trembling hand.
“NO!”
Her raven. Her namesake. The first creature to ever speak with her. The one that had been with her since she was a mere three years old.
Dead.
Its ashes stained her shaking fingers.
She barely heard the clip-clapping of her brother’s shoes on the stone as he left her screaming on the floor.
“NO!”
Reduced to ashes.
By her own brother.
She couldn’t stop the agonizing screams emitting from her throat. Her shaking hands curled around the black feathers before her, and tears poured down her face.
Strong arms grasped her from behind. She continued to scream, not even aware of the audible sobs and horrifying noises emitting from her insides.
An emptiness filled the void of her core.
She surrendered to the arms around her and buried herself in what she realized was Draven’s chest, clutching his shirt in her hands.
Every emotion she’d ever suppressed boiled to the surface.
“You were right,” she whispered into Draven’s chest.
“About what?” he asked.
“Your being here when my wall came shattering down.”
His arms hugged tighter around her, and he kissed her forehead. “I didn’t mean like this.”
She didn’t know how long they sat there. But Draven didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just held her there, occasionally rubbing her back or kissing her forehead.
Aydra swallowed hard as she sat up finally, avoiding Draven’s gaze. Her eyes found the ashes of the raven again and she bit back another bout of tears.
“She was the first creature I ever heard,” she managed as she reached out to the ashes again. “I was three. She was only still a baby herself.” A small smile rose on her lips at the memory. “I found her in the hanging tower. She’d tried to fly out of the nest, but she was too small to keep up with her siblings. Her mother left her there. You should have seen Zoria’s face when I brought it back,” she remembered fondly.
“I’ll take her
