The Raven Lord | Book I

IV. The General

My body shook and trembled beneath me.

I knelt in the midst of a once green farmland that was now ashen and left in ruins. The bodies of my comrades lay in broken piles around me, their blood running in a river of red through the grass. 

I let out a broken sob, unable to feel. I was numb to the pain. My hands rested in my lap, caressing the cheek of my fallen friend, Sariah. Her beautiful platinum hair lay clotted with mud and her own blood. She had taken a fatal blow for me. All because I decided to fight that day. 

I shut my eyes, my breath bated and shallow. I begged the gods, spirits, guardians, whoever would listen to bring her back. To bring them all back. 

They had done this. The Shadow People had finally taken every last bit of anything I had ever loved. I had nothing, and now I was utterly alone in this world. 

I stood on shaky legs, grabbing Sariah's sword and helmet from her fallen body. I placed a gentle kiss to her forehead and turned my back. At the edge of the battlefield, I dug Sariah's sword deep into the earth, the biting wind now nipping at my nose and ears. I placed her helmet on top of the hilt, letting it fall into place. 

A warrior's send off for a warrior's death. 

I clutched the dagger at my side. The words that I uttered were not to a god or spirit, but to something bigger. 

I would find the Shadow People, and I would not stop until I had taken every last thing that they loved. 

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I awoke from my memory in a cold sweat. 

I hadn't cried since that day. I had never been able to. 

I got up from the plush comforter, a reminder that I now resided with Lord Corvus, a man of the very kind who had taken everything from me. I ran to the washroom and got sick. The smell of the fire and blood rang through my senses as if I had truly gone back to that day.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the cool stone wall, aching for something to ground me. 

I looked up at the stars through the window behind the bathtub and wondered: had anyone heard my prayers that night? 

I stood from my seat on the floor and wandered back into my room, leaving the stars for those who dreamed and believed. 

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It was Saskia who woke me early that morning.

"Get up," she sighed, her hands on her hips as she stood at the end of my bed. "Lex wants you ready to leave in less than a hour."

Right. My first day here and I was already stealing a special goblet from a Stygian general. 

"General Wrens is... a dishonest man to say the least," Ciel had told me yesterday as he explained what I was to do.

Ash had reeled and stood from his seat, saying, "Dishonest?! Try completely filthy, horrid, a dreadful excuse of a man-" 

"Enough, Ash. Don't frighten her," Ciel warned. 

"I will be fine." I shrugged. Only I wasn't sure if I believed it yet. 

"Right. When he docks at Mooga Point tomorrow, you will be there in the market square, waiting for him. He goes there for... his women. And to restock on liquor. Next he will sail to Calaca." Ciel explained and my stomach did a nose dive. "You will dress as a gypsy, as they are common in Mooga. Get his attention somehow. Enough so that he takes you aboard his ship."