A Court of Souls and Shadows

32. Raven

I didn't know where I was going. My heart was too broken and my mind was too messy. I could barely see the sky in front of me, but I flew and flew and flew... until eventually the warm winds of the Day and Dawn Courts gave way to the bitter winds of the Winter Court. Somehow, my subconscious had brought me to the one place I needed most, but never would have thought of.

The icy wind bit into my wings and wrapped around my body, and my shivers overtook me, causing my flight pattern to waver. I was barefoot and still only wearing the black dress I'd put on for dinner earlier. My dress was torn and bloody, my limbs bare, and my hands ruined. I was so exhausted, and so cold that I couldn't fly any longer. I spotted the palace in the centre of the city and stopped moving my wings, flinging them wide to soar the rest of the way. My body trembled from the cold, and a strong updraft caught my wings at the wrong angle, sending me careening madly to the right. Pain splintered through my body as the cold bit into my exposed back and scar tissue, my wings protesting the sudden onslaught after such a long flight. They retracted suddenly, my magic unable to keep them any longer, and I fell the remaining distance to the ground, smashing into the bottom of the palace steps.

I landed roughly feet first, my left leg snapping with a painful crunch under the impact, before falling forward on my stomach. The four guards stationed at the front of the palace called out in alarm, drawing their swords, immediately taking on defensive stances. I groaned in pain, reaching out in the snow in front of me in a feeble attempt to push myself up. "Don't move! Stay where you are!" One of the guards shouted, inching closer to me with his sword outstretched. "Please," I whimpered, "Please help me."

"What's your name?" The same guard demanded. I forced my face upwards to look up him, noting the markings on his right shoulder. He was the commander. "Please," I gasped, "My name is Raven Dassaretii. I need to see Kallias."

The commander scowled at me. "You dare speak the High Lord's name so casually? Who do you think you are!" He bellowed. I flinched under his scrutiny, but forced my chin upwards to meet his gaze. "Please just tell him I'm here. I'm his sister," I bit out. "I'm telling the truth, I swear it."

A younger guard with a head of bright blue hair stepped forward, placing his hand gently on the commander's arm and leaning up to whisper in his ear. He couldn't have been more than twenty years old at the very most. The commander listened for a few moments, before giving the blue-haired guard a tight nod. "Take her to the dungeons," the commander ordered. The blue-haired guard disappeared into the palace, while the other two remaining guards hauled me up between them and dragged me inside. I cried out in pain as my broken leg dragged along the frozen ground. My ruined hands hung limply in front of me, the guards' rough hands digging in under my armpits as they dragged me.

I could barely keep my eyes open to take in my surroundings, my vision blurring from the pain. I was certain I would pass out at any moment from my injuries. My eyes fluttered closed as the guards continued to drag me along, and I felt the vague sense of going down a winding stairwell before the familiar squeak of a cell door made my eyes snap open. I was pushed forward into the cell, landing painfully on my stomach, my broken leg bent an an odd angle underneath me. I turned my head to the side, resting my cheek on the filthy cell floor. The door clanged shut and the guards locked me in before leaving. I surveyed the wall to my side, realising with no small amount of horror that I was in the same exact cell in the Winter Court that my father had held me in. The tiny drawing of a white wolf etched into the wall confirmed it. I'd done it myself, over four hundred years ago. I vomited where I laid, fresh tears streaking down my face as the pain finally took over, and everything went black.

* * * * * * *

"What the fuck is she doing in there? Open this door at once!"

I groaned in pain and forced my eyes open a sliver to see who was speaking, but I could barely see a foot in front of me. I heard a guard apologising profusely under his breath and fumbling with keys, before my cell door was opened and someone rushed in, kneeling before me. "Raven?" I knew that voice. Kallias.