The Raven: Prince of Iron and Blood.

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Zariya folded the cover of the leather tome shut, the soft sigh of aged pages settling marked the end of yet another journey through forbidden realms. Beside her, nestled under the flickering glow of candlelight, lay two more volumes with embossed titles: "The Reign of Ravens" and "The Crafting of Monsters".

The memory of the bonfire still danced vividly in her mind—the King's decree to purge the land of all knowledge related to the Monsters. As a child, she had watched in horror as the King's soldiers torched the Royal Library, reducing ancient scrolls and tomes to ashes. The acrid scent of burning paper and leather filled the air, a funeral pyre for the stories that had once shaped the kingdom's very soul while the King watched on. Flakes of parchment had floated in the air like ash, slowly swirling up to the heavens. She had snatched a few precious volumes from the flames, hiding them away in her secret library.

It was a gamble that could have cost her everything, but the thirst for knowledge had overpowered her fear.

Now, nestled within the safety of her hidden library, she felt the weight of her rebellion with every turn of a page. Her library contained volumes that spoke of creatures that once ruled the lands with iron talons. The library was forbidden to all, except those she invited personally. Fifty were saved from the flames and carried to her library where she blended them into her volumes. The Crafting of Monsters was tugged out and its crinkled, old pages swallowed her up.

It spoke of a time when the Thorn Kingdom, hidden in the foreboding Eldorathorne Mountains, birthed horrors that men whispered of only in dread. Monsters—wings of midnight, hands that tore flesh like parchment, hearts blackened by centuries of strife—had once ruled unchallenged.

The tale unfolded with grim detail: The Thorn Kingdom. For a time it was little known, just a bunch of monsters holed up in the forgotten mountains guarded by a patrol. So little thought and care was put into the effort to keep the monsters holed up, until the day they broke free from their brooding nest. Despite their monstrous forms, they were not mindless beasts; they possessed a cunning intelligence that allowed them to outwit even the greatest warriors.

Outsiders assumed that the monsters could be defeated and paradise would return. But it was not so.

The fall of Massa, a once-proud realm now razed by the Ravens because the King refused to serve their lord. Everyone was slaughtered. Men, women, and their babies. Their king was not strong enough to defeat so many as they were, a black swarm, an infection that had festered and broken out to claim the earth. The royal family's bodies were impaled on the imperial gates before the eyes of all.

The horde of monsters with their monstrous wings cast shadows of death over lands that had known peace. From kingdom to kingdom, they swept, leaving behind only ruin and the cruel mark of their dominance. They crippled the towns and cities that had once been proud and loved. Monsters slaughtered our warriors, hanging their heads on gates as a sign that the next kingdom would too, receive their punishment.

Seven kingdoms fell. Each burned and razed to the ground. And out of the rubble, the land was reinvented. It was forced to adapt to survive. The weak were slaughtered so not a soul was left, and the strong populated.

Zariya devoured these tales with a hunger. Passages of words would make the ordinary Mortal's stomach turn inside out and release a spectacular torrent before all, but these words claimed to her a secret to be unlocked.

The Ravens, with their midnight feathers and razor-sharp talons, were the most feared of all. Their faces were carved from rock, their eyes cold and cruel as stone. Those who sent sight on their faces never lived again. So the second-hand accounts tell. Too sharp cheekbones poking through their skin. Cruel, narrow eyes. Noses too perfect and fine, strange on such ugliness, and thin, curling lips to expose their canine teeth. Their bodies are heavily muscled bodies honed with centuries of war and they wore the poorest of clothing, simply rags, shredded tunics, loincloths, and sashes, barely enough to cover their modesty.