The Raven Flame [The Crown Saga III] (First Draft)

Epilog

A strong, coppery tang washed over my sensitive tastebuds as I pressed my sore thumb against my lips.

I should've dulled the blade more, but my poor sense of time had left me little choice. Hopefully, the Council wouldn't request me to demonstrate that particular weapon's properties.

A grunt escaped me as I adjusted the heap of equipment weighing down my prickling arms. It had been much heavier than I'd expected when I left my studio.

"Willow!"

My heart dropped, leaving my chest uncomfortably hollow.

What was he doing here? He was supposed to be at the council hall, soothing the old bastards and stalling until I could get there.

I turned to see my husband approach me with rapid steps. His velvet vest stood wide open, the white shirt underneath wrinkled, and the sleeves rolled up unevenly. His dark hair looked like a Mortis Raven's nest, and he'd tucked his golden crown under his arm as if he'd been close to forgetting it.

The stir of confusion and distress humming through my muscles settled at the sigh. I knew exactly where he'd been.

"Did Marcel summon you again?"

Caiden raked a hand through his tangled locks, his weary gaze dropping to the floor. "An hour ago," he said apologetically. "I did not expect it to take that long. My sincerest apologies, Darling." He kissed my brow. "Time slipped, but I got here as fast as I possibly could."

I rolled my eyes but refrained from commenting on his lack of time management. Mine wasn't much better. "You'd think we'd hired Marcel to do his job. I can't fathom why he would demand your assistance so often."

Caiden's lips stretched to an impossibly thin line, so tight they turned evidently blue. "I know. He is still learning, and—" He signed, his knuckles lightly grazing the line of my jaw, tracing the contour of my neck until his fingers settled close to the scar still lingering from the Mortis Raven's claw all those years ago. "There was a class three breach."

"What?" I gasped, tightening my grasp on the equipment so hard that the wound reopened. "A class three. But that's— Where?"

Bristles teased my spine as Caiden rubbed the damp nape of his neck. "The Marsh Region—close to their border. We sent two patrols, but they lost a lot of warriors."

The hollowness in my chest filled with anguish, nausea churning my stomach. It hurt so badly every time we lost another warrior to those things.

Five years had passed since we'd shattered the veil between our dimension and the shadows. It had been a long while of sorrow and adjustment, of new rules and settlements, but the shadows had been quiet—at least until two years ago when a rift had opened in the middle of the Golden Square.

I hadn't seen it myself, but I'd heard the stories.

A writhing slit of oozing shadow had torn open the air, towering as tall as four stories. A slender, disfigured humanoid shape of infinite darkness—slightly taller than the average man—had emerged from the menacing rift before it closed. Horns like thorned branches had protruded from where ears should've been—no eyes, mouth, or nose.

Frost had stretched from its chilled touch, leaving the air swirling around it frigid and unbreathable.

Yet, strangely enough, the creature had never attacked any panicked people shuffling across the streets. Instead, it seemed to have wandered mindlessly from one corner to the other, with no aim in sight, unlike the monsters we'd faced back then.

Fortunately, one of the surviving Flare Warriors had been in a nearby area and went to obliterate the creature before it could wreak havoc. It hadn't even put up a fight.