THE RAVEN LADY
I woke with a start and then froze, listening. Water dripping onto stone. Small, scurrying movements of birds or mice. My own breath passing in and out of my mouth.
Cold air nipped at my wet skin—nose, cheeks, fingers—but much of my body was numb.
Pushing my shoulders and head up from the rocky ground, I surveyed my surroundings. Another sort of cavern, this one partly filled with stones and loose earth. Directly overhead I saw the sky, suffused with the faintly yellow light of dawn.
Had I returned to Knock Ma after all? Would Doro follow me?
I tried to sit up, and a hot pain exploded between my shoulder blades. My hands lost their purchase, and my knuckles scraped across rough stones as I caught myself. In leaving the castle, I had also left the king’s protective spells—and I had freshly defied my father’s ally. There was something different about this pain, though—it was a pulsing heat, like repeated wasp stings. In the spaces between the stings, my flesh tickled and itched, like there were indeed insects crawling around inside me.
Moaning feebly, I sat up again, noticing my legs were resting in a shallow pool. I still couldn’t feel them. The itching between my shoulders, however, was becoming unbearable. I reached behind my back to scratch the irritated skin. My fingers bumped against something unexpectedly silky, and I recoiled.
Dragging myself free of the pool, I looked around for the creature I’d touched—I saw nothing. The feeling was coming back into my legs, and I slowly stood up.
A wave of vertigo swept over me and I swayed.
Something feels very wrong.
The itching grew worse, and again I reached to scratch. The silky thing was still there! I twisted my other arm around to my back, feeling with both hands. The thing had a rigid form—and it protruded from my own flesh.
I jerked my head to one side, twisting my neck to look over my shoulder.
“Wings!” The gasp I uttered was near bottomless. I fell to my knees, chest heaving, coughing.
It’s a trick of the light. But I knew it wasn’t. I had passed through Doro’s Gap gate. I had undergone transmutation. I was lucky to be alive.
Or was I?
Frantic, I scanned the inside of the cavern. I had to get out of here. I needed light and a mirror—and a fire. I was lost and disoriented, soaked through with no way to get dry, and Freyja help me, what had happened to my body?
This place appeared to be no more than a hole in the ground. To one side there was a larger pile of rubble that I thought I might be able to climb, and I made my way over to it. My wet dress hung on me like a curtain of iron, dragging at my every step. It had also split down the back, and I curled my fingers over the neckline to hold it up. My new appendages—they were no better than dead weights against my back.
I stopped in front of the rock pile. Under normal circumstances, it would be no real obstacle. In my current state I wasn’t sure. Even if I did manage to scale it, where would I go? Assuming I was anywhere near Knock Ma, did I dare return? I was in no condition to oppose Doro were he to come for me again. And what of the king? He would presumably be searching for me. What would he say when he found me?
I closed my eyes, still gripping the front of my dress, shivering.
The king would be relieved to see me. He would be kind to me, and would offer what help he could. But I was certain he would never make such a misshapen creature his queen.
Finvara
“The princess has been found in the forest, sire!”
Treig had all but burst in on me as I was leaving my chamber, where I’d gone to finish dressing and arm myself—the initial search for the princess within the castle having proved fruitless.
“In what state?” I demanded. Is she alive?
“I’m not certain, sire,” Treig replied, frowning. “I know that she lives, though . . .”
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. The ones who found her are whispering of dark magic and won’t say more.”
Why did I not heed Lady Meath’s warning?
“Let us go,” I said brusquely.
I didn’t have the patience for superstitious dread and therefore did not stop to interview the guards who had returned. Instead I went directly to the stables to saddle a horse. Morning had broken, yet the sun was no more than an indistinct orb behind a veil of gray. Treig and I set out briskly, our mounts snorting in the chill air. When the path became too rocky, we slowed and picked our way until we met with the patrol at the base of the steep climb to the vantage point.
“Why haven’t you brought her back to the castle?” I demanded of the captain on duty.
He did not shrink at my impatience. “We thought it best to consult you, sire.”
“Why, in God’s name?”
“Please, sire, I’ll take you to her.”
Muttering a curse, I swung down from my saddle and followed him up the stone path—Treig in my wake. We climbed to the top of the hill and then made our way down the stairs on the other side to the destroyed barrow. I had ordered my men to burn the wight’s remains before my family’s arrival, but the inorganic elements of its physique still littered the scorched ground. The toe of my boot struck one of the saucer-sized goggle lenses, and a pile of assorted gears rested a few yards away. Beyond the debris was a depression in the ground—a crater that had once been the tomb. I saw a feminine figure standing near the rim of it, and relief swelled.
Hunched between two of my soldiers, one of their cloaks draped about her, the princess had never looked so fragile. Our eyes met, and she set her jaw and straightened. In the movement, I caught a glint of pale flesh and realized that beneath the cloak she was naked.
That devil will answer for this. And he wasn’t the only one.
“Why do you fools stand there?” I barked at her guards, who also straightened at the sound of my voice. “If she dies of exposure, all of you will pay for it.”
“Sire—” began one of the men.
“We turned the castle inside-out looking for you, lady,” I said, ignoring the guard. “I’m greatly relieved to find you alive and well.”
She didn’t answer, and watched me approach with what seemed to me a look of dread. Her face was drawn, her lips blue with cold, and there were dark smudges beneath her eyes. When I reached her, I unbuttoned my overcoat and waved Treig over. “Use the cloak to give her what privacy you can so she can put this on.”
“Your Majesty, I cannot,” said the princess.
“We’ll help you,” I replied, handing my coat to Treig. “Come, you must be chilled to the bone.”
She backed two steps away from me. Her hands were gripping the cloak in the front, holding it closed, but suddenly she let it fall.
At first all I saw was her. I confess my imagination had undressed her before this—most recently last night, while holding her close in the waltz and telling her the story of Lady Godiva. Then, the unusual events in her bedchamber had required a measure of physical intimacy—and ended in a marriage proposal. It did not matter that my suspicion about her and Doro had proved correct. At some point over the last few days, the woman had gotten into my blood, and even had she tried to cut out my heart, I doubt it would have changed anything.
What I saw now did not exactly match my imagination. Her manner of dress had not emphasized her feminine assets. I had believed her to be reedy and strong like the firglas, and strong she was, yet here were curves where I had expected angles. Softness where I had expected steel. Her breasts were a lovely teardrop shape, with large nipples the same wine color as her lips. Her torso was too strongly muscled to pinch in deeply at the waist, but below, the lines of her hips opened out generously. I couldn’t stop staring at her.
Noting the goosebumps on her skin, I did finally return to my senses. I took my coat from Treig and stepped forward—then froze as two black shapes rose, one on each side of her body.
I faltered back, hand moving to my pistol. Then I saw that it was only the cloak she had worn to the masquerade. Looking closer, I realized that it was not.
They were actual wings.
“I am uninjured,” said the princess, offering a stiff smile, “but not unaltered.”
“What happened?” I demanded, circling around behind her, trying to understand. “Has Doro done this?”
“There is a Gap gate within the barrow,” she said. “Doro has been using it to transform beings into monsters. When I escaped through it, it transformed me.
Breath hissed between my teeth when I saw the wings had sprouted right out of her back, obliterating the tree tattoo. Hardened tissue protruded from the skin, and at the base of each wing a gear was set. As the wings lowered slightly, the gears turned. My gaze followed the graceful movement of the feathered shapes until they closed over the rounded flesh just below her waist. My rage at the violence done to her body softened to a sense of wonder and awe. She had become a goddess.
But the woman was probably in shock, and tired of standing in the cold.
“Does it hurt?” I asked, gently touching the skin between her wings.
“Not much now,” she replied.
I knelt and raised the cloak again, draping it around her shoulders. Her fingers brushed my wrists as she took hold of it, and even the spare contact tugged at both my heart and my groin.
“We’ll take her back down to the horses,” I said to Treig.
Koli
When we reached the bottom of the hill, the king took Treig aside and spoke with her in private before returning to lift me to his horse. I squirmed in the saddle until my wings had tucked in on either side of my hips. Then Finvara climbed up behind me. At another time the secrecy might have worried me, but I was numb and exhausted and happy to let them manage things.
Finvara, though he had been kind as I’d predicted, had also been stunned—I had seen it in his eyes. There was a part of me that felt like a damaged creature—another of Doro’s broken things—and I was afraid the king would see me that way too. That he would finally be truly repulsed by me.
I bitterly regretted that the planned marriage had been spoiled. I wondered how the king would counter Doro’s schemes now. Would he resign himself to the marriage with his cousin?
I knew my state of shock must be deeper than I realized when I discovered we’d been riding for some time in the wrong direction. Seated sidesaddle before the king, one shoulder resting against his chest, I tipped my face up to his.
“Where are we going, Your Majesty?”
“There’s a huntsman’s lodge on the edge of Knock Ma woods,” he replied. “The owner abandoned it when the earth spit up these hills and trees, after the seal was broken. Doro appears unable to leave the castle, so you should be safe there.”
Lowering my chin, I rested my cheek against his chest.
He dipped his head, and his chin brushed the top of my head, sending a cascade of shivers down my back. “I’ve sent Treig to the castle for your things, was that all right?”
“Of course, Your Majesty. Thank you.”
I was being expelled from the castle. It was the best thing for all concerned. Given the opportunity, Doro would seek his vengeance. And the king would want to shield his family, especially after what had happened to Elinor. This was likely a temporary measure, though, and I wondered what would come next.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. It had been decades since I’d seen the inside of a church, but how well I remembered the clear and commanding voice of Pastor Jón. His sermons had frightened me, yet he had been kind to me when the village children had not. He had urged me to be vigilant against the darkness I had inherited from my father. It was many years after his death before I understood what that meant.
“How is Miss O’Malley?” I asked.
“Well enough, I believe. I did not have time to look in on her before I left the castle. She is in capable hands with my sister-in-law.” When the king’s speech was low and gentle like this, it flooded my body with warmth, like the mineral pools beneath Skaddafjall.
I recalled how Finvara’s sister had accused me of trying to drown her young friend, and how I’d hoped the king would know that it couldn’t be true. She had not been wrong—I’d known that Doro was planning to frighten the girl, and I was familiar with his methods.
I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of Finvara’s chest through his shirt. “Doro knows that we had planned to marry,” I said. “I managed to convince him it was only a trick, but he insisted I marry him in haste so that any future marriage to you would not be legitimate.” I felt the king tense, and his chest rose in preparation to reply. I continued, “I escaped him and the marriage with the help of my furies. I only mention this as a caution to you, Your Majesty, because I fear that in his desperation he may—”
“Be easy, lady,” said the king, snugging his arms against me as he adjusted the reins. “You have done all you could. You must now allow me to do what I can for you.” He clucked softly, urging the horse to a trot. “We’re almost there.”
I tried to doze against his chest, but the ride was bumpy, and I was growing anxious about the fact he would be leaving me soon. I told myself I would not be completely alone. I would be guarded, certainly, and perhaps he would allow Treig to stay. I had always been happy enough in my own company, though I had allowed myself to imagine what life would be like after we married, and the prospect of solitude had lost some of its appeal.
The clouds thickened as we rode, and a soft spring shower was soon falling. Pressed against the king, I no longer felt chilled and I welcomed its cool caress. Soon I caught a glimpse of the huntsman’s lodge through the oaks—a stone and thatch cottage built on the bank of a stream.
We rode up to the small gate and the king dismounted. He held out his arms to catch me as I slid down so that I could hold onto the cloak. I felt his warm breath against my temple for the space of three heartbeats before we were joined by the small party of guards that had followed us. The king ordered the firglas to set a patrol and watch schedule, and then he led me inside.
The rustic interior was neat and clean, though the air was stale from disuse. The place had likely been owned by someone of means, as the floors were planked and the interior walls had been plastered. It was a single rectangular room containing a small cookstove, dining table and four chairs, a fireplace, and an iron-frame bed. The bed was not made, but the mattress was covered with sheepskins. It reminded me very much of the cottage I’d shared with my mother.
I watched the king circle the room—making an inspection for vermin, I supposed. When he was satisfied, he glanced at me. “Take your rest, now, lady. There’s a shed outside and I’ll go see if any wood or turf has been put by.”
When he left, I crossed the room to the tiny kitchen and opened a casement. Just outside, the stream whispered and burbled, and a breeze carried fresh air into the cottage.
I glanced around, looking for a mirror, but found none.
Without planning to do it, I flexed the muscles around my shoulder blades, and my wings lifted slightly beneath the cloak. I’m not broken. I felt a swell of excitement. Raising them as I had at the tomb required a great effort, yet I couldn’t help wondering if I would eventually be able to fly.
I had begun to notice sensation too. Not only at the point where the wings joined my back, but in the wings themselves—I had felt the king’s arm brush against the feathers as we rode. I had also noticed lack of sensation: yggdrasil no longer burned. Could it be that the transmutation had broken my connection to my father?
Were it not for the loss of Finvara, I could think of few reasons to regret passing through the Gap gate. It had saved me from being bound body and soul to a man I had begun to hate. Though it was a bitter piece of irony that now I was free to make my own choice, I no longer had one.
I went to the bed and crawled onto it, lying down on my belly. The wool covering the mattress was pungent but soft, and I sank into it gratefully.
When I woke, the light in the cottage had shifted, and a fire was blazing in the hearth. A salty, savory aroma filled my nostrils and my stomach growled.
“My lady?”
I sat up abruptly and found Treig standing at the foot of the bed.
“Is it late?” I asked, my voice cracking. I realized I’d spoken Elvish and repeated the question in Irish.
“No, lady. A little past midday.”
I looked around. The king had gone, and some creature—a hare, I thought—was roasting on a spit over the fire.
“Lady . . .”
Treig held out a folded sheet of paper. Her expression was blank, but her eyes were bright. Whatever was in the note worried her. A farewell from the king, most likely.
My mouth went dry as I took the paper with one hand, holding the cloak closed with the other. I waved it open and saw only a handful of words had been written.
He won’t have you now. But I will.
—D
Something hot and acrid rose in my throat.
“How did you come by this?” I asked her.
“It was left on your dressing table, my lady.”
I laid the paper on the bed. “Will you help me dress?” I asked, standing. “Though I can’t think what I have that will fit me now. I suppose there’ll be no more corsets in my future at least.”
Treig was staring at me and I glanced up to find her smiling.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’ve never heard you laugh before, lady,” she said.
Could that be true? Likely it was. Even in the company of Finvara, who seemed to be amused by everything, I didn’t believe I had ever laughed. I’d never thought of myself as a mirthless person, but there were few I trusted enough to let my guard down in that way. Ulf had always been able to make me laugh.
Treig brought me a bag she’d left by the door, and I smiled to find the mechanical raven had been lashed to the outside. I couldn’t think what had made her bring it. Perhaps she knew, as I did, that I wouldn’t be going back to Knock Ma and thought I might like to have it.
Sorting through the bag, I found that there was not a dress among them that would not have to be altered in order for me to wear it. Anticipating this, Treig had also packed the chambermaid’s sewing implements, and we slit the back of an off-the-shoulder gown of light gray brocade. It had belonged to an elven relation and was at least three hundred years out of fashion in Ireland—and therefore designed before corsets. I had worn it at the Elf King’s court only when he entertained visiting dignitaries—or potential suitors. It had been a favorite of my father’s. I had no memory of packing it, or of seeing it after I arrived here. It must have been tucked between the modern dresses. I couldn’t help wondering if he had planned for me to wear it when Doro and I wed. Which would mean he’d made the decision, without telling me, before I’d even left.
Sighing, I took up the needle and thread, folding under the fabric flaps left by our butchery and stitching the edges so they wouldn’t fray. I handed the gown to Treig, and she helped me to put it on.
Smoothing the fabric with my hands, I said, “An odd costume for the occasion, but I am decent again.”
“You look like a queen, my lady,” replied Treig, and again I laughed, though it pricked at my heart.
“She’s right, you do.”
My heart stopped. I turned to find the king standing in the doorway.
“Forgive me,” he said, “I should have knocked. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I thought that you had . . .” My heart was in motion again. “I thought that you’d gone.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Should I have? You wouldn’t be the first lady to say so, though I’d thank you not to punctuate your answer by flinging anything at my head.”
I pursed my lips, suppressing a smile. “No, Your Majesty.”
He stepped into the room, and I saw he was holding a bow and quiver of arrows—it was even a húnbogi, a recurve bow. More compact than a traditional longbow, but just as powerful.
“I found this in the shed,” said the king. “I thought you might like to have it. I don’t know if it’s all right—I confess I know nothing about archery. It’s past time you had some means of defending yourself.”
A smile now spread broadly over my face, and I saw it reflected in his answering grin. “That smile is answer enough,” he said. “I’ve worked hard for it, heaven knows.” He set the weapon against the wall and closed the door behind him. “Perhaps it will do for a wedding present, since it’s all I’ve got.”