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Benjamin had no recollection of his real mother. She had died in birthing him—a fact which his eleven older brothers never allowed him to forget. His father could be equally cruel when he, the king of seven counties, paid the boys any attention at all. The brothers muttered scornfully when their father married Hermione, who would be their new queen, but Benjamin loved the woman like a mother.
Beautiful Hermione with hair bright as fire patted tears from her cheeks. When young Benjamin observed her thus, he asked why she cried.
“Oh, Heaven!” The woman sobbed, falling to her knees and wrapping her arms around his small shoulders. “I have no confessor, and I must reveal my sins: I am with child, Benjamin!”
“Is that a sin?” the boy asked in earnest. He recognized, at only six years of age, there were many things he did not understand.
When Hermione gazed at him through tear-filled eyes, Benjamin perceived her pain. “The king’s mystic proclaimed the quickening shall be a daughter.”
The young queen’s tears fell hot on Benjamin’s neck, and still he could not comprehend her anguish. “What joy!” he exclaimed. “My brothers and I shall have a sister!”
“The child...” Hermione looked at him quite seriously now. “This child is not your father’s, as you are. She will not share your blood, and though the king has no way of knowing this, I feel he must, for...”
Like a specter, Hermione rose from the floor. In silence, she led Benjamin across a long corridor. When they arrived at the thirteenth door, the queen took a golden key from her breast and, with trembling hands, pushed it into the lock. A single torch illuminated the large room. For a long moment Benjamin did not understand what he was seeing: twelve wooden boxes of varying lengths, all filled with wood shavings and fitted with silk pillows.
Entranced, Benjamin touched the smallest of them, its sides carved ornately and polished to shine. “What are these boxes for, mother?”
Hermione clasped her hand to her heart. “They are coffins, dear child.” Her voice was no more than a whisper. “The king proclaimed that if I bring a girl child into this world, as the mystic prophesied, you and your brothers shall be put to death so her wealth may be great, and she alone may inherit the kingdom.”
Benjamin’s fingers seemed to understand before he did, and they jumped away from the box that was to be his eternal home. “Mother...” Confusion overwhelmed him. “What shall we do, my brothers and I?”
“You must leave your father’s kingdom,” she advised. “Soak your clothing with lamb’s blood and hurl it over the cliffs. I will say you put yourselves to death rather than facing your father’s dagger.”
Of course Benjamin wished to stay in the castle with Hermione and not flee with his contemptuous brothers, but to stay would be his demise. Hermione bid Benjamin farewell, kissing his cheeks and assuring she would pray for their safety every morning and night.
When Benjamin shared his knowledge with his brothers, the older boys became angry and cried out, "Are we to suffer death for the sake of a girl? We swear to take revenge. If ever we come upon this child, her red blood shall flow."
They followed the plan Hermione set out, soaking old clothes with the blood of a lamb and tossing them over the precipice. Saying goodbye to their fair land, all twelve boys set off across country, walking weeks on end until they arrived at the outskirts of a neighbouring kingdom.
Safe at last from their father’s murderous ambition, the brothers built a large house bordering on a bewitched garden. The woman who was their neighbour allowed them to eat her enchanted fruits, and in exchange the older boys shared the profits of their hunt. Over the course of eleven years, the boys revealed to the enchantress why they had been driven from their kingdom. Even after such a long time, the brothers hated the girl who was not in fact their sister, but who stood to inherit their kingdom and their wealth.
And then one night, Benjamin had a strange dream: he dreamed he saw a lost star in the forest. It grew brighter and brighter still. The star had fallen from the sky, and it searched for something vital. Night after night, he was plagued by this odd dream, until one night he went out of the house when the brothers were sleeping. There he saw the star he had dreamed, and the star was on the forehead of a girl with hair as bright as fire.
“Am I dreaming still?” Benjamin asked her.
The girl trembled in the night, clad only in a white gown, which was torn at the hem and all along the skirts. “If you are dreaming, then I am too.” Despite her sorry state and her solitude in the dark forest, she smiled as though she recognized him. “I have left my father’s kingdom in search of twelve brothers I never knew.”
At once, Benjamin understood his dream, and he took the young girl in his arms and squeezed her tight to his chest. “You are the daughter of Hermione, the queen!”
“And the king as well,” she added, cuddling quaintly against Benjamin’s chest. “You are one of my many brothers?”
“But the king is not your father... and we are not truly your brothers.” Benjamin backed away from the girl and sat with her in a cushion of moss. She huddled next to him for warmth, covering her scraped knees with torn skirts, and listened intently as Benjamin revealed what her mother had told him prior to his departure.
In turn, the girl introduced herself as Verity, princess of her mother’s kingdom. Following the death of the king who was Benjamin’s father, Verity discovered the room at the end of the corridor, the one full of coffins, and her mother revealed to her the story of the boys who had gone. The tale touched her heart, and she was intent upon finding these boys, now men, and inviting them to return and share in her power and wealth. Her mother advised against such measures, saying her brothers would surely slay her for the crime of her birth—all but one, who was called Benjamin. He would be kind to her, her mother had said.
“And Benjamin is you.” Verity smiled, clinging to his arm. “And you are kind. You will explain to your brothers their exile was not my doing, and I wish for their return. You will tell them I am good and kind, will you not?”
Benjamin gazed down into the girl’s pale face, admiring the innocence of her green eyes, the fire of her ragged locks, and the peculiar star at the centre of her forehead. She looked strikingly like her mother, whom Benjamin so loved and admired, and his heart ached anew for the castle home of his youth. As he talked with Verity throughout the night, a great affection grew. Her presence warmed his heart, and he knew he would give this girl anything in his power. Most especially, he would stand up against his brothers for her.
When dawn broke across the horizon, Benjamin rose from the princess’ side, bidding her rest while he explained her plight to his brothers. Certainly they would be glad at the prospect of returning home. Hopefully they would understand their expulsion had not been Verity’s doing.
* * * *
The morning sun warmed Verity’s skin as she watched Benjamin exit the forest. After a time, she rose from the moss and, curious, followed in his wake. The house he entered was quite large, and much sturdier than its neighbouring cabin. She did admire that little home’s garden, though, and wandered about as she waited.
In that garden, Verity counted twelve lilies all in a row, and she thought what a lovely gift those flowers would make for her twelve would-be brothers. She watched the house Benjamin had entered for a moment longer, and when no one emerged, she gathered the lilies as an offering.
The moment Verity had plucked the twelfth flower, a chilling screech arose from the large house. The horrid sound made Verity tremble, and when she turned to run from the garden, she found herself face to face with a fine beauty whose hair was white as snow and tumbled all the way down to her feet.
“Wretched child!” the woman cried. “What have you done?”
Tears welled in Verity’s eyes. “I only plucked these lilies as a gift for my...” And, as she began to say the word, she realized they were not her brothers at all, though she loved them already. Verity glanced quickly between the beautiful woman and the large house. “I fear I’ve done something awful.”
Before the woman, slim and sparkling as ice, could say another word, all the windows of Benjamin’s house burst open and an unkindness of ravens flew out.
“This is what you’ve done, child.” The woman seemed frozen in place as she observed the spectacle. “You’ve turned them all to ravens.”
After so many weeks of searching, so many nights of sleeping in the woods and praying the beasts of the forest would not find her, she had found what she sought. To have transformed them thusly, by some unknown infraction... Verity fell to her knees and wept. “What can I do to redeem them?”
The wintery woman took pity on her, and said, “The spell will be reversed only if you remain silent for seven whole years—no speaking, no laughing, not a sound. One word will kill them all.”
In the woods of a foreign kingdom, who would she speak to now that the men she sought were all transformed? It had been her fault they were banished. She’d come to redeem them, and so she would.
Verity nodded to the beautiful woman before wandering into the woods.
By that time, the ravens had soared away—all but one, who flew alongside her. She knew it was Benjamin. How she wished to converse with him, but she was sworn to silence and he could only caw. So Verity walked quietly through the forest, and Benjamin flew over her shoulder, and they remained together until the bark of a dog drove Benjamin to the treetops.
Verity turned to find a sleek greyhound hopping along the forest path, and she dropped to her knees to greet the dog. When it licked her cheek, she reminded herself not to speak, for one word would mean death for the twelve ravens who once were men. She petted the dog until its owner bounded along the path on a chestnut horse. She knew by his regalia that he was a prince. He must have known by the star on her forehead that she was a royal too, and yet he asked her many questions she could not answer. She could not even tell him her name, or where she was from—though she knew the answers to those questions—and she could not reveal where she was going, for that she did not know.
When the foreign prince plucked her from the ground and seated her on the back of his horse, Verity felt apprehensive, but she had no voice for her concern. She searched the treetops for Benjamin as they galloped away, but she did not see him.
In due time, they arrived at a castle, where the prince announced they would be wed. Verity’s heart beat wildly. She wanted to cry out, “No! I am only a girl!” but the prince’s mother seemed to recognize the fear in Verity’s eyes.
“How old are you, my child?” the queen asked.
Though Verity could not speak to answer, she held up her ten fingers and then held up one more.
“Have you a home to return to?” the queen endeavoured.
The response to this question was too complicated to convey, and so Verity simply shook her head to indicate no.
The royal queen determined that her son would marry this girl only after seven years confined to quarters in the highest tower of the castle. Verity was adorned in royal apparel, housed in a room fit for a princess, and fed the finest of foods, but she spent her days and night alone... until Benjamin arrived at her window. She knew it was him by the loving glint in his eye.
Though they could not speak, his presence was a great comfort. He would fly into her room at dawn and leave again at dusk. In that time, Verity would weave fine lace or practice music. By this time, it had been so many years since she’d spoken the thought of singing a note wouldn’t have occurred to her had Benjamin not cawed along in his strangely soothing raven voice.
They spent so many hours together that, in time, Verity learned to understand his birdsong, and he seemed to understand her silence. They spoke without words, he conveying to her the names and traits of her would-be brothers, and she conveying to him the solitude of her own upbringing. In his way, he expressed his fondness of Hermione, and Verity allowed him to see her thoughts about her mother. After many years of daily visits, she knew she loved Benjamin. There was nobody else in the world who understood her thoughts without the luxury of language, and very soon she realized she could not conceal her adoration. After all, he could read her thoughts.
Together, they counted down the days until Verity would be wed to the prince for whom she held no affection. “It is you I love,” she told her raven boy, in her way. “How can I marry another?”
“Leave it to me,” he sang, and she smiled. She knew she could trust him, just as she knew he saw every delectable imagining that entered her mind. In that moment, she caught herself recollecting that this was the day of her birth, and she was now a woman in every sense. As soon as the thought struck her, she knew she had conveyed it to Benjamin, and they both fell more silent than they had ever been with one another.
“Where do you go in the night?” she asked him, in silence. “What do you do when you are not at my side?”
“In the night...” he crowed. “In the night, I am transformed. In the night, I am a man.”
Verity’s heart froze in her chest. She recognized well the urges in her own body, and she could only imagine how it must be for Benjamin. He was, after all, a “brutish man” as the waiting maids called them, and he was older, as well. Must she dwell on the ideas of what he did in the night? With other women?
“No,” he sang in response. “Verity, how could I when it is you I love?”
“Then stay with me tonight,” she suggested in her thoughts. “It is a day for celebration, but we must revel in secret.”
“In silence,” he agreed.
She nodded, feeling the warmth of a smile bleeding across her lips. “In the night.”
When dusk came, Benjamin did not flee through the bars of her window. He waited in the wardrobe until the servants had gone. When the night was dark and all was silent, Verity opened the tall wooden doors. She backed away as Benjamin emerged into the moonlight.
Verity bit her lip to keep from gasping as she perceived his naked form. He was tall and pale, his limbs long with lean muscles. The hair of his head was black as ash, and when she allowed her gaze to trickle down past his chest, she perceived another dark cushion of hair, from which emerged an appendage the likes of which she’d never seen.
Without a thought, Verity reached for the fascinating thing. Like an animal, it jumped in her hand. The flesh was very smooth, but hard as well, and the more she stroked it, the smoother and harder it became. Her thighs grew slick beneath her night dress, and she hiked it up and over her head as she did so many nights. Pooled in moonlight, she touched the tender flesh between her legs and watched as Benjamin’s gaze followed.
Her knees buckled with the intensity of sensation, and she let herself rest upon the trunk at the foot of her bed. When Benjamin—beautiful, mournful, intense and eager Benjamin—brushed a thumb across her nipple, which had grown hard with the evening air, Verity bit her lip once more. She could not make a sound, not one, or her twelve raven-brothers would die. Benjamin would be killed. She could not imagine a greater loss.
Benjamin cupped her breasts, pressing them together. His hardness was so close now that she ran it across her chest. It left warm wetness in its wake, and Verity was fascinated once more. There was such satin smoothness to this flesh, and it rested on top of hardness like iron. Her raven man sighed as she allowed her breasts to envelop this hardness, and for the first time in nearly seven years, he said her name: “Verity.”
Not a crow, not a birdsong, but a word, and the sound made her tremble inside.
She wanted to say to him, “Please...” but she wasn’t sure what to ask for. Pleasure, sensation, yes, but how? Rising to her bed, she lay upon it, stroking the velvet place that gave her the utmost pleasure in his absence. “Here,” she wanted to say, but she knew she could not speak.
Benjamin knew. He always knew, and he crawled between her legs, kissing her thighs and then higher, higher... oh, what delight beyond measure! What thrill beyond pleasure! Verity had never conceived of a love such as this, and she moved in time with his kisses. He was licking her now, his tongue hard and flat, caressing her layers.
Wetness seemed to be everywhere: between her legs, running down to the bed, coating the muzzle that scratched at her thighs. She ran a hand through his raven hair and pulled his face closer to her body, bucking and writhing as he licked that sacred spot. A sound rose up inside her, but she bit it off. It kept coming, but she resisted. If she spoke, he would die. His very life was in her mouth.
The resistance increased her pleasure. The sounds which she could not release were absorbed by her blood, generating sensation like nothing she had ever imagined. He crawled up her body and kissed her mouth, and this kiss was her first and it was beautiful. Naked, they writhed together until she was on top of his body, kissing him, wrapping her legs around his core, and pressing her tender bud against the softest part of his hard flesh.
He spoke her name, and said the teasing was divine. For her, the pleasure built once more. The juice of her core was everywhere upon him, and she rubbed herself with such intensity he said, “You’ll bruise me, my love.”
All concern, Verity slid from his body, issuing mental apologies one after another. His smile grew, though his eyes were dark with desire. When he kissed her once more, she lay with him, still brushing her body close to his, feeling pleasure rejuvenated. He set himself upon her, and his weight was crushing and powerful. He broke their kiss to whisper precious words in her ear, to prepare her for the act of love which had always been shrouded in mystery.
“Will it hurt?” she wondered.
“No, no, no,” he assured her—and to her delight, that was mostly true. The hardness of him entered the softness of her, and for a moment she clung to him, arching her back, biting his shoulder. She could feel his girth stretching her wider. The sensation drizzled pain upon pleasure, but the wet silk of her desire eased a path for him, and when he was fully inside, she felt glad of it.
She clung to his body, biting his shoulder, as he thrust deeply in and then pulled away. In quick time, she caught his rhythm, and soon they worked together, pressing into one another, thrusting, rubbing. Verity rolled her hips in circles, feeling the brush of his hair against her swollen bud. His chest pressed firmly against her breasts as he lunged in her, and how she wished she could release some gasp, some moan, some expression of the joy her body felt.
But Benjamin knew. She was sure he heard the singing of her soul as he loved her, and he moved in her yet faster. Bucking harder, he filled her, meeting her body with crushing heat before crying out her name. Her love hovered over her, panting desperately. He seemed in disbelief as he gazed down, bending to kiss her lips before relaxing in the pool of her satiated longing. Now, she was fulfilled so deeply and truly she thought this could be heaven. If it were, would death be such a horrid place? Ah, but his death and not hers... that would be Verity’s anguish. Nothing could be darker than a life without Benjamin.
The days and nights leading up to her wedding came and went, always too quickly. Benjamin was a raven in the daylight and a man after dark, satisfying Verity’s every need but that for escape. And then one morning, as the sun rose in the sky and Benjamin transformed into his bird self, the lock on Verity’s door clattered, the handle rattled, and who should waltz in but the prince? He had grown fatter and balder since last she saw him, and she pulled up the linens to cover her nudity.
“Ah, my princess!” he said with a distinct sneer. “You are ready for me, I see. We are to be wed this afternoon, but I see no harm in sampling my bride a little early. After all, who will you tell? You are a mute.”
Verity cringed as the horrid prince approached the bed, but her confidence in Benjamin was not misplaced. He dove at the prince and pecked the man’s face, neck—pecked until the prince was driven from Verity’s chamber. He hollered and shielded himself, but Benjamin followed, pecking even as the prince swatted him away. Verity followed too, wrapped in linens. She arrived at her door just in time to see the prince grab for the rail and miss, then tumble down the tower stairs, cursing and crying all the way.
She raced quickly after him, following his cries, and watched as he writhed helplessly at the base of the steps. Just as Benjamin perched on Verity’s shoulder, the queen came running and witnessed her son, all carnage and welts.
The queen’s eyes glowed fire when she observed Verity and the raven. “I protected you.” Her voice was low, a beast-like growl. “I endeavoured to keep you chaste into womanhood, as I wished my mother had done for me, and now I find you are of evil conscience? You have bewitched this bird to do your bidding! I should have known—a girl who never laughs can only be wicked.”
Verity held her linens tight to her breast, still naked underneath. If only she could explain her plight to the queen, who had always been kind to her. But she would rather be put to death than kill her brothers, who had already suffered so much.
“Come.” The queen grasped Verity by the wrist and tugged her over the prince’s writhing body. “You have revealed the true extent of your malevolence—and on the day you were meant to wed my son! Instead, you shall be put to death.”
With great effort, Verity stifled a gasp.
Benjamin will not allow this...Benjamin will save me!
And yet, when she looked all around, Benjamin was nowhere to be seen. She was alone now with the queen, who dragged her barefoot, summoning courtiers to care for her son and others to light a fire in the courtyard.
Benjamin will return to me...Benjamin will make it right.
“This godless creature will be burned at the stake,” the queen announced to the assembled crowd. “She neither speaks nor laughs nor makes any sound at all, yet she has the power to bewitch the birds. This girl is an evil entity and must be put to death.”
At once, the linens were torn from Verity’s body and rough men tied her naked to a pike.
“Have you anything to say for yourself?” the queen asked as the courtiers raised her toward the flames.
One word could be her salvation, and yet one word would put her ravens to death.
Ah, Benjamin...where are you, my love?
Tongues of fire licked her toes, and still she said nothing. The heat of the flames rose through her, and she knew she would soon be dead, yet still she hoped for deliverance.
When the pain became too much to bear, she choked back screams. Her brothers would not die for her sins. They would be saved, even if she should be killed.
Verity looked to the skies in prayer. The day was still so young the sunlight scarcely played on her naked breast. The day was blue and her pain was great, but her hope remained.
Benjamin...I need you!
From beyond the treetops came a fluster of dark wings. Twelve ravens flew toward her, as though they would throw themselves on the fire. When they arrived in close proximity, they pecked at the ties that bound her to the stake. Just as the heat became too much to bear and she fell toward the flame, the birds began their transformation. They were men and ravens at once, with the strength to carry her away from the fire. By magic, their beaks curved to lips, their wings to shoulders, their claws to feet, and they were men once more.
Benjamin fell at her side, taking her in his arms and kissing her deeply. “Seven years have passed,” he said. “We are ourselves again, and you may finally speak.”
“What is there to say?” Her voice was raspy, little more than a croak after years of disuse. “You know me for all I am. You know the extent of my love.”
“But what joy to hear you proclaim it.” He kissed her gently and her body came alive.
With she and all her would-be brothers naked in the courtyard, the queen and courtiers gazed down at them as though they were beasts. All Verity cared was that she was reunited with Benjamin, her great love. The queen’s scowl could not shame her. Now they could return home, where Verity and Benjamin would rule alongside her beloved mother and the men who once were ravens.