The wet warmth of the midsummer’s night stuck to Raven and dewed on her skin like tiny droplets of honey. She itched. Her clothes felt constricting, and the ropes, where they dug into the flesh of her wrists, left her raw with hundreds of miniature scratches. The bruises that had formed across her cheekbones were tender, but only to the touch. It was the inside of her mouth, where her teeth had sliced into her cheeks and tongue, which was especially sore.
She sighed and, despite the stiffness in her muscles and the deep bruised tenderness in her bones, she rose from the small straw bed in the cell where she’d been placed. She moved to the barred window, her only connection to the world outside. She wondered about her brother.
Her wrists were tied in front of her, so she was able to grasp the bars in her hands and pull herself up onto her toes to peek out into the dark forest beyond. A bird called in the distance, and it sounded strange, unfamiliar. She shivered, suddenly chilled despite the evening’s warmth.
She closed her eyes and pressed her tender forehead to the bars. The day’s events flashed before her mind. Loki had known Cael would run to the village council. Her brother had been injured badly, though, and needed to get to Haledon’s temple as soon as possible. The sun god’s acolytes would be able to heal whatever internal damage he’d sustained. Raven helped him down the trail to the temple, and Haledon’s healers met them at the door and tended to his wounds without question.
Loki never let up, begging his sister to run home, pack, and then head into the forest. As he had lay there, the acolytes casting healing spells over his injured body, he had pressed her to leave him, telling her that he would catch up later, once he was healed.
She refused to go.
When Haledon’s acolytes had completed Loki’s restorations, they’d turned to her. They had only managed to right her broken nose and swelling eyes before the council’s leaders arrived at the temple, guards at their sides, enchanted weapons in their hands.
Loki rose from the table and stood in front of her.
The council regnant approached her. He was a middle-aged man with a gentle stature and bright, intelligent eyes. Raven had always respected his judgments. He stopped before them, nodded at Loki, and, in a quiet voice, repeated Cael’s accusations. He then asked Raven whether they were true.
Raven had never in her life told a lie. There had been times, many times, that she had wanted to. However, in each instance the truth had come spilling out before she could stop it. As it did this time. She nodded, admitting that Brayden and Selby had been swallowed up by the ground and that she had wished for it just before it had happened. The regnant took in the blossoming bruises on her face and the destroyed dress beneath the cloak she had borrowed from the priests. He was silent for a moment, his expression remorseful as he took a deep breath.
Then he nodded and asked Raven to accompany them to the guardhouse. Loki shook his head.
“No. She is innocent. She did nothing but voice what any one would have been thinking in such a situation. Those men attacked us. They tried to rape her. They got what they deserved.”
The council members began to whisper amongst themselves. The guards tensed, placing their hands on the hilts of their swords. The regnant raised his left hand, stilling them all.
“I have no doubt, Loki. Unfortunately, Masters Selby and Brayden are not here to stand accused. Your sister, however, is. I am afraid she is going to have to come with us.”
Loki moved like lightning, pushing Raven back several yards away from the group of men. He then rushed to the nearest wall, where Haledon’s symbol, the double-bladed, sun-detailed axes, hung above the altar. Without pause, he pulled them down and turned to face the guards, one heavy, sharpened axe in each hand.
Raven raced to stand between them. “Loki, no!” she yelled at her brother. She faced the council members.
“I’ll come with you. I won’t fight. Just please leave Loki out of this. He has done nothing but take a beating.”
The council regnant looked from her to her brother, who stood, wide-eyed, several paces away.
“Very well.” He nodded once again and gestured for her to walk ahead of them.
Loki moved to follow, but Raven stopped, turned to face him, and shook her head once. Something passed between them in that instant, some unspoken agreement that slid from one to the other.
He stood still and let her go.
And now she rested alone, her feverish forehead pressed against the cool metal bars of a moldy guardhouse stall. She was to be burned on the pyre at sunrise. She smiled bitterly at the thought. She had never liked fire, nor sunrise, so it was fitting.
As she stood there, eyes closed, thoughts distant, she heard the door to the adjoining hall unlock and creek open. Raven pulled away from the window and turned to face her cell door. In a moment, the locks within its iron fittings turned, and that door swung open as well.
Raven stared at her mother and father, who stood in the archway with the attendant guard. Not able to bear the agony etched into her mother’s features, she at last looked away and moved to sit on the small straw-filled bed. Her mother joined her there, placing a warmer cloak over her daughter’s shoulders and pressing a folded bundle of clothing into her arms. Her father moved further into the room. The guard closed and locked the door behind them.
The silence stretched, as no one seemed to know what to say first. And then Sarah was sobbing, holding her daughter in an embrace that Raven could only return with equal dedication. Their tears fell freely, mingling before they dropped onto the dirty hay-strewn floor.
Alastair Grey watched them from where he stood beside the small barred window. His expression was unreadable.
Minutes passed.
When it seemed Raven and her mother had no more tears to cry, they straightened and Sarah peered down into her daughter’s face. Her weathered hands cupped Raven’s bruised cheeks, her fingers shaking as she took in the damage that marred her daughter’s features. “What did they do to you, little one?”
“I’m okay, mama.”
Alastair came forward then. He was a tall and handsome man, his hair long, wavy and dark, his skin relatively unlined for his age, his eyes unnaturally bright. Alastair and Sarah exchanged glances. Raven looked from one to the other.
Then Alastair moved to stand before her, knelt so that he was on her level, and took her hands in his. “Raven, I’m afraid there is something your mother and I must share with you.” He paused, bit his lower lip, and took a slow breath through his nose. “The night you were born, a stranger came to call.”
Raven cocked her head to one side. She had never before heard this version of the story of her and her brother’s births.
“It was storming. The storm was causing floods and wind damage. It had been completely unexpected and the rain season was over for the year. It wasn’t until later, when we had more time to reflect upon it, that we realized how strange it was.” He stopped again and glanced once more at his wife. She nodded at him, smiling a small smile, and he continued. “A man knocked on the door, asking for shelter from the gale. He had already tied his horse to the tether post beneath the awning in the front. I invited him in without much thought on the subject. My mind was on other matters.”
“Your brother was born first. He came naturally, without any problems. Though your mother was exhausted by the time he emerged, the birth was by most means normal.” Alastair paused, ran a hand through his long hair, and rubbed his eyes. He took her hands in his again and went on.
“But then your mother noticed that something was wrong. The midwife told us there was another child. The cord had been wrapped around your neck. I was going to lose you… both of you. It was the darkest moment of my life. All hope seemed lost.”
Alastair released his daughter and stood. With a gaze focused in the distance and a voice that came from the past, he moved back to the window, stared out at nothing, and continued.
“I had forgotten about the stranger. Through the confusion, I found myself back in the family room, and he was there, seated at the table. Somehow, he knew what was happening. He offered to help. He said that he could save you both.”
Alastair grasped the window’s bars in his hands and squeezed them, his eyes shutting for a moment as his memories took him back to that rain-soaked night, twenty years ago. “The stranger looked at me with the bluest eyes I had ever seen. He had raven hair, was dressed in solid black, and his skin was so pale-” He shook his head. “I stared at him and wondered how I had missed all this before. Then he stood and he was so tall….”
Alastair’s voice trailed away. After a moment, his wife took up where he’d left off.
“He told your father to be rid of the midwife and take him to me. Your father, of course, did so. He would have done anything. We all would have. When he came into the room, I remember thinking that night, itself, had entered my bedchamber. But I was in so much pain that I nearly didn’t care.”
Sarah placed her hand over her daughter’s and squeezed gently. Raven sat still, silently enrapt, stunned that her parents had kept so much from her for so long.
“He came to the bed and told me that he could save you, that he could save us both. He put his hand on my stomach and a warmth filled my body.”
Raven shook her head, not certain she could believe what she was hearing.
Sarah continued as Alastair moved away from the window and came to stand beside them once again. “The warmth reached your tiny body and I felt it connect. Like a light, a magic, Raven, and….”
“It saved you. The stranger saved you both,” Alastair said. “You were born healthy and unharmed a few moments later. After I’d placed both you and your brother in your mother’s arms, I went into the family room to thank the stranger. As far as I was concerned, he was a guardian, sent by Haledon, to save my wife and children.” Alastair crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the dank wall. “But when I reached the room, he was gone. I opened the door and looked outside. The storm had stopped. The sky was clear. There was no sign of the stranger or his mount anywhere. It was extraordinary. It was almost as if none of it had never happened.”
Sarah nodded, her gaze introspective. “We had many years to ponder what transpired that night. It was not until you were nearly five years of age that we heard of the theft at the Spring of Souls. The theft had occurred the very night you were born. And your father and I came to grasp the truth.” Sarah looked into her daughter’s eyes then, and held her gaze steady. “Raven, it was the stranger – the stranger who visited us that night – who stole the Spring’s eldest soul. And it was that soul that he placed inside of your body. You are the Chosen Soul, Raven. That was how he saved you. That was how he saved us both.”
Raven stared at her mother. She blinked. The world seemed to drift off, far away, untouchable, unreachable. She suddenly felt strangely invaded, as if there were something inside of her that should not be there, foreign, uninvited.
She felt sick.
“We still did not know, however, who the stranger had actually been. We realized he had to have been powerful enough to make it past the Spring’s safeguards, and perhaps strong enough to create the very storm that helped allow the theft to take place.” Alastair shrugged. “However, we had no true notion of who he was… until tonight.” He straightened and peered down at his daughter.
Raven turned to face her father, comprehension dawning on her fine features.
“What happened to Brayden and Selby was his doing, Raven. The stranger’s. He came to your aid when you needed him, heeded your call as a father would.” Alastair swallowed, his jaw tense as he continued. “Because that is what he is. The moment he took your soul from the Spring, he became your sire. The body I helped give you was changed, altered forever, when that soul reached its core.”
Alastair knelt before her once again. “What happened to Selby and Brayden explains much. It is clear now that the stranger who came to us that night was one of the Lords of Abaddon. And you are his child.”
Raven shrunk back away from her father and stood on shaky legs. She moved, somewhat unsteadily to the opposite wall and hugged herself against another uncharacteristic chill. When she spoke, her voice was very soft and cracked slightly beneath the staggering weight of what she had just been told. “You are telling me that I am the daughter of a devil?” she asked quietly, nearly numb with shock.
Behind her, Alastair and Sarah glanced at one another. Sarah stood and moved to her daughter. She drew her into her arms and held her tight. “You are my daughter, Raven. Always and forever. And I swear that you will not die tomorrow. I will not allow it. Devils and council members be damned.” She released her then and moved to the door. She looked back over her shoulder at her husband, and he nodded.
Then he, too, hugged his daughter, kissed her trembling forehead, and peered down into her blue-black eyes. “Have faith, Raven,” he said quietly. “Most of the townspeople do not wish to see you executed. It is Selby’s father that has them in the palm of his hand. He is threatening to halt trade with Norraim if they don’t….” He broke off, shook his head, pulled her into another tight embrace, and then, with one last kiss on her brow, he left her and joined his wife near the exit. They were only allowed so much time with their daughter; the council members did not want to give them enough time to plan an escape.
Alastair and Sarah nodded once more at Raven and then Alastair rapped twice on the door. In a moment, the guard unlocked it and led them out.
When Raven was alone, she found herself sliding down the wall, her legs no longer able to support her. Her mind spun, reeling and dizzy with the information she had just been handed. She was the Chosen Soul; the infamous stolen spirit from the Spring of Souls in Kriver. The stranger – her father – had traveled far to deposit her soul within her body. Kriver was a very great distance from her isolated village, and one would have to venture through the Phaen Forest…. Very few people were said to have completed the trip. Raven realized that that was why her parents had not heard of the theft from the Spring of Souls until five years after it had happened. But then, a Lord of Abaddon would not have to make the trip as a mortal would. In fact, it would mean no more than magical transport. Devils possessed such abilities as mortals possessed the ability to walk and talk.
Raven closed her eyes and laid her head back against the wall. Outside her window, the night grew long, the shadows deepened, and the moons rose higher in the sky.