The Storm Crow (The Storm Crow, #1)(65)

He smirked. “Sounds boring.”

I laughed, and his eyes gleamed as though the sound delighted him. He leaned against the stall door, his lips curving in something dangerously close to a smile.

“Come spar with me tomorrow,” he said.

“What?”

He pushed off the stall. “In addition to the raid, my mother made me agree to another deal. If I want to be Valix after her, I have to win the Centerian.”

I drew a sharp breath. “You’re entering that bloodbath?”

He pressed on as if he hadn’t heard me, stepping closer. “And since it’s your fault I had to make that deal in the first place, the least you could do is help me prepare for it.”

“My fault?” I repeated.

He stood directly before me now, his broad frame blotting out the moonlight trickling in behind him. “Unless you’re afraid, of course.”

The thrill of danger alighted across my skin like an icy breeze. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”





Twenty-One


I sat with Kiva on the couches that evening, having just relayed what had transpired in the stables over slices of whiskey cake, an Ambriellan dessert I’d fallen in love with the time I’d visited. I felt like I always had the night before Negnoch; not ready to sleep but desperate to go to bed and for tomorrow to come so I could see Res.

“There’s something broken in him, Kiva,” I said quietly, the image of Ericen with his head pressed against his stallion’s still fresh in my mind.

“I’m sure there is, but it’s not for you to fix. Have you forgotten who he is?”

I cast her a halfhearted glower. “No. But I don’t think he has to be our enemy.” She laughed, and I pressed on. “I’m serious. He doesn’t want to be his mother. He wants to be better.”

Ericen hadn’t told me those things from a place of self-pity; he’d told me because he intended to do something about it. He wanted to fix his broken pieces. I understood that, just like I understood his desire to be better than his mother. My mother had made mistakes, ones whose echoes now haunted me and Caliza both. We’d inherited the consequences of her decisions, and I would do better.

She set her half-eaten cake on the table. “You could never trust him.”

“I think I could, in time. I think even you could, if you let yourself try.”

“No thanks.”

I sighed, setting my empty plate beside hers. “Have you ever heard the story about how the crows were created? The one from Saints and Sellas.”

“I never read those fairy tales. They’re a waste of time.”

I smiled. “It’s my favorite out of all of them. My mother told it to me one night with only a candle burning in my room. After that, I memorized it.”

Kiva shifted in her seat, leaning back against the armrest so she faced me, and I began to talk.

“When the Sellas made the crows, the night lasted for a year. They drew their power from the night and from it formed the crows. Its darkness became their feathers, its vastness their power, its tranquil silence their quiet wisdom. The night grew angry with the Sellas and refused to give way to the day. Time passed. Crops and people alike started to sicken from the lack of sunlight, withering as the night grew lush and full. The Sellas begged the night to end, but it refused.”

I remembered each moment of the night my mother had told me the story with stark clarity. I’d snuggled deep into my covers, my mother’s rich voice enveloping me. Outside, the night had been thick as velvet, as if waiting to be formed into something greater than itself.

“The Sellas went to the crows, born of night, and asked for their help as repayment for creating them. The crows agreed. The sun crow gave them light in ribbons of gold, the fire crow and storm crow, warmth in crackling fires and pleasant winds. The water crow and earth crow revived their crops, and the battle crow kept them safe from the creatures that haunted the night. The shadow crow challenged the night to a battle, and the night agreed. They dueled, battling at the speed of darkness, too fast and shadowed for the Sellas to see. The fight went on and on in silence, the only indication it raged wisps of black that escaped from the night like ink dispersing in water, until finally, the crow emerged from the dark, victorious.

“The night kept its word and ended, returning to its natural cycle with day. The Sellas thanked the crows and welcomed them into their homes. And so began the relationship between them.”

The firelight flickered, throwing shadows across the room. “When I asked what the speed of darkness was, my mother said, ‘Snuff out the only candle in a room. Watch how quickly the darkness comes.’ And she blew out the candle at my bedside, dousing us in night.”

“I’m guessing there’s a moral here?” Kiva asked.

“Darkness spreads quickly,” I replied. “Quicker than light. If we keep doing what we’re doing, if Rhodaire and Illucia keep retaliating against each other, it’s never going to end. The darkness will spread and spread until everything is consumed.”

She regarded me with heavy eyes. “Pain begets pain,” she whispered. “That’s what my mother said to me when she told me what happened to my father. I asked her why she didn’t destroy the people who did it, and that’s what she said.”

I nodded. “The only way to end the cycle, the only way to truly defeat Illucia, is to help them change. They need a better ruler. A better leader. And I think Ericen could be him.”