Page 66 of A Thousand Burning Ravens

“You have the right idea, stranger.” She moves slowly toward Myla. “I have not seen much of you around since your arrival.” She leans forward, her wings tucking at her back tightly as she extends a hand to help Myla up. “I am Lenore.”

Hesitantly, Myla accepts her hand, ignoring the tragic image of them both toppling over into a pile of bellies and flailing limbs. “I am Myla,” she greets the beautiful woman before her.

“Ah,” Lenore sighs, “the Queen Who Bleeds Stars. Yes, Myla is less of a mouthful. I will go with that.”

Myla grins at her new friend, then gestures toward her round belly. “When do you expect your little one?”

“I expected the fledgling last week. I suppose this one will come on its own sweet time.” A resignation washes over Lenore. “I know better than to give birth a timeline of my own.”

“Is it your first?”

Lenore howls in laughter, shaking her head. “I have enough fledglings to consider myself the commander of a small army. Eight young ones, not counting this one.” She nods at Myla. “When will yours arrive?”

“If my timing is correct, in about two months.”

Lenore nods toward the door. “I am famished, and nothing like a wholesome meal to bring on one’s pains. Join me?”

Myla follows her out into the dreary day, rain thudding like hysterical tears of the Gods upon the ground. Her soldiers flank either side, clearly less than keen to follow two pregnant women slowly across town.

“Is this your first?” Lenore asks as soon as she has adjusted a drooping hood over her feathered head.

“Yes.”

“You and your husband must be ecstatic,” she remarks absently, her gait slow and lumbering.

“I am afraid the father has passed,” Myla confesses. “But I am. Ecstatic, that is.”

Lenore cringes, pressing a palm to her forehead. “Oh Gods, I forgot. I am sorry. I overheard some of the younger girls discussing who you are and where you are from exactly. What a terrible go of it you have had.” Her words carry a weight of empathy—not as weak as sympathy, but a strength of character and camaraderie Myla has not experienced since Elsa. The face of her friend conjures in her mind, storming the barricades of her heart, a place she has reinforced as of late.

“We must all earn our place among the Gods,” Myla responds, falling easily back into the rigid coolness of indifference which has been her solidarity for years.

“Must we?” Lenore challenges, beckoning her toward a bustling pub. The lax energy exuded from the place feels strange and nostalgic. She has not stepped foot in a tavern in years. She was with Bryar, Rhyland, Elsa, and Callum the last time. It was a night they would fondly dub the ‘Night of Degenerates’ for years to come. Mostly, because it was the night Callum lost his virginity to Elsa.

Who knows who Elsa lost hers to. It is the one secret she never shared with Myla, or anyone for that matter.

They enter and are greeted by a bustling crowd of drinking and meat-fat Ashborns who lounge, enjoying a midday break from their busy agendas. After instructing her guards to wait near the front, Myla follows Lenore to a quiet table at the back of the pub, where they order warm tea and soup.

“What do you mean, you feel we must all earn our place among the Gods?” she asks finally once they sip their beverages, warding off the chill of the autumn day.

“Well, that every trial gets us closer to the Gods. Just as the Gods suffered, so must we.”

Lenore smiles, rubbing her heaving stomach reverently. “The Ashborn believe there is a little bit of the Gods in each of us. To get closer to them, we must look inward. What do you see when you look inside yourself?”

Momentarily taken aback by the forward question, Myla stares at the rippling tea in her hands, watching the lights refract across its surface. Finally, she meets the steady gaze of her new friend and responds. “I see that I am angry.”

“Ah,” Lenore tilts her head in understanding, pacing her response with a long swallow of her drink. “Anger—an emotion the Gods work well with. Dare I ask why you are angry?”

Myla places her mug on the table with an unsteady hand, tracing the rim to distract her from the genuine aura emanating off Lenore. “I am angry because I underestimated myself, which allowed powerful men to, in turn, underestimate me.”

Lenore shivers, drawing her wings around her broad shoulders for warmth. “Then, you must apologize to the version of yourself that you wronged, and you must do everything in your power to right those injustices. For her, and for you, and for every version of you which is to come.”

Myla smiles to shield the sigh that aches to lurch from her lungs. “Yes, but how?”

Lenore leans forward, bracing her arched back with her elbows propped on the table, clearly uncomfortable. “You must ask what the worst thing you have done to yourself is and determine to reverse it.”

Myla looks down at her rounding belly. “I do not think I can un-marry the king of Falkmere.”

Lenore grins. “Considering he is dead; it seems you are not married to him any longer.”