Page 83 of A Thousand Burning Ravens

Wrapping the reins around her gloved hand, Myla shrugs. “I have felt nothing yet,” she assures him. “That is not to say I will not. There used to be entire weeks where I would feel nothing.”

Unconvinced, Bryar leans toward her with an uncomfortable grunt, maneuvering his horse closer. “Let me see your amulet.”

Curious now as to what he suspects, Myla reaches to the nape of her neck, loosening the amulet from its trapping beneath her breastplate until it has wiggled free, revealing itself. It glows a fierce amber. Oh. She looks to Bryar, his exhaustion making sense now. She is not fine—she is sucking his magic right out of him, and were they not bonded by the Ashborn Flame, she would not be riding alongside her army.

“Bryar,” she whispers pressing her hand to the amulet with a tinge of guilt washing over her. “Are you okay?”

He nods with certainty, then touches his own amulet. “I am alright. One obstacle at a time, my love, we are figuring this out.”

They spend the evening camped at the foot of a cavernous mountain. Stalagmites reach up from its base, and a sharp overcropping suggests there was once more to it than currently remains. As late afternoon drifts restlessly into the inky darkness of nightfall, the stench of death seems to grow stronger.

Rising over the top of the mountain, fast traveling stars begin rolling down its sides, ominously drifting closer, until Myla can make out what they really are: the orbs she and Bryar saw when they traveled to Valyndor months ago.

“Look.” She points from their place beside a fire. Bryar watches curiously, an arm closing around her protectively as they move closer. The orbs drift, lonely and wanting, through the encampment. “This must have something to do with Vesperian.”

“Yes,” Bryar agrees, hushing a group of his men who appear startled. “Gather your wits,” he whispers a low command to them. “I believe these beings are just as afraid as we are.” He leans toward Myla now, holding a wooden bowl in his large palm. The contents are inky black, charcoal crushed and mixed with a small amount of water. Bryar dips his index finger in the war paint and raises a hand to her face. Line after line, he draws protective runes and sigils across her cheeks and forehead. When her face is sufficiently covered in menacing black designs, she takes the bowl and draws the same symbols onto him.

Like the night in the pergola, the orbs drift by for the rest of the night, the number endless. There is something devastating and eerie about them, and the sad song they carry with them. For the next three nights, Myla will sleep extraordinarily little. Though her body is exhausted, her mind races, trapped with the knowledge that this may very well be the end. Not only for her and the child she now longs to meet, but for so many around her. In all of the times she watched Caius send troops off to settle some dispute over territories and borders, or fight on his behalf, she never heard him voice concern, nor guilt, for the lives lost. He would say that immense success rides on the back of great loss; he was proud to have men willing to die for him.

All Myla feels is fear. Fear that her fight is not worth the death of even one of these soldiers, who all seem so ready to meet their fate on her battlefield. The burden of responsibility Caius used to carry effortlessly; she struggles beneath. She thinks of the families waiting for their return. If the Blood Stealer is defeated, how will she face victory knowing some of those families will not watch their soldier march home?

The feeling perpetuates as night waxes into morning, and just before sunrise, the shallow grave appears. Scarce at first, a bleached bone here, a rusted sword there. Then all at once, a disturbing sight of body upon contorted body stacked, barely covered in dirt.

But no wolves in sight.

Rising from their bodies, some quickly, others struggling to wiggle free, are the orbs that have haunted their nights. The song is louder here, the words inaudible but nonetheless, conveying a grievous injustice and a need for vindication. As if they are asking her to kill the bastard who has them trapped in this Gods-forsaken place.

Myla stumbles from her horse, bringing the company to a halt. “We have to do something,” she demands, a wave of nausea rising in her. Somewhere behind her, someone vomits at the sight and smell of decay.

Bryar takes her elbow, pulling her back toward her horse. “There is nothing you can do, not until the Blood Stealer is dead,” he says quietly, consoling her with a gentle touch in the center of her back. “What we need to do is figure out how we will get an entire army through this. It stretches for miles, and we will only make it through if we keep our wits.”

A black mist, barely noticeable at first, begins to coil from the mouths and eyes of the dead, a silky voice speaking through the corpses, distorted and yet all so familiar. “Oh, you will not,” it coos. So confident, so certain of itself in the face of her army.

“Fuck!” Rhyland shrieks and leaps into the air as one of the dead seizes his ankle, trying to pull him to the ground with a strength that should belong to no one, the dead especially. He swings at the arm, slicing it off entirely. Blackened blood sprays and oozes, sizzling on the unholy ground.

“Callum—you bastard, you mentioned a mass grave; you did not mention its occupants would fight back!” Rhyland looks to Bryar for direction, and finds his captain equally perplexed, slamming the heel of his boot down upon a twitching corpse beneath him.

“Callum mentioned nothing of corpses fighting back,” he growls, angrily looking at Callum.

“They did not do that when I passed through!” Callum defends, horror washing over his face.

Ashborn by the hundreds take flight, launching themselves far from the grappling hands of the dead. Legions of soldiers, Titonfall and the Raven’s Veil included, who were previously marching in tight formations, now bleed together in frenzied panic as the ground beneath them rolls and lulls with the heaving of living corpses.

“It is a trap!” Lord Valen of Titonfall shouts from atop of horse, looking specifically upon his wife in warning. “We should never have brought our men here.”

Horses lose their composure, panicked whinnies begin to echo far behind her, as a wave of concern washes over the legions. Though they try to await Myla’s command, the black mist grows sizably, traveling through their legs, creating the illusion of an inky river, swallowing her army whole within minutes.

A member of the Raven’s Veil, dressed in black battle leathers, face entirely shrouded in a cowled hood, rushes to Bryar’s side. “Sir, this is madness. We must retreat.”

Bryar flashes his subordinate a burning glare. “There is nowhere to retreat to, Tamsyn,” he warns. “The Gods have brought us here for a reason, and here is where we will fight for them, or fight to meet them.” Myla’s husband turns to face her now, making no effort to hide his fear. “Remember the last night in Valyndor?”

She nods, her trembling hands reaching for the sword at her hip, gripping the raven hilt. “Yes.” Before her, corpses struggle to their feet, animated by some vile force.

“We weaken him first, ok? Do not attempt any channeling until he is weakened. —Circle up! Shields!” The latter command is bellowed, the scattering troops begin to fall into formation, moving as one, until Myla finds herself surrounded by the massive, armored bodies of well-trained men. In every direction, as far as she can see, red from the bloody sunrise gleams off the black helmets of the thousands of soldiers prepared to die.

Overhead, shrieking like hungry birds of prey, the Ashborn circle, embers scattering from their wings with every swoop, falling to the ground like dying stars. Ivan and Imogene spiral into a graceful land, their vibrant blue armor contrasted by the blackened landscape. “There is no point trying to retreat to more solid ground,” Ivan says grimly. “Vesperian’s grave stretches across the entire valley, even into the sides of the mountain.”

“We fight here,” Myla concludes. “May the Gods watch over you both.” The king and queen take flight once more, their instructions overhead barely audible, but Myla watches as their warriors ignite, ready for battle.