Page 2 of White Raven

Sarina rolled her eyes, threading her arm with mine. “I just said that so Yanric would let you go early.” She yanked me forward, giving me no chance to deny her. Sarina was a force, someone who didn’t take no for an answer. “Elvina ordered me to get you, but she didn’t say it had to be straightaway.” Unless you were specific, Sarina would interpret an instruction how she wanted.

Allowing her to drag me, I ripped the tie from my hair, letting my long silvery-white hair cascade down my back, hoping to hide my scarlet face and sullied clothes. Elvina and my father would throw a fit if they saw me walking in the village not properly dressed, wearing my training trousers and tunic. And with no bodyguards.

“Hurry. Before Elvina sends Linnea for us.” She curled her lip in irritation. Linnea loved to throw her authority around, always the one to snitch on us to Elvina or my father. I was actually surprised Elvina sent Sarina to retrieve me, instead of Linnea. When it was just the two of us, we tended to get distracted and in trouble.

Sarina rushed her steps, her signature handmaiden light blue dress flowing behind her in the icy breeze. Fat clouds rolled in overhead as the white stone castle loomed behind us like a stunning ice sculpture, strategically placed on a snowy peak behind stone walls. The Day Raven banner flew atop the highest turret—the image of a raven bearing a letter and dagger in its beak, a symbol of what we once were. The village in Silvervale expanded around the castle in layers, the frosty gabled roofs standing like lines of soldiers ready to protect the heart of the Day Territory. Nestled within the snow-tipped forest, Silvervale Castle was the home of the widowed King Vorian Stallard and his daughter, Wrennlyn Stallard, the White Raven.

Mud and horse manure mucked up the cobbled lanes, flecking the hem of Sarina’s dress. Sarina and I wove through the empty market stalls, the rush of early-morning shoppers long gone, leaving most merchants trying to hawk their last items before they shut down for the day.

“He’s there,” Sarina hissed, her fingers latching on tighter to my arm.

My gaze lifted to Henrik’s family stall. His tall frame bent over to pick up a box of his family-grown brussels sprouts, a vegetable we ate with everything, since it grew in a cold climate.

“He’s so good-looking, Wren.” Sarina knocked her hip into mine.

Nodding, I let my gaze fall over him, recalling the feel of his hands moving under my skirts. While Sarina and Thomas moaned from an empty stall over, Henrik had laid me back in the hay, his mouth working sloppily up my neck. Still, the biggest thrill I got was when Emil’s apprentice, the new stable boy, told Linnea where we were, forcing us to run half-dressed back to the castle. Thankfully, Sarina and I had gotten good at evading her.

Sarina was so giggly over Henrik and Thomas, I expected to be more caught up in him while he kissed me. Instead, I was highly aware of the pokes from the straw underneath me, the stench of horse manure, the pawing of his fumbling hands and chaotic kisses, finding him less cute than Sarina seemed to think he was. He was so drunk his eyes blurred, not saying anything more to me than hello before he started kissing me. Sarina said it was because he was nervous around me, to be in the presence of the White Raven. His solution was to get so drunk, his lips struggled to find their destination.

It was the same thing I heard three years ago, when I had sex for the first time in that very stall with a previous drunken stable boy. He even passed out right after he came, snoring into the hay, never once looking me in the eye.

Men couldn’t seem to handle who I was sober.

Henrik looked up, his blue eyes catching mine. A cocky smile hitched the side of his face like we hadn’t been interrupted by Linnea and he had made me see all of the lost realms and the stars in between.

Sarina made a squealy noise next to me, gripping my hand in excitement. “He likes you.”

“Rina, you know I can’t do anything about it.”

“You’re not married . . . yet. Take him as a lover.”

I had no plans to ever get married. My father thought the White Raven was above such things.

I peered over at him again, and he shot me a wink and a smile. Maybe Sarina was right, he was just really nervous. At least he could look at me without drink. Maybe his kisses wouldn’t be so messy and awkward next time. And I would feel all the giddiness and excitement Sarina claims I should.

“Sarina!” The voice stilled us both, the nasally tone we knew all too well. “White Raven!”

“Grybba.” Ugly hag. Sarina rolled her eyes.

“Rina!” I hit her arm, turning to see Linnea stomping for us, her blue dress somehow looking more pinned up and conservative next to Sarina’s. Her blond hair sleeked back in a stiff bun; her stone-blue eyes narrowed on us. She was only twenty-six but somehow looked decades older.

“Fun got stuck up her ass along with her youth,” Sarina had said one time.

I hated her so much, but I couldn’t speak up to my father about her. He wanted her there and his rule was law, even more for me than the people of this kingdom.

“Elvina told you to come right back,” Linnea hissed, her thin lips pinched. “The king has called for Wren to come to his chamber, immediately.”

My spine went rigid. There weren’t many reasons my father had to call on me now with urgency. He had so many people watching over me, I was a well-oiled system not needing his involvement.

“I told Elvina not to send you. You can never just do as you’re told.” She glared at Sarina. “Now hurry!” She snapped her fingers, motioning us to get moving. Her demand would have most thralls fired for addressing me with such disrespect—my father would never put up with such a thing personally—but my handmaidens were different. I was the motherless child they had either tended since a baby or acted like they did, forgetting I was almost nineteen, the age at which I would take a seat beside my father on the throne.

The year the White Raven was foretold to come into her powers.

Following Linnea, I glanced quickly back at Henrik. His baby face and blond hair brushing the tops of his shoulders, his features gentle and pleasant. He was good-looking, except nothing in my heart sputtered to life. And if I looked away, he would be lost to the sea of my memory. Forgotten.

I turned and rushed toward the castle, to my father.

My muddy boots left tracks on the snowy white rugs placed throughout the castle, the familiar corridors leading to my father’s chambers. The walls were decorated with elaborate weavings of our history, each tapestry a part of the tale.