Page 58 of White Raven

“What the fuck?!” A deep gravelly voice speared into my dreams, yanking me unwillingly out. Fear cracked across my heart, and I flailed against my restraints, my arms tingling with numbness, shoving me straight from peace to reality.

The bang of wood on the floor made my lashes fly up, ready to see attackers moving in the shadowy room. Instead, Onyx stood over the tipped chair, gripping his trousers with one hand and holding a wiggling object in the other.

Squinting, I made out the thing pinched between his fingers.

A wiggling twig.

The Northerner peered at it, his head darting to me.

“That’s how you kept getting out of the binds.” He glared at me, then turned his irritation on the creature, baring his teeth. “You were fucking eating them.”

“Don’t hurt it.”

The Northerner shot me a look, the creature still trying to escape his hold.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A groundling,” he replied. “They live in the roots of trees in the Shadow Rift and eat anything with natural fibers in it, like fabric, rope . . .” He snarled at the creature. “And reins.” He shook his head, his hand regripping his pants, trying to keep them up. “I should have known you had help.”

A snort burst out of me, noticing the hole from the waistband to the crotch.

“How long did you let him nibble there before you stopped him?”

The Night Raven’s lids narrowed on me, while his feet took him toward the window. “Nuisances.”

“No, I said don’t hurt it!” I croaked, trying to sit up, my secured arms not giving me much leeway.

“These things are like cockroaches. A million of them, and they are hard to kill.” It took him only two tries to crack open the old window I couldn’t budge, tossing the creature outside. He slammed the window shut, re-clutching his pants. “It will be fine.”

“You really are a heartless drittsekk.” There was no reason to feel anything for the groundling, but I couldn’t help the strange bond I’d formed with it. The creature helped me escape twice, and even if it didn’t mean to journey with us here, I couldn’t help but think of it being far from home, away from family. Scared and alone.

Like me.

Onyx’s eyes roamed over me, his attention catching on my chest, the ink raw and sensitive under his gaze. His throat bobbed, and for a second, I thought I saw emotion in his eyes, but it was so fleeting, I probably imagined it.

He stomped over, undoing the belt around my arms.

“Time to get up.”

Blood flowed back into my veins, tingling them with sharp pricks. I sat up, rubbing life back into them, trying to ignore the discomfort throughout my entire body. It quaked with trauma and fatigue, and I barely got a moment of restful sleep.

“I’ll take you to the toilet.” He tied up his pants with the belt, frowning at the gap running down his crotch. He tugged on his tunic, covering up the hole.

Numbly, I crawled off the bed, defeated and exhausted, the yearning for home hitting me like an undercurrent. Clutching my cloak, I followed him out of the room. He continued to peer back at me, his brow furrowing, as he led me down the hall. My head bowed, quietly shuffling behind.

He opened the door, a lamp flickering inside the small privy. A pitcher of water sat on a tall table with a bowl and cloth, a mirror above it, and the built-in loo against the wall. “Ten minutes to do what you need to do.”

Nodding, I stepped past him, his hand on the doorknob.

“I will be right out here.” It wasn’t a statement of concern. It was a veiled threat.

Don’t try anything.

The door clicked, leaving me alone in the windowless room, nowhere to go unless I shimmied down the toilet, landing in waste. A vent above the loo barely alleviated the stench. Imagining all the people who used this room in a day, my own private baths at home seemed luxurious and decadent in comparison. My dirty skin itched to crawl into a warm bath, soak the grime off, then be wrapped in a soft robe. Ingrid and Anja would meticulously brush out my hair for an hour, braiding the long strands. I would usually fall asleep, warm and toasty, in the glow of their gentleness, pretending it was how tender and loving my mother would have been.

Squatting over the toilet, I hurriedly peed, trying not to take deep breaths.

Stepping up to the washing basin, my gaze lifted to the warped mirror, staring at the unfamiliar girl in the reflection.