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He screams. I pull up before he can turn, wings snapping wide as I regain height. The wound is deep, and he crumples where he stands, bleeding out onto the stone. I’d be surprised if he lasts until dawn with blood loss that severe.
I lift my gaze to the castle fence, searching for the archer. Nothing. He’s gone into hiding, but he’s not my priority right now. Maybe he didn’t aim that arrow at me after all. The revolution.
I turn to the witches and pirates and move quickly, using my beak to tear through rope and bindings. One by one, they’re free. As fast as their broken bodies can carry them, they flee into the dark.
No matter how broken your body is, if you have a chance at survival, you take it. I learned that in the Academy.
One of the witches slows, then stops to turn back. Cautiously, she approaches me. Tilting her head of silver hair back, she looks up at me, wide eyes meeting my gaze without fear. She lifts her hands and places them gently against my beak.
The fire crackles behind us.
“Thank you,” she says softly. “Whoever you are. The shifters have no reason to hide.” Her voice is weathered with age and ancient magic. Who knows how long she has survived in this world? Then she turns and runs like the others, slipping toward the least crowded stretch of the courtyard. No one stops her.
The crowd thins quickly. Townspeople retreat, fear finally outweighing their hunger for blood. I launch upward, wings cleaving through the smoke as I climb toward the mountains. I’ll need distance to shift back. The witches and pirates disappear into the shadows, chasing survival. I may have saved them for tonight. What they do with that mercy is no longer my concern.
Chapter twenty-three
Cinder Prince
I fly over the mountains in search of shelter to shift so I can do what I came to do before the night is over. Skimming the jagged ridge, I spot a narrow cave. I glide inside, my talons striking rock. The sound cracks through the hollow like a gunshot. I freeze, listening. There’s nobody here. I don’t even hear the scuttle of a rat. Good.
I don’t even shift in front of another animal. Anyone could be a shifter. With the witch confirming a suspicion I've had for a while, now I know I'm not the only one left in this world. I pull my power inward and shift back into my human form, leather biting against my skin as my wings vanish.
Moonlight spills through the mouth of the cave, painting the stone in silver. As my eyes adjust, I see scratch marks gouged into the walls. Some human. Some very much not. A chill slides down my spine.
My hand goes to the dagger strapped to my thigh. I draw it, slow and silent, and turn, scanning the dark as if the cave itself might be watching me. With my clear night vision, I can make out what’s piled at the back of the cave. Bones of all kinds tossed together like refuse. Sea creatures, land beasts, humans, witches.
My stomach tightens as the realization strikes. Is this where the king brings the tortured subjects of his research? The place where he documents their suffering in that book? Why would he keep their bones? He has to be in league with a powerful witch. This has dark magic all over it.
I turn to leave, but hear voices drifting up the mountainside. I move fast, slipping just beyond the mouth of the cave and into the shadow of a massive oak, my cloak shrouding me in darkness. I hold still as stone, watching.
The king emerges from the tree line first, followed by his royal captain. This must have been why no reinforcements showed up at the burning. He wasn’t even in the castle.
“The attack at the burning tonight is going to stir the townspeople,” the guard says quietly, motioning for the king to step inside the cave. “They won’t feel safe knowing there’s a savage raven in the skies, hurling guards into fires.” Word spreads fast.
“Varric,” the king says with an irritated sigh, “do you truly believe that raven is only a raven? That was a human. A shifter. We must find who they are and where they live, where they’re coming from.” My gods, I want nothing more than to silence him forever.
“A shifter is dangerous,” he continues. “Difficult to cage. It’s impossible to know what skin they will wear, and with the blessing of an ancient form like the Morrígan’s raven…” His mouth curls. “Only a very powerful human could be beneath those feathers.”
I roll my eyes, utterly irritated by the sound of his voice. I wish I could end him and his royal guard now, but there are too many questions unanswered. More than that, if this king has successfully captured beings as powerful as witches and as deadly as sirens, I can’t risk underestimating him.
I need to get to the castle while he’s away from it. My gaze sweeps the terrain, searching for a path of escape. I’m itching to shift into the cat, but I can’t help but linger, eavesdropping on their conversation.
“Do you think the shifter will simply come to us?” Varric asks.
“I do. They already have,” the king replies. “This shifter is highly trained. Calculated. What they did tonight was a warning.”
“And what warning is that?”
“That they’re plotting against me.” He says. My gaze flicks to the right, to a narrow trail that slips between the rocks, just wide enough for me to vanish into. Half of me wants to step back into that cave, draw my blade, and carve every truth from their throats. But this is not the moment. I came here for answers about Roman and I need to stay on target. I also don’t know how truly powerful the king really is.
One wrong move could burn my academy to ash. Slowly, silently, I shift and drop onto the dirt trail, vanishing into the forest and slipping down the mountainside. The air here feels heavy and tainted, as if too many bodies have been fed to the soil.
Witches’ bodies.
Why bury them instead of burning them? What did he do to these poor souls? I place each step carefully, refusing to brush against any stray power that doesn’t belong to me.
A little under an hour later, I make it to the castle gates. They’re built to keep everyone out—every human, at least. I move along the cold cobblestone beneath the wall until I find a narrow hole beneath a tangle of rose bushes. It’s just wide enough.
