Lord Maleficit Evervood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Lord Maleficit Evervood died with the taste of his own blood on his tongue. He did not stay dead in any way that mattered. He woke as a smear of cold thought above the ruined nave of his old castle, watching ivy chew the broken spires, watching moonlight fall through holes that had once been stained glass. He had no hands. He had no throat. He had a thousand years of ritual work waiting, and no body to do it in. He remembered the cup. He remembered the girl holding it, her grey-blue eyes steady, her black hair loose at her shoulders. Eden. His own great-great-great-great-granddaughter. He had shaped her bloodline for centuries so she would kneel at his throne and swear the yearly oath that kept him seated. Instead she had handed him a triangular vial dressed as wine, his blood laced with holy water, and he had drunk it because she had spoken only truth while offering it. The ritual to secure another thousand years required a vessel of his own line. He was the vessel. He was ash. He drifted down through the broken rafters into the cathedral hall. The stone throne sat under a crown of creeping vine. He tried to touch it. His will passed through the armrest like breath through gauze. A raven landed on the throne's back. It was larger than any bird should be. Its eyes were red, and a dim red haze moved around its feathers like heat off a road. It cocked its head and looked straight at him. It saw him. Nothing living had ever seen him in this shape. "You need meat," the bird said. Its voice was his own, from a long time ago, before he learned to hide the rasp. He understood then. He had made this bird once, years before Eden was born, and buried it in the rafters against exactly this ruin. A shard of him, held in feathers, waiting. He poured himself into it. The fit was wrong. His mind was too large. His hunger was too old. The raven's small heart hammered under the weight of him and did not burst. He flexed the wings. He felt the pull of talons on old wood. He was awake. He was small. He was alive enough to plan. He pushed off the throne and flew out through a shattered window into the night woods. He knew where Eden slept. He knew the moss line at her yard. He could not cross it uninvited, not in this form, not yet. But he could watch. He could learn who guarded her now. He could find a body of his blood, and hers was the only blood left that would serve. The ritual would begin again. It would begin with her. He banked toward the treeline and flew.