Queen Raven's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Four days before her birthday, Queen Raven held out her arm and called the only friend she had left. A black crow dropped from the rafters and landed on her wrist. Its claws pinched her skin. Her mother had trained the bird before the accident. Now the crow was all Raven owned of her parents, and it was not enough. She was twenty-three, a queen with dark powers, and she was alone in a castle she no longer wanted to be alone in. Raven walked the cold halls of Blackspire Keep with the crow on her shoulder. She wanted more than an empty throne. She wanted a kingdom that loved her the way they loved her parents, she wanted a love of her own. Truth be told the people feared her they did not understand her magic, the same magic her mother wielded but hid. When Raven was fourteen she accidentally made some dead rise when she awoke from a nightmare and since then the people have feared her magic. Raven then started making a plan. She would throw a grand ball on Halloween night. She would open her doors and let the people see her as a woman, and their Queen, not as someone to fear. She found her maid polishing candlesticks in the great hall. Morgana looked up, then quickly lowered her eyes. "I will host a ball," Raven said. "For the whole kingdom. In four days." Morgana's cloth stopped moving. "Four days, Ma Reine?" Her French accent turned sharp with worry. "That is not enough time.." "No worries we will make it happen," Raven said. But her voice cracked, and the crow shifted on her shoulder. Her head butler stepped from the shadows near the stairs. Edgar Grimshaw had served her parents for thirty years. He carried a silver tray, a wine glass sat on it ready for the Queen. He always seemed to arrive before he was called. "A ball," Edgar said. His voice was low and strange, like wind through a graveyard. "What a good idea my Queen." Edgar set the now empty tray down. "I must tell you of the whispers, the people want an heir for the kingdom they worry" Raven stared at the butler. For a year she had ruled. She had never once asked her people for anything. The thought frightened her more than any battle. She took a breath. "Then help me please." Morgana and Edgar worked through the night. By dawn, Raven held a single card in her hands. It did not carry the seal of her power. It carried a plain request. *Come dance with your Queen on her birthday this Halloween.* She gave the crow the first invitation. The bird gripped it in its beak and flew out the tall window into the gray morning. Raven watched it shrink to a dot above the town. She had done something she never dared before. She had opened her door and let go of the one thing she controlled. Now the kingdom would answer her, or it would not. In three days, she would learn whether her people could ever love her, or whether the ballroom would stand empty.