Queen Ravena's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Word of the queen's search spread fast. But so did doubt. The large man from the hall had not gone home. He moved among the nobles, whispering. By the next council, half the great house stood cold against Ravena. She heard their murmurs before she reached her throne. She hated what she felt building in her chest. Her mother's power slept there, ancient and heavy. She had not woken it in years. The nobles filled the hall. The large man stepped forward first. "A queen who begs the world for a husband cannot rule herself," he said. "Others agree with me now." Heads nodded around him. Ravena gripped the arm of her throne. Her crow shifted and cried. She stood. "You will listen to me," she said. Her voice was steady. "I will find a husband worthy of HallowMere. I do not beg. I choose. This kingdom will have its future, and it will have it my way." The man did not step back. He crossed the floor in three strides. Before the guards could move, he seized her arm. Cold steel pressed to her throat. Gasps rippled through the hall. "Release me at once," Ravena said. She did not flinch. The knife stayed. His grip tightened. Something inside her broke loose. She had held it down for thirteen years. Now she let it rise. Her eyes turned white, edge to edge. The torches shrank. The crowd fell back against the stone walls. Far off, deep in the towers of the keep, a wind began to moan through the needle spires. Ravena spoke a word her mother taught her. The air near the floor thickened and grayed. A shape drifted up from nothing. It had a skull for a face and a hollow, trailing body, half smoke and half bone. Its eyes glowed pale blue. The wraith turned toward the man with the knife. He stumbled back. The knife clattered on the stone. "Stay away," he said. His voice cracked. The wraith flowed across the floor. Its long fingers closed around his arms. He tried to run. He could not move. The cold thing lifted him off his feet and held him there, thrashing and silent with fear. Ravena's eyes cleared to black again. She smoothed her feathered cloak and sat back on her throne. The crow settled beside her. She looked out at the nobles who had doubted her. "I rule HallowMere," she said. "Alone or wed, I rule it." One by one, the nobles bowed their heads. Even the ones who had nodded at the large man knelt now. The hall went quiet except for the man's ragged breath in the wraith's grip. Ravena had won the room. But she saw the fear in their bowed faces, not love. She had wanted a husband to end her loneliness. Now every suitor on the road would hear one story first: the queen who summons the dead. She had proven her strength and made herself harder to love.