Raven Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

The map on the table showed a burning sky, and Raven Nightshade had promised her children she would come home. She was a cat-eared princess who had helped end one curse already. Now a new one waited across the sea. The old sorcerer who kept the fog had drawn the mark himself, a red slash of flame over a distant shore. Raven traced it with one finger and felt her stomach tighten. Her husband stood in the doorway. Zach had blonde hair and tattoos down both arms, and a new sky-forged blade at his hip. He watched her study the map. "You don't have to be the one who goes," he said. "I do," Raven answered. "If it spreads, it reaches the village. It reaches them." She looked toward the beds where their twins slept. Both born last spring. Both too small to understand any of this. Raven knelt between the cribs. She kissed her daughter's forehead, then her son's. Neither woke. She pressed her lips to Zach's mouth and held it a moment longer than she meant to. "Guard them," she said. "Guard the inn. If I'm not back in ten days, come find me." Zach caught her wrist. "You always say ten days." "And I always come back." She pulled free before her hands could shake. Ayla waited outside with her silver-crystal staff. She was Raven's cousin, a white mage, and she had healed wounds that should have killed strong men. "The teleport will drop us near the shore," Ayla said. "After that, I can't promise clean ground." Beside her stood Lyra, the elf mage who could feel living hearts through stone. Lyra tightened the lace at the front of her top and checked the blue orb at her belt. "I already tried to sense across the water," she said. "Nothing living answered. That's never good." Raven took one last look at the cabin window. A candle still burned inside. "Then we go before I lose my nerve." Ayla raised her staff. White light wrapped the three women. The cabin folded away. Salt wind slapped Raven's face, and her boots hit black sand. Above them the sky glowed orange, but there was no sun. The whole horizon burned like a coal that would not die. No smoke. No heat. Just fire that hung in the air and refused to fall. Lyra dropped to one knee and pressed her palm to the sand. Her face went pale. "I was wrong," she whispered. "Something does live here. Thousands of them. And they're all under us." The black sand shifted beneath Raven's feet. A low sound rose, half moan, half breath, from everywhere at once. Raven drew her claws and backed toward the water. The curse had heard them arrive. And now it was waking.