Ravenna Nightblade's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

A week after Ravenna took the throne, the city came to thank her. They filled the hall each morning. A blacksmith left a new blade at her feet. A weaver draped fine cloth across the throne's arm. Children brought her a strange caged animal, a small deer with reptile heads that hissed and blinked at once. Ravenna accepted it all. She had won the chair. Now the people called her queen and meant it. Scarlett stood beside her through every gift. She no longer kept one step below the seat. Somewhere in the long days she had climbed the last stair. At night they walked the ruined streets together, and Ravenna found her hand had learned the shape of Scarlett's. The word between them had changed. Ally was too small now. "They love you," Scarlett said one evening. She watched a family light lamps in a doorway. "You gave them back their streets." "We gave," Ravenna said. Scarlett almost smiled. Then she stopped smiling. Fenrir came through the hall doors without knocking. He never knocked. The guards did not move to stop him. The red cat lifted its head from the throne's arm. Fenrir crossed the floor in five strides and stood at the steps. "The dungeon," he said. "What about it," Ravenna said. "Empty." The hall went quiet. A gift of flowers slid from someone's arms and hit the stone. Ravenna stood. "Finnian." "Gone," Fenrir said. "Two guards dead. The rest scattered." He did not soften it. He gave what she asked and stopped. Scarlett was already moving toward the doors. "How long." "Hours," Fenrir said. "Maybe less." Ravenna came down the steps fast. The crowd parted. She thought of Finnian on his knees at the gate, his broken laugh, his promise that the chair was colder than it looked. She had let him live. She had called it strength. He had called it soft. She reached the dungeon and saw the truth of it. The cell door hung open. No lock was broken. Someone had turned the key from outside. One of her own had freed him. "He had a friend in this keep," Ravenna said. "He still does." Scarlett crouched by the dead guards. She read the floor the way she read a game trail. "They went east. Toward the passes." Ravenna gripped the crest at her belt. The people upstairs still waited to praise her. They did not yet know their old fear walked free again. The love of the city was real. It was also thin as morning frost, and Finnian knew exactly where to strike it. "Fenrir," she said. "Rouse the loyal guards. Quietly. The city can't learn he's out." Fenrir turned and left. Ravenna looked down at the open cell. Mercy had cost her nothing at the gate. It had cost her everything now. She had a throne, a people who loved her, and a brother loose in the dark who would burn all three to take the chair back. "We hunt him," she said. "Before dawn."