Ravenna Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

The eastward pull led Ravenna to a weathered hut against a cliff. Vines thick as her arm gripped its walls. She held the wolf and both shards close. The hum surged, sharp and sure. The last shard waited inside. But even three shards showed only the path. Her mother had left no word on how to open the gate. Ravenna pressed a hand to her chest. She might reach the door and still find it shut. She pushed through the sagging frame. Behind the boards, a dark passage opened. Roots hung from the ceiling like ropes. The tunnel bored into the cliff and widened into a cave. At its heart stood a great tree, its trunk split open. Inside the split sat the third shard, glowing green. Ravenna lifted it with shaking hands. The moment it touched the others, all three sang as one. The joined shards threw light across the cave wall. A map burned there in lines of fire. It showed the way to the hidden gate, deep beneath the light-kingdoms. Ravenna traced the path with her eyes. Then the vision reached the gate itself and stopped. No door. No lock. No key shown. Just a blank stone face where the entrance should be. Ravenna's stomach dropped. The relic showed the road but hid the last step. Her mother had promised a throne. She had not promised a way in. She turned, ready to leave, and her boot struck wood. A chest sat among the roots, iron bands rusted, lid half open. She knelt and lifted it. Inside lay a folded set of dark robes and a slim sword. On the robe's chest, stitched in silver thread, was a crest she knew from the shard's first vision. The mark of her fallen court. The sword's grip fit her palm as if made for it. Ravenna understood. Her mother had not left instructions. She had left proof. These were the garments of a ruler. No servant opened the shadow gate. The gate opened for the one who came dressed as its heir, sword in hand, marked as blood of the court. She stripped off her travel cloak and pulled the robes over her wings. The cloth settled like it remembered her. She belted the sword at her hip. In the shard's green light she saw herself changed. Not a girl chasing a dead woman's story. The last daughter of the shadow throne. Ravenna wrapped the three shards together and held them tight. The map still burned in her mind, every turn toward the gate. She had the path now, and she had the proof of who she was. What waited at that blank stone door, she did not know. But she would arrive as its rightful heir, and she would make it open.