Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

Her mind still numb with the shock of her betrayal, Raven surveyed the room with an increasing sense of unreality. Her escape, and all the adventures that had followed it, seemed like a fading dream amid the old, familiar surroundings of her childhood—or had that brief time of freedom been the only reality, and was this the dream?

The chamber might be the same, but Raven had changed beyond all recognition from the young innocent who had climbed out of that same window some three short moons ago. In that time she had grown up—and, it seemed, grown old in bitterness and regret. Oh Yinze, how she hated herself! How could she have been so blind, so gullible, so false to her new friends! She had betrayed the companions who had helped her in the desert and taken her in as one of their own. She had betrayed poor motherly Nereni, who had taken such good care of her. Who had trusted her. She had defiled herself, beyond all redemption, with an alien, an outsider, a ground-grubbing human who had used and discarded her like the worthless offal that she had become. And now she had come full circle. She was back in the vile clutches of Blacktalon—and no doubt it was all that she deserved.

Her mother, the Queen, was dead. Due to the terrible and terrifying things that had happened to her, that brutal fact had barely begun to penetrate the winged girl’s mind. Flamewing had never been gentle and kind like Nereni—she was a Queen, after all, with many responsibilities to occupy her mind and time. She had been forced to rear her daughter in a hard school, to fit her for her future burdens—among the Skyfolk, the Monarch must rule and stand alone. Nonetheless, Raven knew her mother had loved her, and had shown it whenever she could. Flamewing had been proud of her, and the winged girl’s stomach turned sick at the thought of how she had abused that pride. Did her mother know? Did the dead know everything, once they had passed Beyond, as the Priests of Yinze claimed? Raven flung herself, weeping, onto her bed. “Mother, I’m sorry!”

The winged girl wept for a long time, but at last the storm passed; she was too drained and exhausted to weep any more. Wiping her eyes on the bed’s fur coverlet, Raven looked again around the room that was her prison. Food had been left for her, but she was too sick at heart to eat. She felt soiled and defiled, and her tears had done nothing to wash the stain of guilt from her conscience. There was wine on the table in a silver flagon. Raven poured a brimming goblet and drained it in one gulp, choking slightly at the unfamiliar burn in her throat, and remembering, with a guilty pang, that Flamewing had never allowed her to drink the stuff. But her mind was turning now from the guilt of the past to the terrors of the future. Soon, Blacktalon would be coming for her—and when he did, she would do well to have her senses dulled as much as possible.

Father of Skies—would she ever feel clean again? Pouring more wine and taking the cup with her, Raven walked through the curtained archway into her bathing room, where a hollow with a drain hole at the bottom had been carved out of the marble floor. A pull of a silken rope would send water cascading into the basin from the great peaktop cisterns that caught up rain and snowmelt from the mountain storms. Raven drained her wine and set the cup aside, then cast off her worn, much-mended leather tunic—the very one in which she had originally made her all too brief escape. She turned it in her hands, looking at Nereni’s neat rows of tiny stitches with eyes that blurred with tears, then threw it away from her with a bitter curse.

For a time the winged girl splashed beneath the icy cascade—she had often heard Aurian speak wistfully of soaking in a tub of hot water, but such outlandish human customs were not the way of the Skyfolk. The snow-cold water helped to numb the ache of her bruises where Harihn’s men had ambushed her, but did nothing to quell the pain within her heart. Inside, she was sick and shaking with fear at the thought of Blacktalon and what he would do to her now that he had her in his power.

Once she had dried herself Raven returned to her chamber, and spent some time preening her disordered plumage, sorting the ruffled feathers with her clawlike fingernails, and pausing often to sip more wine. It was long since she had eaten, and the drink was making her head spin. The sensation alarmed her at first, but Raven soon became accustomed to it, and after a while, began to welcome it. The glimmerings of a plan came into her head as she preened. Not much of a plan, to be sure, but it held out a slender hope that she might after all escape the attentions of Blacktalon. By custom, the Winged Folk mated for life, and not one of them would touch someone who had already bedded with another. So deep in thought was she, that when Blacktalon entered the winged girl was slow to react. With hammering heart, she turned to face him. The High Priest said nothing. He simply stood in the doorway, running greedy eyes across her body, with a pair of goggling guards, warrior-priests in the livery of the Temple, behind him. Witnesses, thought Raven. Perfect! But without the wine, she could never have done it. Though Raven’s skin crawled to feel their eyes on her, and the blood rushed scalding to her face for shame, she did not trouble to hide her nakedness. She forced herself to lift her head and look the High Priest brazenly in the eye, though it was the hardest thing that she had ever done in her life.

“You come too late, Blacktalon,” the winged girl spat. “That is, unless you care to soil yourself on one who is already defiled. Your fellow conspirator beat you to the mark, High Priest, The human had me—not once, but many times! Raven heard the gasp of horror from the Temple guards, and forced herself to laugh in Blacktalon’s face. Then the High Priest joined in the laughter, and Raven knew she was undone. “So Harihn told me,” Blacktalon chuckled, with a knowing leer. “He said that you’d proved an apt pupil, my little Princess, and he hoped he had taught you sufficient to keep me entertained during Aerillia’s long, cold nights!”

As though he had cut her throat, Raven’s laughter came to a choking halt.

“You fool,” Blacktalon sneered. “Had you chosen one of the Winged Folk it might have been different, perhaps, though with the throne at stake, I could still have forced myself to take you . . . But as it is, what difference does a human make? They are not our kind! You might just as well have been consorting with a mountain sheep—and to as much effect!”

He walked into the room, and poured himself a goblet of wine, glancing as he did so into the depleted flagon. “For shame,” he mocked her, “wantonness and drink! Is there no end to the vices you have learned among those groundling insects?” He shrugged. “No matter. In the main, it is your hand I require—though your body I will take in due course! Joining with the heir to the throne will establish my claim on the Kingship beyond all possible doubt—and by tradition, you must come to that Joining A virgin—technically at least,” He snickered, “Humans, as I said, can scarce be said to count! And since our Joining may not take place until the moon has waxed and waned, because of the period of mourning for the late lamented Queen, I must forbear until that time—though the anticipation may have pleasures of its own!”

While he spoke, Raven had been struck dumb by horror, but when she heard Blacktalon mock her mother’s memory, her boiled up beyond controlling—and beyond all wisdom, “You abomination!” She hurled the wine, cup and all, into the High Priest’s face, “You’ll never lay a finger on me while I live, I swear it! And I’ll see you rot in torment through all eternity before I’ll join with you! Not all my folk are loyal to you, Blacktalon—you treacherous, murdering upstart. Do you think you’ll hold me with your bars and guards? I’ll be avenged on you if—”