Chapter VII, Ravens and Ravings

I was awoken to the sound of my door shutting and the treading of Arius' feet in the hallway outside.

How did I know it was Arius? We had been familiarized with each other's footsteps during our travels together, plus, he just walks weird.

I sat up and looked out the window. At least the sun was out. I thought right before I smacked my ankle into something that felt suspiciously like bricks, but knowing Arius, they were probably books.

I looked down at the floor, finding a stack of books, coffee spilling on my carpet, and a piece of parchment.

I sighed, moved the books, and read what was written on the paper.

The nineteenth of the ninth month

Year 372 of the third age

Dearest Alexandra,

I'm only slightly sorry for breaking into your rooms and using your quill and ink, it was worth it to see your beautiful face again.

Included in the pile of books that I left at your bedside are three of my favorite novels, including the tale of Antörím the grim, my favorite.

If you want more, just ask.♥

Arius

Prince of Mythfall

Pstscrpt, I hope your coffee doesn't spill, you have such a nice rug.

I groaned, making a mental note to never get a white rug again, and another to make sure I didn't accept his offer anytime soon. Why? Let's just say my feelings had been toyed with by too many people recently, and I wanted peace and quiet.

Within a mere twenty one sleepless hours, I finished The Tale of Antörím the Grim, a tragic tale of a married prince (Antörím) who escapes his kingdom just to marry another princess. Eventually his new bride takes over his old kingdom and slaughters his family. It was quite an emotional read, full of betrayals and bloodshed, treachery and tourture. I loved every second of it.

Shadow stopped by during that time and refused to stop pecking on my window until I let him inside. Once he was let in, he dropped a single black feather and flew out again. Stupid bird.

Instead of getting sleep, which I desperately needed but didn't want, and despite the fact that it was around three in the morning, I walked through the valleys, my mind blank and my eyes unfocused.

I stopped walking abruptly, an eerie melody filling my ears, a beautiful voice…

"Ravens, ravens, come to me

At your haven in the willow tree

Death's grim servants, never free

At hell's door, are we?

Servants of night, fly away,

Confess your sins or you will pay.

Here, there's no game to play,

Unrested souls come this way.

Blood and bone, tooth and claw,

Step onto hell's bloody maw.

Wings of darkness devour you raw,

Listen to death's final caw.

Death's the demon you've been meeting,

Your remains are those they've been eating,

Run for your life? Your attempts are fleeting.

Our cries will make your heart stop beating

Our wings are deadly,

Our talons deathly.

Hunt daily,

Murder nightly.

The kings of the night,

You cannot run, you can't take flight.

We lick clean, your bones pearly white,

Your last moments? A gruesome fight.

Here's your life's final end,

Your wounds too bloody and gory to mend.

I was laughing when you called me a friend,

It's death's wishes that I tend."

I continued walking, unseeing, only hearing, my footsteps incoherent.

In the willow tree that I had laid under two nights ago was Roan, singing and talking to his ravens.

"Slinking through shadows deep,

Nightmares, nightmares, in your sleep.

Shh, be silent, don't make a peep,

It's your soul they've come to reap"

"Roan?" I whispered, cautiously approaching the trunk of the tree.

He stopped singing, and jumped down from his branch. "Allie…? I didn't expect you until morning…"

I snorted, getting the reference. "Yeah, well, when's better than this hour for dark business?"

"A woman after my own heart, well, lack of heart I should say." Roan gracefully leaped into the tree, climbing the branches as easy as stairs. Offering me a hand, he inquired, "Would my raven queen like to accompany me?"

As I followed after him, I responded with "If your song is true, that makes me a murderer."

Roan tilted his head side to side, the moon illuminating his face as he did so. "How much did you hear, may I ask?"

"Everything from 'ravens, ravens.'"

He fingered the handle of his knife as his moonlit face paled. "You shouldn't've heard that."

"Why not?" I asked, leaning my head on his shoulder.

Roan shied away at my touch, climbing a few branches higher. "That's not a song for your ears."

I cocked my head, asking a silent question.

He sighed, "You see those hills over there?"

I nodded, parting some of the willow vines to examine the surrounding valley more clearly.

"The elves call these the raven hills, it was there that they fought the first attack from the obscuros daemons in the shadow war. The song I sang is for the dead, some say that their spirits haunt the hills, some just call it superstition, and that ravens just happen to live there, no ill omens needed."

"What do you think?"

Roan hesitated, unsure of what to say. "I don't really think much about it, I like the ravens, they talk to me, it's quiet, the caves are dark, the sky is black, what else is there to think?"

We sat in silence, listening to the flapping of raven's wings, the rustling of the wind, the howling of the wolves in the mountains, it was a tranquil and peaceful night.

The moonlight illuminated a sliver of Roan's pale face through the branches of the tree. He looked almost frightening in the dark, not the handsome elf I first saw.

"Can you sing your song again?" I asked, watching Shadow and his friends dance across the sky.

He raised an eyebrow, casually glancing at me; though his eyes might as well have crept into my soul. "You wish for…me to…sing?"

I nodded cautiously.

He answered with a sigh. "Do you want me to continue the song, or repeat the last eight stanzas?"

I shrugged my shoulders, "Whichever,"

Roan took a deep breath and started to sing:

"Through your pleadings I am mindless,

Through your cries I am thoughtless,

Through your screams I am senseless,

You know how I am heartless

My mind is darker than you know,

I can't be struck down by a single blow,

I remember debts from long ago,

In the end, I'm your greatest foe.

In the end, nothing's darker,

My wings cut straight through your armor.

There's no use dying like a martyr,

I am the foe none can conquer.

If you seek me, please take heed,

Once you're here, you can't recede,

And in our fight, oh how you bleed,

Know in the end, none proceed.

You can dream to take my throne,

But know this, you're not alone.

And from the living you were thrown,

To dwell inside my hall of bone."

Roan stopped dramatically. "You can see why that is not a song for the living, but the story of the servants of death. Ravens."

"But…you…" I murmured.

"What?" he asked sharply.

"You…you can talk to them, the ravens…"

Roan nodded. Though his eyes shone with a malicious glint, there was no ghost of a smile on his cruel face.

Despite myself, I pitied him. I knew that look; the look of someone who knows what must be said, but also knows what saying so can cost.

I studied Roan, admiring the way he held himself. I don't know how a person so traumatized by his past could find peace in this crazy world. I suppose living here helps, but I couldn't help but stare as his eyes lingered elsewhere.

I heard him sigh to himself. "If you're gonna stare, at least wrangle up the nerve to do it while I'm watching."

I glared behind me, where Shadow gave a sharp caw of laughter. "Sorry. I c-"

"Save your breath, princess. You test my patience enough by being here. Let alone asking me to sing and staring at my marvelous complexion."

My cheeks heated, but I tried not to show it, assuming a mask that I normally saved for adults who gloated in the pleasure of being my senior. "I am the princess of Thelnilin. You have no right to keep me from my own lands."

Roan chortled. "Is that what you tell yourself?" He turned to face me, the moonlight reflecting off his emerald eyes; no longer he wore the soft expression I had come to expect from him. "If I didn't know better, Alexandra, I'd say that you are hiding what you truly are in favor of what people see of you." Turning back to the mountains, and away from the moon, he said, "You must be wary of this. I myself wasted away under an indifferent face and let the people whom I've despised tell me what I am."

"Why do you care? I've known you for what, a few days, give or take? Why does my wellbeing mean so much to you?" I dared to look into his eyes as he turned to face me.

Roan lifted a hand and gently grazed the underside of my chin with a knuckle; his skin cold to the touch. "I've taken an interest in you." He said blandly, no hint of emotion as he tilted my head up slightly. "I sense that you are something special, Alexandra. And I want to know why. Besides, I think I know more about you than you think." his hand left my skin, sending a shiver down my body as his fingernail made the slightest cut, drawing no more than a drop of blood.

To my horror, Roan tilted his head and licked off the blood in one fluid motion.

"Who are you?" I jumped back, inching away from him.

"I don't know," he stuttered, "I have never known who I am. No-one with any wits about them talks to me, I stay in the shadows, talk to ravens, I scar right away instead of bleed…no-one dares speak to me but the cadre. They all see me as the embodiment of death." He gave an evil laugh. "I suppose that's what I am, isn't it…?"

I slowly climbed down from the tree, leaving a maniacally raving, evilly laughing and madness crazed Raven King behind.