Story 1107: Cradle of Crows

The crows came first—by the hundreds.

They circled above Greymarrow’s eastern fields, blotting out the pale morning sun with wings black as night. No one dared step outside when they began to gather, not even the brave. Doors were locked. Curtains drawn. Only Evelyn Blackmoor rode toward them, the Lantern of the Forgotten fastened to her belt like a ward.

The field had long been fallow. Once it held a chapel and an orphanage, both devoured in a fire decades ago—no survivors, no answers. Only crows. Always the crows.

Evelyn dismounted as the wind died, her boots sinking slightly into the ashen soil. The crows watched from fence posts, trees, and the sagging bones of the chapel’s ruins. Not a single bird made a sound.

Then she saw it—half-buried in the soil where the chapel’s altar once stood.

A cradle.

Old. Splintered. Rocking gently though no wind stirred.

And in it… a bundle wrapped in bloodstained linen.