Page 14 of Deadly Maiden

Another me, yesterday’s me, would’ve succumbed before it became this confrontation.

I harden my own gaze. “If you were standing, I’d knee your balls, Rhuy Anderson, and turn them into mush. Let go.”

He sighs.

“Mush,” I repeat.

“Whoaaa.” He releases me, holding his hand high as I maneuver away and search for those holds to swing to the outside.

“See you later,” I declare to them all, smiling. Then I’m gone, outside and by myself as I use the outer holds to climb up to street level.

A raven sits on the high back of an armchair in our living room. Father is perched on the edge of the square dining table where it marks the beginning of our small eating area. The window beyond is open. The cream curtains blow inward.

“Yes.” He nods at the bird. “We have a guest.”

It cocks one red eye at me, then the other side, where a scarred, empty socket shows. Feathers litter the floor, so many feathers.

“It’s shedding because it is undead,” he says.

“Oh, fuck.”

“This time I agree. Oh fuck. It appears this day is auspicious in many ways.”

I take a step. The raven hops down onto the armrest and waddles to the end, closer to me.

“Someone sent it?”

“Yes.”

“Who?” I tilt my head, puzzled. The raven copies me.

“Your parents.” That hits like a blow, banishing all sense from my head.Aren’t they dead?“It has their sigil, underneath. They used to put one there,” he adds. I guess my puzzled look has intensified, maybe turned to petrification.

“How?” I squeak, imagining someone turning it upside down and stamping the bird with a sigil. A stamp like they have at the post office.

Landos shrugs. “Not my specialty.”

“What was yours? What did you do for them?”

“I can see we’re getting to the part where I get really serious.” He sucks in one side of his lip. “Let’s sit down.”

“When is an undead raven not serious?”

“A good point.”

I fetch two timber chairs when he’s slow to react, place them a couple of yards from the bird and sit, waiting while he does the same.

“I was just a blacksmith. Though they sometimes magik-enhanced the weapons.” He leans elbows on his knees and bows forward, gaze unfocused, his thoughts in the past. “That day, I knew they’d been killed, blasted by a dragonshifter. I overheard it said. I found you and fled. I figured the enemy, King Madlin’s Aos Sin army, would soon come through the encampment. I came here…walked here with you, a squalling baby, managed to keep you alive. God knows how I succeeded. I am not a natural father.”

Oh, but you are, I want to say. The best da I could’ve wanted. I’m tearing up now, unexpectedly. I wipe away a few tears, chug in a breath.

“That’s it?”

“I don’t know. I have a key to the fortress your parents built?”

He what? I blink at him, willing the next words from his mouth.

“You are the child of Aislinn and Sabre Gothschild, the rightful owners of the Fortress of Slaedorth.”

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