Page 11 of House of the Raven
I’ve read these books multiple times. The fae have always fascinated me. I have Mother to thank for that. Not many know she was from Tirnanog, specifically a small village called Nilhalari which she missed dearly and yearned to see again.
“Mother,” I whisper, remembering her long brown hair and eyes, her gentle voice and tender touch.
I was eight when she died, but I still remember her beautiful face. She always used a glamour to disguise her fae features, except at night when we sat in our private quarters where only Father, Amira, Mother, and I were allowed after twilight. Then she dropped the glamour and became the most radiant being in existence.
I always wonder how it was for her to hide her true identity, to pretend she was human. Father says my grandfather would have never accepted the truth. He didn’t like my mother from the start because she didn’t come from an aristocratic family that could be traced back for at least a century.
A sound outside my room brings me back to the moment. I wait for a knock, but none comes. After a pause, I walk to the door and open it.I’m startled by the sight of a man standing right in front of me. He stands at attention across the hall.
I frown. “Who are you?”
“Princess Amira sent me,” he says in a deep voice that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. “I am to guard you.”
He wears the Guardia Real uniform, tight-fitting black pants stuffed into black knee-high boots, and a black velvet doublet with leather straps to keep it tight to his wide chest and the House of the Raven coat of arms: a raven with its wings outstretched, painted over an ornate emblem. The standard issue rapier hangs from his narrow waist. He stares straight ahead at a spot above my head. He’s tall, around six-foot-three, and has short jet-black hair and onyx eyes that seem to hold a million secrets he would kill to protect. His presence feels like a disturbance in the atmosphere, a palpable force of nature, as if he’s harnessed the very lightning from the skies and will unleash it at the least provocation.
I’ve never seen him before, and despite myself, he commands my attention by just standing there.
“I… I don’t need you,” I say. “You can go.”
Those dark eyes lower and meet mine. They go lower still and stare at my chest. I’m about to declare him a pervert when I remember my Plumanegra key is out in the open, hanging from a chain around my neck. I palm it and stuff it under my tunic.
“I said you can go,” I repeat.
“I don’t take orders from you,” he responds with an effortless confident air, as though the realm itself bends to his will. Then he goes back to staring over my head.
“How dare you talk to me like that?!”
No response.
“You’re fired.”
Nothing. He just stands there as straight as if he swallowed an obelisk. Hisexpression is blank.
“What’s your name?”
Nothing.
Infuriating fool!
I march down the hall in search of my sister. She won’t be in the petitioners’ hall for another twenty minutes, but I’m determined to find her. The guard’s steps follow behind me. I whirl around and glare. He stops, his expression as lifeless as the moles Cuervo sometimes leaves on my balcony.
“Who the hells are you?” I demand. “I’ve never even seen you around?”
“I’m new.”
I wait for more, but he goes back to looking like a corpse. A damn good-looking corpse, but still, I might kill him, or Amira, or Father. Maybe all of them.
“Val!” Jago rushes in my direction as he sees me crossing one of the many Nido tapestry halls.
I wait for him to catch up. He looks chagrined. I feel chagrined.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” I say at the same time.
We smile at each other like idiots.
“It’s really my fault, Jago.” I continue walking.
