Page 20 of A Thousand Burning Ravens (The Queen Who Bleeds Stars #1)

THE SUN HAS barely risen in the sky when Myla finds herself standing at the mouth of the trail, pacing back and forth. Imogene delivered her message with such audacity that Myla has spent all night seething in defiance. Who is she to tell me I can or can not watch him train. She has known him all of a few days. I have known him for over ten years.

“What are you doing?” Bryar startles her from behind, his eyebrows pushed together in confusion.

She opens her mouth to speak, some excuse lingering just out of reach. Instead, the truth spills out. “Imogene said I ought to leave you to train . . . without me as a distraction. I am mad that she told me I should not, so . . . here I am.”

Bryar chuckles and brushes past her, no stranger to her stubborn inability to follow instructions. Thus, he motions for her to follow with a brief tug on her sleeve. “Come on, then, you can laugh as I get my ass handed to me.”

“How did you know,” Myla banters hesitantly, “I did not want to miss that.” Together they walk in silence for a few moments, this sort of awkwardness only comparable to their brief interactions following her wedding to Caius.

Finally, Bryar speaks. “I think this will be a good place for me, Myla. If I do well in my training, I can hold an equivalent position here in a few years.”

“Yes,” Myla agrees gently, careful not to speak with too much confidence should he mistake her tone for acceptance. Nothing inside her likes what is happening. It is a breakdown that really should have happened years ago, but it did not. Now it is, it stings differently than it might have prior to becoming queen.

“Tell me about Phaenna. She seems like an interesting woman.”

Bryar flashes her an annoyed look. He has never been one for conflict, and right now, that is all that seems to find them. “There is nothing to tell. They are putting a few potential mates on display, that is all.”

Myla cringes. “That is all? Two weeks ago, we were lying in bed, determined we would figure this out together, and now you are casually examining Ashborn ‘mates’?”

Bryar appears to flinch, the venom of her words striking deep. His response is even-toned, despite the heat building in her. “I am examining no one. You, of all people, should know I am not interested. But they have customs.”

“Customs?”

“Yes,” he clarifies. “Marriage is binding here.”

“Is it not binding everywhere?”

“Gods, you are an argumentative little thing today,” he says with an exaggerated eye roll before continuing. He seems excited now. “You saw yesterday when Imogene and Ivan seemed to battle together?”

“Yes?” Myla responds, trying to remain even-tempered, though she wonders how this relates at all to his not examining potential mates while adhering to local customs.

“They told me last night that when an Ashborn marries, they and their mate’s magic binds together, forming one source of magic and energy to be drawn from by either party.” His words falter slightly now, the tone shifting from a conversation to a confession. “Ivan gives the impression that my place here is conditional to my marrying an Ashborn and giving back to the bloodline.”

Myla’s steps slow and she digs her teeth into her lips, pinching her mouth shut until she can form a string of words that are not scathing. Any impulse to hurt right now, she knows, is only because she herself is hurting.

Finally, she responds, “Is that what you want? To stay here and start a family with an Ashborn woman?”

Bryar casts his eyes to the ground, focused now on his feet as they move him closer and closer to the clattering of the arena ahead. “I want to feel like I have a say in my future. If my future can not include you, then I have to start somewhere.”

“Then you should choose this,” Myla says, gathering her skirts at her knees to allow for a quicker gait. “I will be watching from over there.” She points to one side of the circular arena where wooden benches are tiered, several layers of seating one after the other. “Good luck.”

The arena is abuzz with more fledglings than Myla expected to see, and an instructor standing in the center, drawing runes in the strangest formation. It must be unique to the Ashborn as Myla’s mother never taught these compositions to her. Settling into a seat, noticing that most in attendance as onlookers are barely older than she, Myla suddenly feels the urge to be invisible, her lack of wings and vibrancy drawing attention.

“Students! Assemble!” The ‘students’ are actually the fledglings Myla noticed a few minutes before. They align themselves in a straight row before the instructor, standing feet apart and hands crossed before them. They look fierce and serious until their new classmate reluctantly strides into the arena. Myla resists the urge to bellow in laughter as Bryar, hesitant at first, steps in line, eyeing the fledglings as they snicker at him. A faint look of amusement crosses his otherwise stoic features before his eyes dart to hers. She smiles and nods, hoping to pass along some encouragement in the wake of laughter, which builds not only among his classmates, but the audience as well. Or parents, she is realizing.

Myla fears the mockery will continue until the instructor, a severe woman who looks like she fell off the pages of a valiant battle retelling in Caius’s library, stomps her foot upon one of the runes. A vortex of energy ripples through her body, transferring itself into the rune beneath her feet and sending a sobering tremor through the arena.

“Go on,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Keep laughing. I am sure your flockmate will remember this moment when you are relying on him in battle.” Little faces flatten into stoic expressionlessness. “You laugh, why?” She points to a young girl, maybe five or six years old. When the child does not respond, she steps closer, activating a rune beneath the child which knocks her onto her bottom. “Speak, fledgling!”

The girl clamors to her feet, steps back into position and tilts her chin upwards. “Because he is old, Elara.” She answers obediently now.

Elara turns on her heels, pacing toward another fledgling, a fair-haired boy of similar age. “You laugh at someone older than yourself for trying to learn. Do you think learning stops as we age?” The fledglings shake their heads in unison as their instructor shines a spotlight on their shameful response.

“Learning can begin at any age, but I assure you, your new flockmate is at an advantage, and will far surpass each and every one of you within weeks, then who will be laughing?” She does not give time for response before she brings her foot down upon another rune, shouting instructions at the fledglings and Bryar to navigate the course she has arranged for them.

Myla expects the instructor to step to the side, observing the lesson. Instead, she stands in the center, casting new runes as a calamity of spells ensues around her.

Mere inches from Bryar, one of the runes takes on a devilish form, leaping from the earth in the shape of a Blood Stealer’s wolf. Myla groans, wishing the lesson could have included anything other than the very beasts which had attacked Bryar on the mountain.

He recoils at first, raising an arm to block the snarling and snapping beast, entirely caught off guard. The illusion is hyper realistic and the wolf snaps and snarls, saliva flying from its hungry jaws across Bryar’s arms. The fledglings respond in a mixture of glee and terror, setting the more experienced ones apart from those who might be newer to the experience.

Bryar seems to find his footing quickly. As another vicious and lumbering wolf appears before him, he ducks, rolling between its stocky legs to avoid its razor-sharp teeth. Myla watches as he begins to expect the unexpected, at which point he dodges effortlessly.

At first, Myla leans forward, elbows on knees, wondering how this is teaching him anything. He could dodge assault for hours without breaking a sweat. Even most of the fledglings consider this easy as well, for they begin laughing as though it is a game.

That is, until a wolf leaps from one of the runes like a demon loosed from the underworld, nipping at her forearm. A few feathers fall from her wings as she slips backwards, yelping in pain. At once, Elara lowers her foot on the activator rune, bringing the assaults to a halt.

“Dodging your assailant is useful at times,” she says, pacing between fledglings, who sit or stand or continue to roll for the fun of it, until she stops before Bryar, who looks as though he is playing a child’s game. She reaches for his wrist and raises it, putting his forearm on display. “Summon your gauntlet,” she commands, evoking a perplexed look on every face in the arena, Bryar’s especially. “One can only dodge for so long. All you will do is waste energy. You can not win if you are simply hopping back and forth like a rabbit. Face your enemy head-on when possible. Today, we will learn to summon our gauntlets.”

Raising her arms, without so much as a grimace or a focused expression, Elara’s arms burst in flame, the shape of gauntlets forming across her fists and to her elbows. “Strike me,” she commands a fledgling before her, handing him her dagger. The little one hesitates at first, but with some prompting from his classmates, he raises the dagger over his head, lowering it with force upon her arm. The collision is met with a deafening clang and a burst of embers.

Elara drops her arm as though a mere fly has just landed on her and continues. “When I step on the runes this time, the beast emerging will be fiercer and angrier than the wolves; their bites will draw blood. Do not let them bite you. Most of you already know how to summon pools of flame in your palm. Now, control that flame. Visualize it forming a protective guard across your forearms. This will serve as your shield in battle, and in many cases, a shield is far more valuable than a sword.”

She does not give her students a moment to gather their wits before she lowers her foot upon the activator rune again, this time releasing roaring and raging beasts that have not been seen in Myrnith in centuries. With wings reverberating gusts of wind down upon them—a force meant to flatten—and teeth the size of tree branches, three mid-sized dragons skyrocket before turning back, plummeting downward with barreling flames aimed at the fledglings.

First, they stun with heat, then they snap at anyone near enough to be caught between their gnashing jaws. Screeches erupt from the fledglings as the three beasts swoop down for their second assault. The rolling waves of flame engulf the entire class, evoking unanimous grunts of discomfort, before spiraling downward to take nips out of those beneath.

The class as a whole seems to look at their arms in a panic, wondering why their gauntlets are not appearing. Holding small arms in the air as though summoning the Gods, one fledgling curses the limbs to fall off and be eaten by wolves rather than continuing to betray him, and Myla smirks slightly as the child relies on humor to cope with his discomfort. Her attention is quickly drawn back to Bryar.

Come on, Myla urges, watching as Bryar crouches to brace himself. A dragon spirals his way at a terrifying speed. The nose of the great beast flares opens with a shuddering inhale before exhaling scorching blue flames. Myla thanks the Gods he is the very embodiment of fire, mostly unfazed by the melting heat.

He is not, however, unfazed by the razor-sharp teeth of the dragon as it snaps at him. A streak of red grazes across his forearm, chased off barely by the ripple of waves, intercepting the dragon’s teeth with a chilling screech.

As though his victory is momentum to the others, two fledglings shriek victoriously as their forearms also blaze with gauntlets of flame.

Elara applauds, tilting her head slightly to avoid the swooping wings of a dragon as it descends upon a hunkering fledgling. Myla finds the nonchalance comical, watching as the instructor passes calmly through the fiery mayhem with little care. Her long hair, held back by a leather circlet, billows violently with every gust of flame and her freckled skin reddens, yet she appears as though she is walking through a market, deciding what she wants for dinner.

The lesson passes slowly with beasts of different shapes, sizes, and attack methods crawling, clamoring, and flying out of the rune portals at different intervals, sometimes many at a time. Each student is breathless and dazed by the time Elara seals the runes shut and sends them all away with instructions to return tomorrow.

Myla meets Bryar at the exit of the arena, taking stock of his battle wounds with a slight smile. “I did not see that coming,” she says, greeting him as he falls in stride with her.

“The dragons?”

“No,” she laughs. “The fledglings.”

Bryar grins and drops his head in a humored shake, then presses his hands to his hips with an irked sigh. “That was unexpected.”

“I was surprised you did not turn around and walk away.”

His brow furrows, and he shoots her a knowing look. “No, you were not.”

“No, I was not. You are right. But I almost got up and left when they started laughing,” she teases.

“I see how it is.” Bryar nudges her side, a cocky smile teasing the corners of his mouth. “Abandon me in my time of need.”

“Never!” Myla gasps, at once regretting the coy exchange as a silence claims the space between them. Abandon him? No. Walk a path that follows his? Also, no.

I am a queen of crossroads, it would seem.

“Well,” Bryar breaks the silence, his voice gruff with uncertainty. “Thanks for being here today. It means a lot. I think I will come alone tomorrow though.”

Understanding, though the proverbial dagger in her chest stings, Myla nods. The walk back to her room is slow, weighted with an all-too familiar ache brought back from its grave. Behind her, Bryar resumes his role as her bodyguard, wordlessly trailing her until she closes him out to stand guard beside her door. Her heart betrayed her before, when she and Bryar fell for the first time; that can be dismissed as adolescent bliss. This last time, Myla holds herself accountable for the weightlessness she allowed herself to find sanctuary in. It was a distraction, and it brought her back to a weakness she can never live in if she is to rule well.

I should never have reopened that door. She chastises herself, glaring at the hollow eyes staring back at her in the mirror. With a frustrated scowl, Myla turns away, determined to make something of her time in this place.