The power of the information struck Risens as if he’d been kicked in the chest. He scrambled for a breath as the air in his lungs suddenly vanished. Mother Raven flashed a small but brief grin before turning away. Her head inclined as her focus turned to the Shrine at the center of the court.

  “From the ramparts of the castle to the gutter, the winds whisper your name,” she breathed. “Do try and stay alive until we meet again.”

  With a flutter of wings, she disappeared from view. A lone raven circled overhead before vanishing into the night.

  Risens watched the cloudless night sky for several moments, searching for any shadows to cross the stars that dotted the blackened firmament. As it seemed so often with his interactions with Mother Raven, his perspectives were indelibly altered at the conclusion of their generally brief interludes.

  Since the deafening voice first caught his ear, he had seen King Lathrenon in an entirely new light. The power that had always surrounded the man was now irreversibly dimmed. The doubt that had festered was now given a plausible, albeit disturbing, explanation.

  To his knowledge, Mother Raven had never lied to him. Her cryptic answers had sparked his quest for meaning, for purpose, and for learning. They had spurred on the growth of his abilities. His prowess as the king’s silent blade now seemed trivial compared to the unheralded gifts at his disposal.

  Powers that had saved his life on several occasions.

  His mind flashed with new questions that begged answers. If Lathrenon truly was a fraud, it lent credence to why the Raven’s Court had been deemed forbidden, and as a result, Broad Quarter was abandoned save for the wretches who dared eke out an existence in its filth. The King had proudly displayed the Brand of the Bloodheir on the naked skin of his chest on several occasions, all awkward moments when the propriety of the ruler of Halthome should have garnered discretion. Risens could see the acts for what they were—scripted displays meant to further prop up the persona he’d created.

  Power, definitive, dark, and dangerous were words that still lurked behind the man’s persona and commands. With a single word, he could bring the might of the largest fighting force in the land upon his enemies, or hundreds of shadowed assassins in the night, yet it would never be he who wielded the blade. It would be left for others to fight and die for his honor. If he was bold enough to forge the most sacred Brand in Halthome, he undoubtedly had other means of power at his disposal. Risens expected he had an incredibly limited picture of the true scope of the King’s mageEnhanced items on or around his person.

  If the heresy that Mother Raven had suggested bore truth, he had no clear answer as to how the false Brand had been applied. His mind shifted to a specific pair of individuals. Though Risens apparently controlled much of the same power as did Magus Pol, he expected the man to be the catalyst for the pressure of the power, like electricity that sparks in the air when in the King’s presence. His blood boiled as he guessed he understood the other all too well: Fendri.

  The reasoning behind the steward’s reckless disregard for his own personal safety made sense. That the man never feared the King, nor seemingly feared death at the hands of arguably the kingdom’s most skilled killer, had always perplexed him. Like the hidden catches of a lock shifting into place under the will of his picks, the answers opened to him. The steward had no fear because he knew the King’s secret. He had been ageless throughout Risens’s youth, still looking today as he had when he was a child. Together, the trio had manipulated the will of a kingdom for their own purposes.

  A wicked grin pulled up on the corners of his lips as he made up his mind. His blades could finally taste the blood of the insufferable steward. Fendri would die by his hands. It was a moment he yearned for.

  Of all three, Lathrenon’s motives were the clearest. His was a quest for endless power and self-preservation. The other two weren’t as obvious. The final piece of the facade that had bound him to the King crumbled away into dust.

  As his mind ran rampant with the influx of information, correlation, and assumptions, he pondered the quest that he’d set himself upon. His purpose in returning to Windwake was for information. The knowledge already imparted was enough to shake the very foundations of the realm, yet he craved more. The Dreamcatchers knew far more, were far better connected than he could have ever expected. The Hunt that sought his life was far better prepared and a true unknown. In his heart, he understood the connections that had been formed as a result of the new information. His mind demanded further confirmation.

  He would play this out. He would have his answers.

  Raising his vision skyward once again, he silently thanked Mother Raven for the gift of the feathers she had left to him. The thought struck him as bizarre. If the Dull Wind was limited only by the feathers that he carried, and he left behind a feather with each use, could he not replenish the skill every time he used the gift?

  The idea was plausible, though he understood the lesson far too well. No matter how prepared one was for a battle, opponents never behaved according to the thoughtfully crafted details and plans hatched in one’s mind. One could choreograph every action down to the slightest movement, but when the mark dodged to the right instead of the left, the failures would cascade until the whole process fell to pieces. Preparation was crucial, though flexibility and adaptability were lifesaving.

  For now, he had but five feathers. Two had been gifted by the Voice, the other three by Mother Raven. He would use the skill sparingly, striving to recover the feathers much like an archer reclaims what arrows may be salvaged.

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  Moving through the shadows of the decrepit Broad Quarter, Risens charted a course in the same general direction he’d recently returned from. He would need to cut through both the Springs and Learners Row before finding his way to Quayside. He would stick to the shadows of the streets on the way to the estate. He would use the mighty, elevated, serpentine aqueducts suspended over the city. Of course, the waterway, though an engineering achievement, served little purpose. Without the benefit of rain, even the river that fed its flow had dried, shrinking well below its normal depth.

  Much of Windwake still slept, though he expectedly encountered more who were rousing as he neared the market and the ports. The vendors would still likely be sleeping, though the dockworkers maintained their labors nearly all hours of the day and night. Their activities depended on which vessels were currently at port. This morning, judging by the heavy fish odor and the garbled sounds of conversation, he had no doubt that several ships remained in their berths.

  Risens had no difficulty steering clear of the activity, though his path cut to the water’s edge once he’d bypassed the bustle of the docks. He paused as he reached the white stone wall that separated the common area district of Quayside from the secluded opulence of the mansions and estates beyond. He’d had plenty of opportunities to skulk in the darkness of their perfectly manicured gardens and gilded halls, though, this time, he found the activity far exceeded the norm. One of their own, one of the few full-time residents of the ocean-side estates, had been convicted of treason and brutally executed only days earlier, so the added security was not unexpected. That the King’s troops controlled her property, however, assuredly gave concern to their neighbors. Whether warranted or not.

  He grinned at the thought of all the clandestine movements that had likely taken place over the previous days. He knew that most, if not all, harbored some ill will toward the King for an endless host of reasons. Like rats fleeing a flood, trusted servants, couriers, and guards were no doubt employed to discreetly hide or relocate anything that could be seen as compromising.

  King Lathrenon’s soldiers would be scouring the late Lady Myrenas’s estate, tearing its sculpted walls and decor down to the studs in search of anything of value to present to His Majesty. Were they to come up empty-handed, there was nothing stopping them from turning their focus elsewhere.

  Risens expected that they could upturn every stone and sift through the rubble of the once opulent estate, and still, they would find nothing of interest or value. The Lady was meticulous; her secrets would be sealed behind the impenetrable Gilded Cage. A safe that he alone held the key to.

  Vaulting the trivial excuse for a wall, he traced the shadows toward the beach that waited only a few hundred meters to the south. He paused at the edge of the stone berm that protected the estates from the fury of the Sea Solace. Infrequent as it was, the waters could become exceptionally violent during storms, spreading their frothing wrath over the gardens and grounds. Occasional statues were toppled and topiaries swept away by the surge. The damage was trivial compared to the loss of life along the less protected and less affluent coastline, though the public outrage was always one-sided. Those with the means to better protect their assets did so not with their own coin but with funds from the Kingdom, while those without settled for the sparsely attended Parades of Death.

  Hiding in the shadows, he tilted his head skyward, calling the Conspiracy of Ravens to his cause. Risens had no idea where the birds chose to roost while they were not in his service. As with the previous times he’d summoned them to his aid, their arrival was rapid. He wondered if they were, in fact, the same pair or if it merely happened to be the closest set of the birds among thousands. He held out his arm as shadows against the stars soon materialized into the glowing green auras of the birds. Without a sound, they descended in a wide circle, the smaller of the pair alighting with a soft call. Its partner landed atop the white wall a few meters to his side.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly,” he whispered to the raven that watched him curiously from his arm. His momentary question of whether or not it was the same birds was settled with a definitive answer. It was a peculiar statement, one that rumbled through his mind as soon as it began. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that these were the pair that had previously responded to his call. He knew the birds, recognized them as if they were old friends. Place them in a group of hundreds of others, and he was sure he could pick them out without delay.

  For a moment, he hoped the silence that followed would be broken by words of the ravens in his mind, but only natural sounds—the gentle rush of the ocean waves on the sandy shore, the quiet whisper of wind through the natural grasses, and the shrill songs of the insects—greeted his ears.

  “We travel along the coast. I need you to watch the path forward as you have before.”

  In response, the raven on the wall took to the sky. The bird now on his shoulder cocked its head to the side as if appraising him before obeying. There was unquestionable intelligence in its eyes and a familiarity that was astounding.

  “If you have names, perhaps it would be helpful to know them,” he continued, though he didn’t expect an answer.

  The bird nodded before taking to flight.

  A solitary feather floated in the air in its wake, bringing a smile to Risens’s face.

  As if drawn to him, the feather hung in the breeze, shifting to the side before landing on his outstretched palm. His mind reeled with the possibilities. Though he’d never paid much mind to it, bird feathers were not an uncommon sight throughout the city. Anywhere the avian creatures resided, there would be remnants of their passing. Each time Mother Raven had used the Dull Wind, each time he would use the ability, a solitary feather would remain as the cost of the action. Taking to flight, the bird had not shifted as he’d come to expect from the Dull Wind, but it was a coincidence too powerful to ignore. Could it also shed light on the apparent proximity of the creatures and the quickness of their response to his call?

  Tucking the additional feather into his cloak, he shook off the thoughts that threatened his current focus. The added security afforded him by the birds’ presence was no excuse for careless movement or action. He had been trained and trained too well to cede his safety entirely to reliance on others. He had been molded into a solitary killer by years of harsh training and abuse. The recent weeks had seen him ascend into something far more, though his rash decisions had caused errors that were unexpectedly idiotic.

  Fate had seemingly responded in kind.

  The challenges it tossed his way grew more difficult, as if they, too, worked to keep ahead of his growth. As he considered this, he realized his assumptions might be skewed. His accelerated learning had merely struggled to keep up with a world that was spiraling far ahead of his current abilities.

  There was still much to learn in the Roost.