Kalie Rana

Seven years later

The years that followed the Ravencourt and their leader, the White Raven’s ascension to the throne of the mainland saw a whirlwind of changes for the world beyond Cerith. First, and most importantly, saw the dissolution of the empire back into the original kingdoms that had dominated the mainland before the ascension of the first emperor hundreds of years prior. And while in my world democracies had become the norm worldwide—more or less—the case wasn’t so for this world. Even the results of a populist revolution didn’t result in a pseudo democracy, no, as I anticipated, it resulted in the cabal of nobles pulling the strings just coming into power.

The Ravencourt.

Even seven years later, the faces of the new leaders were unknown to the world. This was not exactly unheard of, I doubted a french serf knew the face of Louis XIV. But, what was unusual was the fact that even other nobility seemingly had no idea either. The masks that allowed the Ravencourt to plan their rebellion didn’t come off once the rebellion was insured. They didn’t come off when the new wars began either.

Before it happened, I couldn’t decide whether I thought the White Raven, man of the people that he was, would be loved or hated by the people of the mainland but, his assassination that came only a few years after the dissolution of the empire, and the creation of the Nine-Flagged alliance, told me more than I needed to know. The war that followed his death engulfed the mainland for several more years. It only came to an end when the new White Raven, as cold and calculating as he was, managed to subdue the rebelling nobles bringing them back under control.

A man of the people, bastion of liberty, and honor; the stories that I heard about the first White Raven had to have been some mix of propaganda and truth. A positive spin on lord knows what sort of reality. But, if that was the case, then the stories that made it to Cerith about his son, the new White Raven, were hundreds of times more terrifying. Brutal, unyielding, a mask behind a mask. The man who led the most powerful kingdom at the heart of the mainland was a man who was willing to do anything in the world, to get whatever he wanted. And that was the propaganda.

It was three days after Kalie’s seventeenth birthday—my ninth in this new life—that news arrived that would be changing it all. A messenger arrived in the harbor and with him he brought three boatloads of goods impossible to find on Cerith. In return, he had a single request.

Or rather, the same request for three things.

The hands of the daughters of the king.

In truth, the request was slightly more banal. The three of us were to be presented in front of the new White Raven as potential brides. The reality of which meant that while the three of us would be taken away from Cerith, then we would probably be sent right back home afterwards.

There was no other way to look at the act other than as something akin to a flexing of his power. A few months after the war on the mainland was over and the envoy arrived with no forewarning? It reeked for sure, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it reeked of.

Months. That was all we had from the day that the envoy landed, and when they were supposed to return for us. Mere months before I would be taken away from the first place I truly found a home in. This life or my last.

A storm raged over the Sea of Thorns, mere miles from the coast of Cerith. If she was here to see it I knew what Grandmother would have said, “a sign of what is to come. Not necessarily danger, nor destruction. The change of the ocean.”

***

Two months later

I whispered my thanks to the cold motes of wind and water mana as they rushed past me, pulling the thick rain clouds that had hovered over the sparse farmers fields for the last two days out, over us, toward the Sea of Thorns. Like everything else, a little was fine, but after two full days of near non-stop rain, the farmers had begged the Petrel’s temple to do something.

As the lesser spirits retreated alongside the clouds out to the ocean, they stole with them a little of my mana. That didn’t help the fact that I was already exhausted. Sleep was hard to come by these days, even though it was always a struggle to keep my eyes open. As the last notes of my song rushed off the edge of the fjord, the old farmer’s wife approached me. Over the whistling wind, her voice was like a feather, almost impossible to catch.

“Thank you thank you thank you! Oh great Petrel! Without you we would’ve been—”

“Your thanks are welcome, but I am not the Petrel.” The words came out only slightly more venomous than I intended. While I would be more than ecstatic to become the next Petrel, the succession was far from clear cut. The other majin—Kunnak and Quivoq especially—were just as talented if not more so than I was. If the decision was purely about skill, then the fight wasn’t decided, far from it.

“Oh, of course your highness, but…” I knew where the woman’s clumsy words were heading, and I was far from ready or willing to have that conversation. Especially not with some random woman I had never met before. “We all know, Leona willing, that you are the next and well… we support you, Princess.”

Again, I knew that the woman’s words were intended to be kind, but they stung as they hit my ears. As I prepared myself to continue the slog of conversation, one of the house’s newest aides, Vincent, climbed up the path from the palace. “Your Highness!”

“Yes, what is it?” I said, quickly excusing myself from the farmer’s wife and meeting him halfway. A part of me wanted to drag him down the hill, but I stopped myself.

“They’re here!”

“Who?”

“The envoy, your highness.”

“From Corvus? Already? They’re early, how in Leona’s name did they get through that storm?” The storm that had cut Cerith off from the rest of the world had hung like a curtain just off the shoals of the shattered isles.

“Only the sailors and the gods above know that m’lady,” his breaths were heavy enough that I could just barely perceive the faint particles of mana escaping his body with each one, “your father has already begun receiving them in the moonlight pavilion.”

“Already? They could’ve at least waited for me.”

“There was no time, the envoy insisted.”

“Without even letting me get ready first? He could’ve—” I cut myself off before I let the remainder of my thought out. I wanted to say, “He could’ve kept them on their damn boats for all I care” but while Vincent would’ve thought it funny, the farmers still awkwardly eavesdropping would’ve probably misunderstood it for something just short of treason. “Please send word to let them know that I will be with them shortly,” I said, as regally and loudly as I could, before leaning in close to Vincent, “where are my sisters?”

Vincent, understanding the need for tact, took on a conspiratorial tone as well. “Joanna seems to have taken an impromptu fishing trip; there was no log, or manifest. We still can’t find Ashrel, the palace has sent several servants out to find her.”

“Is Yohann with them?”

“Sadly, Yohann is currently preoccupied with our guests.”

“Oh gods no. They’ll never find her without him.”

“That’s my fear as well.”

“Well, then it’s doubly important that at least one of us is there so father doesn’t do or say something stupid. Let them know I’m coming.”

“Yes, your highness.” While Vincent ran off in the direction of the pavilion which was situation on the opposite cliffside of the fjord from where he found me, I made my way down the cliffside, avoiding the deep puddles that the incessant rain had formed on the slick black stone of the fjord. As the palace came into view, I took it as an opportunity to practice another of the many spells that Grandmother had taught me—or at least tried to. Beginning with a simple sharp whistle, I gathered the attention of the many spirits of air mana that called this windy path home. With a short tune following it, I sent out to them my prayer and request. One that I had attempted time and time again, to limited results. Understanding my request—at least in part—the spirits pressed themselves into my back. As I continued my short song, I felt the ever-so-slight sensation of being lifted from my feet as I ran. While it was exactly what I was hoping for, it’s only result was propelling me down the remainder of the mountain in a series of soft bounds.

Not quite flight, not just yet.

Back in the palace, I burst into my room, giving Maria an awful fright. Thankfully, it was her and not one of the older maids.

“Oh goodness me!” she said, bracing herself on the table. As I started to undress, I felt her scornful glare for a moment before she began helping me. By the time that I had already removed my vest, and blouse beneath, she was upon me with a cloth. “My lady! You really must bring a parasol with you when the weather is as dreadful as this! You’re absolutely soaked. Not to mention that you’re covered in mud!”

“If I were to cover myself what would be the point of going out in the rain then?” Her hand stopped just under my neckline.

“Is it your intention to confound me with every other word?” She returned to her scrubbing with a distinct increase in her fervor. “Your father has been very specific with the three of you. And yet, despite his and the late queen’s desires to see you and your sisters grow into fine young women, you seem unwilling to listen to their good guidance.” At the mere mention of Kalie’s mother, a woman who I never knew, I couldn’t help but think of my old life once again. A stinging of nostalgia, and longing overcame me, for both my own mother who I knew and lost, and Kalie’s mother who I never knew but wished I had. Despite all the guidance that Maria did her best to instill into me, as a woman a decade or so my junior, I couldn’t help but want to break free. There was a longing that sat deeply inside me to follow in the footsteps of the Petrel. To help the people of Cerith. And, to help myself.

With my upper body cleaned of mud and dirt, I took off my breeches and Maria repeated the procedure. Just as she finished her work, I spoke up, “I guess another pair of these would be out of the question, am I correct?”

“You are absolutely not going to be presented to an envoy of the Nine-Flagged Alliance dressed like a common farmer!” I made a point of putting on a hurt expression as she looked me over, searching for any stubborn dirt that had missed her first sweep. Upon landing on my face, her severe demeanor faltered slightly. “You and I both know that a lady’s life on the isles is nothing like that on the mainland. You cannot continue on like this when you’re there.”

“Then why in Leona’s name am I even going? It’s no wonder Joanna and Ashrel ran off.”

“Don’t misunderstand, those two will be going as well. You all will be presented to the White-Raven, then when you’re dismissed, you will spend some time in the king’s city, find a suitable match and return.”

As a mainlander, she was more familiar than most with the customs so it was almost reassuring to hear the words straight from Maria’s mouth. Although I assumed that I would be more or less ignored as a possible bride for the White Raven—as I was both a majin, and from a political backwater like Cerith—there was the worry that through some stroke of hellish luck that I would end up trapped there, stolen away forever from my beloved home.

“Or…” As I began to speak, the words themselves were too difficult for me to continue. A problem that Maria wasn’t afraid to pick up on and rectify.

“Or, if the worst happens, and Leona choses to bring the Great Petrel back to her embrace, then maybe you will be able to return and take your proper place as the Petrel and ignore this farce.” Maria leaned in close to my ear as she finished cinching my dress tightly around me. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. As Grandmother always says; never apologize for telling the truth, for the truth is the greatest gift that one can give.” Maria, being a part of the palace for as long as she had, had heard more than enough of the sayings of the Great Petrel herself, to repeat her sayings along with me.

Fitted into my dress, and my hair the closest it would ever come to being “done” in the humid climate of the islands, I left to meet Father and the envoy at the pavilion. But, well before I did so, I could already see the reason that Father did not wait for me, nor my sisters to arrive.

The harbor’s entrance, usually filled with many small fishing boats and the occasional small merchant barge slipping in and out of the fjord’s inlet, was now dominated by a single huge battleship, flying the flags of all nine kingdoms of the mainland. Beyond the fjord, waited what I assumed was the rest of the flotilla. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve assumed it was an entire armada waiting at our shores, but the true strength of the Alliance’s military might was multiple times what was waiting.