Of Gods and Warriors ✓

Chapter 51

Upon the moonlit flagstones of the highest tower crowning Calbridge Castle, there swirled shadows. Like kites severed from lines, the shapes darted across the floor, some colliding into others and plummeting below, as they did every night for the past few years.

Avalyn Loneblight, the Royal Sorceress of Drisia, swung open the tall stained-glass windows and gazed across the castle grounds toward the cliff off to one side, hair flying in the wind that swept across the precipice.

A sun-cracked, rain-bitten statue of Draedona stood alone on the crest, surrounded by gravestones on all sides. Scores of ravens circled above the statue in a grotesque whirlwind.

A smile curved her wine-red lips. "Searching for souls of the dead, O harbingers of death?" whispered the sorceress. "Alas, there is none left."

The only answers were their harsh cries, half-drowned by the howling wind. The birds circled there aimlessly for days. They neither hunted, nor slept, but only searched around, for here the very air blew heavy with the dark sorcery. King Krugmann's spies had brought news to her that no other cemetery in the land was in such macabre chaos as this one, and the cause would simply be its proximity to the castle.

The ravens knocked into each other when their bodies grew weary and eventually plummeted to their deaths. Shrivelled up corpses, heaps of dark feathers and light-boned avian skeletons had piled over that of humans.

And when a full moon such as tonight cast its silver rays through the windows at a certain angle, their silhouettes would reenact the same tragic tale of pointless death across the floor of Avalyn's tower, reminiscent of a show of shadow-puppeteers Emric had once taken her to in Glasswolf city.

Every dawn, soldiers and slaves from the castle would march out, faces masked against the stench and cleared out the dead birds, but more would be added before nightfall. Naught of the carcasses would go to waste, though. Bones and organs would find their place amidst the grim merchandise of practitioners of dark arts in distant cities, or some gloomy soul might one day write with a quill fashioned from those feathers. At least the poor servants were making some coin. Avalyn had given them free reign to do so, despite the king's protests.

On her order, one of them had brought her a raven skull. It now adorned her neck, its eyes studded with obsidian and fitted to a thick silver chain. Neither was it a sorcerous charm, nor did she wear it for its morbid beauty, but as a reminder of a victory well-earned.

A cluster of birds, tangled together with their wings, joined the pile of the dead. The invisible chains she grasped shook and grew stronger with each of Draedona's messengers dying.

Is this what victory feels like?

From being chased down by hired killers and spending nights in a shack with a leaking roof, she'd gone to be the one holding the reins of all sorcerous matters of a kingdom, reversed death itself and raised an army only ancient Drisian tyrants could hold a candle to.

Not yet. The wizened face of the High Sorcerer from the academy flashed in her vision. That man still occupied the highest chair amongst the sorcerers, taking credit for her hard work, printing his name in gold letters where it should have been her name upon her papers.

'Centre of academic research in magic, sorcery and arcane arts,' they called the academy. Her fingers clenched around the balcony railings.

Her victory would be complete the day she would level the academy of Byton to the ground. Burn it down to ashes and choke the High Sorcerer with it.

"Sorceress." A single knock fell on the tower door and snapped her back to reality.

Despite the voice coming muffled from over the heavy-panelled doors, the noiseless movement of the figure outside, Avalyn knew who it was without having to turn, for who else would have the courage to show up at the dead of the night to meet someone who reanimated corpses for a living?