The Raven Girl

Chapter 6

Hello again! I'll just get out your way now...

As soon as they reached the outskirts of the city, a fresh wave of dread set upon her. It was real now; this was where it all began, where a torrent of events was kick-started. These were events she had never believed would happen to her. When she'd made the stupid decision of fleeing – fleeing a life that many lived without complaint – never once had the prospect of such a dreary end crossed her mind. Well, what had crossed her mind? She couldn't remember one sane thought. Else she would not be here, being delivered to her death.

She'd seen executions in her time. Her father kept the law on his property just as every other lord did and he kept it strict. Poachers, murderers and thieves caught on his land were treated with no individuality: all were hung. He would drag his children from whatever they were doing and call both tenants and household to the gallows to prove he was just as capable as the other lords, put on a grand display of the power he'd managed to salvage. Even then his convicts had been as pale as porridge and shaking in their boots and when the barrel was kicked from beneath their trembling legs, their bodies contorted in their struggle against the noose. Death was never a pretty affair and no man died valiantly.

The people minded their own business and tended to their own chores when the horse went by, something that made Asta wonder what the odds were that she could throw the man from the saddle and trample him, all the while going unnoticed.

The odds of throwing him alone were far lower than she'd have liked, let alone being noticed.

She sat quietly, too afraid to move. A desperate man would have tried it and a doomed man would have tried it because they had nothing to lose but she was too afraid. Afraid of what? No matter how she acted now, she would die a public death to appease said public. Her fears were now of her own making, fears that she could not put a name to, and despite her efforts to shake them, they still managed to paralyse her.

The castle was drawing all the closer with every dithering moment and soon it was too late to make a move on his life. Besides, if her thoughts were not enough, those actions would drag her down to hell. Perhaps she might make it to the afterlife yet if her life was ended quickly before another hasty sin was carried out. Optimism worked wonders for distraction.

"I've been here before," Sigurd said, tugging on the reins so his horse came lulling to a gentle trot, "on my own and with Calle. It's quite the place, no?"

She didn't reply but stared across at the ever-growing shadow it cast over the streets. Calle was right when he'd said that the place stretched right across the hillside – it dominated the horizon with a certain obnoxious ease and concealed the autumn sky from view – but the way he'd seen it, it was beautiful, grand, impressively extravagant in its design and magnitude. She saw none of those qualities in its build.

"I've heard many a tale shared over a pint here," he continued. "It's been said it was built on an old gaol, one that held more than its fair share of horror stories. Those lucky enough to be held in that dungeon and make it out again spout unsettling tales of the past. They say, when they were sitting alone in their cell at night, they hear the screams of tortured innocents and the unhinged laughter of murderers. They hear them, then they see them. They see the moment when the torturer got a little too happy and wrenched the limbs from the sockets and killed them, or drained too much blood. And, true enough, next to them, on the blood-splattered floor, are the old bones of some mutilated fellow."

Maybe the rational thing to do would be to wave the story off, claim it peasant's talk, but she couldn't help but shudder at the notion. What if it were not false? Brushing it away and calling it false was the easiest thing to do, yet it didn't make it anymore untrue. What if she were to die and join those poor souls? She'd spend the rest of eternity cursing her naivety, cursing her decision to rely on herself and not her family.