The Raven Girl

Chapter 9

This has been rewritten! Excuse me while I go and refuel on a kit kat... then I'll get started on the next one.

She must've fallen asleep at some point – though gods knew how – for she woke abruptly to the relieving sound of silence. Her sleep had been as haunted as her consciousness, if not more so, and the man bore a face in her dreams and it was a face mutilated by little teeth. The bone of his jaw had hung loose, yet he spoke her name. Over and over, he spoke her name.

But he was gone for now. That gave her body time to bitterly complain before it was frightened into staying mute.

Her back ached like hell. The arm she'd fallen on, the ankle she'd twisted, the head she'd bashed against the wall still blazed in agony and it was all she could do to stretch out the crooks in her spine and shoulders. As for her knees, they desperately wanted to bend but sitting down wouldn't work no matter how many times she tried and already her mouth felt dry.

Surely the King was missing a trick here. Her death could've been his salvation if only he'd made it public. It would've have been a reminder of the good old days when the Ravners were a threat, when the country was torn between a true king and a usurper and when the country chose right. It would've created a sense of unity that the King himself could not seem to bring into the kingdom. It would've reaffirmed his rule.

Why then did he choose to leave her here, in darkness, alone to rot? Nobody, other than his brother, Sigurd and the guard, even knew she was at Eirik's mercy. Yet she was and his mercy had not been given.

Of all places, it was here her thoughts were not welcome. Every thought served as a cruel reminder that she was not free to do anything but think. And how long would they stay her own? With the constant threat of another visit from her cellmate and the confining walls and darkness, it would come to nobody's surprise that Asta would become as unhinged as the soul that still lingered here. If only she could talk with him, instead of just hearing shadows of what once had been, then she might have beheld him with less fear.

"They said my luck would run out."

There it was again: his familiar, urgent voice. It was little more than a croak, dry from the days of no ale to soothe his throat. He wasn't talking to her; maybe he was talking to the ghost of somebody before him, or maybe he was talking to himself, but she listened all the same. She'd rather have listened to him than herself.

"Why?" she whispered, the question hanging in the chilled air for but a moment. And, in that moment, she believed he was going to answer her.

"They said my luck would run out."

Disappointed, she let out a short breath. Perhaps she should've felt relieved that he had not heard her and was not aware of her presence. Perhaps she should've been grateful that this was just echoes of the past and nothing more, but it made her feel alone.

But he had not finished his tale. "I had killed so many on the orders of another. I rose from a man with nothing to a man with something – a man with more than enough gold. I should have stopped there."

"You made a bid for the King's life, didn't you?" Asta smiled, sadly, regardless of whether he heard her or not. It was good to even pretend they were conversing, instead of talking one by one and not hearing the reply. "But when? Which king was it?"

"His son promised me he'd make me rich beyond my understanding of rich. I couldn't resist; me, who had known nothing, would know everything... 'By the command of his majesty, King Gulbrandr, Yngvarr Eld is sentenced to death'... death is a poor word for this."

Yngvarr's words seemed disjointed, almost as if his thoughts could no longer remain in his head and just spurted out as they saw fit, yet it was this that had answered her question.