[ONGOING: New Chapters Every Sunday]
Kingsblade. Rise of the Raven Queen.
Her kingdom is in ashes.
She's supposed to save it, but there's one problem.
She doesn't remember she's the queen.
She doesn't remember anything at all.
With war looming on...
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Y E A R 4 , T H E S E C O N D A G E
One thousand years earlier
There was a constant war between them: the priest he'd enslaved and the enslaver king. Rajii, the man he'd robbed blind. Éoran, the unabashed thief of all good things.
Like his freedom.
The skiff rocked beneath his feet as he pushed off from the slimy bank of the mangrove. The quarterstaff in his hands had been the same he'd use in the war. How many Fallen Ones had fallen at his feet?
Strange that, now, his enemy now was the one who was supposed to have been there to rescue them. What had Elindir's son said?
"Mmmm," Rajii breathed into the cold, winter air that bit through his threadbare jerkin and trousers. "Ruling a kingdom was harder than winning a war." He huffed out a bitter laugh and missed the singing cicadas who might have shared with him. "Not every good warrior makes for a good king."
He stared at the quarterstaff, tracing the familiar shapes of the animals that roamed his homeland with his eyes. Menaka. Rajii smiled at the memories that flooded the banks of his memory and pulled him back to his childhood home just as the tide now carried him toward another home of sorts.
I'll be home soon.
Was he so different from the boy his father had entrusted the staff to? Once, he had been a young man, full of the kind of storybook dreams that only naivety could spin. The world was still beautiful then, but then, that was before.
Before the Darkness came.
Had it settled in his eyes where his hope used to be? Rajii wasn't sure.
The still-wet twisted roots glowed in the moonlight as each of the thousands of tangled fingers cradled the brackish waters in their embrace. He felt a sharp pain in his chest as he inhaled. He'd pushed himself too hard again. He knew it when tears pricked at the edges of his eyes.
Just a bit farther.
The world seemed to hold its breath as they glided through the mists as they rose from the water. The water itself almost seemed to still.
Nearly half an hour later, they arrived on the island, still dripping as it rose as the tidewaters receded.
"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee," Rajii quoted to himself as the skiff smacked against the bank.
