Chapter Text
Crunch.
Her heart thumps strongly beneath her breasts, its drumming akin to the gallop of the horses she’s familiar with: all thunder in its loudness and lightning in the way it is quick. A destrier charging to the frontlines, a stallion in the middle of warfare. Like, Sleipnir in his final moments, pushing through the armed many as it carries them away. She can still feel the reins burning her hand, tightly coiled as she pulls and pulls and pulls.
At least, she thinks as the wind blows past her, nipping at her cheeks and ears. At least, her warhorse had died with purpose – with honour. She no longer knows if her purpose is one of nobility or of honour. Raven wonders if the world can hear the thunder from her heart – if they hear it choir that of her grown selfishness instead.
If, somehow, they tear her apart to take it in their hands, and see a blackness corrupting the sincerity of her soul.
Perhaps it never was sincere in the first place.
Crunch.
She clutches the thin cord near her chest, and it almost feels like she’s back in that canyon, praying to whatever deity would dare to listen to her pleas to take pity on them. The necklace burns her now as it did her horse’s reins, searing her even through the leather of her gloves. Equally, it weighs heavy, and she thinks of how much she hates it.
(The why’s never had to be asked, because as soon as she had seen it (sitting so innocently on her bedside table), she had known the answer to everything before she could even think of the question. Once, he had told her that he wasn’t that difficult to decipher at all, and she thinks that he is right.
It hurts.)
She thinks of how much she loves it, too.
The silver shines bright when it catches the sun rays that peek through the clouds, and Raven wonders if this is a sign the gods have now cast their eyes on her. She wonders if they’re waiting for her call. She doesn’t know if she even has the modicum of faith left to spare to whisper a “please.”
Crunch.
(It starts this way: a girl, a mother, and the battle that claims her father’s life. Then: a woman, a mother, and the signature that strained a family. Finally: a knight, an empire, and the pledge of one’s absolute allegiance.
She loses an eye at the age of eighteen in the siege of Nieflheimr. She turns into a legend when she became twenty two. Raven, the atriði. That one filled with rage and frenzied blood, the odin.
Still, she much rather likes the moniker of champion, the one personally bestowed by the emperor just at the eve of her twenty-fifth year. “My champion,” he had said, and if she were allowed to speak at that moment, she may not find the proper words to convey all that she feels.
Still, “my champion,” and she finds that, really, she should not be surprised at all to find that she does not value her life as much as she does his. He had told her, “my champion,” and Raven thinks too late, “my entirety.”
It starts with an emperor, a champion, and a purpose. It ends with their death, too.
But, that is for later – or, sooner.
She doesn’t want to dwell on it.)
Crunch.
Her feet have become numb, but it does not deter her from her journey. Instead, she is almost grateful, knowing full well the cuts and blisters that had formed through the few hours’ worth of walking. Although his letter has not mentioned any destination in mind, she has heard the rumours of the empire’s passing cavalry. In the middle of its formation, the newly appointed emperor’s palanquin pristine and beautiful.
Something about the empire’s need for upliftment. Something about the throne’s lack of support.
Something about a wanted man on the loose.
“This is what’s best,” the letter has said, and truly, he really isn’t as mysterious as she thought he was. There is only one road the cavalry is able to pass through, especially during this season, and it’s a few miles away from the cabin they’d called home.
Or, rather, she’d called home. She doesn’t really know what he’d thought of the simple abode she’d bought many years ago and its dusty walls – doesn’t understand the quiet way he gazes at the firepit and the smallness of his fingers when he plays with the hem of their shared blanket. At least, not understand fully.
If Raven had been the empire’s legendary champion only a year ago, then Narmer had been emperor then. Now, they are nothing but the remnants of a previous power; nothing but the few things of his she’d managed to take, no one but a mere man and a mere woman. Powerless, and unable to do anything but live.
For her, that would have been enough. For the world, that would have been dangerous. (She doesn’t really know what it means for him.)
It was a conversation they had after he’d woken from his coma and they’d settled into a point of normalcy: (– he’d been taken prisoner as soon as he was dethroned, and she’d broken him out at the soonest possibility she could see. It had been days before they were able to escape, but even then, she knew the burns and the cuts and bruises weren’t from the battle lost. Neither the deep unconsciousness she couldn’t wake him from.
He hadn’t even stirred when Sleipnir had fallen into that river; he hadn’t even as much as breathed wrongly when she had to drag his body on a makeshift gurney.)
(Their normalcy is nothing more than her tending to the house and he trying to regain as much mobility as he can through the brokenness of his body. There is bread for breakfast and soup for dinner. Maybe game. They write to pass the time, but sometimes the silence isn’t stifling so they would reflect on those that were lost.
Raven remembers her mother and father. He might remember the royal princesses instead.)
“When was the last time you saw yourself a doctor? You’re sick, Raven.” “With all due respect, I’m not, Your Majesty. And, even if I am, I can’t just leave you here.” “Well, that would be what’s best.”
Raven thinks that must be his favourite phrase. Raven thinks that he must hate saying it.
But, she’d caved like a fool, wanting to please him, to prove that the feverish heat under her skin and the almost blindingly painful ache in her temple is nothing but a mere winter’s spell. The village isn’t too far too, about a half hour’s worth by foot, and quite honestly, she would like something with their bread for the morning.
(She is sick , the town doctor tells her, but he’d told her all she needed was rest. She buys a stick of butter and a thumbs worth of cheese.)
Then she sees his letter (“this is what’s best”) and the two pieces of jewellery beneath the parchment (“this does not cover at all everything you’ve given up for me” and “you deserve all the world has to offer, but even the world’s finest gold will mean nothing with my name on it. even now, even as i try, it is not enough. i’m sorry”) , and she throws away all the things she’d bought to the wall.
The signet ring is gold, while the necklace is silver. One from his mother and the other from his daughter. He kept them both in a wooden box, but she’d found them in the pockets of the warden guarding his cell. She’d not asked how they’d gotten into his possessions. He wouldn’t have answered her anyway, too preoccupied with the mockery and the disbelief of her beating him to an inch of his life.
Disbelief.
Did they really think she would have accepted the coup? The emperor’s champion?
Still, even now, she hears the sputtered words, “but, you’re his friend!”
Still, even now, she feels the strength in her voice, “but, he is not my king.”
They echo in her head like the crowing of ravens, shrill in the landscape of her mind. It hurts, pricking at her skin like the cold snow that land on her face, and finally, she understands why a group of birds bearing her namesake is called an unkindness.
Because, they aren’t kind — not at all, and she has to chase them away from her, shaking her head in the process.
Raven forces herself to focus on the sound of her breath, the crunch of her boots; the numbness of her toes, the flutter of her furred cape; the gold of his ring, the burning of his necklace.
The gentleness of winter, the warmth of the sun.
Crunch.
She walks on.
