The Last Raven: An Urban Fantasy Noir (Riftborn Book 1), page 15
The soldier also removed their helmet. “You’re here to see Neb?” he asked, his voice low. He had dark skin, a bald head, and long black beard that was braided with colourful beads. He looked like someone who knew his way around a battle. He was missing part of an ear, and a wide, ragged scar went from his left cheek across his nose and stopped by his right ear. His face looked as though it had been carved out of granite, and his piercing gaze was hawk-like in intensity. If he ever stepped foot in Hollywood, he would be cast as the villain in every single action film ever made. He stepped toward me and offered me his forearm, which I knocked my own forearm against. You didn’t shake hands in the rift, not unless you were damn sure whose hand you were shaking.
“I’ll take you to Neb,” he said, motioning for me to follow him. I noticed the longsword at his hip, the ornate steel pommel in the shape of a dragon’s head.
“Thanks for your help,” I said to the guard, who smiled, nodded, replaced her helmet, and walked back to her post.
“I’ll wait here,” Maria said. “I do not think I would enjoy being in that building in this shape.”
“Your deer will be given food and water,” the soldier told me.
“Thank you,” Maria said, following the guard who had been ordered to take care of them.
I followed the soldier as we entered through the twelve-foot-high dark wooden door and into a huge room with people walking around the hallway in front of us.
“This castle matches the city,” the soldier explained. “Five floors, each with five rings. This one is administrative. The higher we go, the more important the jobs.”
“Do you have a name?” I asked him, looking around as we walked along the corridor past dozens of people who were going in and out of the multitude of what looked like open-plan offices.
“Kuri,” the soldier said.
“Have you been here long?” I asked as we reached a lift. They were powered by rift energy, as were the lights, the doors, and everything else inside the rift, including occasionally the weaponry. It was difficult to use and even more difficult to keep stable enough not to explode and create a tear, so it tended to be used for smaller jobs. Even so, once you’d seen one of the large weapons use the rift to tear apart their user’s enemies, it tended to stay with you forever.
“Twenty years,” the soldier said as the doors opened, and we stepped inside.
“With Neb?” I asked as we began our slow ascent.
“Yes,” he said. “What century is it on Earth?”
“Twenty-first,” I said.
Kuri turned to me and nodded. “I’ve known Neb a long time but never felt the need to leave my home to come to her settlement.”
“What changed?” I asked as the lift stopped.
“Many things,” Kuri said in a tone that suggested he had no intention of discussing it further.
The doors to the wooden lift opened, a slight blue-and-purple glow around the edges that I noticed for the first time. The smaller uses of rift-powered things were perfectly safe, but they always made me slightly wary anyway.
The top floor of the citadel was considerably quieter than the first one had been, and Kuri escorted me down the corridor where a number of soldiers lined either side, saluting to Kuri as we passed. At the end of the corridor, Kuri knocked twice on the twenty-foot-tall double doors that had ornate carvings in the almost black wood.
The door opened, revealing two guards, both in red-and-black armour, both carrying long spears.
“Lucas Rurik to see Neb,” Kuri said.
The guards looked beyond Kuri to me and nodded once. “Any weapons?” one of them asked me.
I shook my head, but the other guard patted me down anyway. Kuri showed no irritation that they were doing something that his people had already done. I doubted very much that anyone would be allowed this close to Neb unless they weren’t considered a threat and had been searched.
“You’re clean,” the guard said. “But if you step out of line . . .”
“Neb will kill me before any of you get a chance,” I finished for him.
He looked slightly taken aback but nodded curtly and motioned for me to continue through the large room with its paintings on the walls, and dark-grey stone floor. I glanced out of a stained-glass window at the far end of the room. From the height we were at, I could see across the plains to the River of Ghosts in the distance, one of the largest rivers in the rift that ran from the mountains all across the plains to the far north, where few dared go.
Some people think that the rift is some kind of heaven, hell, or purgatory, depending on what they believe, but it isn’t. It’s just another place, attached to Earth but separate. The people who come to the rift and die there don’t go to another rift somewhere else—not that I’m aware of. Many people still practise their religions that they were part of on Earth and just believe that the rift is another stop on their way to the afterlife.
The guard opened one of the white wooden doors and motioned for me to step through into a large room with tall ceilings and columns that gave the whole place an ancient Greek vibe. There were three large glass doors on either side of the room that led out to a balcony on either side. Colourful drapes adorned either side of the room, cascading onto the polished light-wood floor. At the far end of the room were two sets of double doors, both the same wood as the floor. One of the doors opened and Neb stepped out.
She wore a forest-green tunic that stretched to her sandal-clad feet. Each of her bare, muscular arms had half a dozen gold and silver bracelets, and she wore several earrings in each ear. She was nearly six feet tall, with brown skin, almost-black hair, and slate-grey eyes. She moved with purpose, aware of her position within the rift and the respect that she commanded just by the mention of her name. She looked every inch the leader I knew her to be.
Two guards had entered the room behind her, but both hung back by the door; neither would be needed if there was to be trouble. I’d seen Neb fight; I’d seen Neb kill. She was probably more dangerous than most of the guards at her disposal.
Neb stood before me, looking down at me as I bowed my head slightly.
“It’s been twenty years,” she said.
“A lot has happened,” I told her, looking up.
“The rift changes for us all,” she said, still holding herself rigid, still trying to decide if I’d returned an ally or an enemy. “Why have you chosen to return now?”
“I need your help,” I said.
“You did not come to see me after the Ravens were murdered,” Neb said, and there was an accusatory tone to her voice. It had hurt her.
“I know,” I said. “I was . . . I couldn’t face telling you. I felt like a failure. I couldn’t protect them.”
Neb drew a dagger from the sheath on her back that I hadn’t been able to see but had known would be there. She held the dagger between us, making sure I got a good look at the rift-tempered blade. “I do not need this,” she said, although I wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question.
I shrugged.
Neb smiled, sheathed the dagger, and passed it to a guard, who hurried over to collect it. “Let’s go outside and discuss matters,” she said to me, her face still poised and regal.
I nodded, and followed her out of the nearby door to the balcony overlooking her settlement. It was windy; the scent of the flowers in bloom closer to the mountain reminded me of my times training in the realm.
When the door to the balcony was closed, Neb turned toward me, enveloping me in her arms. “It is good to see you, Rurik,” she whispered in my ear. “It is good to see one of my students again.”
I nodded sadly. “I’m so sorry for not coming here before now.” I’d sent word to Neb about what had happened, but I couldn’t face telling her, and then over time it became more difficult to take that step. It was a failure on my part and the one thing I’d been concerned about coming back there.
Neb nodded. “I understand. But do not think that you failed them; you did all you could, I am sure. You survived, Rurik.”
I remained silent.
“The last Raven,” she said, looking out over the plains and letting out a sigh. “Tell me what happened, Rurik. In your words. Tell me why the Ravens are dead.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We were ambushed,” I told her. “We were driving along the road when the convoy was attacked. They wore masks, used automatic weapons, explosives, and finished us off with blades. We had just left Russia; there had been a multi-Guild hunt. A suspected elder fiend. It had turned out to be several revenants killing for fun.”
“Do you know who carried out such an attack?” Neb asked me.
I shook my head and told her everything that had happened since the attack. After returning from my embers, I’d investigated who might have carried out the attack, had Isaac’s help to do it, but we’d found nothing. Dead end after dead end. I ended by telling her about Dan and his betrayal, about my being unable to access my power.
When I was done, Neb stared at me for several seconds. “I understand your predicament,” she said slowly. “You need your power back. You need to leave the rift and help your friends.”
“Can you help me?” I asked.
“Rurik, do you know that over the centuries, I have been a queen, a king, a general, a wife, a soldier, an assassin, a god, a scholar, a farmer, and probably many other things? But I do not give up the secrets of the rift lightly. You were an exceptional student, possibly one of the greatest I ever taught, but do you know your one huge failing?”
I shrugged; I was pretty sure she was about to tell me no matter what I said.
“You have no patience,” she said. “You never did. If you didn’t need to know something right there and then, you didn’t bother to seek out more knowledge about it. The embers, for example. You know what they are; you know how to use them. You knew that if you stopped using your powers, essentially cutting yourself off from the rift, your power would cease. Even chained revenants would believe you to be human. You did this to aid your friend in his quest to stop this Dr Mitchell from experimenting on the rift-fused. The outfit she made you wear appears to have caused this cutting-off to become permanent.
“But you didn’t do your research,” Neb continued. “You assumed too much. You assumed you could just reactivate your power. You are not a stupid man, Rurik, but you are an impatient one. You should have spent time devising how you were going to leave such a predicament as you have placed yourself in. You did not. That was rash and ill advised.”
It wasn’t like I could disagree with her.
“I will tell you what you want to know, on one condition,” Neb continued, looking back across the settlement.
“Anything,” I said.
“Come with me,” Neb said.
I sucked down the frustration. If I tried to hurry Neb along, she would take even longer. She was not a woman to be rushed, and she was not a woman you wanted to anger. She had been my teacher for the centuries that I’d been inside the rift. Training to become a Raven. She taught me how to fight, how to become a weapon, an assassin who should be feared. She was a hard but fair teacher, but she was not someone who suffered anyone thinking they knew better. She had something she needed to impart, and we would not be done until she had finished.
I followed Neb across the large room and through the opposite door to the one she’d emerged from earlier.
There was a long corridor beyond, decorated in the same way as the large hall, and she stopped in front of the second of five doors, opening it and waving me inside.
I did and took a seat at the circular table next to a large window. Apart from the four chairs and table, there was a small dressing table sat against the far wall.
“This is my war room,” Neb said, closing the door behind her and taking a seat opposite me.
“You at war?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said. “Twenty years ago, a settlement to the north of here was attacked. Destroyed completely. Three more met the same fate. Approximately ten thousand people died. Ten thousand revenants. Ten thousand survived and we took them in here. Took in more since then, too, so we now have a little under forty thousand people. Most live closer to the mountains, tending farms and the like.”
“That’s a big increase,” I said.
“I never wanted to become a leader again,” Neb said. “Not of this magnitude. I left Inaxia for that exact reason. But sometimes we must do things we do not want to.”
“Why didn’t Inaxia step in and help these people?” I asked. “I know those in charge of Inaxia don’t have influence this far north, but surely they could have helped.”
“They did in their own way,” Neb said. “They sent food, supplies, soldiers, but the people who live here live in villages have seceded from Inaxia’s influence. People are stubborn, and even aid is often refused if they think it comes with unnecessary rules attached.”
“They were scared that it would be a foothold for Inaxia in the north?” I asked.
Neb nodded.
“People came to me for help because I was separate from Inaxia,” Neb said. “And now I have thousands of people under my care once again.”
“What was destroying the settlements?” I asked her.
“An elder fiend, two of them, to be exact,” Neb said.
“That’s not good at all,” I said.
“The tempest had a surge,” Neb said. “Power flowed out, creating multiple tears, and with it came the problems it creates. First surge of that magnitude in centuries.”
“Are they dead?” I asked.
“Yes,” Neb said. “But what happens here affects Earth. Those elder fiends could have easily made their way through a tear. The result would have been disastrous.”
She removed a small wooden box from one of the dresser’s drawers and passed it to me.
“I don’t think marriage is the answer,” I said before I could stop myself.
Neb didn’t smile. “You always did have a smart mouth. It must have been hell for you to keep it to yourself earlier.”
“It’s been hell to keep it to myself for seven years,” I said.
“When you have your power back, when you are whole once again, what’s going to stop you from falling into the same problems as before?” Neb asked, placing her hand on the box so I couldn’t open it. “What’s going to stop you from hunting and hunting, and forgoing everything else in your desire for vengeance? I taught you better than that. I taught you how to be a Raven. Your unkindness were murdered, I get that, but it is not on you to feel bad about surviving. Would you rather have been with your people? Would you rather have been worm food?”
“No,” I admitted. “But the guilt I felt at surviving was my sole driving force in everything I did. I felt like if I could just find those responsible, it would release some of the burden I felt.”
“The burden of life?” Neb asked.
I nodded.
“Do you know why you excelled as a student?”
I shook my head. “I knew where to put the sharp end of a dagger?” I asked.
Neb laughed at that. “No, you idiot,” she said, although there was no unpleasantness in her voice. “You care about your friends. You care about your loved ones. Contrary to popular belief, caring about people makes you a better killer than living a solitary life with no one. It reminds you that you need to be careful, because if you fuck up, your friends might die. Being a loner eventually means you forget your humanity, you think only of the hunt, the kill. No one can live like that. You were exceptional because people like you, and you don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not. People feared you because of that. Because of your ability to switch between friendly and assassin. I’d seen it happen. I saw a switch flick inside of you more than once, and it made people afraid. Rightly so. Do you still have that ability? Because you will need to protect your friends by eliminating the threat toward them, and honestly, Rurik, some of them might not understand.”
I stared at Neb for several seconds. “Whatever it takes,” I said eventually.
“Good,” Neb said, clapping her hands together. “Open the box.”
Inside was a forest-green crystal. It glowed faintly until I plucked it from the box, when it lit up like a firework. I held it in the palm of my hand as the crystal, no larger than the nail on my thumb, pulsated like a heartbeat.
“Do you know what that is?” Neb asked me.
“A heart crystal,” I said. “Otherwise known as a promise crystal.”
Without warning, Neb practically dove over the table, clasped her hand over mine, and held on tightly as the crystal cut into the flesh of my palm.
“Damn it,” I shouted.
With her free hand, she grabbed the back of my neck, forcing me to lock eyes with her. “When I need you, you will come? Do you agree?” Neb’s voice was raw, and I knew that saying no would result in something bad happening. Probably to me. Maybe to her. She was afraid of something, I could feel it, but I didn’t know exactly what it was.
“Yes,” I said as she increased the pressure on my hand before releasing.
I looked down at the crystal in my hand, which I was pretty sure was now beating in time to Neb’s heartbeat. The blood on my palm was being sucked up into the crystal itself as it changed, becoming smoother, more oval in shape. I knew where it was meant to go, where I was meant to wear it. The medallion in my home. Looked like the days of my hiding from my past were well and truly gone.
“Warning would have been nice,” I said, breathlessly.
“Warning wouldn’t have worked,” Neb said. “You might have said no.”
Anger flashed through me. “And that would have been my damn right, Neb.”
Neb’s eyes narrowed for a moment before she sighed. “Yes, but you needed help, and this is my payment for said help. You will come when I need you.”
“For what?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Neb said, with a dismissive wave. “You will come.”
Heart crystals functioned outside of the rift. No matter where I was, it was linked to Neb. It also meant that she could communicate with me while I dreamt. That wasn’t something I was looking forward to.
