The Last Raven: An Urban Fantasy Noir (Riftborn Book 1), page 16
“You break the crystal and you’re brought right to me,” Neb said.
I’d used one once before. The forceful movement of being taken from Earth to the rift, bypassing the embers, was about as fun as being repeatedly kicked in the testicles. I put the memory of it aside.
“You want to know how to regain your power, yes?” Neb asked.
I nodded.
“When you stopped using your power, it had to go somewhere,” Neb said. “It normally flows from the rift to the embers and into you. But if you cut yourself off, it stays in the embers. It feeds it.”
I thought back to my journey through the embers. “The decaying buildings,” I said. “The power is stored in them.”
“Correct. It becomes a part of the very building itself. The shadows destroy them, releasing the power, which goes to another building and hides again. You break the building, it will flow into the one thing it can flow into. You.”
“I need to destroy a building that has the power inside of it,” I said, more to myself than to Neb. “How?”
“It’s your memories,” Neb said. “Seriously, you are two thousand years old, and you never bothered to figure out how your embers worked?”
“Does anyone?” I countered.
“No,” Neb said with a smile. “I was probably your age by the time I started to look into it.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” I said.
“Fine, you can fix and break the embers as you wish. You can’t rearrange them too much, but destroying a building will be as easy as knowing where to hit or push or pull. Everything has a weak spot, Rurik.”
“Thank you,” I said, getting to my feet.
“You say that now,” Neb said. “Look, whatever you do in your embers, be sure to run. The second you start screwing around with it all is the second the shadows turn nasty. And there are worse things than shadows in there.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said.
“Oh, that you know,” Neb said with a chuckle. “Just be careful, Rurik. You were mortally wounded when you entered the embers, so it might have only felt like you were there for one night, but on Earth and here, it would have been days, maybe weeks.”
A lot can happen in two weeks. She was silent for a moment, but I could tell that there was something on her mind.
“What is it?” I asked eventually.
“What are you going to do with the medallions?” She asked. “The Ravens’ medallions, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I have five of them, not including my own, but I couldn’t find the rest.”
“Less than half,” Neb said sadly.
I nodded. I wasn’t really sure what to say.
“They are your duty to use to re-establish the Guild,” Neb said. “You know that.”
I did; I couldn’t lie. When a Guild lost members, it was up to the survivors to ensure that the Guild was kept up to strength. “I can’t re-establish the Ravens when I only have half of the medallions.”
“You could get more carved,” Neb said.
“I know, but . . .”
“But those that belonged to your friends are still lost and that feels wrong?” Neb suggested.
I nodded. “Whoever killed my people scattered the medallions; it looks like some were sold off to whoever could afford them. Also, I need to make sure that the people who killed my friends don’t just do the same to a new group. It’s not as easy as just giving the medallions away and saying job done.”
Ned stood and embraced me. “I wish you luck, Rurik. When you are ready to start the Ravens up again, come see me. I’ll help however I can. They were my Guild to begin with; I’d like to make sure they stay in safe hands.”
“I will,” I promised. “Thank you for your help.”
“I’ll see you one day soon enough,” Neb said. “Save your friends, be the man you were trained to be, but stay safe. I’m going to need your help one day, and I don’t want to find out you died and can’t keep up your end of the bargain.”
“I don’t plan on dying,” I told her. While my embers would take me in should I be close to death, whether I wanted them to or not, a sudden death—decapitation, bullet to the head, et cetera—would kill me too quickly for the embers to do anything. On top of that, being seriously hurt with a rift-tempered weapon would mean it would be much harder for me to head into the embers. Either way ends with me being dead. For good. Riftborn were hard to kill, but it was perfectly possible.
“No one plans on dying, my dear,” Neb said. “That’s what’s so goddamned frustrating about it.”
Neb escorted me back through the top level of the tower, standing beside me as the lift was called. There were no guards to go with me this time, I assumed because I’d come out alive from talking to Neb and was therefore deemed no longer a threat.
“Rurik,” Neb said as the lift doors opened.
I turned back to her.
“I trained you to do what you needed to do,” she said. “The Ravens thought you were a normal member of the Guild; was that always the case?”
I nodded. “Two people know what I was trained to do,” I said. “Ji-hyun and Isaac.”
“I have not met the latter,” Neb said.
“He’s a good man,” I told her. “I trust him, and he deserved to know. He understood why it had to remain a secret, and he didn’t judge me. Two things that I needed in a friend.”
Neb sighed and remained quiet for several moments. “When you go back, you won’t be able to hunt these adversaries and have your friends remain in the dark about what you were. Not everyone will understand.”
“I know,” I said, and stepped into the lift. “But it’ll be nice to have the burden of the secret removed. I think when the Ravens were killed and I survived, part of my problem was maintaining what I was while trying to find those responsible. The rules state that I was to never reveal what I was trained to do, even if my Guild was gone. The rules suck and aren’t fit for purpose. I need to do this my way.”
“You will be revealing a large secret about the Guilds,” Neb said without any hint of unhappiness at what that might mean.
“Good,” I said as the doors began to close. “Keep safe, Neb. I’ll see you soon.”
“When you get your power back, it might take some time before you’re back to full strength,” Neb told me. “Try not to do anything stupid in the meantime.”
“No promises,” I told her with a smile.
“Make them pay, Rurik,” Neb said before the doors closed altogether.
The short lift ride felt much longer as I considered Neb’s words. She was someone whose opinion mattered to me a great deal. She’d also trained Ji-hyun. We’d bonded early in the training, and even now, centuries later, that bond was unbreakable, even if we hadn’t seen each other in many years. Riftborn were rare, and Guild members even rarer than that, but what we’d gone through together, only a tiny fraction of a percentage of riftborn would even know about.
The lift doors opened, and I stepped out, finding Kuri waiting for me.
“I wondered where you’d gone,” I said with a smile.
“You seem happier,” he said. “I assume it went well.”
“It went about as well as it always goes when you want answers from Neb,” I told him.
“I hope they help,” he said, taking me to Maria, who was hungrily eating a bushel of bright blue apples.
“These are delicious,” she said, looking up at me, half an apple the size of my fist falling out of her mouth.
I picked up a nearby sack and filled it with a few dozen apples, using rope to tie it around Maria’s neck. “For when we return to the embers,” I said.
“Thank you,” Maria told me.
She followed me out of the pens, as we nodded a thank-you to the beast master who had taken care of her.
The ride back across the plains was done with a renewed vigour, and we reached the cave with what felt like a good time.
The sky was beginning to darken when we stepped back into my embers.
A large barn owl landed on a boulder beside us. “Hope you had fun,” Casimir said.
“I need to find a building that is bubbling over with power,” I told him. “A building that’s being torn apart with it. I need to destroy it.”
Casimir thought for a moment. “We can find something like that. But we’re going to have to wait until nightfall.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I didn’t want to wait until nightfall. There was a voice in the back of my head that screamed how bad of an idea that would be. But we needed to find the building with the most power leaked into it, and that was easier to do at night.
We waited inside a building that I had vague recollections of belonging to some kind of holy man in the city, although it looked more like a large hut than what someone would have considered to be a church. There was no seating inside the hall, although the interior was lit up by the dozens of torches burning on the walls.
There were several windows, all covered in wooden planks, reminding me of something out of a zombie movie. Not an ideal thought, considering the shadows outside were about to start their night-time activities.
“We’ll double-check where the building we need is,” Casimir said. “Stay here.”
They both set off, leaving me alone in a miserable-looking building as darkness began to descend over my embers.
It wasn’t long before Casimir returned, flying through an opening in the roof of the hut and landing beside me. “Got it,” they said. “You ready to go?”
I nodded and let out a long breath. “How far?”
“We’re going to be running,” Casimir said. “A few minutes away. You can’t help but see the building; it’s humming with power.”
I opened the door of the hut and stepped out into the darkness. I locked eyes with Casimir, who beat their wings with panic. Somewhere in the distance, there was a howl.
I sprinted through the almost-total darkness after Casimir, who flew ahead, moving toward the torches that burned in the distance. I wasn’t sure who had put them there, or whether or not it was safe, but I trusted Casimir, and besides, I figured being able to see anything about to attack would be a lot better than standing around in the darkness, wondering what was going to kill me first.
I was about halfway to the light—maybe two hundred feet—when a shadow stepped into it. It had been absorbing power from the embers. The power had twisted it, turning it from something resembling a human, into . . . a horror. A shadow-cursed.
I stopped running and stood still for a moment. It was the size of a black bear but looked more canine, its long, gangly limbs were almost bone-thin, and its ribs were pronounced under its dark fur. The skin around its mouth was missing, revealing only a skeletal maw, its teeth reminding me of a crocodile. If the shadow-cursed ever got through the embers to Earth, people would die.
Ordinarily, a shadow-cursed in the embers was a danger but nothing I couldn’t have dealt with. However, I was unarmed and unpowered, neither of which were going to make my life easy.
The creature turned toward the village, and I dropped down behind a nearby boulder. The shadows would be in the village somewhere; presumably, I was too far away from them to be noticed, but I was pretty sure that the shadow-cursed was not going to be met with a joyous reception should the two meet. Shadows considered a shadow-cursed to be just as much of a problem to destroy as I did.
The shadow-cursed howled, a low, bass-filled sound of horror and dread, causing goosebumps all over my arms. I wasn’t afraid of the creature, but I was cautious about it, and I didn’t want to engage it unprepared.
I moved silently toward the light as the shadow-cursed turned and walked back into the village. The mist beside me began to break, and the head of a snake poked out of it.
“Maria,” I said.
“We saw the shadow-cursed,” they said. “Casimir has gone to find this place of power.”
“The shadows?” I asked.
“I made a big commotion on the other side of the village,” Maria whispered. “They’re all over there, but the shadow-cursed is walking through the town, looking for you, I assume.”
“You’re probably right,” I admitted. “I’d very much like a weapon right about now.”
A small robin landed on my shoulder. “Last hut on the left,” Casimir said. “Close to the river. It’s humming with power.”
“Have you thought how you’re going to destroy it?” Maria asked.
In all honesty, I hadn’t. I hadn’t expected to have to deal with a monster in my own embers, either. It had long since turned into a hard day. “I’ll figure it out on the way,” I said eventually. “Let’s go.”
I kept low as I ran past trees until reaching a large hut; I hugged the wall, sliding around it, until I could peer down the street to where the shadow-cursed was patrolling. Shadow-cursed weren’t especially smart, but they could see well, even in the embers, so stepping out into the open was a good way to get it to charge me.
“Casimir, I need you to go piss off the shadow-cursed,” I said.
“Done,” Casimir said without hesitation, and was soon flying toward the fiend, where they started to dive-bomb it.
“They are excellent at irritating people,” Maria said just before I darted across the road, practically throwing myself behind a large stone wall, the mist swirling over me as I rolled along the ground and came up beside a hut almost identical to the one I’d just left the cover of.
I let out a long breath as Maria—still in snake form—slithered up beside me. “You think we got away with it?” they asked me.
“Run,” Casimir shouted as he bombed past at high speed.
“Nope,” I said, following them as the sound of the shadow-cursed running toward us filled the air.
“I thought you were keeping him busy,” I shouted at Casimir, who was already some distance in front, leading the way. They turned into a large snowy owl, mid-flight, their bright white plumage visible every time light from the multitude of torches touched it.
We weaved through the village as the sound of the fiend giving chase reverberated around me, the night-time making it harder to pinpoint, as if it was everywhere at once.
“Lucas,” Maria shouted, changing into a deer and nudging me aside.
I threw myself to the ground, rolling back to my feet as the shadow-cursed impacted with the wall that I’d been close to. The stone exploded all around, but the shadow-cursed got stuck in the wooden parts of the fence, causing an immense noise in the process, gaining the interest of a multitude of shadows, who could be seen descending on our location.
“Damn it,” I snapped, and started running again, following Casimir, who landed atop a large hut close to what had once been a stream but was now even-denser mist. Dozens of shadows converged around the building, several of them turning back to me as I stopped in my tracks.
“Well, shit,” Maria said from beside me.
“Can we get them to break the hut?” I asked as some of the shadows broke away from the group and started toward me.
“I have no idea,” Maria said.
What in the hell was I meant to do now?
“Try not to get hurt,” I said to Maria, and sprinted toward the building next to the hut, spinning out of the way of two shadows who tried to grab me from the darkness, and bursting through the front door like it wasn’t even there.
I ran up the stairs to the top floor of the building and looked out of the window to the ledge outside. I didn’t remember the building from any part of my childhood, but I sure was glad it was there.
The numbers of shadows were ever increasing, and I spotted the shadow-cursed in the distance, pacing back and forth. It wasn’t keen on charging into the throng of shadows, and more than a few of them had turned in its direction, seeking out a new target.
Casimir sat on top of the wooden hut closest to me, with Maria—now an owl themselves—beside them. The feeling of power came off the building in waves, crashing into me over and over again. This was clearly where all of my unused power was going, and somehow I had to break the building and release the power back into me.
“You could wait it out until morning,” Casimir shouted.
They were right, I could, but that would mean leaving my friends for even longer to deal with whatever awful shit Dan and his allies had done. I walked to the end of the hut, thankful that there were no real rooms built there.
I walked over to the open window and looked down. The building beside the one I was in had a thatched roof and was only a single storey. At least it was a way out.
There was a loud snort and a scream from outside the building, but I pushed it aside and sprinted across the floor, launching myself out of the window and landing on the thatched roof of the hut. Turns out thatched roofs are not built to withstand a full-grown man impacting it at speed. Who knew?
I crashed through the roof and hit the ground next to what would have been a fire pit. The wind was knocked out of me, and I rolled onto my back and looked up at the hole in the roof.
“I bet that hurt,” Casimir said, their owl head poking through the hole.
“Fuck off,” I eventually managed. Witty comebacks were for people who could breathe properly.
More howls and screams from outside brought me back to the present a lot quicker than just lying there and waiting for the pain to shift ever would have. I was going to have to deal with the shadow-cursed. I couldn’t just leave it to run around unchecked. I just had no idea how I was going to deal with it. The last one I’d killed had been with a rift-tempered dagger, something I was unfortunately not able to do at the moment.
There was a pounding on the door and more inhuman screams from outside, as the hut shuddered from the impact.
“The shadow-cursed is trying to break in,” Casimir said. “It’s being attacked by shadows, but it’s holding its own at the moment.”
The door buckled, and I managed to roll aside just as part of it shot into the hut, taking out a chunk of the far wall.
A wave of power smashed into me, almost forcing me to my knees as one of the shadow-cursed hooves smashed through the door, accompanied with a scream as it was attacked by more shadows. I ran at the wall as fast as I could, slamming my shoulder into the broken wood and feeling another wave of power as I had to steady myself against the wall.
