Page 7 of Rage of Her Ravens
Chapter Two
Flora Avias
Delfi, three months later
“Come away from thewindow, Flora.”
After one last lingering look at the starry night sky, I released the heavy velvet curtain and leaned back on the brocade sofa, my hand resting on my distended belly. My stomach was so large that my belly button had already popped, and I still had a month to go. I knew I carried girls, for the Avias line always bore twin daughters first, hence the reason Delfi had always been ruled by two queens until I decided to abdicate my title to live on my mates’ country estate. We’d been happy, living in quiet solitude until now. I gave my mate Derrick a pleading look while wringing my fingers together. “Marius should’ve made it by now.”
It had been almost four days and still no word from my other mate. He was just meeting with a Windhaven emissary on the other side of the border in an effort to secure us sanctuary. What was taking so long?
Derrick sat beside me, grasping my hand. “He’ll be here.”
I chewed my lower lip, casting another worried glance toward the window. I wasn’t fooled by my mate’s false confidence. I could feel the current of tension clinging to him like a second skin. “We should’ve never parted.”
“Flora.” He squeezed my hand. “He’s never let us down before.”
I swallowed back a lump of panic. “What if she’s captured him?” And how could my sister have so ruthlessly turned on me, hunting me and my mates like dogs? After all Malvolia and I had shared, how had it come to this? My sister had turned our home into a court of nightmares, ruthlessly killing anyone she suspected of plotting to back me in overthrowing her. I still didn’t understand it. Years ago my sister had offered to share the throne with me, and I’d refused. Why would she think I wanted to steal it from her now after I’d lived contently with my mates for over thirty years, and after Malvolia had already promised that my daughters would one day inherit the throne? Why suddenly had my sister gone mad with distrust? Had she gone insane, or had she been cursed? Either way, I supposed it made no difference now. I wouldn’t know how to find and kill the witch who’d cursed her.
Settling a hand on my abdomen, Derrick flashed a smile that didn’t mask the worry in his eyes. “Marius is capable and clever, and all this worrying isn’t good for you or the babies.”
The sitting room’s double doors swayed open, and Lady Chara Inferni swept into the room, her dark hair piled elegantly on top of her head, her beautiful smile so serene, as if the world wasn’t burning around us. Clasping her hands together, she smiled. “Supper is served.”
Derrick stood, holding a hand down to me. “Come, Flora.”
I took his hand, resenting how everyone treated me like a child, pretending as if our world wasn’t on the precipice of crashing. I held my tongue, though. Chara and her husband, Tobias, were the only Delfian allies who’d offered us sanctuary. I shuddered to think what we would’ve done without them.
“Cook has prepared a delicious meal and his special, soothing herbal tea,” Chara said as Derrick handed me over to her and she hooked her arm through mine.
“Thank you, Chara,” I said to my friend, overwhelmed with gratitude as we walked into the dining hall. The soothing tea did help calm my nerves. “I don’t know what we would’ve done without your generosity.”
Chara clucked her tongue. “Tobias owes Derrick and Marius after what they did for him.”
Years ago, when my mates were young and impetuous adolescents, Derrick and Marius had saved Tobias from a tribe of trolls after the young lord had gone into the Periculian Forest on a dare. Tobias had come away with a missing eye, and Marius had been shot through the wing, though they could’ve suffered far worse.
“The two don’t compare,” I said, “and you know it.” Chara and Tobias not only put their lives at risk by helping us, but the lives of their three young sons, for I feared there was no depravity beneath my sister’s twisted mind. After all, she’d put a price on my head as well as on my innocent, unborn children.
“Marius will return with reinforcements,” she whispered in a soothing voice, the candlelight from the overhead chandeliers making her silver-rimmed eyes shine like moonlight, reminding me that Chara had a touch of Sidhe Fae blood, as most of us did. “The tide will turn, and all this will be just a bad memory.”
I swallowed at that. I wished I shared her confidence, but I’d been in the heart of the last Dark Tide, when our mother and aunt’s mage had turned on them, trying to seize the throne for himself. My sister and I had been no more than children, just fifteen, hiding in the castle sewers while blood rained down on our heads. It seemed several lifetimes ago that Malvolia and I had clung to one another, promising never to betray each other should we survive.
My nostrils flared at the smells of roasted garlic and onions as I eyed the large silver platters laid out on the long dining table. Ordinarily, I would’ve been eager to feed the children growing in my belly, but worry churned my gut.
Derrick had pulled out my chair, and I thanked Chara when she sat beside me and handed me the steaming tea. I took several fortifying sips, hoping it would calm the internal tremors that shook me to my soul.
Lord Tobias swept into the room like a winged phantom emerging from the shadows with his one good eye and that slash where his other eye had been. He grabbed Derrick’s arm, whispering into his ear. Unease coiled around my spine. Something was wrong.