Rings rippled out from the center of the dark pool recessed into porous gray stone. Rose petals floated at the periphery and feathers rustled overhead as crows gathered on skeletal branches clawing up from ashen earth.

It has been thirteen years in the Emain.

“Show her to me,” commanded a deep, resonant voice. The shadows stirred in the corners of the hall like cobwebs disturbed by a breeze. Tendrils of darkness sprang forth to gather around the pool. Each culminated into a figure eager to bear witness.

Mist roiled over the ripples as a dim suite sumptuously decorated with sage and emerald and gold came into view. The fire had been banked, smoke still oozing from the suffocated embers.

A girl with crimson hair bound back with a golden silk bow sat beneath a towering bookshelf crammed full of leatherbound tomes. There was something of her mother in the curl of her smile at the corner of her lips, in the twinkle of the candlelight in the verdigris of her eyes. She cradled one of her mortal father’s books in her lap reading by the concentrated light of a single candle.

Suddenly, it was ripped from her grasp.

“I knew I would find you here,” a flaxen haired boy said accusingly. He tossed the book out of her reach and dropped down beside her. He was dressed for a journey, thick suede braies, new boots, a shortsword belted at his hip and a dagger sheathed at his calf. He was weighed down by a tunic of chainmail that seemed too heavy for him to bear.

“You and Rience depart already?” Her emerald eyes went wide. “Tonight is my Eve of Favor. You will miss it?”

The boy scoffed. “Rience is already Terronash’s Heir. Why must you be tested for the magic?”

She shrugged, shrinking into the books behind her. She gathered her knees to her chest and twined her arms around them. “The acolytes arrived this morning. Father and mother have been in council with them since.” She motioned with her chin to a recessed door in between two bookshelves. It was the entrance to her father’s private study. Never had she been allowed inside, though he normally worked in the antechamber where a cozy fire that smelled like juniper and rosemary always burned and new books magically appeared. There was a large mahogany desk at the far end of the chamber, a throne set regally behind it.

“You are much stronger than your brother,” the boy whispered. “Don’t tell Rience I said that or he won’t let me marry you.”

“Marry me?”

“Of course. Once the war is won and Rience and I return, we will be married. I will be his advisor by then, not just a squire. A war hero too. The bards will bring tales of my exploits and successes. Kingskiller they will call me once the Eldrenguardians fall to my sword.”

The girl chuckled, her cheeks brightening with blush. So reminiscent of the goddess he once knew that something twisted in his chest. He was a conglomeration of shadow and darkness. Mortal longings should not have befallen him, but he had never been in control when in her presence.

The boy rose and reached for her. She hesitated in taking his hand, instead choosing to wrestle with her skirts as she stood. Already she feared the magic laying dormant in her veins. She had not tapped into it yet, but by sunrise she would know.

Before she could escape, the boy stooped and pecked his lips against her forehead like a rooster hunting for grain. She stumbled back, rubbing at the place of contact, dumbfounded.

“A kiss,” he explained. “So, you remember my promise.”

“Oh…” She skirted around him and went to the window.

“You will wait for me? No matter how long I am away?”

She pursed her lips but nodded. “You are my best friend, Fallon.”

“And you will be mine, Morwen.” With that, he gripped the hilt of his shortsword and marched from the antechamber.

He hoped she would not harbor feelings for the boy. His cord of fate would cross hers again, but it would only strangle hers until it snapped. He sought the Fates often, but they only showed him tatters of what might come to pass.

She unlatched the window where he saw a nest of woven twigs nestled in an apex of branches. Despite her voluminous velvet skirt, she climbed onto the windowsill and leaned out. Something plummeted through him at her carelessness. His claws raked the surface of the pool as though he could reach through the veil and drag her back. A low growl rumbled within him.

“Your kin have not been discreet in their surveillance,” he warned the half crow, half mortal perched close by.

She is generous with her crumbs.

Inside the nest, two hatchlings squirmed in the speckled teal shells they had emerged from only hours before, beaks opened wide and pleading. But the girl was dismayed at the sight, leaning even further out the window.

His fists balled tighter, claws biting into the meat of his palms.

She scooped up a lifeless hatchling. It was pale and naked, lacking even the whisper of black fuzz starting to dust the wings and backs of its nestmates.

“I thought they would all make it,” she said to the crow that alighted on the sill. She stroked the back of her finger along the arch of its spine. The crow leapt back to her nest to tend to the living chicks.

Thankfully, she moved off the windowsill and perched on her father’s throne, cradling the chick. A tear rolled over the swell of her cheek.

He almost turned from the pool, but a faint peep sounded.

In her palm, the hatchling stirred and stretched and a quiver of life went through its nubby wings. She gasped and hiccuped on something between a sob and a chuckle. She rushed back to the window, returning the hatchling to its nest. The mother crow squawked and tilted its head in question, then seemed to notice its renewed chick.

“How?” he gasped. He was not entirely sure he understood what he witnessed. Perhaps the crow had only been asleep? That could be the only explanation, although he had seen the pallor of death in its skin.

“Morwen,” her mortal father addressed his daughter as he emerged from his private study.

Morwen shoved the window closed and dipped into a curtsy, fanning her emerald brocade skirt out about her.

“These are acolytes of Terronash,” King Lorwerth introduced. Three wizened old men in homespun sage robes nodded their greeting as they followed. The middle man carried a viny plant with little arrowhead shaped leaves in a terracotta pot. He shuffled forward and offered the plant to her.

She stumbled back from it as though already aware of the result. He imagined she had started to feel the stirrings of her magic inside her, though he did not know how they presented. His shadows felt like spidersilk clinging to the tips of his fingers. Could she feel the energy sloughing off the living organism—could she feel her magic’s hunger growing? If she had meddled with the crow chick’s fate, she had just expended a tremendous amount of power. Her own reserves would be drained.

“But Rience is Terronash’s heir,” she said, looking to her father.

“You must still be tested,” another of the acolytes said.

Morwen clasped her hands together. “I am not ready.”

“We must test your magic before dawn comes.” Another of the men inched forward. He motioned to the plant. “All you must do is touch it.”