Rain lashed through the gnarled trees like whips from the heavens, wind howling as if to drive the hunted to their knees. Ravyn's boots hit the mossy ground hard, every breath jagged, chest burning as he tore through the darkness. Trees blurred past—ancient, towering, judging.
Shadows moved behind him. Fast. Too fast.
He didn’t look back. He didn’t have to. He knew who hunted him.
Then came the hiss. That familiar, deadly hiss of magic churning air.
Ravyn rolled instinctively.
A fireball screamed past him, cracking against an ancient pine. The trunk exploded into splinters.
“You’re a traitor, Ravyn!” came the voice—sharp, mournful, and bitter.
Valdis.
She hovered above the ridge, her silhouette outlined in magical flame. A dozen or more shadowy figures emerged behind her. Faces hidden beneath dark hoods, blades drawn, eyes glowing faintly with the Crowfather’s gift.
Ravyn gritted his teeth. “You don’t understand.”
Valdis’s next incantation began—her fingers shaping sigils in the air, faster than thought.
He dropped the smoke bomb at his feet.
Everything vanished in white haze. Coughing, blind, Ravyn sprinted downhill, through thorns and branches that clawed at him like vengeful ghosts.
But the momentary escape ended in a flash of steel.
CLANG!
The force of the blow knocked him off his feet. He stumbled back, landing hard.
There stood Argus.
Massive. Calm. And heartbreakingly familiar.
Two-handed sword still humming from the swing, steam rising from his soaked cloak. “Why are you doing this?” Argus asked, his voice low. “You were one of us. My brother.”
“I still am,” Ravyn whispered. He didn't draw his blades. He raised his arms in defense.
The next strike came faster. Ravyn parried, foot sliding back. He countered, but weakly. Defensive. Always defensive.
He wouldn’t kill them.
A shadow moved to the left.
“Miss me, you bastard?” Hayes grinned, twin poisoned daggers glinting green under the canopy. He darted in like a viper.
Ravyn spun, blocked, ducked.
Hayes. His rival. His mirror in so many ways—only sharper, meaner, colder. Argus had broken up a hundred of their fights. Now he watched without a word.
Ravyn was breathing hard. Not from exhaustion—but from grief.
Valdis descended now, her cloak flowing like smoke. Her spell primed again.
Before him stood three figures—once friends. Now executioners.
Valdis. Argus. Hayes.
And Ravyn, blades unsheathed at last, stood alone.
He still didn’t raise them to kill.
Only to survive.
Rain hammered the forest floor as if the gods themselves were angry. Steam rose from Ravyn’s shoulders, his breath fogging in the cold air as he stared down the three who once would’ve died for him.
Now, they meant to kill him.
Valdis struck first.
The fire lanced from her hand in a quick burst—not raw flame, but searing light, shaped like a whip. Ravyn ducked, rolled to the side, and hurled a throwing knife—not to kill, just to break her concentration.
Argus came next. His sword cleaved through a tree beside Ravyn like it was parchment. Bark exploded into shrapnel. Ravyn stepped inside the swing, slashing across Argus’s armored forearm—but not deep enough. The man was a walking fortress.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Hayes didn’t wait. He never did.
He lunged from the side, blades flicking. Ravyn twisted, the first dagger grazing his ribs—sharp fire dancing along his skin. The second he caught between crossed short swords, the poisoned edge inches from his throat.
“You’ve slowed down,” Hayes sneered, pushing harder. “Running must be hard on your legs.”
“You talk too much,” Ravyn growled, and headbutted him.
Hayes staggered back.
Ravyn spun, just in time to parry Argus’s next strike. The impact numbed his arms. He kicked forward, knocking the larger man off balance. It barely bought him time—Valdis was already whispering another spell, the runes glowing at her fingertips.
He dove behind a thick tree as the spell ignited. The bark caught fire instantly, casting flickering shadows all around them.
“You don’t have to do this!” Ravyn shouted from behind cover. “You know what the Crows have become! You felt it too!”
Valdis hesitated. Just for a heartbeat.
“Not like you,” she said quietly. “You were supposed to lead us, Ravyn. Not run.”
The pause cost her.
Ravyn leapt from behind the tree, sliding low in the mud, tripping her with one leg while knocking her staff aside with the flat of his blade. She hit the ground with a cry, her spell unraveling.
Argus roared and charged.
Their blades clashed again. Sparks flew. Mud splashed. Each blow from Argus was like a hammer. Ravyn couldn’t match him strength for strength—so he moved, twisted, redirected, always dancing just beyond killing range.
And then—
Pain.
Hayes.
A dagger lodged into the back of Ravyn’s shoulder.
He cried out, turned, barely deflecting the follow-up strike. Blood soaked into his cloak. The poison was already numbing his arm.
“You’ve always run, Ravyn,” Hayes spat, “but this time, there’s nowhere left.”
Ravyn looked between them. Valdis rising. Argus, grim but steady. Hayes—hungry to end it.
Three against one.
But he still wouldn’t kill them.
Even if they were ready to kill him.
He whispered under his breath—barely audible. A spell his mother had taught him. Not to attack… but to vanish.
The air around him shimmered.
Hayes lunged—
—and struck only mist.
“Where is he?!” Hayes barked, looking around.
Valdis scanned the trees, eyes glowing. “I don’t know. That was Aria-born magic.”
Argus held still. Listening.
But Ravyn was gone. Already sprinting deep into the woods, one arm hanging limp at his side, blood trailing behind him like a fading memory.
He didn’t look back.
Not at the ones he loved.
Not at the shadows chasing him.
Not at the life he was leaving behind.
The rain never stopped.
It clung to Ravyn like a second skin, cold and merciless, soaking through his cloak as he staggered out of the forest and onto a windswept road. The trees thinned ahead, giving way to a small, sleepy cluster of huts lining a grey shoreline. Lanterns swung in the storm wind, their light feeble against the gloom.
A fishing village. Forgotten. Remote. Exactly what he needed.
Blood soaked his tunic beneath the cloak, the wound from Hayes’ dagger still burning. He’d barely managed to bind it. His legs trembled, body half-numb from poison and fatigue, but his mind stayed sharp—he had to keep moving.
He approached the docks, where the sea groaned and heaved like a waking beast. Only one boat was anchored—a weathered skiff with patched sails and a hull that had seen better decades.
A man stood on the pier, oilskin coat wrapped tight, pipe between his lips. He looked up at Ravyn without much interest.
“You lost?”
“I need passage,” Ravyn said hoarsely, voice barely carrying above the surf.
The man squinted. “Where to?”
“Aria.”
The fisherman’s brow rose. “Across the Sea of Teeth? In that?” He jerked a thumb toward the storm-wracked water. “Suicide.”
“I’ll pay.” Ravyn dropped a leather pouch into the man’s hand. The clink of coins was heavy and promising. “No names. No questions.”
The man opened it, weighed the gold, then gave Ravyn a long, wary look. “That’s Aria coin.”
“I know.”
“…You’re running from something, aren’t you?”
Ravyn didn’t answer. Just turned his gaze out to the dark horizon, where lightning cracked like divine judgment.
The fisherman grunted. “Fine. We sail on the tide. But if you die, I’m not turning back for your corpse.”
“Fair enough.”
---
The boat cut through the black waves like a ghost. Ravyn sat beneath the tattered sail, arms wrapped around himself, eyes fixed on the churning sea. Each swell threatened to capsize them. Thunder rolled overhead like distant drums.
He didn’t sleep.
He couldn’t.
Not while memories still clung to him—Argus’s betrayed eyes, Valdis’s hesitation, Hayes’s blade piercing his back. The worst part wasn’t their hatred.
It was how much it hurt to leave them behind.
Aria, he thought, clutching the hilt of his last remaining blade.
If there are answers… if there’s hope… it’ll be there.
The storm swallowed the boat whole, dragging it into the unknown. And Ravyn, once a proud lieutenant of the Black Crows, vanished from Talcroft’s shore—his name drowned beneath waves and thunder.
Only shadows knew where he had gone.
