Chapter Text
The sun was warm, the river a roaring torrent far below, and the rocky face of the cliff unforgiving. Rayla slammed her blades into its surface repeatedly, testing each foot and hand hold rapidly before moving onto the next one. Her dæmon Cornix flitted back and forth, scouting out the next section of rock, passing the information to her, and once they were close enough to the top of the castle wall, he kept a look out for guards.
Thanks to her insubordination, the humans would be on high alert.
Resolve burned in her chest, aching more painfully than the strain in her limbs as she scaled the wall. She would make it right, and she would prove herself to Runaan, and the Silvergrove – everyone.
Cornix noted disdainfully that a little songbird had alighted on the wall above Rayla’s head, and cawed angrily. When that failed to startle it, he dropped down beside it and spread his wings menacingly. The bird chirruped with alarm and flew off just as Rayla reached the top. She grappled with the wall, relying on Cornix to watch for danger as she tumbled over the side onto the smooth flagstones of the walkway, panting heavily with exertion.
Once she had caught her breath, she looked up at her dæmon, sitting on the wall, head flicking every which way to keep a look out.
“Be quiet,” she hissed at him when he cawed again at another songbird that fluttered too close. “They’ll know you’re not from around here,”
Cornix was a hooded crow, and as far as she could tell, all the crows this side of the border were plain and black all over. And even if that hadn’t been the case, it was very apparent he was an elf’s dæmon. The pale markings on his body were highly stylised, like most dæmons of their people, and would one day form the basis for her own adult markings.
“We need to move.” Cornix stated, cocking his head to one side, and she heard the sounds of marching boots.
Rayla got up off the ground and stared across the woodland, back the way she had come, taking that flame of resolve and fanning it further still. She thought of Runaan and his acerbic words, how deeply they had bitten her. “I can to this. I will do this.” she told herself emphatically.
Cornix made a softer sound. She looked at him, and he gazed back unwaveringly with his beady eyes. “Lead the way.”
Rayla spun on her back leg and made for the closest doorway, into one of the many round towers that ran along the outer wall. Inside was a warren of corridors, and plenty of shadows for her to hide in. Cornix flapped into the even darker rafters, where the absence of sunlight hid his distinctive markings well.
Rayla hid behind a stone lintel when she heard footsteps in the adjacent corridor. Cornix sent her a thought from the rafters as he watched a boy about their age walking towards the doorway Rayla was standing behind. He looked sad and preoccupied, eyes cast to the floor in front of his feet; he wore a blue jacket over a dark shirt, and had a bright red scarf wrapped around his neck. He drew level and kept going, and Rayla launched herself across the open space, taking care to make noise and attract his attention. She waited and listened, with her own ears and with Cornix’s eyes.
The boy’s dæmon, a large collared dove perched on his shoulder, ruffled her wings and cocked her head to one side, drawing the boy’s attention. He paused and turned in the direction of the noise.
“Ez? Is that you?” he called out, taking the bait and following Rayla. “Hello?” he tried again more loudly, voice ringing in the broad, echoing space of the stone building. His dæmon cooed, then tried again, like she was trying to elicit a response from someone.
“Ohh,” she groaned, clinging to her person’s shoulder as she beat her wings restlessly. “Where on earth have they got to this time?”
Cornix waited before he flew down to meet Rayla, landing on her shoulder guard silently as the boy moved ahead of them. Rayla counted his footsteps, heart hammering beneath her ribs, and then started to follow. She stalked him, trying to be like Runaan and his nightfox dæmon as she followed her quarry. She knew she had been detected when his dæmon fluttered her wings and shook herself down, and there was a smile in the boy’s voice as he started to slowly turn around to look at her.
“You know you can’t sneak up on me-” his sentence ended with a gasp when he saw her, and his dæmon fluttered again, this time in alarm, momentarily taking flight before landing again on his shoulder.
They stared at her fearfully, and Rayla felt that same dread in the pit of her stomach – the feeling she had had when the guard had looked up at her in the rain.
No, she wasn’t going to fail this time.
Rayla reached up to pull down her hood, and Cornix beat his wings wide to show off his strength and speed with a derisive caw. The dove dæmon hunkered down and pressed herself into her boy’s neck with a whimper.
“Uhh,” the boy stammered, flustered, terrified, grasping at straws. “You’re- you’re not who I thought, you’re-” he raised a hand and pointed at her. “You’re one of those, with the pointy-”
Unable to resist teasing him, Rayla drawled, letting her accent drip thickly on the Common Tongue so he could understand her. “Ohh, you don’t like m’ears?”
“No! I mean, I- yeah! Yes, I do, I- I guess.”
The idiot looked away, taking a very casual stance considering a hostile elf had snuck into the castle and had her swords out. The dove dæmon fluttered helplessly on his shoulder, and though she didn’t take her eyes off the pair of them, Rayla listened to Cornix’s cold thoughts, that she was an easy target for him. He flexed his talons in preparation, shifting his weight for take-off and noting every movement and weakness in the other dæmon.
“I mean, I meant the pointy-” Rayla brandished the blade in her left hand, tired of the human’s fumbling. “Swords,” he took a step back, his balance completely off. Cornix could probably take him out himself – this guy had no clue when it came to fighting, clearly.
“That’s far enough,” Rayla said in a commanding tone, holding out her dominant right arm, sword aimed at his throat as the boy reflexively brought his hands closer to his chest, throwing a hand out to protect his dæmon. “I’m lookin’ for someone.”
“Oh, uhhh…” he gave her an apologetic smile, eyes darting back and forth. His dæmon was completely still, her gaze fixed on the crow dæmon that was threatening to launch himself at them. “Did you check back there?” the human pointed off to the side.
Cornix and Rayla both turned in the direction he indicated, tensing. There was a wall hanging, but given the layout of the castle, there could have easily been another passageway behind it.
The human grabbed the fabric with one hand and yanked hard, pulling it from the wall and down onto Rayla. He threw a hand out into Cornix’s face – never actually touching her dæmon, but so close that the crow shrieked in alarm and flapped backwards. The dove dæmon launched herself at Rayla’s face with the same intent, not making physical contact, but she felt the brush of air from the wing beats against her face before the wall hanging came down on her.
“Run!” the human’s dæmon called desperately, and his unsteady footsteps pelted down the corridor as Rayla reached up with her swords and shredded the impromptu net into pieces.
Cornix shrieked with all the fury Rayla felt at herself for falling for such a dumb trick, and she ran after him. The only advantages he had were the head start, familiarity with the castle, and a bird dæmon to be a look out. Rayla was faster, stronger, and fuelled by her need to fulfil her binding oath. Cornix zoomed forward and harried the other dæmon, who shrieked in alarm and fluttered haplessly. The boy spun round, terror etched into every line of his face.
“Cerys-!”
“Keep running!” she shrieked back, dodging another attack by a hair’s breath. “She’s right behind you!”
Rayla had to take a diversion: the boy grabbed a suit of armour as he ran and threw it behind him. It was a nice, resourceful idea, the kind that Runaan would have praised during a training session – but it didn’t work in the real world. She simply jumped and ran along the wall, avoiding the obstacle, and then came up short because the other dæmon flew right at her face even as Cornix harried her. He squawked in alarm and went for her tail, seeing how close she was to Rayla, and the elf lashed out with the hilt of her swords at the dæmon, trying to avoid touching her. She pulled in her wings and plummeted to the floor; Cornix flew over Rayla’s head, and the dove spread her wings again, spinning with surprising agility and following after her human.
Rayla recovered and used the walls of the stair well as springboards, trying to keep the dove dæmon where she couldn’t pull another stunt like that. She and the boy sprinted through the door and onto the battlements outside, straight towards a pair of startled soldiers.
“She’s right behind us!” he yelled, only stopping once he was behind the guards, who drew their weapons and turned to meet Rayla.
Two males, each with that ridiculous facial hair arrangement that humans seemed to like; one had a heavy-set terrier dæmon, the other a hawk who hissed as Cornix swooped into view. Rayla took a moment to decide and communicate to Cornix, who agreed, and she sprung her blades into hooks before she ran at the humans. The two birds met in mid-air with a clash of talons and the dog dæmon barked angrily, snapping at Rayla’s ankles as she went. She dodged both of the guards, in the process succeeding in making them lurch after her and undermining their own balance. She spun through the air, counting and gauging the distance she needed to make before landing. Once on her feet she turned and swept their legs out from under them. The guard with the terrier dæmon smacked his head on the stones and she dropped to the ground; the other guard passed out when Cornix likewise cracked the hawk against the wall, knocking both person and dæmon out cold. Rayla straightened up, assessing the situation with satisfaction.
“Hey, you swept the leg!”
Rayla blinked. She looked over her shoulder, confused by the boy’s tone of voice. It was…almost excited, awed even.
“What?”
It was his turn to blink, and he pulled himself up straight as well, face blank as his dæmon hissed, “Focus!” from above his head.
“Wha-err, nothing.”
He turned and ran, his dæmon snapping something as she swooped down to peck at the back of his head; some admonishment too low for Rayla to hear as she pelted after them, Cornix flapping over her shoulder and diving after the dove dæmon.
They chased the pair inside again, onto another corridor and into a spiral stairwell. Rayla took advantage of the smooth walls to run unimpeded after her quarry. In the enclosed space the dæmons shrieked at each other, the sounds echoing painfully in the peoples’ ears. The boy ducked through a doorway at the top of the stairs, shouting for someone – the names were lost to Rayla’s hearing under Cornix’s battle cry. Rayla finally caught up with the human as he hesitated in the doorway of another room, and she slammed her shoulder into his back.
The boy stumbled forward and tried to turn around, arms coming up to protect his face as he fell over backwards. Objects scattered in his wake from the table he crashed into before he came to rest on the floor, sitting up with a jerk and rubbing the back of his head, eyes very wide. One of his bags had fallen open as well, spilling its contents.
Cornix pounced on his dæmon and pinned her to the floor, tearing at her neck while she beat her wings uselessly.
“No!” he tried to get up, but was to disorientated by his dæmon’s distress. “Please, don’t hurt her! Cerys-!”
Rayla shot Cornix a look, and he grabbed the fragile neck in his beak, keeping the dove pinned to the floor. Her chest moved rapidly, wings still, and the boy looked for a moment like he might throw up. Rayla walked into the room, affecting an unconcerned air, graceful and predatory.
“You don’t have to die.” She told him carelessly. Nodding to Cornix, she halted her march forward, and her dæmon let the boy’s go.
The collared dove didn’t move for a long, agonising moment, and Rayla’s heart leapt with a sickening jolt, thinking the dæmon had gone into shock. She knew what that felt like – Cornix had been struck on the head during practise once, and she had felt his fear and pain so sharply that she had collapsed. That was the one drawback about birds – it was so easy to put them into shock, and that could physically harm their elf. Or in this case, her human.
The boy shook his head, trying to drag himself out of the stupor of fear and called his dæmon’s name. She twitched, and then clumsily scuffled to her feet before she flew to his arms, shaking and crying. There was a trail of blood from Cornix’s talons on her feathers, and he hugged her close, almost weeping with relief.
Rayla gave them a brief moment to recover before she stalked forward menacingly. She had a job to do, and she was going to do it no matter what.
“There are only two targets tonight.” She told him, intending to extract the information she needed.
“Wait, two? What do you mean?” the human asked, scared but calculating now that he had caught his breath and his dæmon was out of harm’s way.
Cornix flapped clumsily in the still air of the room up to Rayla’s shoulder, where he hunched over and looked as menacing as his elf, cawing derisively. She curled her lip with contempt, and said, “I’m here for the king. And I’m also here for his son, Prince Ezran.”
The boy’s eyes went very wide, his expression pure horror; the dove dæmon beat her wings frantically in alarm, so much so that he had to grab her to calm her down and prevent her from hurting herself further. “You can’t! That’s not fair! Why would you hurt someone who’s done nothing wrong?” his tone was somewhere between begging and reasoning.
Rayla wasn’t going to have any of it. She argued back, “Humans cut down the King of the Dragons, and destroyed his only egg, the Dragon Prince,” she punctuated her reasoning with a threatening jab of her sword to his throat. “Justice will not be denied.” She watched his expression; it was sick with fear, but still underneath determined as he cast his gaze to the floor.
“I see.” He said, his voice smaller, calmer. He put a hand on his quivering dæmon, stroking her rose tinged feathers. “Well, then. You’ve found me.” He lifted his head, and suddenly the bumbling fool she had chased across the castle became proud and regal – every inch a prince, as he emphatically said, “I am Prince Ezran.”
Rayla exhaled softly, satisfied. She had found her target, no one else needed to get hurt now. She shifted her stance and leaned back ever so slightly, and felt Cornix hesitate as well. Prince Ezran watched the movement, and reached for his bag, stuffing the books and pencils back into it and trying to back up. He never made it to his feet; Rayla followed him inexorably, blade held up as he crawled backwards on the floor. The dove dæmon flitted to his shoulder where she perched, feathers fluffed up and wings occasionally shifting like she was preparing to take off – but she stayed put, watching Rayla, Cornix, the doorway, and back again, chest fluttering with anxiety.
Strange, even on all fours, dæmon jittering, literally crawling, Rayla could see courage dancing in his eyes, resolve hardening in his spine.
He hadn’t pleaded, or tried to bargain, or lie. He had accepted his fate.
“I have to do this.” She said out loud. She tried to convince herself it was for his benefit, but she knew she was trying to convince herself as well. “I’m sorry.”
Prince Ezran was now backed up against the wall, there was nowhere else to go, nowhere to hide.
“I don’t want to, but I have to.” She took a step forward, trying to steel herself.
King Harrow had killed the Dragon King, killed his heir. This was revenge, justice for the senseless killing. Even though this boy hadn’t done anything to her. He needed to die, to restore balance and justice in the world.
“Why?” the Prince challenged her. “You know this is wrong,”
Cornix fluttered and squeaked, an overt sign of his anxiety and misgivings, and she gave him a hard look. “An assassin doesn’t decide right and wrong,” she told them all firmly, echoing Runaan’s words from so long ago, the day she had told him she wanted to be an assassin too. “Only life, and death.”
Prince Ezran’s breath caught as he stumbled to speak, like he was desperate to get the words out as quickly as possible. “That’s very clever, but come on, really?” he had a politician’s mask on – well-meaning smile, twisted at the edges with fear. So much for not trying to bargain his way out of this… “How does this solve anything?”
That pricked at Rayla’s nerves, and Cornix gave an answering shriek, threatening to fly at them. The dove dæmon quivered against her human’s cheek, but she didn’t waver in her vigilance.
“This is justice.” Rayla snarled. “Humans attacked us unprovoked.”
“So its okay for you to do the same thing?” The Prince argued back.
Rayla scowled and leaned back, removing her blade from his chest, ready to bring it back with a slash across his throat if need be. For whatever reason, it felt vitally important that she make him understand why she was doing this, why she was going to kill him.
“Well no. It’s not the same thing,” she brought her right sword back to point at his face. “Because we’re attacking you – provoked.”
“Then it’s a cycle!” he countered. He was still wide eyed and afraid, but he wasn’t blubbering about it or begging. He was simply trying to reason with her, at least in his own mind. “You hurt me, someone will get revenge against the elves. It won’t end.” He said emphatically.
“Callum.” Someone murmured – somewhere…inside the wall?
The Prince blinked and turned to look at the oil painting on the wall to Rayla’s left. It was a pastoral scene of a young woman surrounded by sheep – no one to be seen in that dark corner.
“Psst. Callum,” the voice said again. The dove dæmon started fluttering in agitation once more, and he tried to calm her down.
“Shhh!” Ezran hissed. “Go away!”
Rayla flicked her gaze at him, and Cornix bounced on her shoulder, turning towards the pair on the floor with a hiss while she stared fixedly at the portrait.
“I found something,” the voice stated. It sounded much younger than Ezran.
Rayla took her eyes off the wall and looked at the Prince, nonplussed. “Are you talkin’ to that paintin’?”
He smiled awkwardly and laughed it off, “Why would I do that? ‘Cause, it’s not a good time,” he raised his voice and scowled at the painting.
“You mean because you’re with a girl?” the voice taunted.
Cornix cocked his head to one side, and Rayla followed his train of thought. She kept a blade on the Prince as she edged her way towards the portrait, and he watched her helplessly while his dæmon shook and moaned in his arms, betraying his anxiety. Rayla reached up without looking to grab the side of the portrait, and pushed. It swung on hinges, opening wide to reveal a dark passageway beyond it, and a young boy with some kind of toad…thing, tucked under his arm, and something in his hand. A little brown mouse dæmon was sitting on his shoulder, and she squeaked before flitting into a sparrow and fluttering by his ear as he took a step back, surprised by the scene he found himself in. Rayla pointed her other sword at him as he started, eyes darting to the pastry in his hand.
“Uhh…” he smiled uncertainly, placatingly even. “Jelly tart?” he held it out to her, looking to the boy on the floor for a moment before back to the hostile elf.
“Kid, get outta here,” the prince said, jumping to his feet.
His dæmon fluttered and twittered, and the boy’s dæmon became a turtle dove; they cooed to each other, and Cornix cawed loudly, fluffing himself up to look menacing again, threatening to fly at the collared dove.
“Callum, what’s going on?” the boy asked, looking scared and turning to the older boy, who she suddenly realised that, despite the age difference and the tones of their skin (the younger boy was markedly darker), the pair of them bore a striking resemblance. They must be related.
“Callum?” Rayla questioned, her stomach sinking. “I thought you were Prince Ezran!” she brandished a sword at him, heart leaping into her mouth. She had almost made a terrible mistake. “You lied to me!”
“Okay, how is that worse than trying to kill someone?” he demanded, arms up in a gesture that she couldn’t determine whether it was surrender or defensive.
Rayla’s heart skipped painfully in her chest. The pieces fell into place in her mind. This Callum had lied to protect the real Prince – he must be an older brother or cousin, trying to protect his family, which would explain why he had tried to reason with her. Cornix flapped his wings, in agitation this time, trapped in her vortex of doubt and wavering resolve.
The boy – presumably the real Prince Ezran – stuffed the pastry thing into his mouth and rapidly ate it before he held out the grumpy looking frog…thing, in his hands.
“Have you met Bait?”
“What are you doing?!” Cornix hissed, partly at the boy and partly at his elf as Rayla teetered on the brink of action, trapped by indecision. Nothing was going the way they had planned, and she had a horrible feeling she had just made things even more worse than she already had for her team.
“Say hello to my little friend.”
The grumpy thing closed its eyes languidly.
Light exploded, filled the whole room. Rayla cried out in alarm and pain, dropping her swords and staggering backwards to her knees, her head splitting with the pain. She felt Cornix fall from her shoulder, likewise disoriented, and land in a heap on the floor beside her. Her vision was filled with bright, harsh light and dancing, darker spots. She couldn’t see, but she could hear the boy telling his older relative to follow him, and the creak of hinges. Cornix tried to get up and flap after them, but the collared dove attacked him viciously with a shriek, and he was still dizzy and blind from the blast, so he toppled over like a tower of adoraburrs.
There was an awful, ringing silence as the footsteps faded, punctuated only by their harsh breathing. Rayla staggered to her feet, rubbing the spots from her vision. Cornix flapped uselessly for a few moments before bobbing onto his feet and twitching himself back into order.
“We can’t let them escape!” her dæmon hissed, clumsily getting airborne as she scrambled for her swords.
“When I get m’hands on him,” Rayla muttered darkly. She was angry at this Callum person, and angry at herself for being so stupid-
“Look!” Cornix barked, and she ran to him. He was perched on the frame of the portrait, pecking at something. “We can track them,” he said grimly, tasting the sweet flavour of fruit jelly.
Rayla yanked the door open with a snarl. “C’mon!”
Cornix flapped his wings and jumped from his precarious perch on the side of the hidden door and swooped into the darkness after her, cawing angrily.