Aelif ignored the warnings of the clan healers, and of Gilly, who with his tiny frame had unfathomable stubbornness, nearly dragging her to the healer’s hut himself. But she’d managed to brush him off.

They’d captured her father’s assassin and had taken him to the dungeon beneath the King’s House, a multi-tiered wooden structure with elaborate decorations in the form of wolves along the roof, located at the southern end of Avald.

Against many protests, Aelif left Gilly and that odd raven-girl to their mending, stumbling through the village as she made her way to the dungeon.

When she approached the King’s House, barely managing her guts together, she was greeted by the guards at the front door.

“Aelif,” one guard said, and the other elbowed him in his side.

“Queen,” the other guard corrected him.

“No need for such formalities yet. My father’s body is barely cold.”

“You’re here to see the necromancer, then?” the first guard asked, a pleased smile on his face after she’d validated him.

“Aye, what else? The draugar may be dead, but we still have wounded warriors. If I did not need to be here, I wouldn’t be.”

The guards seemed satisfied with that answer. In that moment, she realized how foreign those words must have sounded coming out of their leader’s mouth. Her father was a fine warrior, as was the Old King—her grandfather—before him. But tales had told it that her father had grown belligerent and angry, unyielding even, in his later years. And in some ways, a coward.

It stuck her with guilt to think of him that way so soon after his death, the feeling following her as the guards led her down the stairs to the dungeon. But as she approached the cell of the man who murdered her father, her guilt turned to anger.

“What’s all this iron around him?” she asked the guards as they opened the cell, noting how the Seidha’s hands were covered in iron gloves, with chains around his wrists, arms, body, and feet.

“The seer told us he can’t cast spells through iron.”

“Ah.” Aelif nodded. “I see.” If anyone knew a trick against magicks, it would be Alma.

She strode closer to him, the necromancer looking at her with stark indifference. He didn’t care that he’d been captured. He’d probably expected to die. Or...

She pulled at his chains, making sure they were tight. If that kept his magicks at bay, he had no chance of escape.

As she examined him, she noticed how much he truly looked like a Seidha. She hadn’t seen their kind in years, with their skin all sorts of shades of gray—this one a lighter shade, like silver—and horns that stuck out from the sides of their skulls and curved upward. Their eyes were all sorts of colors, but all inhuman, ranging from sunset purples and pinks to sunrise yellows and reds, filling the entirety of their sockets. This one peered at her with a hue of deep purple. His long black hair was slicked back, unbraided, unlike how the clans of Isjord wore their hair. A reminder that the Seidha were different. That they were... monsters, she thought.

She tried to silence that as soon as it whispered into her mind. It was her father’s words, his way of thinking, not hers. But as anger clouded her judgement and pain simmered beneath her bones, suddenly, her way of thinking seemed cowardly. This man was a murderer, a corpse-raiser. How could he be anything other than a monster?

“You have exacted your revenge, necromancer.” Aelif spoke with a thread of animosity in her voice, like a true Wolf. “What do you plan to do now? Is all you wanted the death of our King?”

The Seidha cocked his head back, and opened his mouth wide to speak. Aelif noticed a piercing within his tongue. How strange these Seidha are.

“I plan nothing, brusi.”

Aelif laughed, cracking her neck side-to-side, before leaning closer. “Are there more like you left, Seidha? How many did my father leave behind?”

The Seidha remained dead silent, instead he narrowed his eyes and turned his face closer to her, his eyes becoming slits of purple within the dark battle paint adorned across his face. Their faces were inches away.

“I remember you, wolf-girl.”

“Aye, I’m sure you do.”

“You helped your father slaughter my people,” he spoke in a spit, Aelif straightening up and stepping away from him. “I watched you atop that pretty little horse with that little dagger...”

“And your people slaughtered dozens of my clan!” her voice cracked like thunder within the small cell, the guards flinching at her anger. “My father!”

“And I enjoyed every second of it, wolf-shit.”

With a scream, Aelif first kicked him in the shin, snapping his leg in two. Then her fist pummeled into the side of his smug-ridden face, sending teeth flying and clattering along the cell floor. She considered breaking his horn, raising her fist to strike him again, but then stumbled backward, her wounds stinging into her side and burning with a ferocity. She moaned in pain, gripping the cell bars to steady herself.

“Injured, are you?” the Seidha asked, a chuckle emerging from his throat. Aelif turned to him, her father’s rage searing through her bones, but then the door to the dungeon opened. Slivers of moonlight peeked in, illuminating the bloodied scene.

“Who goes there?” Aelif called out, panting, her voice still masked with anger and above all, pain.

“Me,” a familiar voice called down. Backed by moonlight, the raven-girl descended the stairs, Gilly trailing behind her.

“Oy!” another voice trailed behind them, shouting. “Oy, oy, oy, oy! Get back here!”

From behind them emerged another guard, holding his nose as blood spilled out of his nostrils. Gilly stared at this man with a certain disdain, but the raven-girl entirely ignored his presence.

“Raven-girl,” Aelif murmured. “Did you punch my guardsman?”

“Aye,” the raven-girl replied as she strode closer to her. “I did.”

Her face contorted into a look of disdain and confusion. Aelif wanted to be angry. Who did this strange girl think she was coming into her clan and hurting her guards? But she wasn’t, or couldn’t be. Her anger was far too strong for the Seidha to be spared for anyone else.

“OY!” the guard protested once more, but Aelif waved him off.

“Go tend to your nose,” Aelif commanded him, before turning to the raven-girl. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re injured and angry,” Featherless said. “Two things that do not mix well.”

“And what do you care?” Aelif growled. “You don’t know me.”

“You’re right.” The raven-girl nodded, tutting softly. “I don’t know you, but I do know if you leave a draug wound untended for long enough, it’ll get infected. And I am in your debt, remember?”

Aelif grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Yes, of course I remember.”

“If you died before I could repay that debt, I’d live haunted by your memory forever. Come,” she spoke softly, as if she was trying to coax her. Aelif wanted to do nothing more than slash her at that moment, Gods only knew what kept her from doing so. “Let your healers treat you, or Gilly.”

Aelif groaned. This strange woman was right, her muscles had begun to ache. She was feeling feverish. If she went on longer, she wouldn’t be able to stand. And her clan needed more than revenge at that moment—they needed a leader. She’d have to put aside her anger.

But only for a moment.

“Alright,” she conceded. “I’ll let Gilly tend my wounds.” She turned to the guards, her eyes sharp. “Watch him, don’t let him move a fucking muscle.”

In the darkness, the dungeon door closed, the necromancer left with two guards, tied with his iron chains, and a bloodied, toothless smile on his lips.