Back at her bedchamber, Aelif lay in bed while Gilly tended to her wounds, perched on a small wooden stool next to the bedside. Sat on the end of the bed was the raven-girl, looking awfully bored, her head resting within the palm of her hand. 

“Raven-girl,” Aelif murmured, getting her attention. “What’s your name?” 

“Don’t have one,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I’m called Featherless.” 

“Featherless...” Aelif whispered to herself, wincing as Gilly picked shards of claw out of her skin. The worst part of draugar was the splinters. With old bones and old claws, they tended to splinter as they slashed. “Why?” 

“I’m a bastard,” she muttered. 

“You’re a Raven, too,” Gilly chimed in, causing Aelif’s lips to pull into a grin. The siblings seemed tightly bonded, protecting and caring for each other unlike anything Aelif had within her own family. She had a brother, once upon a time. He had died when she was thirteen of a strange disease, just shortly after childbirth, which took her mother, too. Her father had never truly recovered from losing the proper heir to the throne, a boy. He never planned to have Aelif become the leader. If becoming immortal would stop her from being Queen, he likely would have done it.

But now he was dead, and it was too late for that.

“Featherless is the name given to all royal bastards in our clan,” Gilly continued. “Although, I think Featherless is the only one alive right now. Unless there’s others we don’t know about.”

“Which there could be, if we’re being honest,” the raven-girl added.

“Is that so?”

Featherless moved closer, hopping off the edge of the bed and peering into Gilly’s quick work. He was onto stitching now, and then he was going to pour a strange medicinal substance over her wounds that he only said, “would sting a bit.” 

Aelif watched as Featherless looked at her wounds with intent. Her face was soft, but muddied with dust and blood. She had war paint, too, as was a common practice in Isjord for ceremonies and battles. Her’s was a beautiful eggplant purple—one line down the center of her chin, two lines reaching down the middle of her eyes and her cheeks, stopping halfway, and a triangle at the base of her scalp, the point stopping between her eyebrows. As she examined the intricate designs, Featherless’ ice blue eyes peered up at her, sending her heart beating faster.

“Your braids have come undone, wolf-girl,” Featherless said, as if it was just a fact she felt like stating.

“Aye,” Aelif said, looking away from her. “They tend to do that in battle. I’ll have my royal carers redo them later.” 

“Hmm,” Featherless purred, her breath warm against Aelif’s abdomen, stinging her wounds. “Seems so nice, eh Gilly?” Featherless peered at her brother, but then turned solemn. “Oh, I guess you know what that feels like, too. Ah, two royals in the same room as me! Far too many for an outcast.”

“You do not fight like an outcast, Raven,” Aelif grumbled. “You don’t speak like one, either.”

Featherless straightened and leaned back, leaving Aelif suddenly feeling cold. “Samas has a kind streak—or rather, Gilly’s mother. He raised me with royal teachers, royal archery trainers, royal equine instructors... but otherwise left me on the outskirts of town to fend for myself.” 

Aelif turned back to her now that she was a comfortable distance away, watching as Featherless stood and stretched, her body pulling tight in the short cotton night dress she now wore. She looked good, lively. Far better than with a nail in her stomach like a stuck pig.

“You said you would hurt me once you’d healed, pretty Raven,” Aelif said, flushing after realizing what she’d just called her. But Featherless simply shrugged it off and smiled, her teeth revealing small fangs, as if she were a wolf. Or a fox.

“You’ll have to get back to fighting strength first, wolf-girl.” 

Gilly’s eyes moved between the two of them, raising a single eyebrow, before shaking his head and tying off the final stitch. 

“Are you ready for the thistle water, then?” he interrupted, reaching into his satchel and retrieving a small vial filled with a strange, almost-clear greenish liquid. 

“Oh, may Odingr guide you, wolf-girl. Thistle water is Alheim in a bottle.” 

“Thank you for the reassurance, Raven, I truly appreciate it.” 

“Here we go,” Gilly declared with a sadistic coolness, uncorking the vial. Featherless moved closer to the door of her bedchamber, as if to escape the medicine.

“Oh, wolf-girl?” Featherless asked, holding the door to the bedchamber open. 

“Yes?”

“What’s your name?” 

Gilly poured the thistle water onto her wound, sending shocks of heat and electricity up her body and to her throat as she yelped out with fervor, “AELIF!”

Featherless giggled. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning, AELIF!” 

With that, the raven-girl was gone, the door shutting and leaving Gilly and a trembling Aelif alone. As she caught her breath, she watched as Gilly packed up his sewing kit and medicines.

“Damn your sister, little Raven,” Aelif said to Gilly as he shoved his things into his satchel.

“Aye, I agree,” he sighed. 

After a beat of silence, she asked, “Is she truly Featherless?”

“What do you mean?” Gilly stopped packing his things to look at her with inquisitive eyes. They were just like his sister’s, stark blue.

“Well, has she no other name? Do you call her Featherless?” 

“I do.” He resumed his packing. “But mostly I call her sister. I think if my father had not called her Featherless so early, I would have picked a different name for her. Featherless is not fitting.”

Aelif nodded. “Yes, she is certainly not featherless, considering her cloak.” 

Gilly smiled, then furrowed his brows, resting his hand on Aelif’s arm. “Thank you for saving my life, wolf-girl. You are nothing like your father.” 

A chuckle escaped Aelif’s lips, low and sad. “It saddens me to consider that a compliment, but I understand.”

Gilly said nothing but simply nodded, collecting his things and snuffing out the candles for her.

“Get some rest,” he said, halfway through the door. “Healer’s orders.” 

Aelif hardly had a chance to heed his words. As she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep—the thistle water working to fight off any infection that had already begun—her bedchamber doors flung open with a ferocity. She sat up as a scout, known as Erik Stormgaard, her distant cousin—who was also panting and terrified, as he usually was—came barging in. Gilly and the raven-girl followed closely behind them. 

“What?”

The boys could not get the words out. Instead, the raven-girl spoke for them.

“Get up, wolf-girl. You need to see this.”