Chapter 14: The Raven's Truth
[Eastern Meadows — Afternoon, Day 35]
Diaval brought venison.
He landed at my clearing with a bundle slung in raven talons, shifted to human form, and unpacked it on the flat stone I'd been using as a makeshift table since week two. Smoked venison, dark bread, a clay pot of something that smelled like spiced honey, and two apples that were aggressively, defiantly red—the kind of red that announced itself from across a clearing.
"She's in a mood," Diaval said by way of greeting, dropping onto the moss across from me and tearing bread with the efficiency of someone who'd learned human eating as a second language. "Not the dangerous kind. The quiet kind. Worse, in some ways."
"I didn't ask."
"You were about to."
He wasn't wrong. I'd been wondering about Maleficent's state since the night flight—three days of quiet from the cliff, no summons, no patrols of her own that I'd detected. The nightly visits to Aurora's cottage continued—I hadn't followed again, but the Soul Resonance could track her emotional signature at distance now, a faint directional pulse like a compass needle pointing toward grief.
I took a piece of venison. The smoke flavor was perfect—deep, layered, with a sweetness underneath that suggested whatever wood they'd used was itself magical. "You've served her a long time."
Diaval chewed. Swallowed. Tilted his head—the raven mannerism that never fully left his human form. "Since she saved me from a farmer's net. I was just a bird then. Tangled in rope, minutes from being beaten to death with a stick." He paused. "She turned me human. Gave me a voice. In exchange, I became her wings."
"Her wings?"
"Her eyes and ears." His jaw tightened—a flash of something old and angry, quickly controlled. "She lost her wings. Needed someone who could fly for her. I was available."
The words she lost her wings carried a weight that went far beyond their literal meaning. Lost. Not had them removed or was deprived of or any of the more accurate, more violent phrasings that the truth demanded. Lost—the gentle version, the one Diaval used to protect a wound that wasn't his but that he carried anyway.
I already knew how she'd lost them. Stefan, the drugged drink, the iron blade in the dark. The most intimate betrayal the story contained—a man she'd loved taking the thing that defined her while she slept.
"How long ago?" I asked, because it was the question an ignorant man would ask.
"Long enough that it shouldn't still hurt." He picked up an apple, turned it in his hands without biting. "Long enough that it does."
Silence. The meadow buzzed with midday activity—wallerbogs in the distance, water fairies in the stream, the constant ambient hum of the Moors' magic. Comfortable sounds. Background noise for a conversation that had moved from casual to careful without either of us noticing.
"The thorn wall," I said. "It wasn't always there."
"No." Diaval's expression darkened—his whole posture shifted, the casual lean becoming rigid. "The Moors were open once. Beautiful. Anyone could visit, and most were welcome. Then a human betrayed her in the worst way possible, and she closed everything off."
He stopped. The apple was still in his hands, unbitten. His grip had tightened enough to dimple the skin.
"I won't ask for details," I said.
"Good." The word came fast. Clipped. "Because I'd tell you, and she wouldn't forgive me for it."
I nodded. Picked up the spiced honey and took a spoonful directly from the pot—a breach of table manners I wouldn't have committed in my old life, but etiquette mattered less when your dining companion ate with raven instincts and your table was a rock. The honey was extraordinary. Warm, complex, tasting of flowers I couldn't name and a sweetness that didn't cloy.
"You're not afraid of her," Diaval said.
"Should I be?"
"Everyone should be. She could kill you without effort. Without thought. I've seen her destroy things that—" He stopped. Reset. "She's the most powerful being in these Moors. Maybe the most powerful in the world."
"She could," I agreed. "She hasn't. That's something."
Diaval's laugh was short, surprised, punched out of him before he could catch it. The sound startled a pair of wallerbogs in the nearby undergrowth, and their chittering complaint made him laugh again—longer this time, more genuine.
"You're either very brave or very stupid," he said.
"I get that a lot."
He bit the apple. Chewed. Studied me with those coal-dark eyes that saw more than they revealed, that had spent sixteen years cataloguing human behavior from the outside and had become, in that time, better at reading people than most people were.
"She had someone once," he said quietly. "Before the wall. Before the thorns. Someone she trusted. Loved, even." The apple lowered. "He took the thing most precious to her and used it to make himself king."
Stefan. The name sat in my mouth, unspoken, familiar and heavy with everything I knew and couldn't admit to knowing.
"And now she doesn't trust," I said.
"Now she doesn't trust. Doesn't love. Doesn't let anyone close enough to reach anything that matters." He met my eyes. Direct, no tilt, no sardonic deflection. "Until recently."
The implication hung between us like smoke.
"Diaval—"
"I'm not saying anything." He held up one hand. "I'm saying that she doesn't trust easily. Or at all. But she's watching you differently now." He stood, brushed crumbs from his dark clothing. "What you do with that information is your business."
He shifted before I could respond. The man folded into the raven, the raven launched from the ground, and within seconds Diaval was a dark shape climbing toward the canopy, heading north. Toward her. Always toward her—sixteen years of loyalty, encoded in the direction he flew.
I sat in the clearing with the remains of our meal and the ghost of his words.
She's watching you differently now.
Different from what? From the cold suspicion of the throne? From the analytical curiosity of the grove? From the grudging acceptance of the cliff, when she'd given me permission to guard her borders and told me not to make her regret it?
I picked up the second apple. Turned it in my hands the way Diaval had, feeling its weight, its smooth skin, the small imperfections that made it real instead of decorative. On my first day in the Moors, I'd eaten unknown berries from a stream bank and counted them as a victory. Now I had smoked venison and spiced honey and apples brought by a friend who was also a raven who was also the confidant of the most powerful being in this world.
Progress. Messy, complicated, dangerous progress.
I ate the apple. It tasted like everything in the Moors tasted—better than it had any right to.
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