Legend of the Ravenstone by M.S. Verish Read Free Book Online

He puffed on his pipe and gazed out the window at the tired greens and golds of summer’s end. With any fortune, the weather would hold for his journey east. He was unaccustomed to travel, and he hated to admit that this mysterious journey stirred some reservations.
    Who has a name like “Hawkwing?” Names were important—especially at an introduction. How was he supposed to receive a man named after a bird’s appendage? Arcturus shook his head and exhaled a ring of smoke. As he watched it drift out the window and into the open air, he glimpsed a flash of white. He craned to catch a better view and saw that it was a large, white hawk, soaring and dipping against the azure sky. “Quite the coincidence,” he murmured and sat back against the seat. He had almost turned away from the window when something else caught his attention.
    A beggar at the roadside . That will be my fate should I squander the last of my funds on this journey. Arcturus rubbed his chin. Something about the limping figure caught his eye as they passed it. No. Wait. I would swear that was— He withdrew his pipe. My thoughts keep drifting back to the castle. That poor girl. She will haunt me long after Belorn is a memory.
    Unable to resist, he peered back down the road. He tapped the head of his staff against the roof of the cab, and the driver slowed to a stop. “Please, turn back,” Arcturus said.
    “Turn back, sir?”
    “Yes. I wish to speak to that beggar.”
    “As you wish, sir.”
    The carriage rounded and rolled back in the direction from which they had come. It slowed and finally stopped, and Arcturus slid across the seat to the opposite window. The figure’s head had been bent, but now it lifted to regard him, and he felt his blood grow cold. “Dear me!” he cried, and quit the carriage.
    It was Kariayla. She was covered in dirt, her clothes were tattered, and— Wings? Are those wings? Arcturus pushed the thought aside and knelt beside her. He gently grasped her shoulders and peered into her watering gray eyes. “My dear, what has happened to you?”
    Tears cut through the dirt on her face, but tears were all that escaped her.
    He pulled her close, and she collapsed against him, her slight form shaking with emotion. And there were her wings. Wings!
    “You will be all right,” Arcturus soothed. “I promise I will help you.” He patted her shoulder and felt her tense. Easing away, he saw for the first time the torn fabric, the blood stains. He took a deep breath to control his growing anger. “Who did this to you? I demand to know who is responsible—” The look on her face stopped him short, and he sighed. “Never mind. Come with me.”
    He led her to the carriage and helped her inside.
    “Are we to return to the castle, sir?” the driver asked.
    “If you return to the castle, there will be nothing in this world to prevent me from tearing down the gate myself,” he snapped. “Stop outside the city so that I might tend to her injuries, and I will decide our course from there.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Arcturus joined Kariayla in the cab. It hurt him to look at her. I should never have left her. Perhaps it was not for me to interfere, but look what has happened. She was a petite creature with a youthful, innocent face. If not for the way she spoke, he would have mistaken her for a child. Of course, he was far older than everyone he met. He had never, though, in all his 347 years of life, met a person with wings.
    “I did not know you were not Human,” he said, hoping to calm her with conversation.
    She looked up at him through the fallen locks of her long, black hair, her stormy eyes bright against the deep brown of her skin. “Nemelorean,” she said, in a tone weighted with shame.
    “You were afraid what they would think of you,” he said. “It is a fear I understand, but you should never have to hide who you are, my dear.” He could tell she did not believe him; after what she had endured, he doubted he could convince