She rushes back to the Chamber, the raven’s claws digging into her shoulder and urging her onward.

Caitlin waits for her back in the Chamber, and so does the boy … Zayn. While she’s eager to see Caitlin again, she’s not so sure about the boy. There’s something unsettling in the way he looks at her with those cold, red eyes, so like his father’s. Something … predatory.

But maybe she’s just imagining it. Maybe she’s just seeing something that isn’t there, because he looks so like Gryffen. Maybe he isn’t like his father at all.

But she still can’t help but feel that there’s something wrong with him.

She arrives back at the Chamber’s border, and pauses once at the border before continuing on. She is their prisoner now, she belongs to them. There’s no need to act like a visiting diplomat, but apparently old habits die hard.

She reaches the centre of the kingdom quickly, orange-flecked eye searching for any of her daughter and son. She sees nothing, smells nothing, and eventually settles into the shade of an old oak, waiting. She hopes they’re alright - she hadn’t really bothered to explain to either of them what she was doing. She hadn’t wanted to bring up painful memories of the Gates for Caitlin, and Zayn was simply too young to understand. But hopefully one of them will be along soon, and she can begin to explain herself.