There’s something by the tree. The ravens cry. It starts with one, but soon they are all cawing. From the sky, from the trees. It does not matter where they are. The Chamber is alive with the warning. The ravens know that the tree is important. It is growing quickly, more tree than sapling anymore. But still, it is vulnerable, and the ravens protect it with their lives.
She is sure the ravens have begun descending around the tree, all manner of them, mostly elemental ones. She doesn’t send the real ravens into potential battles. But fire ravens and earth ravens and shadow ravens make for beautiful guards. They do not die, but reform again and again every time they are struck down. Hers is a strange magic, certainly, but it is useful.
The brown and white queen picks up a gallop through the pine forests and into the clearing. The ravens have circled the tree, though they do not necessarily seem worried. Still, they do their job, protecting the lifeblood of the Chamber. There is a boy there, too close to fire for comfort, though Straia has no maternal instinct really. She’s more of a “let them burn and figure it out.” The fire crackles and hisses, the boy snapping his head around as if to bite the source of the sound.
She notes the red lips, the dried blood obvious enough. Really? Why was the Chamber a resting home for every carnivorous horse in Beqanna? What was it about blood anyway. Grass tasted perfectly fine and actually digested appropriately. “You shouldn’t get closer,” she says, coming near enough to the boy to talk without getting in the way of those snapping teeth. “That’s fire, not food. And by the way, you are supposed to eat grass. And actually, at your age, you need milk.” She talks like the boy understands any of this. She assumes children are smarter than anyone gives them credit for, though she suspects this one won’t stop eating whatever it’s taken a fancy to.
Maybe she should give it to Shaytan as a gift. The two might get along.
straia
the raven queen of the chamber