War of the Raven Queen: The Goddess Prophecies Fantasy Series Book 6 Read online

  War of the Raven Queen

  The Goddess Prophecies Book 6

  Araya Evermore

  Contents

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  Title

  Map of Maioria

  1. White Raven

  2. Myth of Myths

  3. Dwarves, Demons and Karalanths

  4. Lumenoor

  5. Swords and Magic

  6. Barbarian of the North

  7. Dragon Truth

  8. Precreative Power

  9. Demon Exit

  10. Hunting Ancients

  11. Illendri

  12. Falling Circles

  13. Orb of Fire

  14. Hallanstaryx

  15. Musicman

  16. Staryx

  17. Fear of the Dark

  18. Battle for Tarvalastone

  19. Beneath Diredrull

  20. Hall of Memories

  21. Sorrow and Fury

  22. Battle of Queens

  23. Two Become One

  24. Baelthrom's Grace

  25. Sword of Illendri

  26. Foreboding Dreams

  27. The Way of Dragons

  28. Broken

  29. Fall of Myrn

  30. Prophetic Dreams

  31. The Keen Edge of Revenge

  32. Fighting Traitors

  33. Dragons of Drax

  34. Dragon Legion

  35. The Perfect Shot

  36. Knights Falling

  37. The Darkness Within

  38. Gates of Oblivion

  39. Oblivion's Reach

  40. Into Darkness

  41. The New World

  42. Reborn

  43. Becoming Guardians

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  About Araya

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

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  FOR THAT WHICH IS ETERNAL

  1

  White Raven

  Dark thoughts crowded Issa’s mind as she lay on her bed in the cramped cabin.

  Their warship, one of hundreds, sailed the dangerous and unpredictable waters between Davono and Venosia on a voyage that could well be their last. Struggling to sleep, she stared into the dark, the creaking and swaying of the ship both strangely relaxing and foreboding at the same time. Was her floating home carrying her to her death?

  She imagined the sea, endless and dark beneath her, waves crashing white against the ship as it moved through the inky blackness. Above, a clouded sky made their passage even darker, and that hot, arid wind from Atalanph blew. Ahead, the coast of Venosia and the impending battle against Baelthrom’s hordes drew closer.

  She closed her eyes for the tenth time only to see the black claws of the Devil’s Horns rising up before her, eager to smash into the pathetic hulls of their feeble wooden homes.

  Where was Asaph? Where was Freydel? Had they left her in her darkest hour? No, Asaph will come to me, I know it. And Freydel? …I can but pray.

  How long until they reached the Devil’s Horns? And how would they overcome them? Between now and when they reached them, she hoped the wizards would come up with a plan. Destroying them with magic would exhaust the wizards, and they needed every ounce of strength for the battle itself – and the use of magic would also alert the enemy.

  If only Freydel were with them with his orb, he’d certainly figure something out, but he wasn’t here when he was needed the most. Had she pinned too much on hope? Was starting this war the most foolish thing she’d ever done? Was she about to send thousands of people, including herself, to their deaths?

  With a long, exhausted sigh, an uneasy slumber stole over her.

  Ahead, row upon row of jagged black spikes speared out of the ocean. Beyond them crawled the dark mass of Venosia. The wind blew harder until it screamed through the rigging and churned the sea. Gripping a rope around the mast, Issa spread her feet wide as the ship swayed drunkenly. Above, the clouds crowded thickly, turbulent and red-tinged.

  In the Abyss the sky had been red—red, like blood and rage.

  The Under Flow surged towards her, a loud din in her head, a cacophony of dark power hunting for her, stalking its prey. She reached for the Flow before it was smothered and formed a shield around herself. The Under Flow withdrew, its prey now unattainable.

  Issa let go of her held breath and passed a hand over her forehead. It came away wet with sweat. Thunder cracked and a thick bolt of red lightning split the sky. She screamed as it smashed into a spike directly before the bow, illuminating the others around it.

  A terrible groaning wailed through the air, the same tortured sound she had heard in the Dark Rift. Fear clenched her stomach, her heart thundered and the air turned too thick to breathe. The noise, the storm, the Under Flow, everything crushed down upon her. She collapsed onto the deck sweating, trembling.

  She stared up, the sky was so close she could touch it. The clouds darkened and clustered together into familiar, looming shapes and an utterly helpless feeling assaulted her body, paralysing her in terror.

  The Light Eaters, massive beyond comprehension, groaned and crowded above her, three hooded, faceless shapes looking down from their thrones in the sky. She was nothing. No magic could withstand their power. Hands made of dark clouds reached towards her, fingers opened wide, and from their clutches, four smaller shapes galloped.

  She clung to the mast and stared, unable to look away, her body shivering and shaking. Sweat soaked her back despite the agonising cold that ate into her bones.

  The horsemen grew large, hooves thundering on air. A shadow horse threw back its head and neighed, its scream cutting through the torturous moaning of the Eaters.

  A raucous cawing joined it. A raven flew between her and the horsemen, but not a raven she knew. This one was pure white. She tried to reach it but there was nothing, as if the bird were a ghost, a figment of her imagination. Why was it white? Why did it not come to her?

  Fear trickled like ice down her back. She inhaled sharply, more afraid of the raven than any of the horrors beyond it. The raven wheeled and dived, seeking neither to protect her nor fight her enemies.

  ‘You’ve come to warn me,’ she stated in a whisper.

  The raven cawed, a long and mournful sound that brought with it all the desperate sorrow and emptiness she had known in the Shadowlands. Issa sobbed and clutched at the neck of her nightclothes.

  The raven turned and flew straight at her. She raised her hands to ward it off and screamed.

  Issa jerked awake, her eyes wildly hunting the darkness of her cabin.

  Clutching her sweat-soaked nightshirt, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and, breathing hard, smoothed back her hair with shaking hands as she grappled for reality. It was still pitch black outside the porthole and the ship swayed and creaked rhythmically.

  It was just a nightmare, she told herself, though she really didn’t feel it was. There was more to it than just a bad dream; a prophetic message she wasn’t ready to learn.
/>   Someone knocked on the door. Softly at first, then more urgently and louder when she did not respond.

  ‘Lady Issa?’ Velonorian’s voice was tinged with worry. The young elf opened the door a crack and held his lantern high. Seeing her dishevelled, distraught look, he hurried into the room.

  ‘Lady Issa, are you sick? You’re as pale as a wraith and drenched! Has some evil magic befallen you? I was passing your door and I thought I heard crying.’

  Issa could barely find the words to speak. She took the water he poured for her from the pitcher beside her bed, and gratefully drank, trying to still her shaking hands.

  ‘Some war commander I am. I’m in no fit state to lead this offensive,’ her voice was hoarse and ragged.

  Velonorian sank down onto his heels to bring his head level with hers, interweaving his fingers and resting his elbows on his knees. ‘You won’t be leading it, the well-seasoned military commanders will. You’re the spark but they’re the drivers. There’s nothing to fear. You had a dream, a vision. I can see it in your aura. Even your eyes are blue with the Sight.’

  Issa nodded. ‘I saw those things in the Dark Rift. And I saw the Shadow Knights who hunt me.’ Her stomach twisted into knots as she recalled the four horsemen, their forms emerging from shadow and smoke.

  She let go a long silent breath and tried to sit up straighter. ‘But worse than that, I saw a white raven…’

  Why had she seen a white raven? Had it been sent to her by Zanufey as a warning? Was she doing something wrong?

  ‘What is its meaning?’ asked Velonorian.

  Issa looked away. She didn’t want to say. She didn’t want to speak aloud what she knew to be the truth. She took a deep breath and met his violet eyes. ‘The white raven is warning me of my death. What else can it mean? I don’t know if it was sent by Zanufey. I don’t know why it should come to me now. Could it be I’m taking the wrong course of action? Yet, of everything else I think of, this is the only action to take. There’s nothing else for me to do.’ She chewed a fingernail.

  ‘It’s a warning, a message to be cautious and nothing more,’ said Velonorian, squeezing her shoulder gently. She swallowed and nodded, wanting to believe him. ‘Now, why don’t you try to get some restful sleep? My room is just down the hall. I’ve already placed a simple ward on your door, it’s not much and not strong like a true wizard could cast, but it’s Elven, and will hold until dawn.’

  ‘Thank you, Velonorian,’ she said, touched at the gesture though knowing nothing could stop the horsemen. She slowly laid back down, but could tell from his frown that he was deeply worried as he shut the door behind him.

  She watched the creeping light from his lantern fade away beneath the door and darkness enveloped her once more. After a moment blinking into the black, she reached over the side of the bed and grabbed the orb and raven talisman. She held one in each hand protectively. No Shadow Knight can attack me now.

  Forcing her mind to focus only upon the gentle rocking of the ship, she drifted back to sleep.

  The darkness brightened slowly into a pale, grey-blue light.

  She held up her talisman and orb but there was no danger, only quiet, calm, and blue fog swirling thickly around her, a fog which thickened until it took on a liquid quality. Soon she was suspended in beautiful aqua-blue water, but strangely, she could still breathe. She took a deep slow breath and let it go, watching fascinated as her exhalation emerged as bubbles. The foreboding that had gripped her for days disappeared completely. Instead she felt a playful joy.

  ‘Issa,’ a voice said softly in her head.

  She looked around.

  ‘Issa,’ the voice said again, closer.

  She saw the flash of purple and silver.

  ‘Wykiry?’ she answered back.

  Three Wykiry appeared, their wing-like fins splaying out beautifully around them as they began to circle and dance around her.

  ‘In the ocean, we are always close. The Undead Knights hunt you. Nowhere is safe. Be careful of your dreams.’ The Wykiry spoke as one, their mellow voices barely whispers in her mind. ‘There are other dangers. All the power of Maioria cannot stand against that of the Dark Rift. Do not fight the Light Eaters. Run.’

  ‘I try but they find me and I can’t escape,’ Issa said, using her Daluni talents.

  ‘It’s because the fallen out-lander has found you.’

  ‘Who? The woman with the black eyes?’ Issa saw in her mind the beautiful but cruel face of Lona and shivered.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Wykiry.

  ‘But how are we to free Maioria if we cannot fight the Dark Rift?’ Issa asked.

  ‘We do not know. But if you fight them now, you will fail.’

  Issa chewed her lip. ‘Then it’s hopeless. This battle will be to our deaths.’

  ‘No. The more lands that are freed, the more power returns to Maioria, the stronger she becomes.’

  It seemed of little comfort.

  ‘And there is always hope.’ The Wykiry pressed.

  Issa gave a bitter laugh. The Wykiry sensed her futility and slowed their circling. She felt warmth and comfort exude from them. They did not know everything, she reminded herself. They were not gods. Fate will not control my destiny, she vowed.

  ‘Yes,’ they said, reading her thoughts, and nodding their smooth round snouts. ‘Be the Raven Queen. Chart the destiny of your people. Come.’ Their voices faded as they began to disappear into the blue.

  She didn’t want them to go. A thought that had been on her mind for a long time came to the fore and she took out the Orb of Water.

  ‘Why did you give this to me rather than take it back after Keteth? You can use it to do far greater things than I can,’ she said.

  ‘Because only you can set us free,’ a voice said from inside the blue.

  ‘What do you mean, set you free? From the ocean?’

  ‘From our curse; from the Immortals and from the sea to which we are bound.’

  ‘How do I do that? I barely know how to use it.’

  ‘We do not know, only that you can and you will. Through the orb you can reach us if you need. Call for us and we will come,’ the voice said.

  The water turned cooler and darker as the Wykiry retreated and the dream darkened. The surface found her, and she inhaled but the air felt dank and polluted after the light water she had been breathing.

  A dark red sky clouded above and a heavy ominous feeling fell. The Devil’s Horns rose out of the ocean before her. Yelping, she turned and tried to swim away but an unseen force pushed her forwards.

  ‘Don’t be afraid of what you see. Remember the orb,’ the Wykiry whispered in her mind from far away.

  She closed her eyes and gripped the orb, focussing her mind on it, drawing on the Flow. She poured it into the orb.

  There was a strange subtle switch in the magical energy as the orb and her mind connected. She was still in the Flow but it was oddly different, lesser in scope and yet purer. It’s pure magic! she realised with a start. Pure elemental water power unmixed with the other elements of fire, air or earth.

  She let the orb’s power fill her, and with it came deep understanding of the elemental. Rivers and tides weren’t things and processes; they were beings in their own right. She understood the way the tiny unseen particles of water bonded together, how water froze and why it turned to mist or fog.

  As understanding filled her, she became ever one with it until she felt herself melding with the ocean itself. In a rush, the immense elemental power of the sea became her power.

  She spread her arms wide, holding the orb high. At her command, the sea surged, lifting her up. Higher and higher the sea rose, a great expanse of ocean reaching up into the sky. Issa looked down and laughed at the incredible sight. The ocean carried her on the crest of a great wave. Fifty feet below, the Devil’s Horns were no more than harmless splinters that simply vanished as the ocean surged over them.

  ‘You cannot learn the power of an orb, you can only be shown what it
can do,’ said the Wykiry, their voices barely audible over the tremendous roar of the surf.

  The great wave slowed and Issa felt herself sinking down gently into the sea and into a place where there were no dreams.

  Asaph angled his wings and looked down upon the immense gold dragon statue of Feygriene dominating the centre of the lake.

  The spring sunlight gleamed brightly off the magnificent effigy and an incredible feeling of awe bloomed deep in his chest.

  He roared and listened as the sound echoed around the mountains and was soon joined by three more. He glanced back at the other dragons also circling the skies: Garna, the slender red female; and the two big males, Rust the red and Pennarc the green—those who had joined him in his attack on Avernayis. Only to the three by his side had he proven himself, had he shown that they could trust him, and so they had been bonded more closely.

  Whilst he had been gone, the dragons had built the statue with the gold they’d kept hidden deep in their lairs. They must have hoarded mountains of the stuff to create the life-sized dragon, thought Asaph.

  Using dragon magic, they had built up the base of the lake with rock and moulded the gold on top of it into the image of their goddess. With their combined powers it had taken them mere days, whereas any human endeavour of a similar scale would have taken years.