AN

I love this chapter so much :D I hope you guys enjoy it! 

The bird moved through the red sky in a fury of sleek, black feathers. It dove between the throwing of hands and limbs, into the heart of the fight.

No reservations lived in its slender body.

With wings tucked tightly underneath its belly, the shape of the little beast mocked the silhouette of an arrow in flight, headed straight for its target.

Vivian's eyes remained flooded in white, looking through the gaze of Petyr instead of her own. As she tightened the Woodsman's fingers, she took no heed of any warnings.

The creature struck. It slashed its dark beak over the woman's face, drawing a long line of angry red from the bridge of her nose to the bottom of her slender left cheek.

The witch came alive.

Petyr's hands squeezed and then, released Marjorie.

She hit the ground with a heavy thump, collapsing an inch from where Fenris lie, eyes still closed and breathing shallow. She curled into his warmth for only a moment, and then, a cough ripped through her body.

That was right, she thought. Breathe. Breathe.

She inhaled deep. Air funneled into her throat like cold water on a summer day—even when she had her fill, her body still ached for more. She crawled to her hands and knees, breathing and breathing and breathing, until the world came back to her in bold steams of life.

Fenris's warmth.

The dirt and blood stuck to underneath her nails.

And Petyr's guiding hand caressing her cheek.

He bent down to Marjorie, horror reflected in his doe-eyed gaze. There was no time to soothe the wrinkles between his brows, but she still pressed her thumbs underneath his eyes in an attempt to soothe the tears streaming down his face.

"You are bruised," Petyr announced, his chest heaving from the energy it took to attempt murder. His fingers grazed softly over the blossoming necklace of purple and blue on her slender neck. She hissed from the pain. "W-We are leaving. We can't—we can't win." He wrapped gentle hands beneath her arms and dragged her unceremoniously to his chest. Beneath her ear, his heart beat wildly. "I can lose everyone, Marjorie, but I refuse to lose you." He took a step toward the opposite direction of the clearing, where the villagers remained shackled like animals waiting for slaughter.

"No," Marjorie whispered. She pressed her palm flat against his chest. Her sticky fingerprints matched the splatters of blood already on his tunic, a parting gift from Fenris. "You can run, but I am not."

"You will die if we stay here." He dragged her another step forward.

The movement cause her to turn into deadweight. She was not like Petyr. She was not scared of her death.

"Marj—"

Her name was cut off by the name an echoing caw. The shrill animal scream reverberated through the valley like an unexpected rain. She searched the sky for the sound and found it in her raven.

The beast flew a foot above a blade Vivian drew. The woman jabbed the sword up, and the tiny beast knocked it out of her hand. It landed across the forest floor soundlessly.

"Enough of this game," Vivian shouted into the sky, like she reckoned with a god instead of a mere bird. "Reveal yourself, little shifter. Or do you wish to die dressed in your feathers?"

Her raven circled back down, claws extended, prepared to slice into the witch's pore-less, white skin, but the movement was cut in half. Vivian's hand snapped up, grabbing the bird with a nearly impossible quickness. She clutched its tail feather and cracked it through the air with cruel snap.

Marjorie screamed, unable to keep the shock hidden inside behind the cage of her teeth.

Her little raven twitched.

On the witch's face, a wide, white smile spread. She dangled the bird in Marjorie's direction, like she held a sweet just out of a begging child's grasp. Her other fist wrapped around its thin torso, and slowly, tightened her hand.

Her fingers contracted more. Any moment would be the struggling bird's last.

"Have it your way," Vivian sneered. "Die like a dumb, little beast."

At her words, a blur of black moved from her cruel hands. It was like a lifting mist, covering the raven completely until all its feathers and snapping beak disappeared underneath the growing fog.

The strange cloud fell through Vivian's clenching fingers, until it threaded through her grasp and fell to the ground in a flat, bubbling circle. It resembled the top of a boiling stew pot, only the rising mist was black.

"L-Little bird?" Marjorie whispered through the hand that cupped her lips. There was half-horror, half-amusement in her words.

"Magick?" Petyr guessed in an unsure tone. Beneath it, though, was pure awe.

He curled an unsure hand on her shoulder, keeping Marjorie from stumbling forward in wonder.

It didn't make any sense to the young woman. Her raven was just that —a simple, tiny, winged thing. But now, it festered in a pool of rising blackness. The vapors curled up and up and up in long tendrils, like the smoke that always came with fire.

Slowly, the movement of the fog took shape, morphing into... the unmistakable silhouette of a human.

Her raven came to life, animated into not only the shape of a living person, but all the fine details that came with it.

A long, black cape hung from two slender, sloped-up shoulders, as the stranger perpetually stood with a chin high in the air. Hands the same color and shine of white silk shot from beneath the heavy fabric to fasten the clasp at the hood of the open cloak and hide the body that lay beneath.

Still, Marjorie caught a pale sliver of softness only a woman could possess.

Her gaze dragged up, finding long, tiny, fine red braids delicately pulled into an intricate style of two, long hoops. The plaited ginger hair framed the delicate heart-shaped face of a pretty, freckled woman. Two pink petals served as her lips, and a fine, long nose defined the sleekness of her features.

The raven no longer blinked with black beads. Instead, she possessed two wide cobalt eyes, the identical shade of Marjorie's.

Marjorie fumbled backward and collided into the sturdy wall that was Petyr's chest.

In front of her was a stranger she just barely recognized. Not from her own memory, but in the strange ways Marjorie mirrored the woman with the color of her hair and the softness of their nearly identical frames.

Marjorie closed her eyes and imagined herself stretched out flat on Sicily's mattress, studying the portraits of her family tree.

Although it was unfeasible, her dead mother, Marsella, stood.

***

"Impossible," Marjorie whispered, unsure of how to react to the woman standing before her. "This is absolutely impossible." Marjorie forgot the dry ache in her throat, or the stench of blood so heavy in the air and on her cloak.

Her mother's cape shown like the sleek, oily surface of a raven's wing. She was taller than Marjorie imagined, a whole head above her. A small smile played on the woman's lips, and then it turned down into a settled, grim line.

The veil was thin.

Marsella appeared young. If they were both to walk alongside one another in Core, they would be mistaken for sisters, perhaps even twins.

"Everything is absolutely possible underneath a Red Moon," Marsella reasoned.

Then, she raised her freckled hands into the air, until they reached past her ears and above her head. Marjorie expected dark fog to unfold from the depths of her cloak, or for strange streams of magic to unfold from her palms, but nothing came.

Nothing, until a sea of black sprung from behind the woman.

Marjorie failed to make sense of the vision in front of her. The sky was once red, now it turned into a viscous current of inky black. The growing cloud moved like a beating heart, suspended in the air, until its collective movements unfolded into a sporadic pattern of zigging birds.

Ravens, an entire treachery of Ravens.

Petyr wrapped his hand around Marjorie, tucking her into his chest just as the beasts darted forward. She wrapped her fingers into the fabric of his chest, pulling tightly into him until their skin was flush against one another. Above where his hands shielded all of Marjorie's soft parts, tens of ravens rampaged Oak Point.

But it was not Petyr nor Marjorie, or even the Wolf, who they sought to punish.

She watched through the tiny sliver between her cheek and Petyr's collarbone to see them unfolding a painful misery onto Vivian. The dark-haired witch grabbed those she could, before bringing them crashing to the ground or sending them back into the direction they flew from.

They filled up the valley with angry caws, but continued to dive into the woman, even as their comrades in flight continues to fall.

"Marjorie," Petyr whispered. "Look."

He shifted their bodies to where the shackled villagers once remained, bent on their knees and waiting for death by Vivian's hands. Now, there was nothing but abandoned cuffs and ropes.

They were the ravens. Every last one of them, even Petyr's mother, were now in flight.

"Stop!" Vivian screamed. Her hands thrusted out in front of her, causing the birds in mid-flight to bounce off of an invisible, seemingly impenetrable shield.

The ravens turned in the red sky and settled on the branches of the Scrub Oak, waiting for the witch to take a single step out of place and allow them another reason to attack.

"You!" Vivian raised a bloody finger toward Marjorie. Her face was flayed with long, red gashes to match Marsella's own parting gifts. Every inch of her exposed skin ran with the color red, making her melt into the landscape. "You have already failed," she whispered. "Daughter is risen. She is alive."

"I do not see her," Marsella said, her brows raised in amusement. "You are nothing but a witch, a Priestess who has abandoned her Temple, a lost woman." Her mother lifted a hand toward Marjorie, a silent beckon for her to near. "Killing you is the forest's last chance at peace." Marjorie remembered the dagger in her hands. The heaviness of its intent weighed down on her mind, causing her fingers to tick nervously. "You did not raise your daughter. But I raised mine."

Marjorie remained frozen where she stood, no longer locked in Petyr's arms, but unwilling to move even an inch forward. There was no desire in the young woman to kill. No want for her to spill blood in the same way Vivian did—by the cruel touch of a knife.

"Go," Petyr whispered in her ear. His hands moved from her shoulders to the small of her waist. She curled into the familiar safety of his chest—here, there was no death waiting for her. No dagger waiting to slice through the soft white meat of the witch's throat. "Finish this all."

Clarity blossomed at his words like the first spring flower climbing through the thawing blanket of snow. She was a Spark, all she must do was listen to what the forest asked of her, and in her ears, it cried out for her to strike. To kill. To dig this blade into the same woman who took and took and took.

She took a step forward, breaking away from the Woodsman's touch to slaughter.

"Is that what you will do?" Vivian asked, voice rough. "Are you going to kill me?" The tall woman leaned down into her direction and offered her throat. It looked like the soft, white underbelly of a deer— utterly helpless. "Many have tried. Your Wolf in particular. If Mother gave a tiny girl like you the Spark, then perhaps I do deserve to die."

Marjorie took her place next to Marsella, and the woman rested her freckled hand over her cloaked shoulder.

"Go on," Marsella whispered over her cheek, but her breath was not cold, nor was it warm. It just was.

The veil was thin.

"Kill her."

Marjorie swallowed hard. She knew what that meant.

Vivian waited, her throat the same shade as white lilies. With Marjorie's touch, color would run down her neck like Devilhair.

Marjorie tightened the antler grip in her hands, and then she swung.

Her arm moved weightlessly though the air, on track to plunge into Vivian's soft skin when she abruptly changed trajectory. She pulled down the blade a second before it made contact, allowing the knife to slice into the witch's arm instead of her neck.

"I—I cannot do it," Marjorie whispered, shame burning. "I will not be responsible for another life."

"How sweet," Vivian murmured. She ignored the new gash on her bicep to instead, wrap her fingers around Marjorie's shoulders. A river of ice crawled through Marjorie at the touch, sending warnings through her body to rip away from the Witch's grasp. "You forget your own words, little bird. Everything is absolutely possible underneath a Red Moon."

Vivian gathered Marjorie in her chest and then, together, they shot into the air, flying past the ravens perching on their branches to the very top of the twisted limbs of the ancient Scrub Oak.