When Ravens Call: The Fourth Book in the Small Gods Epic Fantasy Series (The Books of the Small Gods by Bruce Blake (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📕

the specter of a life before, an age before the white gauze cowl inhibited his vision and satiating the hunger meant everything. An existence somewhere other than this forest. Visions of water washed through his mind, the sounds of waves against wood, and the screech of gulls. Heat on his face, rain on his cheeks, the pang of loss in his heart.

Heart.

The tasty muscle found in the chest, but it wasn't the tissue itself aching so, was it? A bit of flesh and sinew didn't experience such things; that came from somewhere else. How long since he'd felt any ache other than the hunger? How long since his life included the bouquet of oiled boards, the flavor of brine on his lips, the freedom of open water and endless sky?

One of his companions caught him off guard, a sharp talon finding its way along his face from forehead to chin. He jerked back, so it only grazed him, but it found him enough to split his flesh. Blood rushed into his mouth, threatening to choke him. It stung his eyes.

The sensations gave him pause. He blinked.

Blinked.

The white gauze disappeared from his vision, color returning to the trees and leaves, the glimpses of sky peeking through the boughs overhead. He spat the coppery taste from between his lips, a long string of thick, bloody saliva falling onto his chin, dangling. His eyelids flitted again; he looked past his companions trying to kill him, and his eyes met those of the man. Memories and feelings rushed into once-was-Rilum, some invigorating him, others crushing him, the sum of them so tangled and indecipherable they became nothing more than a knotted ball clogging his chest.

He saw him clearly, knew him.

He wondered if his father recognized him, too. Would he come to his rescue? Protect him from death at the hands of his former companions?

Before the father turned his back on him to flee, once-was-Rilum understood these weren't possibilities. The others would tear him to pieces in the blink of an eye. No, this was his opportunity to save the old sailor.

And so the pale abomination once and again the son of Horace Seaman didn't experience the same heartbreak as when his father left him before. This time when the man turned his back on him, he determined to ensure his survival.

The two others grabbed his shoulders, dragged him to the ground. Once-and-again Rilum let them, his mind and body set on ending their existence though it meant the end of his own.

He clamped his jaw, growled in the depths of his chest, and flashed his talons out at the throats of his companions.

XLII  Teryk - Memory

With the tall man's hand on his shoulder, the words they spoke became clear, as when Ailyssa laid her fingers on him. He hadn't expected it to be so; Juddah touched him without the same effect, but the slender man—whom the others called Ive—placed his grip as though he understood its ability to help him comprehend. As soon as the word left the one-armed fellow's lips, he realized he'd spoken his name. After not knowing it or his history, not understanding those around him, he possessed an identity, a story.

"Teryk? Is that me?"

"You are Teryk, prince of the Windward Kingdom. And I am Trenan. Do you remember?"

The Windward Kingdom.

Scraps of memory filtered through the haze clouding his mind from the moment he recalled Juddah pulling him out of the surf. He found a shred of familiarity in the face of the one-armed man, a sense of safety and warmth when he gazed upon him. Without a doubt, he knew him, and he'd been someone important in his life.

His eyes moved from the grizzled warrior to the two young women seated on the log. The younger of them didn't kindle the same feelings in him as the fellow calling himself Trenan, but then his gaze found the second woman. His heart jumped in his chest and a word struggled its way to his lips.

"Danya."

Where the name might have come from, or what it should mean, eluded him, but the woman's reaction made it plain it belonged to her. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak. The muscles in her legs flexed as though she meant to stand but an impediment held her back from doing so.

"Teryk. Thank the gods."

"It appears the young prince lost has found his way again," Ive said, his grip on Teryk's arm tightening until it caused pain. "Does anyone care to remind him why we find ourselves in the last place we should want to be? Or will the task also fall to me?"

"The scroll, Teryk," Danya said. "Do you remember the scroll?"

He narrowed his eyes, concentrating. His mind tingled, the answers he searched for beyond his reach, taunting him. He recalled a cavernous room made of marble. Statues towered along one side, a lectern stood at the far end. The image wavered, then he saw Danya standing by the rostrum, her hands leaning on it, holding open a scroll threatening to roll itself back up if she let go. Behind her lingered the woman he'd seen in a foggy, near-forgotten vision of fire falling from the sky.

Rak'bana.

It came to him unbidden and unexpected but he realized it belonged to her, as he now understood himself to be Teryk, the prince.

"The firstborn of the rightful king," he muttered, no more understanding of where those words emerged from than about the name Rak'bana.

"Yes," Ive said. "And do you remember what it means?"

Teryk stared straight ahead, his breath shallow as he concentrated harder. His gaze crawled from Danya with her look of expectancy to Trenan, his visage unreadable. Fellick shifted, moving toward the one-armed man, positioning himself between the soldier and the princess. Beyond the unfamiliar people, at the top of a short hill,