It was late when I got back to Gran’s, but her lights were still on. I sat in the rental car for a long time, just staring at that little house. I’d done most of my growing up inside it. I still spent more time there than at my tiny apartment. It hurt to think of it as a place of deception when it had always been a place of safety. I made myself get out of the car and walk up the narrow strip of concrete that bisected the postage stamp lawn. I tried the door and it was open. Gran was waiting for me, wrapped in a shawl and looking serious. She read me like a book and I saw a brief spark of pain in her eyes, but she squashed it so fast it might never have existed. She gave me a smile.

“Come and sit down in the kitchen, lad.”

I followed her out to the kitchen and sat at the table where we’d eaten thousands of meals while she made tea. She surprised me by getting out her good tea cups. Chipped old mugs had always been good enough before. The good cups only came out when she entertained one of her exceedingly rare guests. I eyed them, curious and a little suspicious, but I didn’t say anything. She poured out the tea, taking a moment to add sugar to mine and a splash of milk to hers. Then, her gaze settled on me.

“You saw him?”

I nodded.

“You asked the question?”

I nodded again.

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Tell the shadowed queen the bird does not sing, but the bird keeper is awake and the hunter is traveling.’”

Gran closed her eyes for a long beat before she looked at me again. She met my gaze, unashamed, and some petty, cynical part of me went abruptly silent.

“Did he say anything else?”

“When I asked him what that meant, he said three words. ‘Knight,’ and ‘Raven’s Council.’ I didn’t understand any of it, but I assume you do?”

She nodded with slow, weary movements. “He always was a troubling one. He said more than he needed to say, but more than he was obligated to tell. I suppose I should be grateful for that much.”

“Are you the shadowed queen, Gran?”

She sniffed. “Some have called me that, though not for a great many years. It’s more an accusation than a title, much as his calling you a knight. Though, not so untrue for all that. You are a knight, of sorts.”

“What does it mean?”

“What does what mean, lad?”

“Shadowed queen. What does that mean?”

Gran sighed. “It’s a long, complicated, and boring story. I’ll tell you now if you really feel you need to know. I promise it’s not relevant to the rest, just dusty old history.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I let the offer rest for a few seconds while I sipped my tea. I took a leap of faith. I’d gotten by this long by trusting Gran, so screw suspicion. I knew Gran. I didn’t know that asshole in the Ozarks from Adam. I shook my head.

“Tell me some other time.”

Gran let out a little laugh. “You surprise me, sometimes, in the best ways.”

“Gotta keep people guessing,” I said, smiling for the first time.

“So you do. So you do,” she said nodding in approval.

“Okay, so tell me about the rest. What’s that business about birds and hunters and ravens?”

Gran frowned. “It’s shorthand for those with a business to know. You know that there are dangerous powers loose in the world. Demons, spirits, and the like that trouble mankind for sport or amusement or just because they can.”

I nodded.

“There are other things in the world. Old powers seeking a way back into the hearts and minds of human beings. The bird is the name some of us use for one of those old powers. She bathed in blood, that one. We don’t know her actual name. When she was cast out, a sliver of her essence remained, bound to this world by forces unknowable. A woman was chosen, a priestess, to guard that sliver until the end of all things. It was her duty to keep it hidden, away from the hands of those who heard the call of the bird. Those who hear the call are rare, but they are always powerful. We call them hunters.”

“What about that part about the bird keeper being awake?”

“Eternity is a long time, lad. Imagine if you had to live through all of it, consciously, watching the rise and fall of civilizations, the wars, the genocides, the everyday cruelties. It would be too much. The bird keeper sleeps in her hidden places most of the time. She only awakens when a hunter rises.”

“And there’s a hunter out there, right now, looking for this sliver?”

“If our acquaintance’s information is accurate, which it always is.”

“Speaking of our acquaintance, just who or what is he?”

“I’m not sure anyone rightly knows. He’s old. I can tell you that much. He has power and terrible knowledge. He walks the unseen paths.”

I drew a blank. “Unseen paths?”

Gran blinked and rolled her eyes. “I suppose Bill was bound to have missed a few things. The unseen paths are, well, they’re to be left alone is what they are. They aren’t for mortal man. They’re doorways through other places. You can learn things on them, if you survive, which almost never happens, and if you don’t go mad, which nearly everyone does.”

I frowned. “Okay, the unseen paths are bad. Got it. What about the Raven’s Council?”

Gran purses her lips in disdain and waved a hand in the air like she meant to push aside some unpleasant insect. “They’re evil. I’d hoped to be well and truly done with them long ago, but they endure, like cockroaches and canned meat.”

“Why’d what’s his face mention them?”

Gran finally sipped her tea, probably to buy time. “The awful old thing probably mentioned them because they know something about the hunter. Of course, they would, because like draws to like.”

I sat quietly and thought about it. It didn’t take long to figure out what Gran had been very deliberately avoiding.

“Someone needs to go talk to them, don’t they?”

She said nothing, her face as still as stone.

“I need to go talk to them.”

“No,” she said. “You aren’t ready. This business will have to tend to itself without our help.”

“Will it?”

“It has before.”

“That’s not an answer, Gran.”

Gran seemed to shrink down in her chair as if pressed by some unspeakable weight. “I won’t throw your life away on this.”

I wondered then, how many others like me had gone off and died doing Gran’s bidding. How many lads had she lost over the long years? Yes, eternity was a long time, something she probably knew better than most. She was probably right that I wasn’t ready. Yet, some blood-soaked goddess from time immemorial was drawing someone to set her free. Somebody had to intervene. Yes, someone else might, but they might not. It was my job to stand in the way of such things. Stupid or not, I’d do my job.

I looked across the table. “Where is the Raven’s Council?”

Gran didn’t answer for a long time and, when she did, it was in a dead voice. I stopped to kiss the top of her head as I left. When I reached the door, there was another first. I heard Gran crying.