So it came to pass that Ezekiel learned the truth of Alaine’s blood—that she was truly chosen by the stag-king, as her stories had spoken of. Did that make him a raven, then? Perhaps. A raven with savage instincts like an eagle. He was some kind of monster, of this there was no doubt. He had committed a crime against the thing that was not a god to him and knew in his heart that there was no turning back. No ritual had been performed to honor the dead son; he had brought this upon himself.
Rippling fury grew at the idea. Ezekiel was still very much a boy, and like all boys, he had not developed wisdom yet. A threat was a threat even if it came from a spirit (demon? god?) and the strange thing that had come from the wolves in the shape of a coyote bristled. “You have no power here,” he hissed, his voice turning hoarse and strange. The voice of Badb, of the Raven King that had long ago claimed the rocky lands on which they stood. War was eternal. Purgatory was eternal. Shadows cast strange shapes on his back, turning the black patch into something larger, amorphous (wings, perhaps). His body felt strange to him. “Peccavi. Alea iacta est quibus finem.”
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