between the shadows and the soul

[Straia]

i am the violence in the pouring rain

i am a hurricane

She had known it would be enough. Beqanna erupts into chaos almost as quickly as Wichita crumples. Perhaps Straia would send Weaver to go get the girl from the afterlife, when all was said and done. But who knows, perhaps the mare is happier in death. Maybe she doesn’t want to come back at all.


Rhy’s heart is still clutched in her  mind when Tarnished finds her. If it had been anyone else, she would have been gone in a heartbeat. But he simply looks at her, without any real threat, and she smiles back just slightly – that wicked, trademark grin of hers. “Nish,” she says simply. He comments on the things going on around her, but he doesn’t ask, and she offers no explanation anyway. It’s better that way. Sometimes knowing less is really more.

Instead, he goes on, telling her to leave his children alone and he’ll stay out of the fight. She nods when he asks if the ravens can tell them apart, letting him know that they can. “I can’t stop them if they choose to fight. You know that. But I won’t seek them out, and I won’t target them.” His children have their own free will after all, and half of Beqanna is burning and being put out. Monsters are being created left and right. At this point, she is far from in charge of the situation.

He goes on though, giving her the information she’s always wanted, and has never know.

She loved her mother, no matter what anyone else thought of Frostweaver. She never loved her father, never would, but even he would be hard pressed not to be pleased with what she had become. Not what she was supposed to be, certainly. Straia was born to be a pretty little pawn, and she had already proved she was anything but. This was simply icing on the cake. For the Chamber.

She would leave her home with the legacy it deserved. In his way, she suspected Nish would do the same. She doesn’t say thanks though, doesn’t offer much of anything besides another small nod and, “If anything should happen to your children, find my daughter. She’ll set it right.”

He disappears into the sand seconds after she finishes. It is all she has left to offer. They both know that come dawn, Straia may be long gone from Beqanna.

Yael’s voice rings out across the Deserts then. Straia calls to her ravens, asking for more details. They inform her that Weaver is dangling in a dragon’s clutch above a burning forest. None of this really shocks her, and though perhaps she should go running and screaming in anger into the Chamber, Straia does not. It’s exactly what they expect her to do, but they’ve skipped one very important detail.

Weaver bears Death’s seal. Those faint blue lines that curve in an ancient rune upon her chest. She has the power to bring back the dead. Including herself. It makes her terribly hard to kill. Besides, the ravens have told her how Weaver is handling the situation, and it only makes Straia grin. Good girl.

Her grip on Rhy’s heart had disappeared when Yael put up the border. Not that it mattered. She’d gotten her wish, and it saved her the hassle of killing Rhy only to fetch the poor girl from the afterlife again anyway. She’s hardly about to actually kill her cousin. Straia’s shifted back to raven form now though, on her way to the Chamber anyway. Knowing the fighting would break out in mass any moment, and she should be in the Chamber. She should be with the Chamberlings.

straia

the raven queen of the chamber