💥 TRENDING: Id/insmni - Full Archive

`You sound... different tonight, Jago. Is the pain worse than before?'

`Yes,' he admits freely, 'but your voice eases it. What is it that you wished to speak of?'

**`I have questions. Who is the Prince of Crows?'**

Sevatar takes a breath, letting her voice wash against his mind the way the darkness brushes over his flesh. Her words quench the crushing fire raking through his thoughts. None of the dead voices in his dreams do that. None of the others bring relief.

`Did you pluck that name from my head, little one?'

`No. You spoke it last time, when the pain was fierce. You moaned it out loud. Who is the Prince of Crows?'

**`I am. It is what my brothers call me.'***

`What is a crow?'

`You ask the strangest things.'

He closes his eyes and thumbs their sore lids with bloody fingertips.

'A crow is... Nnh. On what world were you born?'

`Terra. But I was taken by the First Legion when I was very young.'

`Ah, one of the Earthborn. I'm honoured. If you are from Terra, I assume you know what a bird is.'

`Yes. I've seen them in books. Is a crow a type of bird?'

`Black of feather and dark of eye. It feeds on the bodies of the dead, and sings in a raw, croaking caw.'

**`Why are you a prince of birds?'**

Another chuckle leaves his parched throat. Sevatar leans his head back against the force field, feeling its angry hum vibrating through the back of his skull. **`It's a title. A joke between my brothers and I. Crows feed on corpses... and I make a lot of corpses.'**

The dead girl is silent for a time. He can feel her in the back of his mind sometimes, even when she says nothing. Her presence is like the sweep of invisible searchlights. He knows when he waits beneath the ghost's unseen gaze.

`Are you lying to me, Jago?'

`No, little one. It is true, but it is not the whole -truth.' Sevatar licks his cracked lips, tasting the blood upon them. 'It is, however, enough truth for now.'