I watched her.
My master.
My Goddess, my grave.
The crow watched the woman. Her skin was like an old porcelain doll, cracked, yet veined. Fresh scratches marked her throat, where the blood still shimmered, kissed by her own claws. Her eyes, twin shards of turquoise drowning in a restless black around them. Her hair, a wild waterfall of midnight.
My beautiful death.
"I hear you, little crow," she sang aloud, though the crow had not spoken. "I love it when you think of me."
We share our thoughts, our breath, our rot.
We are in love.
She reached across the altar, her altar, and plucked a feather from the crow's ribs. It tore with a snap!
The crow bled deep violet smoke.
Beautiful.
She smiled. "Now…"
She lit me on fire.
Violet. Unholy. Soulfire.
YESSSSSSSSS-
It devoured me.
It kissed me.
It peeled apart my bones and whispered to stay as it burned me to ash.
The crow engulfed in violet fire; its ash circled and floated into the woman's hand.
"You're insane, Corvessa!" a voice cried out from the slab beside her.
Not a crow. Not yet.
He will be soon.
She turned her head, birdlike. Unblinking. She acted as a child, caught in a mischievous act.
Her hands still smoldered. Fire spiraled up her wrists.
"I didn't give you permission to speak," she said sweetly, "did I, little morsel?"
The man thrashed against the leather cords strapping him to the altar. Muscles ruined. Skin gone raw and red. One eye hung loose from its socket.
"Let me go, you witch!"
She laughed. It sounded like breaking glass.
"Oh? Still pretending you're the hero? Still pretending your soul is yours?"
She stepped forward.
The violet fire curled at her fingertip into a single perfect ember. She bent over to his ear.
"You think you're legendary," she whispered. "Let's test that."
She pressed her finger to his chest.
He screamed. A scream that folded in on itself, choking on its own heat, as his flesh curled back in ribbons.
"Submit," she said, tracing burning symbols into his skin. "Be mine. Be my crow."
"N-Never-!"
Her finger pierced his eye socket. Slid in. Deep.
He twitched like a rat in a gutter as she pulled his eye out.
She licked the fluid from her knuckle. Bit into the jelly-
Swallowed.
She giggled like a little girl.
Then she carved him.
She peeled his face like fruit. Plucked out his teeth like seeds. One by one. Singing lullabies between each pop. His cries turned into a whimper.
"Shh, shh, shh," she whispered. "You're going to be so beautiful."
The man convulsed, broken but still breathing. Still himself.
Corvessa sighed. "So stubborn."
She placed both palms on his chest.
And pushed.
Violet flame flooded into him. Not through the skin, through the soul. It burrowed into the marrow, into the roots of him.
He screamed again, but this time there was a change in it. Not pain. Not resistance. Acceptance.
Transformation.
"I'm yours!" He wept. "I'm your crow! Please let me be yours!"
Her smile bloomed like a rotten root.
"Good boy."
His body convulsed upward, torn from the table's shackles by unseen strings. The fire cocooned him, twisting him midair, bones cracking, splitting, curling in on themselves.
His scream became a caw.
The fire receded.
And in his place-
A crow.
A beautiful, hollow, broken thing.
She shuddered as she breathed him in. Her eyes rolled back in rapture. Her body bloomed in pulses of violet light.
"I love you," she moaned. "I love all my crows."
The crow perched on her shoulder. Its feathers bled smoke. Its eye socket still oozed and healed.
And in the silence that followed, her voice whispered through it:
We are one.
We are Corvessa. We are love.
Then.
The door creaked open.
Two men entered.
One, a scholar. Cloaked in mysterious power.
The other, ugly and pale, nasty red hair. Mouth curled in arrogance he hadn't earned.
Corvessa blinked, her joy undimmed.
"Oh? New crows?"
She took a breath.
"No…" she said, frowning. "Not crows. Not worthy."
"This is who you want to join us?" The ugly one asked, recoiling at the scent.
The scholar nodded. "Go on, Charles. Read her."
He did.
He shouldn't have.
Charles vomited.
Collapsed against the door, choking on bile.
"Aucteros, she's worse than Rhenvar," he gasped. "It's- she's not human."
"You peeked," Corvessa said cheerfully. "Naughty boy."
Her fingers glowed again, a violet fire swirling.
"And why have you come to my nest, little doves?"
Aucteros didn't blink. "I offer you a man."
"A man?"
What use do we have for a man?
All of our crows are men.
"Thousands of souls live inside him. Trapped. Screaming."
Corvessa stopped.
The fire went still.
"Thousands?" She whispered.
A King Crow?
A crow of crows?
Her jaw slackened. A red string of saliva dripped down her chin.
"You want me to join you," she said. "And in return, you'll give me that man?"
"I will."
She tilted her head.
Then she laughed.
"YES," she screamed. "YESYESYESYES- YES."
She leapt forward.
"I'll join you. I'll burn for you. I'll love him. I'll make him mine."
Aucteros smiled thinly. "Then we have a deal."
She licked her lips. Her mouth was already bleeding.
Time to make a new crow.