Chapter 38: Nevermore

Rose's POV

Lissa and I were taking a walk together outside. It had been a few hours since Dimitri had proposed to me, and Lissa had wanted to spend time alone with me. We were laughing at a joke she'd made when a raven suddenly flew in front of us and landed on the ground.

"What the hell?" I arched an eyebrow.

The raven appeared to be in a formal position, extending its wings and bowing its head.

"Rose... it looks familiar." Lissa said.

"It's a raven." I shrugged.

"Rose, what if this is the raven I healed back at the Academy?" Lissa pondered.

I did remember her healing a raven before we ran away, but it had flown away and made no appearances afterwards. Why would it follow us to Court? Tasha walked by just then, sparking anger in me and annoyance in Lissa.

"You know, she's one of the final three candidates for Queen. It's just me, Ariana, and her." Lissa said.

"Not if I murder her." I said.

"You can't murder anything other than Strigoi. Besides, just being accused of murdering a Queen is bad enough, but it's going to be worse if you actually murder a candidate for Queen." Lissa pointed out.

"You'll always be my moral compass, but can you spin into the murderous south every once in a while?" I teased.

"No, we're sticking to the good north." Lissa smirked.

The raven flew at Tasha, pecking at her head. She screamed and Lissa and I covered our mouths in shock.

"Should we help her?" Lissa asked.

"The fact that you have to ask should give you an answer." I shrugged.

So Lissa and I watched Tasha and the raven for a moment.

"We can't just leave her like that." Lissa finally said.

"What can we possibly do? I don't want it to start pecking at me too." I pointed out.

Lissa had a pondering face until she brightened and said, "Nevermore. Hurt her nevermore."

The raven stopped, seemed to smirk at Lissa, and flew to her side. Tasha immediately got angry and started running up to us, as if we'd caused the attack.

"You know this wasn't our fault and you're going to leave us alone now." Lissa compelled Tasha.

Tasha's face was just like the other people Lissa had compelled as she nodded and walked away.

"That was a close call. And why did you say nevermore?" I asked.

"It was a quote from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe." Lissa shrugged.

"You quoted a poem just because it was about a raven?" I scoffed.

"He obviously responded to it." Lissa pointed out.

"If that's really the raven you healed, why is he back now? Why not at the Academy? Having an attack raven would've been badass." I smirked. "Especially with Mia."

"Maybe we should try asking him." Lissa suggested.

"How do you ask an animal a question? And how do you expect him to answer?" I questioned.

"By using Oksana's mind reading technique. The raven obviously understands us, so maybe we can understand his thoughts." Lissa said.

"Liss, animals only understand what we're saying based on physical and emotional cues. I doubt he can actually speak, even in his head." I said.

"Let's just try. And you can look through the bond while I do it." Lissa said.

I sighed. "Fine, just do it."

I tapped into the bond as Lissa asked our feathered friend why he was suddenly here. In broken English, the raven said, "Danger. You in danger."

As shocked as I was to hear the bird's thoughts, I couldn't help but say, "That's an understatement. We're always in danger, but why now?"

"More danger." He answered.

"How do you know how to speak?" I asked.

"Study you. I study you through bond." He said.

"People from other countries learn English by spending a lot of time with native speakers. If he's been tapping into the bond since I healed him, his thoughts in broken English make sense." Lissa said.

"So you're saying we accidentally taught an animal how to think in English through the bond?" I was so confused.

"Yes." The raven thought.

"Do you know what danger we're in? And how did you know in the first place?" I asked.

"Enemies fake being friends. Animals sense danger. I watch you for long time." He answered.

"Why did you attack Tasha?" Lissa asked.

"You no like her. Rose want murder her." He answered.

"I like him." I grinned. "But you shouldn't kill Tasha just because I don't like her."

"No, I hurt her same way she hurt you. She make you want your eyes poked out." He said.

"What?" Lissa asked.

"How do you know that?" I'd felt like having my eyes taken out when I saw Tasha and Dimitri, but I hadn't told even Lissa that, and the fact that the raven knew was creepy.

"Bond affect all of us. I sense Lissa, you sense Lissa, Lissa sense you, I sense you." The raven explained.

"But that doesn't make sense. Our bond is only reversed because Lissa saved my soul. You aren't part of that equation." I said.

"Bond work weird ways." He shrugged. "And you important to Lissa, so you important to me."

"I think I said that same thing to Christian. Huh, funny how irony works." I said.

"You and I same. We protect Lissa. We love Lissa. Lissa connect us." He said.

"I really like this bird." I said. "I think we should keep him."

"Never leave Lissa again." He nodded.

"Do you have a name?" Lissa asked.

"Name in bird language. Won't translate to English." He said.

"I think I'll call you Allan." Lissa said.

"We're naming him after that poet?" I scoffed.

"At least I didn't pick Edgar. We would've started calling him Eddie, and human Eddie would get confused." Lissa shrugged.

"Me like Allan." The raven said.

"Fine, you are now Allan the attack raven." I joked.

"Yes." He nodded.

When we went back to Dimitri, he asked, "What have you two been doing? That was a really long walk."

"We got a new pet and taught him to speak." I said.

"Haha, very funny, Roza." Dimitri said.

"No really, we did. His name is Allan, and he's our attack raven." I said.

"He's not going to be used as an attack raven!" Lissa exclaimed for the millionth time.

"Hey, he said he wanted to protect you." I pointed out.

"Yes, protect. Not injure for no reason." Lissa said.

"What?" Dimitri questioned as Allan landed on my shoulder.

"I'll explain later, Comrade." I smirked.