[P] a night so black that the blackness hummed.

[Raum]

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

 

From out of the bleak the colt comes to him. The boy is black as a raven’s wing – a true Crow in colour and all. He has been nourished by wing and beak and claw and his eyes are like black pearls – did the Night Queen see that too-shiny glimmer in his young gaze?
 
“She wants water.” And now the colt is nervous energy, even the air crackles and trembles in his presence.
 
“Run.” Raum commands of the orphan and the child nods frantically, wheeling away as his long limbs carry him into a run. The Ghost watches the boy go, knowing he would burn out fast, that the run and ragged breath would disguise all the nervousness that ripples from him.
 
Slowly he returns his gaze to the queen as she lies. About her, her fabricated world begins to crumble. Her weakness is blood he tastes and he makes no move to go to her. Not when her magic is so broken, not before he needs to.
 
How long was it until the boy returns? He comes rushing, his breath a torrent, a rasp that rises into the dark night. It is abrasive in the silence, but the boy is exhausted too, his nervousness less. About him hangs a flask of water Raum’s gaze studies the colt and his pitcher and quickly the colt bleats boldly, “It is done.”
 
In silence the elder Crow merely nods to the colt and he skitters off back to their resting queen. Adorned in a skin that is not his own (for it is blacker than pitch) the Ghost fades back into the night to wait.
 
He stands within the dark, upon the fringes of the maze, like Charon. And like the boatman he waits. Soon the colt returns his eyes growing wilder the closer he comes. “You may wish to leave Novus.” Raum says slowly, regarding the orphan before him. “There is a family waiting to take you away. Go with them if you wish. Speak nothing of the Crows again.”
 
With that Raum is alone. His skull tips up the moon that shines, until a cloud passes over it. Then he looks into the eternal black of the night sky. He waits and he waits. Denocte’s Ghost waits until the poison would have started its work and then he slips like night into the Queen’s crumbling maze.

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@Isra - It Begins.