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The knight’s quest starts as many do, on his knees, a king’s sword pressed to his shoulder blades, swearing an oath to the land and the people. It starts as a seal bestowed upon a letter, to send back to his Lord Father, and the vice of obedience tightening around his wrists as he signs with a cross.
When he rises, whispers run amongst the court, pretty powdered faces turning away from him and stealing glances when he rises, nose to nose with the king, holding his head high.
“Sire, my sword is yours,” he says, in carefully practiced words, his accent as buried as it might ever be.
The king bows his head the slightest bit, and the knight takes a step back. “So it is,” he says. “You might know, then, that Our land has been haunted for long by the presence of a vile creature. You might like to prove yourself, sir Knight, as good a sword as you might ever be.”
The knight swallows, and bites back any sound that might have liked to escape his lips but agreement. “Yes, your Highness.”
“Good. You might then like to speak to Our huntsmen, come morning.” The king looks at the rest of the court, his eyes gliding over the knight as though he has suddenly been rendered invisible. “Be welcome!” he says loudly.
As one, the court echoes.
The knight is no longer the main attraction, and he slips, unnoticed, away from the room before they might even begin to suggest dancing.
Not for the first time, as he lets a chambermaid lead him to his quarters, – somewhere appropriately close to the rest of the court, but nowhere near anyone of import that might take offence at his southerness – he curses his father. Curses him for his poor handle on finances, and for not listening to his mother’s voice and advice. He curses his father, and his older brother, who would have been in his place, had been trained for it most of his life, but had decided to go and get married, a convenient few months before he would have had to swear.
And so he is the one to bring the dishonor of kneeling, of begging a king they’ve spent decades running from for the stability of a land that does not need him to thrive.
The knight drops his sword near the fireplace once the chambermaid closes the door, and undoes every piece of steel armor wrapped around him with tight leather laces. It is only then, when the weight is off of his shoulders, that his anger vanishes.
He will do as he must. For, even as his father might be a fool and his brother a coward, the people of his land do not deserve to suffer. And so he will prove himself, or fail to, and the obedience will be enough, nonetheless, to care for his family in the ways that matter most.
He sleeps and lets the sunlight wake him, curtains wide open.
The steel armor remains on the floor, near the chest at the foot of the bed, and instead he dons the simpler clothes he has packed, that do not chafe against his skin and do not weigh more than his little sister does, even as she is slowly growing out of childhood. He does not look the part of a knight, or at least, he does not look like those who choose to remain in court. He does not think he is much like them at all, either.
The huntsmen notice, when the knight walks into the lodge, but they do not stop their activities, all but one, that sets down the paring knife she is sharpening in favor of meeting him.
“Hello,” the huntsman says. She is a woman of middle years, plain as can be, long dark hair pulled back into a very sensible hairstyle, tight to the skin, and tanner than any of the courtiers, and a battery of scrapes and scars.
“Hello,” he replies, with a bow of his head. He does not waste time on other politeness, as he knows, huntsmen rather dislike it when people circle the subject they wish to discuss. “I was sent to ask about the creature that has been haunting this land, ma’am, and would be honored if you would share what information you have gathered with me.”
She considers him for a few seconds, and he lets her. She nods, after a while. “You’ve been knighted, then,” she says.
“I have, yes. Yesterday, in the evening.”
“Come.” She stands back, and makes space for him to walk in. “I will tell you what I know, and what I’ve learned.”
He bows again, even as she turns around. “I’m grateful, ma’am.”
She snorts. “Irna.” Then, to the other huntsmen. “Come, lads, we’ve got a new one.”
Some of the huntsmen laugh, and some of them shake their heads, but all set down their dice, cards, and weapons, heeding Irna’s softly-voiced command. The knight would not call her a commanding presence, but she very clearly is a commander.
“Which of you’ll take him to the woods, then?” she asks.
Eyes turn to one of the huntsmen, a younger man, with light skin and slanted eyes firmly marking him as being from the north, and long black hair tied back in a small tail in the middle of his neck. He glances at everyone around him and sighs. “It’s my turn, isn’t it?” he asks, with an overexaggerated sigh, voice lacking the accent the knight would have expected, but lilting oddly all the same.
One of the huntsmen pats his shoulder. “Couldn’t escape forever.”
“No, I suppose not,” he says, standing as he does so, then, to the knight. “I’ll show you what I know. Take your sword, knight.”
The knight stands as well. “I was hoping to borrow any armor you might like to spare, as well as a crossbow, if any of you is amenable. I cannot promise the return of every bolt, but I am accounted quite skilled. Certainly more so than with a sword.”
The huntsman looks him up and down, eyes trailing over him, and the knight doesn’t know what he’s looking for.
“Stefan–” he starts, and a tall, lithe, red haired man cuts him off with a hand.
“I’ll get one of my spares.”
Irna nods. “And grab him whatever we’ve got in the pool. Whatever’ll fit him.”
The knight bows his head in thanks and acknowledgement, and then he is at a complete loss on what to do, even as the huntsmen go back to their activities.
As much as he enjoyed spending time with the servants back home, he finds that it hasn’t left him with any more knowledge of how to converse with people who have not known him since he was a child, and are not interested in either his money, title, or land. It takes him all of twenty seconds to gather his hair and keep it out of his eyes with a ribbon.
Then, his hands are empty, and Irna is watching him.
“You hunt, lad?” she asks, breaking the silence.
He nods. “Not much, Irna, but I find that I enjoy marksmanship a great deal, although I was never quite as good with a bow.”
She tilts her head. “What are you marking, then, if you don’t hunt?”
He shrugs. “Particularly ugly bits of pottery.”
She laughs, an inelegant sound that makes the knight grin back at her, wide and genuine.
“That’ll do it.”
Stefan comes back into the room, carrying a crossbow and a quiver of bolts. He runs a hand on the body of the crossbow before handing it to the knight, with all the tenderness one might have for a child. The knight takes it with as much care, feeling the polished wood and the soft leather under his fingers, marked by age and use.
“It’s kind of shit,” Stefan says. “But I learned on it, and it’ll work. Take care of it, knight, I don’t wanna get it back in pieces.
The knight bows his head slightly. “I thank you, Stefan, and I will, to the best of my abilities.”
Stefan pats his shoulder. “I believe you. And for the record, I hope you make it out,” he says, very seriously.
The knight’s breath hitches in his chest with the heaviness of it. As he looks around, the huntsmen don’t look sorrowful, or in mourning, but there is an undeniable tension to their shoulders, a wariness in the way they look at the forest outside. The knight’s throat is dry when he swallows.
“I–” he starts, but is immediately interrupted by the young man, who kicks the door open with an armful of leather.
Just like that, the knight can breathe again.
The huntsman looks around the room, and sets the bundle down on a table. “What’s got into all you?” he asks cheerfully, looking at the few huntsmen around them, all apparently as off kilter as he is.
Irna shakes her head. “You know how they are. Come fetch your cloak while the knight gets dressed.”
The huntsman perks up, a smile on his face. “You’ve finished mending it?”
“I’ve finished mending it.”
With that, they both walk off to another corner of the lodge, and the knight is left with the other huntsmen, and ramshackle pieces of armor. Some of it, he knows at a glance, won’t fit, made for figures much smaller or bigger than his. Others he knows will.
It’s a short affair, one of muscle memory, even as he tugs the unfamiliar pieces into place. Though he doesn’t have much taste for hunting, he has sparred with his brother and cousins enough for the routine of tying leather cords and adjusting buckles and straps to fall into place. Even though the pieces aren’t the ones he’s used to, he doesn’t fumble like he would have, years ago.
Then, with his good cloak on his shoulders, he’s ready.
Irna and the huntsman wait for him outside of the lodge. The huntsman has donned some sort of feathered garment, wrapped around him and giving almost the impression of fur, if it wasn’t so very clearly black, and so much harsher in nature. It would drown him out, without the paleness of his skin, or without the fact that he looks at ease, as comfortable as the knight himself does.
He gives the huntsman a smile, and what he hopes is a questioning look.
“I keep ravens,” the huntsman answers. “I would much rather keep them past their passing, for I find them to be great companions.”
The knight nods. “Shall I call you ravenkeep, then?”
The huntsman studies him. The knight doesn’t know the customs of the north, if its people fear the fae as much as the ones of the south do, unlike the king and the people born to his land. He hasn’t given him his name, and he hasn’t asked for his in return.
After a second, he shrugs. “I am that,” he says. “And there are many huntsmen.”
“True that. Will you show me the woods?”
The ravenkeep looks at Irna, who nods. “Go. Be back before dark. Keep yourself safe, and him,” she says, in a tone that expects no argument.
The knight turns to her one last time. “Thank you, once more. Your and your man’s help will and have been invaluable.” He bows, more deeply than would ever be proper for their respective positions, and then they’re gone, the forest swallowing them along with the sight of her and the sound of the lodge.
***
The trees get denser and denser, and soon, the knight would be unable to walk out of the forest if he tried to do so, at least not without significant effort. He doesn’t know the land, doesn’t know the wildlife, can’t find the landmarks that he would, were he back home.
The ravenkeep does. It’s visible in the way he moves, sure of his footing, and the way he leads them through paths that the knight can’t distinguish from the greenery. There isn’t a single doubt in the way he walks, always a step ahead, never too far that the knight might lose sight of him. He doesn’t speak, but the knight can hear him hum under his breath, some tune that he doesn’t recognize.
Overall, if he wasn’t hunting for a creature that might or might not exist, and might or might not kill him, the knight would enjoy this, spending a warm fall day in the forest. Certainly, with his hawk, he might even have enjoyed hunting.
The ravenkeep stops, somewhere that, to the knight, looks like everywhere else. “This is where it happened last time,” he says, frozen into place.
“Last time?” the knight asks.
“Last time. The king’s been sending us soldiers and men. Most of ours have made it home, none of his have.”
He says it without levity, the words hanging in the air.
The knight swallows. “Ah,” he says, very eloquently.
The ravenkeep shrugs. “None of them have been anything but soldiers, most walked up in plate armor. You seem like you might actually know what you’re doing, you’ve got more of a chance than they did.”
“I– thank you, ravenkeep. But I do not know the life that exists in this forest, far from my home, and I would not be able to recognize friend from foe.”
“I would,” the ravenkeep says easily. “Stick to me. I am also less inclined to let you die than the other idiots.”
The knight smiles, something a little sheepish. “You’re very kind.”
“You’ve been polite, and you looked at Irna like she had something to say. That’s better than any of them could claim.”
“She is your leader, is she not?”
“In all but writing, yes,” the ravenkeep agrees, something on his face that the knight can’t decipher. “You’re able to see that. Many don’t see past her chest.”
The knight doesn’t have a good answer to this, so he doesn’t offer one. He shrugs, and crouches near the branches of a bush, that seem to have been broken and bent out of the way, by something at least as big as a hound. The ravenkeep does the same, shoulder to shoulder with him.
His feathered coat brushes against his skin. It’s much colder than he would have believed, the feeling sending a shiver down his spine.
“Is that where?” he asks.
“Yes. Although, it wasn’t me who accompanied him, so I have nothing but someone else’s recollection.”
The knight nods. “What happened, then?”
The ravenkeep takes a breath. “He was a soldier. One of the Captains. Recently promoted, and a bit of a hothead, who kept walking past Giroge and ignoring him, though he should have heeded him. It was in one of those moments, when he was almost too far for Giroge to keep an eye on him, that he got caught by something big and toothed and standing too tall to be a bear or wolf.” His fingers go and grab a broken branch, barely holding onto the bush, before he straightens and runs his fingers against deep gouges, dug into a nearby tree. “Giroge swears that it spoke to him, then, of a broken oath and of monsters.”
“It is a creature in truth,” the knight says. “I had believed it might be a particularly disheveled animal, or one that would not so easily be recognized in those parts.”
“Giroge saw a man half his age torn to shreds by something he did not know how to call. You might not entirely be wrong in that assumption.” He detaches himself from the tree. “Have you any experience tracking?” he asks.
The knight shakes his head. “No. I have only ever used my dogs, or occasionally my hawk.”
The ravenkeep considers him again, eyes peering just a little deeper this time, searching for something he evidently had not found before. He doesn’t know what that thing might be. Much like earlier, a shiver runs down his spine again, suddenly cold.
After a while, the ravenkeep gestures him over. “You will learn, then. Come. I’ll show you.”
***
They do not find the creature on the first day.
Irna, along with the rest of the huntsmen, seems surprised to see them both back by sunset, unharmed past the few scraps that are wholly inevitable. She opens the lodge to them easily, ushering them in and out of the cold with warm words and warm touch that the knight is surprised to be receiving.
She asks them, when they’ve got their hands around a warm bowl of stew, what they have found.
The honest answer, that the ravenkeep gives her before the knight might speak, is that they’ve seen nothing of note. They have not found the creature, nor have they found its den, nor have they stumbled upon any remains of those it has taken with it.
Some huntsmen believe them. Othrs tease about what else they might have done in the forest, if they’ve ever been at all, not to see anything of note, and as the ravenkeep only laughs with them, the knight doesn’t bristle. The easy sense of camaraderie warms him as surely as the stew – which is really quite good – would.
Irna offers, and so, he spends the night in the lodge, sharing a bed with the ravenkeep who has opened his to him, uneager to meet the king and take on his reproach of not having slain the creature just yet.
And in the morning, they go again.
They spend the beginning of the day walking back to the part of the forest they’d last been, a couple of hours away by foot, then the rest of it looking.
From what the huntsmen have told him, around the dinner they shared, none of the others have ever had to search. The creature always seems to find them, instead, with a deep growl and a mass that seems to almost obscure the sun in shadows, one even said.
It doesn’t, and they both make their way back to the cabin come sunset, and the knight listens to the huntsmen chatter around another pot of stew, and he spends the night in the same shared bunk, a pelt thrown at his face as he settles in for bed because he only mentioned running cold, under the thin blanket that seems to be enough for them all.
He enjoys it.
Every morning, from then on, goes much the same, although one time, he asks the ravenkeep what he’s humming, and he answers by singing words the knight doesn’t know, and that is enough, apparently, to start conversation.
Where their companionship had been perfectly amiable before, it becomes downright fascinating, the more he gets to know the ravenkeep.
The knight also finds that he quite enjoys learning the subtleties of hunting, so long as he’s not asked to take aim and shoot. He also finds that the ravenkeep might enjoy teaching, from the way he stops and freezes, every time he sees something he wishes to show him, a small smile on his face while he makes the knight guess what, exactly, he is looking at. He doesn’t get the answer right all the time, or even most of it, but nonetheless, he learns.
He sets braces for rabbits, and traps for deer, and sometimes, they bring back meat for the lodge, and he’s met with a clap on his shoulder when he does.
The ravenkeep tells him he is from a small, but bustling town, days north of here. He has sworn service to the king because his father had before him, and because he has found himself quite a talent for hunting, in the forest that borders their town. He doesn’t miss it much.
He shows the knight his ravens, one evening, leading him out of the lodge to fill up a few emptied-out logs with seeds and scrapes of meat that no man will eat. They gather around him, even before they have been offered with food, and the ravenkeep softens entirely, a sort of boyish joy painted on his face as they peck and fly and bring him trinkets from gods know where.
By the end, he looks astoundingly happy, has a small mound of shiny pebbles and a few broken pieces of jewelry, and the knight feels that same odd coldness, that same shiver again.
“Come, I’ve kept you out of bed long enough,” the ravenkeep tells him, and he cannot even think to refuse.
***
The king calls for him.
It was bound to happen, as fall turned into winter, and still the knight had not shown any sign of progress in slaying the beast. He’s not surprised when the servant comes, but he dreads it nonetheless.
Irna’s hand is warm and heavy on his shoulder when she bids him luck. Stefan’s crossbow stays exactly where he has set it, along with his armor. It looks as it would have any other morning, exceedingly familiar as it has become in the past weeks.
The ravenkeep walks him out of the lodge. He sets his cloak on the knight’s shoulders, heavy and warm, and his hands linger on his arms, holding in place for a few seconds.
They’re silent, like they used to be.
“I’ll wait for you,” the ravenkeep says, after a while. “When you’re back, there will be room for you, and a bowl of stew by the fire.”
The knight’s breath catches in his throat. “Then I will hurry, so that it might not go cold.”
The ravenkeep nods, and pulls away, hands falling to his sides. “Do as you must.”
Under the eye of the servant, the knight walks away.
It doesn’t take long to reach the king’s castle on foot, and even less so on horseback. The knight hadn’t brought his own horse when he travelled to the castle, and so far he hasn’t needed it for his hunting, but his father has still sent a few mounts along with him. He’s pleased to recognize the mare he’s riding now, a calm, beautiful animal, as one he has helped in training, however little that might be.
The servant doesn’t make conversation, and the knight doesn’t attempt to. The cloak around his shoulders keeps him warm, even as the wind blows on the both of them, making the feathers billow as though they had been sparked with life themselves. He can admit, he sees why the ravenkeep loves it so.
The king’s palace is much colder than the hunting lodge was. They’re greeted by guards at the door, barely sparing them a nod as they walk in.
An old heaviness finds its place in his chest, and dread pools at the bottom of his stomach as he roams the corridors, only finding his way through the servant’s will. They run into courtiers, who stare as they walk past, no doubt to gossip and rumour as soon as they’re out of sight. All of a sudden, the knight wishes he had cut his hair, when they reach the big doors to the throne room, or at least that he had washed it more recently, so that he might more easily be able to handle its kinks and curls. He wishes he had ran back to the rooms that were meant to be his, and chosen to wear his most proper garments, so that he might look even halfway the part of who he was meant to be.
He hasn’t, and so it is as himself that he meets the king.
Nothing has changed, in the weeks he’s spent in the lodge. The king waits for him on his throne, and he looks the exact same as he did the day he swore himself to him. He bows, more deeply and falsely than he has in a long time, and the king does not return the curtsey.
“Rise,” he tells the knight.
He does. “Your highness.”
“We’re told you haven’t yet slain the creature of the woods,” he says, the tone light but the words falling like accusations.
He keeps his head down as he speaks. “Your huntsmen have been most helpful, sire, but it appears I have so far been unlucky. Although I have spent my days in the woods, it seems as though the creature has kept its distance.”
He can’t know whether the king is looking at him, and has a feeling he isn’t. “That is unlucky. We would have believed the creature gone, had We not recently lost Count De Moliken’s son to it.”
“Sire, I mourn your loss, and his.”
“Yes, quite.” The king keeps silent for a few beats, and the knight dares not move. “You must understand, We have put Our faith in you. You are Our sword, per your oath, and mine. If it is cowardice, or lack of skill, that has left the creature alive, We are afraid We will no longer be able to claim that as the truth, as We are neither a coward nor a fool.”
It settles like a shroud on his shoulders. “Your Highness, I must assure you, I’ve done nothing but my utmost to see the creature gone.”
The king hums. “We will see. The creature will be gone by spring, We should hope.”
The knight swallows around an iron ball. “Yes, Sire.”
“Very well.” He stands, as he once did, weeks ago. “You are dismissed, and might begin your hunt again.”
“Thank you,” he says, meaning the words as a squirrel might mean its stillness. He breaks out of the bow, and his limbs feel leaden, although his spine is straight as a rod. The threat has not been spoken, but it hangs in the air above his head all the same, hangs in the dry fields and the few animals of his father’s land.
He will do as he must, he knows, as little as he may like it.
***
He doesn’t feel the warmth of the lodge as he returns to it. The outside cold clings to him as he eats the stew he is served, his lips pressed tight, as the king’s words spin in his head, over and over, as though the refrain of a drinking song. Irna speaks to him, and he doesn’t reply, eyes fixed on the fire burning in the hearth.
He does not think of what might happen to her, and to the huntsmen, if he fails. If he does, the misery will not let himself hunt, tomorrow.
The ravenkeep lifts the cloak off of his shoulders, when they reach their bed, laying it flatly at the feet, as he has done dozens of times before. The knight sits, and he lets the ravenkeep drag him down and under the covers, and then, he is warm, and the ravenkeep blows the candle out.
“What has the king said to you?” he asks.
“The creature must be slain by spring,” he replies softly. “If it is not, then he will no longer aid my father and his barony. It must be slain.”
“Ah.” He seems to think for a while, although the knight cannot see his face in the darkness. “We will find it. There are places I haven’t shown you, yet,” he says softly.
The knight’s eyebrows raise slightly. “There are?”
The ravenkeep breathes. He can feel him do so. “They’re more dangerous. More of the men have died there. I didn’t… want that, for you. But if you must kill the creature…” he trails off, and the knight can feel him breathe again.
“I must,” the knight replies, just as softly. “Although I very much hope neither of us will lose his life for it.”
“Your father has run his barony into the ground.”
“And yet, I love him, and I am loyal to the people who live in it.”
The ravenkeep is silent, then. Still, he is warm, and the knight, next to him, feels lighter than he has since morning.
***
They set out with a foreign gravity to their steps.
It’s different from the first time they walked out of the lodge, where the knight was unsure and afraid, but still didn’t know what, exactly, it was that he feared ; where the ravenkeep seemed not to share that fear even in the slightest. They don’t let silence fall between them. They fill the air with chatter, as they would any other morning, only it sounds odd and stilted to his ears, full of something that lingers, unsaid.
The familiar shiver runs down his back, when the ravenkeep looks at him, just looks at him, for a few moments before taking him down a path he had never noticed before, seemingly born out of nowhere between the trees.
“Stick close,” the ravenkeep tells him, voice much like Irna’s.
The knight does.
“Don’t move,” he tells him, chin up and eyes scanning the bushes around them.
The knight doesn’t.
The ravenkeep looks at him again.
His eyes reflect the dappling of the sun that makes its way down to them through the thick branches above their heads. He wonders how he’s never noticed it before, every time they have gone to bed together, and every time they’ve spoken only by candlelight.
He takes the knight’s hands, and his nails are as sharp as talons and his skin is just as thick. He wonders how he couldn’t have known, when he’s wanted to do little else, in their quieter moments.
He moves, and the cloak moves with him, as a part of him.
Oh.
Oh.
“It’s you,” the knight says softly.
“It’s me,” the ravenkeep answers, voice thin and tight.
The knight stares.
Now, his hair is something other, falling in his face in long, barbed feathers ; it seems to stretch into his skin, on his forehead and cheeks, as though he were himself a bird. Now, his hands are clawed, when the knight brings them up to look at them, though they are gentle. Now, he is not human.
He is beautiful.
The knight breathes. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Are you going to try to slay me?”
And that was the question, wasn’t it? He had to. If he wanted to please the king, if he wanted his father’s people to live, he had to. He had no choice in the matter, just like he had no choice but to lay his life on the line. But gods, the ravenkeep had taught him how to track, and taught him the words, however badly pronounced, to a childhood lullaby, and he wants little less than to lose him.
He brushes his thumb on the ravenkeep’s knuckles. “Why kill the king’s men?” He asks, rather than giving him an answer.
“Because he broke his vow,” he answers. “My people have given him fertile crops and bountiful hunts, and yet, he has taken acres of our land as his.”
“Why not kill him?”
“Because he has warded his doors and windows with iron, and he has guarded his neck the same.”
The knight looks at him, thoughtful.
He is not a man, perhaps, but he is not cruel. He could have him dead, if he wished, if only by a flick of his hands, and his talons dug into his skin, and yet he waits, and he remains whole and alive.
The king has sworn to him protection for his obedience. There he is, in the middle of the woods, standing on the graves of those to whom he has sworn the same.
“One could say he has broken his vow to me,” he says slowly. “But without him, my father’s lands will die. And though I am not loyal to him,” the words feel like treason even as he says them, but they ring true, “I am loyal to my land. And I would have, I expect, been loyal to you soon enough.” He breathes. “I do not wish to kill you.”
The ravenkeep’s talon brushes on the back of his hand, and the knight shivers. “Yet you must.”
“No. I must find a solution we both find agreeable.”
After a moment of silence, the ravenkeep says: “I would take you to my people. But you would never see this land again.”
The knight's breath hitches in his chest. He might allow not seeing his father again, might allow not seeing his brother, but– he is not one for loneliness. He would like to have the same companionship as he did with the lodge, the same budding friendship, that he doesn't know the ravenkeeps people will offer.
“Would you keep my fathers fields fertile? Would you keep them spares from the plagues and mice?” he asks.
The ravenkeep stiffens, and drops his hand. “You ask me the same as the king I wish to see dead?” his voice croaks, so unlike what the knight knows it to be.
He doesn't flinch, for the ravenkeep has yet to show him that he should. “I would tell you my name, so that you might be sure that I’d be true. I would be your sword, as I can pass the iron around his neck. I would kill him, for his broken vows. And I would ask, in return, for my people to live.”
“You would give me your name?” the ravenkeep asks, his voice softening again. “For my oath, you would give me what is at the core of you? You would tie your life and mine, so that you might never stray, so that you might remain loyal to me, in death and plague and warm summer evenings?”
The knight inhales sharply.
He trusts him.
He trusts him with all that he has.
“Aube. My name is Aube, and I am giving it to you, ravenkeep.”
He doesn't feel any different, but the ravenkeep does, taking in a breath as he says the words. “Aube. Naissance du matin, mort de la nuit. This name will never be yours again. You have vowed yourself to me,” he says, with something like awe.
“I have. I am your sword, ravenkeep, and I will kill the king that has wronged us.”
“You are my sword,” the ravenkeep echoes, “and I will keep your land fertile and your crops healthy, so that your people may thrive.”
The knight offers him a hand, and the ravenkeep takes it, clasping their palms together.
“And so I vow myself to you, Aube ” the ravenkeep ads softly, “and give you a name to call in Ivoreth, for I will be loyal and true.”
A shiver runs down his spine. “And so I vow myself to you, Ivoreth,” the knight answers.