They say ravens come when death is near.
They are wrong.
Ravens come when something is about to be remembered.
She has spent her life hiding among healers, deliberately keeping herself at the bottom of the ranks where no one thinks to look too closely. There is safety in being overlooked.
Because she carries the blood of the Ravenborne.
They are an ancient people who can shed their mortal forms and take the shape of ravens, creatures feared for their connection to death, prophecy, and forbidden knowledge. Once, they were revered. Then kingdoms learned what they could see.
So they were hunted.
Now she is one of the last.
She has never shifted. Never spoken of her blood. Never allowed herself to wonder why ravens seem to recognize her.
Until they begin gathering.
And with them comes the sight.
A dying king.
A crown stained in blood.
An army marching beneath a blackened sky.
And a future in which she stands at the heart of it all.
The healers taught her how to save a life.
Her ancestors taught the ravens how to foresee its end.
Now she must decide which inheritance will define her.