They were nearly there, when the skies opened and began pelting them with rain. Rannok cringed and expected thunder that never came. Instead, icy water soaked his clothes and saturated his wings until he was certain he could not fly. It felt like some sort of cruel trick; preventing their escape when he was certain the crow meant them harm.

"I would not harm you, if I could help it," the crow said as it perched upon his shoulders, its wings as waterlogged as his. It shook its tiny head and preened through its feathers with its beak. "I could not help the discomfort, I felt it too."

Rannok ignored the animal. He only didn't shoo it from his shoulders because he felt sorry for it. Sasha's horse jigged in the rain. Its feet made sucking noises as it pulled them from the mud. The ground pulled at his shoes and threatened to take them from his feet as he walked.

The great buzzing grew louder the closer they got, which was how he knew they were going in the right direction. The map was useless at this point; waterlogged to the point of being unreadable, but he didn't need it. He pushed past Sasha and shot off to the right, down a fork in the road that ascended a steep hill.

"Wait!"

He didn't heed her shouts. He ran down it so fast his feet nearly slipped and sent him sprawling to the end of the path. But something called him. He felt it fierce on the inside of his head, and in his bones. Like he was joining family he hadn't seen in a very long time. It made his heart beat fast and his head hurt.

"You feel it, too," the crow said. Rannok nodded, though it was not all he felt. In the bottom of his stomach sat a pit of dread. Something was going to happen when they got to the crows. He sensed it in the electricity that settled upon his tongue and wouldn't leave. It was impossible to tell whether it was a good thing or a very bad thing, which frightened him all the more. Not enough to make him ignore the call.

Rannok's feet sank deep into the cold mud at the end of the ridge. Rain still poured down through the canopy overhead. Sasha's horse skidded to a stop, spraying Erean with mud behind her. She gave Rannok a look.

"Are you okay?"

He turned to stare down the pathway. The call was a noose placed around his neck, pulling him down the narrow path, through the hanging mists and the trees. He broke into a run, not caring when one of his shoes sucked deep into the mud, then left his foot completely. The crow clung to his cloak, wings flapping to keep balance while Sasha trotted up behind him. The horse didn't bother him anymore. Nothing did. The only thing that mattered was the call. Flapping wings filled his vision. The sky from above the treetops. The sound of a hundred thousand crows calling in unison, their voices colliding in his head until he could scarcely hear the sound of his own breathing.

The path terminated at a steep hillside. A path wound its way to the top of the ridge. It was far too steep and narrow for the horses to climb. He started up them without so much as looking to see where his companions might be.

"Rannok!"

Sasha's voice gave him pause only for a second. She hopped down off her horse, still favoring her injured foot. Rannok's head spun.

"We need to go. I can't wait here."

"What's going on?" Her voice held just the slightest hint of concern as she helped Erean down off his horse. He breathed heavily and crouched as he placed a hand on Rannok's shoulder, only partially for balance.

"If we go up, I may not be able to make it down."

Rannok swallowed a lump in his throat. The crow nibbled on his earlobe insistently, then hopped down from his shoulders and onto one of the narrow ledges.

"Crow is in his blood. He must follow the call. It will consume him if he does not answer. It will seep into his marrow and pull until he turns inside out. He will die, if he does not heed it."

Erean's face curled into a sly smile, one that did not comfort Rannok at all. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears. The urge to race up the stairway and out of sight was nearly unbearable. It made him dizzy. It made it hard for him to stand. He shrugged off Erean's hand and turned up the stairs.

"We have no choice but to follow," Erean said to Sasha, though the words barely registered behind him. The cold rain made the narrow stairway slick, but there was no place to be careful. Rannok shook his wings a few times to relieve them of water, but they filled just as quickly.

He thought he saw something glowing, at the top of the ridge. Something beautiful and warm, where the rain did not sting his skin and the horses and thunder did not exist. A place where Sasha and Erean and the people he left in Agatine did not matter. Where Wren was just a far-off memory, and the caravan had never happened.

He reached for it, even as his legs began to lose strength from running. His muscles fought his mind to reach it with every step he got closer to the glow. He let out a heady laugh, one that was not entirely sense and reason but relief. He was home. This was home, more than any other place he had ever been. With one last burst of energy, Rannok reached for the glow and passed through it.

The call disappeared so quickly it nearly made him faint. Rannok blinked and covered his ears with his hands as the sound of crow-calls filled them. The animal left his shoulder and soared overhead, joined by thousands of others. The sound nearly deafened him.

The glow faded, replaced again by cold that soaked his skin and made him shiver, but the rain was gone. The trees here were so dense Rannok could scarcely tell one from the other. Hundreds of thousands of crows rested in its branches and in nests and tended to chicks who called in their small voices that filled his head so completely he thought it might burst.

Sasha placed a hand on his while Erean appeared on his other side. He leaned heavily on her shoulder, not convinced that he could still stand. A booming voice called through the tremendous racket, filling his ears so completely it blocked out everything else.

"Welcome. I have been expecting you."

"I heard it, too," Sasha said, before he had a chance to ask if she had. Erean nodded. He realized suddenly that he could not feel his companion anymore. Fear welled in Rannok's throat. He searched wildly for him in the tree branches, but there were so many crows he could scarcely tell one from the other.

"There is no need to be alarmed."

It was the last thing Rannok remembered hearing, before his head spun and he lost consciousness.