Interlude: The Raven’s Silence
Madach ruled not by crown or council, but by strength, fire, and fear. He built no court. He carved no lineage. He raised his son in the keep he built — in stone, in silence, in shadow.
“You are not a boy,” he once told him. “You are O’Coyle.”
The child did not know what that meant, only that the others bowed when they said the name.
But even legends are mortal.
One week before he vanished, Madach came to Benedict in the night — not as a war-chief, but as a father. He sat by the fire, silent for a long while, before speaking:
“She came to me,” he said. “In a dream. The wind parted, and she stepped through it — same as the night you were born. No older. No less terrible.”
“She said it’s time.”
Benedict had asked who she was.
But Madach only stared into the flames.
“You’ll know. One day. She walks with you still.”
At dawn, he saddled his horse, kissed no one, and rode out alone.
They found his sword three days later, wedged deep into the earth at the edge of a cliff high above the loch — cold, untouched. Around it: a circle of raven feathers, black as ink, still as death.
No blood. No body. No sign of struggle.
Just sky. Wind. And silence.
Some whispered he’d fallen. Others said he’d taken his own life — or been taken by old enemies.
But Benedict told himself another truth. The only one that eased the hollow ache in his chest.
“He flew,” he whispered. “He went with her — into the aether.”
“And one day… I’ll see them both.”
He was fifteen winters old. No longer a child. Not yet a man.
But now, he was Laird of O’Coyle. The Raven Laird
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
Chapter Two: The Blood of Ravens
Nightfall swept across the keep of Caer Fitheach like ink spilling across the sky, the kind of dark that stole fire from torches and seemed to muffle sound. The Highland wind, usually constant and whispering, held its breath. Somewhere beyond the walls, a raven cried once — then silence.
Benedict, fifteen winters old, sat cross-legged on the cold stone of his chamber floor, the hearth casting a red flicker against his face. He wore only his tunic, the black-and-ash crest of House O’Coyle stitched into the chest — a fledgling raven still learning to fly. Yet his eyes did not waver. He had already been warned.
Earlier that day, during sparring drills in the practice yard, he noticed the sidelong glances. The whispers. The way some of the newer clansmen, fresh from the borderlands, watched him not with deference, but doubt.
"He’s no laird,” one had muttered, loud enough for ears to catch. "He’s but a boy whose father vanished like smoke on the wind." And then, the harder blow: a friend — Darragh — had confessed under weight of guilt. His own father among those plotting treachery, believing Benedict too young, too soft to carry the raven banner.
They meant to kill him that very night.
Benedict did not flee. He did not bar the door. He doused the fire until only coals remained. He sat in the shadowed warmth of the stone like a wolf in its den, blade unsheathed and resting across his lap — the same blade his father once bore.
The first assassin came with a silent step, dagger drawn, breath hushed. The second followed. Both cloaked in the gray-black of false brotherhood.
Benedict let them close. He even closed his eyes a moment — not in fear, but memory.
"You are not a boy," his father once said, voice low like thunder over moorlands. "You are O’Coyle. You are shadow and fang and sky."
They lunged. He moved like smoke, like legend — sidestepped one blade, drove his into the ribs of the other. A cry choked in the dark. The second, wide-eyed and stumbling, found no mercy. Benedict slit his throat clean, quick, unblinking.
Two corpses bled on his chamber floor. Two souls for the ravens.
He did not wait for sunrise.
Barefoot and bloodstained, Benedict stormed into the council chamber, the wolf-fur doors flung open with a crash that scattered embers from the braziers. His hair hung loose, dark with blood. His tunic soaked crimson from collar to hem. In one hand, he still held the blade. In the other — he carried the signet of the traitors, torn from one of their belts.
Gasps rippled. Elders stood. One man reached for his axe.
"Sit," Benedict growled, voice low and ragged. "Sit and hear your Laird speak."
No one moved.
"I am Benedict, son of Madach. Blood of the Raven Laird. Flesh of the Highlands. And you—" he pointed with the blade to four men seated along the east wall, the ones Darragh named — "—are cowards, liars, and traitors."
The room froze.
"You sent knives to my bed while the crows slept above the keep. Now watch what becomes of those who betray the shadowed wing."
In one terrible rush, he leapt across the room.
What followed was not a battle — it was a purge. One by one, he carved down the dissenters. No hesitation. No pause. One tried to flee. Benedict threw his father’s knife, straight and true. It landed between the traitor’s shoulders, splitting his spine.
When it was over, seven bodies lay cooling on the stone floor. Benedict’s breath rasped in the chamber’s stillness. He turned to the others — elders, warriors, kin.
"Let it be known," he said, voice hoarse but steady, "that the Raven Laird has returned. And that betrayal is answered not by sword… but sky."
The bodies were taken before dawn.
Up to the high cliffs above Loch Gaothach, where the wind screams and the eagles ride. There, their flesh was left to the ravens and the crows — the first aerial burial in the memory of Clan O’Coyle. A new tradition born in blood.
The bones, once picked clean, were gathered and placed into cairns with no names — only dark stones etched with the raven’s talon, marking shame and warning.
Benedict stood watching as the carrion birds descended.
Some said they saw a larger raven among them — too large for nature, winged like a shadowed omen, circling once over the boy before disappearing into the clouds.
They whispered that it was Madach. That the old Laird had come to watch his son rise.
From that day forward, none questioned Benedict's right to lead.
He bore the title his father once carried — not by decree, but by blood and blade.
The young Raven Laird had carved his name into the Highland wind.
And the ravens remembered.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
