Ravensblood Forest The white owl in the belfry sits.

No sweet words were spared for the child whose life had ended before it could truly begin. Stryx was not a heartless creature, she tended to the grave with care, but she was also lacking faith in a higher power. What was dead would stay dead; this little life had been disposable. It would be missed until it was forgotten utterly, and, she supposed that was a sad thought, just not one that would affect her.

Once the dirt had settled, she placed a sprig of something green upon it gingerly, then turned from it. The forest would take these remains and devour them. They would come to life in another way—a sapling maybe, or a patch of flowers netted in the shadows. Life would go on. The woman tread back the way she had come: through forest, down the ridge, ambling across the barrows, until the taste of salt returned to the air.

She had not washed the soil from between her toes. Dirt spoiled the grizzle of her limbs. Her body was aching from all the travel in such a short time; but the return to the Sound was faster than the initial departure, and she came to the mouth of the grotto with the midday heat ebbing. The sounds of movement inside told her that the woman was awake, perhaps even mobile—which was a good sign.

Stryx poked her head in to the grotto's yawning mouth, her eyes tired but friendly. Good afternoon, she quietly offered to the new mother, speaking softly so as not to wake her newborns.