At least eight more pirates in torn clothing and oddly-assorted jewelry milled below the magnolia canopy, stacking speckled blue pots—the local signature of a dishmaker in Emer, only one town over. In their midst a squat fire smoldered its last.

A young man crouched over the embers, stirring them with a stick. His black curls were pulled back in wet strands and a raven skull leered on the shoulder of his tatty greatcoat, spewing its own feathers. As the wind changed, the man winced, turned his head away from the smoke, and coughed. In the fire’s ash-bed more raven feathers ate themselves inwards in white rings. They crumbled to gray when the man’s stick disturbed them.

“Burn the feathers of a raven killed at midnight, and Aswani will show you danger,” the man intoned with faint sarcasm. “Maybe I just don’t know what danger looks like.”

–Elyan White, “Lost and Found”

There’s the villain. Seems well-behaved, doesn’t he?