by G. A. Aiken
“Iz!” Brannie called out. “Annwyl’s back.”
“Let’s go and deal with our mad queen.”
“Thanks, Rhona.”
“Yeah, sure. Now go on. I’ll be right out.”
Izzy walked out and Rhona grabbed her weapons, putting them on before she followed. Vigholf stood outside the alcove, eating a turkey leg and grinning down at her.
“Eavesdropping, Northlander?”
“Just listening to someone handle an awkward situation brilliantly.” He grinned. “Babysitter.”
“Oh, shut up with that.”
Varro walked around the corner and that’s when he came face-to-face with the crazed queen.
“Where is he?”
“If you mean King Gaius—”
“Look,” she said, dropping her hands onto his shoulders. “I don’t have time for games. Where is he?”
Varro pushed her hands off him and walked around her. “Gaius made himself perfectly clear yesterday. I can assure you that nothing has changed since then.”
“The open games are tomorrow, aren’t they?”
Varro stopped walking and slowly faced the queen. “What?”
“Today they have games of all the well-known fighters. But tomorrow is the open games. Anyone with coin and the willingness to die in the arena can sign up. Yes?”
“Yes. How did you—”
“According to my mate’s father,” the unstable female—although she looked much saner at this moment than she had the evening before—put her arm around Varro’s shoulders, “I’m a right little brawler. So let’s have some fun with that, eh?”
Rhona was in the middle of her meal when Annwyl crouched in front of her. The queen looked different . . . clear-eyed. Rational. Well, as rational as she had looked before the war against the Irons.
“I’ve been told you’re an excellent blacksmith,” Annwyl began with no preamble. “Is that true?”
“Did my father tell you that?”
“No. He just said you were missing your true calling. I heard from someone else.”
“Who?”
“Can we discuss that later? Are you a blacksmith or not?”
“Well—”
“She is,” Vigholf volunteered for her. “A really excellent one who’s considering coming back to the Northlands with me when this is over so she can make weapons for my brethren.”
When the two females looked at him, he grinned. “Just trying to help.”
“You must be really good,” Annwyl said, “if you’ve got a Northland male singing your praises.”
“Northlanders don’t sing,” Vigholf felt the need to say.
“I can help you, Annwyl,” Rhona said, before Annwyl and Vigholf got into a heated discussion about what Northlanders do and don’t do. “Tell me what you need.”
“You can’t be serious,” Gaius argued.
“She’s the one being who could possibly get Aggie away from Vateria. A mad bitch against an evil one. This plan . . . it could work.”
“Or we could just be giving Vateria what she wants. Then she’d have Queen Annwyl and my sister.”
“Gaius—”
“No, we’re not doing this.”
“Why not?” Startled, they both looked up to find the queen standing at the cavern entrance, watching them.
“Because no matter what the world says about me,” Gaius explained, “I’m not that much of a monster to turn a female, any female, over to my cousin. She especially likes females to . . . play with.”
“You may not be that much of a monster”—Annwyl grinned—“but I am.” She walked into the cavern. “First off . . . I’m sorry about what I said yesterday.” She shrugged. “My head hurt.”
Probably from all those voices screaming in there. But Gaius only said, “I understand.”
“You know . . . I have twins. Talan and Talwyn. All they do is fight. Constantly.” Her smile was warm. “But don’t try to get between them. Or, even worse, don’t hurt one and think the other will let you get away with it. Talwyn can be clear across the castle grounds or on a different floor, and she’ll know when Talan’s in trouble. She feels it. I know she does.”
Annwyl stood in front of him, her hand reaching out, calloused fingers cupping his cheek. “I understand how much you hurt, Gaius. And how scared you are for her. But you can’t let that fear stop you from taking this chance to get her out. We have to get her out.”
“Why? Why do you want to get her out so badly?”
“It’s complicated. But to do what I need to do, to get what I need, I have to help you first. Let me.”
“I send you in there, Annwyl, I’m sending you to your death. And that’s if you’re lucky.”
“I stopped fearing death a long time ago. You know . . . after I actually died. It changes your perspective.” She frowned and added, “Vateria’s destroying your sister as we speak. So I help you. . . . Then you help me. An alliance, of sorts.”
“You control the entire Southlands, and yet you’re willing to risk your life doing this?”
“Because I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my twins. And we both know that if Thracius wins, they won’t live long.”
Gaius glanced at Varro, but his friend was leaving it all up to him. But before Gaius could agree—and they all knew he would because he’d run out of choices—he noted, “You seem different today, Annwyl.”
“Yeah. The wolf licked my head.”
The two friends looked at each other again, but this time there was definitely more panic involved.
“What?” Gaius asked.
“My head always feels better after he licks it. Although I’m hoping that won’t be necessary anymore once I get some real sleep.”
“And do wolves always . . . lick your head?”
“No. Just this one. I’m hungry,” she sighed and walked away. “Hope you don’t mind,” she tossed back at him. “We’re using your forge.”
“At this point,” Varro admitted, “I usually tell you that it could be worse. But honestly, I can’t even . . . there’s just no . . . I’m at a loss!”
So was Gaius, but as king, he couldn’t really say that out loud.
Chapter 29
Edana saw them too late. Somehow they’d slipped past them all and made their way to the tunnels.
When she realized, she charged after them, Breena and Nesta following without question. She was able to trip one with her tail, then bring down her broadsword, splitting his spine.
She followed after her sisters, who’d kept after the other three Elites. They were nearing the exit, and Edana didn’t want to lose them in the forests.
“Stop them!” she yelled at her sisters. “Don’t let them out!”
Nesta tackled one of the Elites from behind. Once on the ground, she used a dagger to open his throat. Breena flew over the head of another and met him head-on with her knife.
But the last one . . .
Snarling, Edana went after him. He was nearing the exit and she didn’t think she’d reach him in time. But she saw her cousins near the exit. The problem was . . . it was Celyn and Éibhear. And they were gods-damn fighting again!
“Éibhear! Celyn!” she called out. But her cousins were too busy shoving each other, poor Austell once again trying to separate them.
“Éibhear!” she screeched, still running, still trying to catch up.
Her cousin turned, looked at her.
“Stop him!”
Confused, Éibhear blinked, but then he caught on. He and Celyn dove at the Elite, but the Iron slipped past them and shot out the entrance.
“No!”
“We’ll get him!” Nesta and Breena yelled, the pair charging after the Elite.
Fed up, wishing Rhona was here, Edana turned her attention to the two idiots who’d been—once again!—fighting while everything fell apart around them.
Getting to his claws, Éibhear quickly apologized. “Edana, I’m so—”
“I don’t want to hear it. From either
of you!” she said before Celyn could add his apology. “That is it.”
Nesta and Breena returned, shook their heads.
“They must have been waiting for him,” Nesta said. “Once he took to the skies—”
“—arrows rained down. No way we could get through that to get to him,” Breena explained.
“Sorry, Edana.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. It was these two!” she accused her cousins.
“Edana—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She began to pace in front of her cousins. “Do you see what you did with all your fighting? Do you?” She stopped in front of the two males. “This centaur shit ends here. Do you understand me? Or I swear by all the unholy gods that when Rhona gets back—”
“When Rhona gets back from where?” another voice asked from behind her.
Edana briefly closed her eyes at the sound of that voice. Damn.
She did try lying, though. “Oh, Mum, yeah, Rhona just—”
Bradana yanked Edana by the neck of her chest plate and pulled her close.
“Where is she, girl? And don’t you dare lie to me.”
After spending all day at the forge, Rhona was glad for a break. She washed off in the lake that Annwyl showed her and then returned to the alcove she was sharing with Vigholf. As soon as he saw her, he smiled, surprising her with his tenderness.
“Here,” she said, handing him his hammer and ax. “It didn’t need much work, but after that time with the wyvern, figured it couldn’t hurt.”
“Thank you.” He examined the weapons, nodded. “Excellent. What did you do for Annwyl?”
Rhona tossed her own weapons to the floor and sat down on her bedroll beside Vigholf. “I did as much as I could for her, trying to remember everything new my father showed me when we were at Garbhán Isle. And Annwyl seemed happy with what I came up with.”
“But?”
“But what if it doesn’t work? What if it fails her just when she needs the damn thing most?” She shook her head. “I wish my father was here. He could have done so much better.”
“Centaur shit. I know you made something wonderful.”
“Such faith in me.”
“I know what I’ve seen. I have faith in that.” He put his weapons aside. “What is it, Rhona? What’s bothering you?”
“That we sit here, planning what’s sounding more and more like a suicide mission, while our kin . . .” Rhona closed her eyes. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with the triplets. Or any of my siblings.” She smirked. “Didn’t bother with Mum, though.”
“I haven’t been able to reach any of my brothers or Meinhard either. Or my mother. I doubt that means the worst, though.”
“I know. But the triplets are alone, yeah? On their own. Who’s going to watch out for them?”
“They don’t need anyone to watch out for them.” Vigholf leaned in, looking her in the eyes. “Have you not watched them, Rhona? Have you not seen the skill with which your sisters kill? You’ve trained them well. Better than anyone else.”
“We should still be there, by their side.”
“But we’re here.”
“And we’ll be dead before the suns set tomorrow.”
Vigholf lifted Rhona onto his lap, his arms around her waist. “That’s not a positive outlook.”
“How can you talk to me about positive anything?” Rhona lowered her voice and added, “Rumor is that Annwyl is going around telling people a wolf licked her head.”
“What?” Vigholf asked on a laugh.
“That’s what she said. That she felt better because a wolf licked her head. And that’s who we’re following into the Provinces tomorrow.”
“Was it a big wolf? Or just a good-sized dog?”
Rhona tried to get off Vigholf’s lap, but he held her in place.
“I was just asking,” he insisted.
“No. You were making fun, but that woman scares me!”
“She scares everyone.” He thought a moment, then added, “Except Izzy. She doesn’t scare Izzy.”
“If you knew Izzy’s life story before she came to Briec and Talaith that realization wouldn’t make you feel any better.”
“So you’re just going to give up?”
“I can’t give up. I’m a Cadwaladr. We foolishly push on until our last breath. Like most diseases . . . it’s in the blood. You know, like idiocy.”
He frowned. “Idiocy isn’t a disease.”
“It is to me.”
Bradana paced in front of her twins . . . er . . . triplets.
Damn girls. Protecting their sister without thinking about the consequences.
Bradana was no fool. She knew the loyalty of her offspring was with their eldest sister. And Rhona had earned it. But the one thing none of them could say was that their mother wouldn’t do everything and anything to protect every last one of them. Even her stubborn eldest child!
“We’re sorry, Mum.”
“Yeah. Really sorry.”
“But Rhona said she wouldn’t be gone long. Drop off Keita and Ren and she’d be back.”
“And that was the last you heard from her?” Bradana asked.
They nodded.
“But,” one of them added, “no one here has heard from a blood kin past the Euphrasia borders. We haven’t heard from Daddy in weeks.”
“Royals ain’t heard nothing yet either,” Bradana admitted. “They usually hear from the queen on the regular—but nothing.”
“So Rhona’s probably okay, yeah?” one of them eagerly asked, needing to hear her sister was alive and well. “We’re all just cut off somehow.”
They were cute when they were that age. Full of hope and a positive outlook. But Bradana knew it wouldn’t last.
“You going after her, Mum?” one of them asked.
“No. Your sister made this decision, chose this path.... She wants to go it alone, she can.”
“Mum—”
“I won’t hear it . . . uh . . .”
The child’s shoulders slumped. “Nesta. Me name’s Nesta.”
“Right. Nesta. I know,” she quickly added. She waved them away. “Go. Get out of my sight. We’ll discuss this later.” Much later.
“But, Mum . . .” The girl pointed at herself. “Edana.”
“I know! What, Edana?”
“The Elites that were in here . . .”
The one thing that Bradana did know was that if her Rhona was here, not one of those bastards would have made it out of here alive. “What about them?”
“It’s just . . . we don’t think them Elites came from the outside.”
“What?”
“They suddenly came out of the alcove. Near the tunnels. But how could they get past all of us?”
“And we have every entrance in this place covered,” Nesta added.
And the one she assumed must be Breena said, “No way they just come in and no one notices.”
Her girls were right. “You three set up a search party. Scour this place, see if you can find anything. But leave whoever’s on the tunnels there. We need to get that blasted thing done.”
“Right.”
They headed out and Bradana tossed after them, “And good work.”
Once they were gone, Bradana tried contacting Rhona, but she knew it wouldn’t work. But now, instead of assuming she was just blocking her—as the girl sometimes liked to do—she was assuming that Rhona had been . . .
No. She wouldn’t think that. Not about her girl. Not about her Rhona. Soldier that she was, Rhona was also a survivor. A scrapper. She’d be fine.
And Bradana would have to believe that if she hoped to make it through all this.
“I just hope,” Vigholf said, “that you’re not going to spend what, according to you, is our last day on this planet sitting around sulking.”
“Well . . . that had been part of my plan. The other part was to feel resentful and angry.”
Vigholf pressed his forehead against her cheek to stop himse
lf from laughing. “And what if I have a more entertaining plan than that?”
“More entertaining than sulking? I know of nothing like that, Northlander.”
“Then clearly you need to get out more,” he teased, stroking his hand down Rhona’s back, kissing her throat.
Vigholf was moving in to kiss her when she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?”
“For getting you into this.”
“You didn’t exactly invite me along. I came of my own accord.”
“I know, but—”
“And,” he cut in, “no matter what happens tomorrow, Rhona. I’ve been honored to fight by your side.”
Rhona pulled back a little, brown eyes peering at him. “Do you mean that?”
Vigholf took her hand in his and lifted it to his mouth. He kissed the back of it, then turned it over and kissed the palm. “When it comes to war, death, and battle, I never say what I don’t mean.”
He could have said a lot of things to her. Told her how pretty he thought she was. How much he liked her eyes. How nice she smelled after a bath. How he didn’t find her scars disfiguring in the least. He could have said any of that, but none would have meant more to her than what he did say. Because he meant those words. She’d earned his respect and he’d earned her trust. And with that respect and trust came loyalty.
Rhona slipped off Vigholf’s lap and while on her knees, faced him. He watched her with that I-need-to-eat expression again, and it only became worse when she pulled her chain-mail shirt off, tossing it into a corner.
Vigholf scrambled to his own knees then, yanking his shirt up and over his head. He hurled it away, then reached for her, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her in close. He kissed her, his tongue teasing hers, one hand on her breast, squeezing and tugging the nipple.
Rhona nearly had her arms around his neck, but Vigholf lifted her up and stretched her out on the floor. He stripped the rest of her clothes off, his hands running along her flesh while his avid gaze followed. Rhona reached for him, but Vigholf pulled back, and lowered himself until he could bury his face against her.
