“However he found her, Hunts Alone saved her life,” Willo said, reordering Raisa’s hair with her fingers. “He had to remove the talisman ring in order to do it.”
Raisa wasn’t following this conversation at all. “But there were eight of them,” she blurted out. “Eight men attacking me. What happened to them? How did he get me away from them? Did they leave me for dead or…”
“We just don’t know,” Elena said, sliding a look at Willo. “That’s just it—everyone is dead, and there are too many unanswered questions.”
“Well, what does Han—what does Alister say about it?” Raisa asked impatiently. It was like the two matriarchs were being confusing on purpose.
Willo shook her head. “He has been too ill. We’ve been unable to question him.”
“He’s ill?” Raisa leaned forward. “Was he injured? What happened? Where is he?” Every answer seemed to spawn more questions.
“Hunts Alone knew you had been poisoned,” Willo said. “He used high magic to save your life. Wizard healers treat patients by taking on the injuries of their patients. It’s a risky business, and Hunts Alone is relatively untutored.” She looked at Elena, and her gaze hardened. “He should not have been put into this position. He should not be here at all. He’s had only a few months of training.”
A tension crackled between the two women that Raisa had never seen before.
“No,” Raisa whispered, shaking her head. “He should never have risked it if he didn’t know what he was doing.”
But neither woman seemed to hear. They were focused on each other.
“It was his duty to save her life, if indeed he did,” Elena said, returning Willo’s glare.
Raisa looked from one to the other. “What do you mean, it was his duty?”
They both looked at her, mouths clamped shut, as if wishing they could call the words back.
There was something in Willo’s face—some secret she did not want to reveal. She cut her eyes to Elena as if to say, This is your fault. You tell her.
“Hunts Alone is sworn to serve the clans and the Gray Wolf line,” Elena said.
“What?” Raisa headache was growing worse with every revelation. Her sleepiness had fled, despite Willo’s efforts. “What are you talking about? Han hates the Gray Wolf line.”
Elena raised her eyebrows and looked at Willo, as if to say, Ha! Willo rolled her eyes and bent her head over her bandages.
None of this made any sense. Han Alister blamed the queen, her mother, for the deaths of his mother and sister. Why would he sign on in their service?
As Willo wound a bandage around Raisa’s middle, Raisa caught hold of her wrist. “Somebody had better tell me what’s going on,” she said, glaring at the two matriarchs.
Willo turned her head and looked pointedly at Elena. It was still her turn, apparently.
“Marisa Pines and Demonai Camp agreed to fund Alister’s schooling at Oden’s Ford in exchange for his future service,” Elena said, shrugging.
“The clans are training a wizard?” Raisa wondered if it were possible she was still dreaming. “But that…but that…”
“It’s complicated, granddaughter,” Elena said, patting her knee. “Perhaps we can discuss this further when you—”
“Then why isn’t he at school, if you’re sponsoring him?” Raisa asked. “Why did he come back here?”
“This is, it seems, the future,” Willo said, biting off each word. “The Demonai called him home. He was not allowed to finish his course work, nor serve an apprenticeship.” She wrapped a wide piece of linen over Raisa’s shoulder and around her waist, tying it off neatly.
Elena stood then, and strode back and forth, talking with her hands as usual, directing her arguments at Willo.
“Willo Watersong, the attack on the princess heir more than justifies our decision to bring Alister back. If what you say is true, and he did save her life, this single act has repaid our investment twice over. It was worth it.”
“Do you think it was worth it to him?” Willo whispered.
“Where is he?” Raisa demanded, struggling to rise from her pallet. “Where is Han? I want to see him.”
“Granddaughter…” Elena said, furrowing her brow. “You should rest now. I’m afraid this has been—”
“No!” Raisa said, louder than she’d intended. “If I’ve been sleeping three days, then four days have passed since somebody tried to kill me. I want straight answers to my questions, and I want to see the person that you say saved my life. I want to see what price he’s paid for it.”
“If you insist,” Elena said, her face tight with disapproval.
Willo helped Raisa to her feet, keeping one hand clamped around her elbow. “He’s in the next room,” Willo said. The Matriarch Lodge had several sleeping chambers walled off with curtains, where patients could stay under the watchful eye of the healer.
Willo pulled aside the deerskin drape and they ducked through. Elena remained in the common room, as if Han’s ailment might be catching.
A ceramic stove glowed in the center of the room, kept stoked by two apprentices, a boy and girl a little older than Raisa. A stub of sweetwood smoldered in a burner, and one of the apprentices waved the smoke toward their patient with a large fan.
Han Alister lay on a pallet close to the fire, smothered in blankets, his face pale and glistening with sweat in the firelight. His hair was damp, plastered down on his head, and he twitched and trembled under the blankets, mumbling and muttering to himself.
“Sweet Lady!” Raisa said, looking down at him. The skin seemed tightly stretched across his bones. Usually he blazed with life. Now it looked as though the vital essence had been wrung from him. Tears stung her eyes. She sank to her knees next to the sleeping bench and gently raked strands of golden hair from his forehead.
Don’t you die. Don’t you dare. I forbid it.
As if Han Alister had ever listened to anything she said.
Raisa swallowed hard and looked up at Willo, who was looking down at her, eyes narrowed, lips pursed thoughtfully. “Isn’t it too hot in here? He’s sweating.”
“We are drawing the poison out of him,” Willo said, “with heat and smoke and purgatives. Because there is no entry point, we can’t use snakebite root, the way we have with you. We’ve taken him to the healer’s spring also, but the heat is nearly intolerable to him, and he fights us. Last time, he nearly drowned Bright Hand.” Willo nodded toward one of the apprentices, a boy about Raisa’s age. “I imagine the poison has affected him the same as you—it has confounded his senses.”
Raisa imagined being dipped in a hot spring just now, and shuddered.
“He’s been having seizures,” Willo went on, “but that seems to be easing off some.” She turned to her apprentice. “Bright Hand, has Hunts Alone eaten? Has he drunk anything?”
The apprentice shook his head. “We’ve tried. He refuses. He’s been confused.”
Even if he lives, what if he never recovers his wits? Raisa thought.
“Shouldn’t you—shouldn’t you try a wizard healer?” she asked. “There might be something that could be done for him with high magic.”
Willo nodded, seeming unoffended. “I agree. We don’t know much about high magic and charmcasters. They usually refuse to allow us to treat them. But who could we trust from Fellsmarch? We could fetch someone from the academy at Oden’s Ford, but I believe Hunts Alone will either recover or die before someone could make it there and back.”
Raisa took Han’s hand. Power buzzed weakly through his fingers, a faint shadow of his usual leakage. Which made her think.
She lifted the blanket that was drawn up to his chin, and peeked underneath. Then looked up at Willo.
“Where is his amulet?” Raisa asked.
“He carried two,” Willo said. “I hid them away before the Demonai could take them from him.” She reached underneath his pallet and pulled out a deerskin pouch. “I didn’t want anything to happen to them.”
Raisa
weighed the pouch in her hand, then untied the strings and dumped the contents onto the coverlet next to Han. There were, indeed, two amulets—one the serpent amulet she remembered, the other unfamiliar—a bow hunter carved out of gemstone.
“Mother Elena made the Lone Hunter amulet for him,” Willo said. “This other one—I’ve never seen it before.”
“He wore the serpent amulet at Oden’s Ford,” Raisa said, remembering how it had reacted to her the last time she’d touched it. “Maybe one of the masters there gave it to him.” She bit her lip, looking down at it. “I don’t really know anything about it,” she admitted. “But I think it might help him, to have it on. It might keep his magic from leaking away.”
Willo glanced toward the common room, then looked back at Raisa, put her finger to her lips, and nodded.
Raisa lifted the serpent amulet by its chain, careful not to touch it directly. She and Willo stripped back Han’s blanket, and Raisa carefully unbuttoned the heavy wool shirt he wore underneath.
Unfastening the clasp on the chain, she lowered the amulet until it rested on his bare chest. Immediately, it began to glow, as if in greeting.
What if it does more harm than good? Raisa thought. Amulets draw away power, don’t they? But they also store power and provide it to wizards who need it.
Would there be any left after he’d used it to heal her?
Pushing his damp hair out of the way, she fastened the clasp and tucked the chain under the collar of his shirt. Taking his hand, she poked it up under the loose shirt and closed the fingers around the amulet. Then she slid the blanket back up to his chin.
Still on her knees, Raisa looked up at Willo. “Oh, Willo,” she whispered, stroking Han’s cheek, stubbled with a shadow of reddish beard. “This is all my fault.”
The healer smiled, tears standing in her dark eyes. “Really? I was thinking that it was all my fault.”
“I remember…something of what he did to heal me,” Raisa said. “I know I fought him. I have so many secrets. I tried to keep him out. He didn’t save me because I am the heir to the Gray Wolf throne. He…” Her voice broke.
Willo put her hand on Raisa’s shoulder, and power trickled in. “Heart’s ease, Your Highness,” she said. “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“If you…if you think I can be of any help,” Raisa whispered, “I would be willing to sit with him, or take over the fans, or…”
“Thank you, Your Highness, but perhaps you’d better rest another day or two before you take on the role of healer’s apprentice.” Willo took Raisa’s arm and helped her to her feet. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
As they shuffled toward the entrance, Raisa heard voices in the next room. They ducked through the deerskin curtain to find three new arrivals in the Matriarch Lodge.
It was Raisa’s father, Averill. And Amon Byrne.
Amon! Raisa’s heart lurched in relief.
Amon’s eyes fixed on Raisa immediately, raking her from her tousled head, over her knee-length shift, to her feet in their ridiculous heavy wool socks. He closed his eyes and lifted his face toward the sky as if sending up a prayer of thanksgiving. Then fixed his eyes back on her as if to make sure she didn’t disappear on him.
Amon looked awful. He might have come straight from hell to the Matriarch Lodge, with the memory of that place still engraved on his face. He looked years older, and yet dreadfully young. The gray eyes were clouded with pain and grief, and his face was layered with weariness under a stubble of beard.
“Sweet Lady of Grace,” Raisa whispered. “Thank the Maker you’re safe.”
She wanted to throw her arms around him, to tell him how sorry she was, to tell him how his father saved her life, to tell him that none of this was his fault. She wanted to ask him a thousand questions. She wished she could banish everyone else from the room.
“Corporal Byrne,” she whispered, her voice still hoarse from the effects of the toxin. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
She took a faltering step toward Amon, stumbled, and would have fallen, save that Averill leaped forward and caught her in his arms.
“He already knows, Briar Rose,” her father said. “Nightwalker brought us the news.”
“Nightwalker?” Raisa looked past Averill, toward the door. “Is he…?”
“He stayed on, in the city, to…to…” Averill’s voice broke, and he cradled her close, kissing the top of her head as if she were a young child. “Thank the Maker you are alive. You have no idea what I…When Nightwalker told us what had happened, that you were badly wounded, I was afraid we had lost you too.”
For a long moment, Raisa allowed herself to be Averill’s daughter, to slide her arms around her father and press her face into his leather shirt. To rest there a moment, safe.
I’m finally home, she thought. Things have to get better from here on.
Averill set her down on her feet, carefully, as if she might break, keeping one arm around her shoulders for support.
“Corporal Byrne,” Raisa said, struggling for calm composure. “Your father was one of the bravest and wisest men I have ever met, and he was so proud of you—justifiably so.”
“Your Highness,” Amon said. “I am so sorry. I should have been there. It should have been me.”
“No,” she said, raising her hand to stay him as tears streamed down her face. “Had you been there, I would have lost you too, and I could not bear that, to lose both of you.” She faltered, trying to regain control of her voice. “As it is, it is a grave loss to the line, and to me, personally.”
Amon nodded once, looking straight ahead, his eyes pooling with unshed tears. A muscle moved in his jaw, and she knew he was clenching his teeth. “Thank you, Your Highness,” he managed to say. He swallowed hard.
Raisa mopped at her face with her sleeve. It’s all right to cry, she told herself. Soldiers and queens are allowed to cry, aren’t they?
She was half Demonai. Demonai don’t cry.
“Captain Byrne and his triple were not the only heroes,” Raisa continued, determined to shape the telling of this story before it got away from her. “After I was wounded, Han Alister risked his own life to save mine.” She paused, watching their faces closely. “I understand that some of you know him as Hunts Alone.”
Averill glanced at Elena, raising an eyebrow. Elena nodded, her lips pressed tightly together.
“Alister’s here?” Amon said. His gray eyes searched the room.
Raisa tilted her head toward the back room. “He’s in there, fighting for his life.”
“Blood of the demon!” Amon took a step toward the partition. “Was he wounded? What did he…?”
“There’s more news, daughter,” Averill said quickly, a warning in his voice. “More news that cannot wait.”
Raisa turned around and looked up into her father’s haggard features, newly engraved with loss and grief—yes, and fear. For once, her father’s trader face betrayed him.
“Lightfoot,” Elena said. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Averill put his hands on Raisa’s shoulders and looked down into her face. “She’s gone, Briar Rose,” he said. “Your mother—Queen Marianna—she is dead.”
C H A P T E R T W E L V E
BEQUEST
Raisa twisted away from her father’s touch, shaking her head.
“No,” she snapped. “That can’t be. That’s not possible.” Her eyes searched the faces around her, looking for reassurance, finding none. Willo’s expression said that this news was not unexpected, that it confirmed her worst fears. Raisa could tell that her grandmother, Elena, was already strategizing, turning this over in her mind, assessing what this might mean to the Spirit clans—the Demonai, specifically.
Averill looked as if he wished he could somehow shield Raisa from this news and all its implications. He was widower and parent, both, in that moment.
“Oh,” Raisa said, her voice trembling, “this is a dark season.”
Elena Demonai dropped to
her knees and bowed her gray head. “Long life to Raisa ana’Marianna, named Briar Rose in the uplands, Gray Wolf Queen of the Fells.”
Amon drew his sword. He fell to his knees in front of Raisa, laying the blade at her feet. “My sword and my life in your service, Your Highness.”
Like a stand of lodgepole pines in a gale, they all went down, leaving Raisa standing alone.
That’s the way it’s going to be, she thought. There’s no shelter for me—not from any of this. I’ll stand alone the rest of my life. She stood, fists clenched, head bowed, allowing a shuddering sob to pass through her body as her dreams of a reconciliation with her mother collapsed into dust.
Flower Moon came up behind her with a cushioned chair. Bright Hand brought a fur throw, and Raisa wrapped it around herself gratefully, wishing she could pull it over her head and hide. Wishing she could be alone with her grief. Successor queens traditionally retreated to the temple for three full days of mourning before assuming their duties.
But, no. That was not possible—not now. Even though her insides ground together like shards of shattered glass.
She gestured at the people on the floor. “Please,” she said. “Get up. Or sit down. Make yourselves comfortable.” She blotted tears from her face with the heels of both hands. “Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”
“Briar Rose…” Averill stopped and swallowed hard, glancing around the common room. “We don’t need to do this now—in public. Your mother—”
“My mother is dead, and I feel like I’m hanging by a thread. I need you to tell me everything—what you know, and what you only suspect. Then we’ll decide what to do, and if we can allow time for mourning.”
Her father blinked at her. Took a second look. Then inclined his head in assent.
The apprentices brought in cushions to sit on, and Raisa managed to get everyone off their knees. Amon sat at her right-hand side, Willo on her left. Averill and Elena sat cross-legged in front of her.
Willo spoke to Bright Hand, who brought a cup of steaming tea to Raisa. She sipped at it, trying to ignore the cross signals her nerves were sending her, feeling strength coursing through her.
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