by Brenna Lyons
“Raga? She married the first lord beast slayer in the story.” Regana felt a sick swirl in her stomach. “Pauwel, elder killer,” she breathed. She had never spoken her husband’s new title, but she knew it well.
“You are Raga,” Emecin confirmed for her. “You are the mother of the greatest warriors, the true elder killers.”
“No, that’s not possible,” she denied weakly.
“Every chosen has a blood mark to identify the aspect born to them. The mark of Ani lies under your hair. I saw it myself when Sibold took you from my hand. To be complete, Raga had to join the men. Your birth marked that point.”
“What am I to do?” she asked quietly.
Emecin smiled and ran a hand over the swell of the child within Regana. “Only this,” she assured the young mother. “Just give your husband children who will be strong warriors.”
Regana nodded stiffly and rose to leave. “Thank you, Emecin. I needed to know this.”
“I know you did. I always thought Sibold and Eberhard were wrong not to tell Gawen why he protected you. He should have been told.”
“Yes, it might have made things easier had he known,” she admitted.
She walked outside, deep in thought. Emecin touched her shoulder fondly as she headed off to the stables to collect her son for his training, but Regana’s mind was already far away.
Raga gave children to the first lord beast slayer, the most powerful of warriors. Technically, Pauwel was the first lord elder killer of the new war, and she would give him children, as many as he would grant her. But, what of the child she carried?
Technically, Jörg was a warrior when he fathered the baby, and he all but killed Resten himself. But, now he was a beast and no longer the strongest warrior. Pauwel now held that distinction for himself. How did this child fit into her place as Raga?
As much as she and Pauwel had created the pretense that this baby was his and not Jörg’s, lived the lie until it was more true than the truth, this baby was not the child of the first lord elder slayer. Would his existence foul the stone’s plans?
She was so caught up in her musings that she didn’t realize Bermer, the old blacksmith, was in her path until she nearly collided with him. Regana backed off a step. “Many pardons,” she mumbled as she tried to step around him, but he moved to block her path.
Regana took another step back as she glanced at his face. Her smile of amusement that they seemed to be having difficulty clearing the way for each other disappeared as she met his fierce blue eyes. She took another step back in shock. His red-gold locks were stained dark with smoke, his work hardened fists at his sides, and he loomed large and threatening over her.
Bermer smiled a tight smile and bowed his head to her stiffly, but he moved to block her path again as she stepped cautiously to the side. Regana looked around warily, and Bermer took the opportunity to step toward her again, keeping her within his grasp, she noted uneasily.
“Lady KreuzStütze,” his voice rumbled in something resembling a greeting.
Regana looked for some sign of people around them, but there was none. There was only the silent wood as far as she could see. “Bermer, you need to speak with me?” she asked with more conviction than she felt.
His eyes hardened. “Your lord leaves you unprotected too often,” he accused. “Would you allow me to accompany you?”
For some reason, the idea of Bermer as protection seemed laughable. “That won’t be necessary, Bermer. Thank you, but I will make the distance just fine on my own.”
His jaw tightened, and Regana felt her stomach sink. Surely he wouldn’t try to force her to accompany him.
“I’m afraid I must insist,” he growled, confirming her worst fears that he would do just that.
She ran a palm over her child protectively, and the large man smiled at the move. His eyes glinted dangerously.
“I’m not feeling well,” she managed. It wasn’t a lie, she realized. Regana felt sick and faint and shaken. “I think I should return to Emecin’s home. Landric offered me a tea. I should have taken it while I was there.”
Regana backed away, but Bermer kept advancing, keeping his distance from her constant. Her eyes flicked on the motion as his hand disappeared behind his back only to reappear holding a knife nearly as long as a sacred weapon. She stared at the blade, trying desperately to make sense of what was happening even as she heeded her mind’s order to keep backing away from him.
When Bermer struck, Regana acted without any conscious thought of what she intended to do. She ducked his blow and pushed against his shoulder with the arc of his blade to knock him off of his feet.
“Use the weight of your opponent against him,” Sibold instructed Wil in her mind.
As Bermer crashed to the ground, she turned and bolted for Emecin’s house with her hands cupped beneath her son. Regana screamed in fear and frustration as Bermer’s huge hand closed around her arm and dragged her to a halt.
“No,” she begged. “Please, do not do this.”
“You keep them here. If you are gone, they will go, too,” he reasoned while a fanatic light lit his eyes that belied reason.
She tried to wrench her arm free of his grasp, but Bermer tightened his grip, until Regana whimpered at the pains shooting up her arm and the numbness below. He dragged her toward his blade.
Regana squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating his killing blow and knowing that she had no hope of defeating him now that he had hold of her. The splash of heat washed over her, but it came without pain. She opened her eyes in shock and confusion.
Bermer’s wrist was held locked in another hand, the blade he wielded hovering a hand’s width from her throat. Blood coursed down the large man’s chest from his slit throat. His eyes, wide in disbelief, seemed to dim, and his hand fell away from her arm.
Regana backed away, shaking in terror. As Bermer fell, she saw the strange hand release his blade hand to let him fall smoothly. Landric appeared from behind the man who towered over him in life. A blood-soaked blade was clutched in his hand. He looked at her miserably as he wiped and sheathed his weapon.
Landric put his red-stained hands up to her in a calming gesture. “I will not hurt you,” he assured her in a soothing voice. “Are you injured, Lady KreuzStütze?”
“I think I have to be sick,” she managed, trying to look anywhere but at Bermer.
“I can’t leave you here alone to get help. Will you allow me to take you to your lord?”
She looked at him in shock. Had she escaped death at Bermer’s hands only to find herself faced with the same choice again?
“I left my horse in the trees when I heard your scream. Let me help you, Raga. I cannot allow you to come to harm.” His voice took on a pleading tone.
Regana nodded and sank to the grass, trying to will herself not to indulge in the disgrace of fouling herself further by giving in to the sickness rising in her throat. Landric went to get his horse. She could trust him, she reminded herself. He knew what she was. His mother had sent him to protect her, no doubt. She could trust him.
* * * *
Pauwel barely glanced up from the discussion at the sound of a horse ambling up the road to the house. The group of warriors had been busy forming their strategy for finding and destroying Veriel since Wil and Olbrecht left with Riberta’s body.
Kethe went to the door to investigate, as Pauwel knew she would. Her strangled cry brought his head up. She launched through the open door, calling out his name in a panic.
He shouldered Gawen out of his way as he bolted for the doorway. “Regana,” Pauwel breathed, knowing that nothing else would have rattled Kethe so. His heart stuttered at her nervous chatter.
“Be still,” a male voice ordered from outside. “You are only upsetting her further. The blood is not her own.”
Blood. Pauwel uttered several harsh curses as he tore across the open area toward the women standing by the horse’s side. Landric looked at them sadly. His hands and tunic were stained with blood, stil
l not dried, he noted. If Regana had even half that much on herself, someone had surely died.
Kethe was using the edge of her dress in an attempt to wipe the blood from Regana’s face and neck. She was practically bathed in it from her face to her waist and below.
“I’ll get water,” Kethe decided, as Pauwel reached them. “I cannot see anything until I clean her.”
“Go,” he barked, meeting his wife’s wide eyes and taking in her trembling. Pauwel touched her cheek gently. “Who did this?”
“Bermer,” she whispered.
Pauwel nodded. “I will kill him for this,” he promised her, “as soon as you have recovered.”
Regana closed her eyes and swallowed slowly as her complexion, what little he could see of it, paled further.
“I’ve taken care of that for you, Lord KreuzStütze,” Landric offered quietly, averting his eyes. “I know it was your right to exact punishment for his crime, and I am sorry that I overstepped my bounds, but it was the only way I could save her from his blade.”
Pauwel drew her to his chest as Regana rocked back on her feet. “He took a weapon to my wife?” he demanded.
“Yes, my lord. He thought to slit her throat — as I did him.”
“Thank you, Landric. Your trespass is a trivial thing compared to Regana’s life.”
The young man blushed. “I will bring a paste for her arm later. She will bruise deeply from his handling of her. Do you have a calming tea? The one for her sickness, perhaps? I can bring another, if you do not.”
“Yes. Kethe will make some for her,” he promised the healer.
Landric nodded. “Sleep and food when she feels up to it. A rich broth if she can manage nothing else. Send for me, if she needs anything I can provide.”
“I will.” Pauwel swept Regana into his arms and brushed past his stunned brothers, congregated around the open door. He saw Gawen step up to speak with Landric as he swung his wife over the threshold, but Pauwel didn’t wait to find out what their conversation was about.
He carried her to their bedchamber and started removing her bloodstained clothing. Kethe charged in with a large basin of water and a cloth. Pauwel sent her to make the tea while he washed the blood from Regana’s body. Already, her arm was ringed purple from the beast of a man who attacked her. Pauwel shuddered as he considered her screams, the screams that brought Landric — but no one else — to her aid.
By the time he settled her beneath a warm covering, she was already half asleep. Pauwel ran a hand over the bruise on her arm, and she met his eyes in exhaustion.
“Sleep,” he crooned to her. “Kethe will bring you tea and sit with you, but I will be in the next room. I will not leave you while you need me. Never fear that.”
Regana closed her eyes without a word, without a gesture that she understood him. Pauwel kissed her forehead and watched her as she drifted into sleep.
He had failed her. Her protection was his most sacred trust, and knowing dangerous rumors abounded, Pauwel had let her wander off unprotected. He could not allow such a thing again.
Pauwel left quietly so as not to disturb her and encountered Kethe, headed to the room with the tea he had ordered her to make. “Stay with her while she sleeps and call me immediately if she wakes,” he ordered.
His sister left to tend to Regana without question.
Gawen sighed raggedly. “She’s a fighter, Pauwel,” he assured the other man.
“If you mean she will heal from this, I know it.” Pauwel paced the floor in impotent anger, at himself as much as at the man who dared lay hands on his wife in such a manner. “It never should have happened, Gawen,” he fumed, trying to staunch the Blutjagd he had no outlet to still.
“No, it shouldn’t — but no, that is not what I meant.”
Pauwel stopped pacing and swung to face the master trainer. “What do you mean?”
“The blow Landric stopped was his second. He was not in time to stop the first.”
“He missed?” he breathed in sick disbelief and relief combined.
“Regana evaded his first swing and felled him before she ran from him. Bermer’s — handling of her was to prevent a second attack.”
“Felled? Bermer was more than twice her size, almost the size of a warrior,” Pauwel exploded.
“She used his size against him, as Sibold taught us.” He met Pauwel’s eyes. “I want to train her.”
“You’ve gone mad. Women are not warriors,” he countered.
“What makes a warrior? She moves like a warrior, silent and graceful. She is fast and strong. You know I am right about this.”
“She carries my son!”
“She is Raga,” Gawen whispered. “For her own protection, you must allow this, Pauwel. The stone touched her. I know this for a fact.”
Pauwel felt a crippling shortness of breath. He was only vaguely aware of the blood rushing in his ears as he staggered to a chair and crumpled into it. His mind protested what Gawen was saying. She could not be Raga. She was Regana. She was his, not the mother incarnate.
“That is why I was given the duty of protecting her,” he continued, though Pauwel wanted to hear no more. “That is what she went to Emecin to ask. That is why Emecin sent Landric to protect her, with his life if necessary. The stone has confirmed it for me.”
“Why has no one told us?” Cunczel demanded.
“Was Raga trained?” Ger asked in confusion.
“The villagers will not stand for training a woman,” Ditrich noted. “Too many of them fear her already.”
“Who knows this?” Ger cut in again.
Pauwel’s mind locked on a single piece of information to refute what was being said of her. “It’s not true,” he breathed in relief.
The other men stopped to stare at him in shock.
“It is true,” Gawen assured him.
Pauwel took to his feet, livid at their obvious blindness in the matter. “It is not,” he insisted. He pulled his tunic up to reveal the blood mark of Ori, clearly visible through the light mat of hair over his heart. “It’s safe to say I know my wife’s body intimately,” he spat. “Regana bears no mark. She cannot be chosen if she bears no mark.”
Gawen sighed and shook his head. “Come with me, Pauwel.” He half-dragged the younger man to his bedchamber and to his wife’s side. “I had already questioned the stone about this,” he explained. “I saw her unclothed as a babe more often than anyone. I thought the same as you.”
He reached for the hair over her right ear and parted it several times with his large hands until the dark red mark appeared. He moved the hair this way and that until the symbol of Ani — the mother and the sign of birth — was revealed beneath the hair.
Pauwel closed his eyes in mute acceptance, and Gawen led him back to the others. He sank into the chair again, drained of his great strength in light of who and what his wife was. Of all of them, she was the most precious, the one they could not lose. Pauwel buried his face in his hands.
“It’s true?” Ditrich asked nervously.
“It’s true,” Gawen confirmed for them. “The mark was hidden beneath her hair just where the stone said it would be.”
“What does this mean?” Ger asked.
“It means she will be hunted by the elders and men alike. The elders will not want her to produce children. Regana’s children will be great warriors, the finest warriors. The villagers— Today shows what they are capable of.”
“If they were told,” Cunczel argued. “If they knew her children would mean the end—”
“They only want the beasts to leave. They believe Regana draws them here. It may be true. If they know what she represents, they may be here to stop her. The villagers are panicked. They would rather see the beasts free and feeding elsewhere than wait for their redemption.”
“Can they take her to mate?” Ger asked fearfully.
“No. Regana is not Blutjagdfrau. She is chosen for another purpose. We only train her to protect her. She will not be a night warrior.
She will not hunt.”
“Why hide the truth from us?” Ditrich asked.
“At first, Sibold could not know which warriors would go beast. He could not risk the beasts having foreknowledge of their end. After— I imagine he wanted her to find her mate naturally. Can you honestly claim that the thought of siring the great beast killers wouldn’t have swayed your choice?”
Ger sighed and shook his head.
Of course, he couldn’t claim that. What warrior wouldn’t like the honor of it? Except perhaps the man who learns it this way!
“How do we proceed?” Ger inquired.
“I will train her,” Pauwel decided. “I cannot take the chance of her being injured.”
“For now,” Gawen agreed. “When she has learned enough, Regana will begin proper training.”
“After my son is safely from her womb,” he thundered in warning.
“Of course,” Gawen soothed him.
Pauwel nodded and went back to his dark thoughts. Raga was the mate of the first lord beast slayer. Regana carried the child of the true beast slayer. Pauwel knew that he could not have defeated Resten without Veriel. The beast used him to strike the killing blow the deceiver was forbidden to strike, but Veriel had slain Resten otherwise.
But, was this a good omen or bad? Whose children would be the great warriors, Veriel’s son or his own? And, what of the others? Surely, it wasn’t only children born of Regana but only certain ones, the ones to her true mate. Only time would tell which of them should have been Regana’s mate.
* * *
Jörg heard musings of Regana’s near miss with death while he rested. Despite his anger with her, his printing demanded he protect her. After nightfall, he sought out the other beasts. Their lot had improved little, and Jörg had been hoping that was the case. It fit his needs perfectly.
When he appeared in their midst, they regarded him in disgust. A few bared fangs they had no concept how to hide, and most wore tattered, filthy tunics.
“Come to kill more of us?” Lorian demanded.
