The Twelve Kingdoms (36 page)

Rayfe frowned. “We should leave a man or two with you, for backup.”

“You need every body you can for this mission,” Harlan replied. “I will be fine. Nothing will get through me to harm the babe.”

Though I knew him to be far from invulnerable, in that moment he looked it. “All in the contract to protect the royal family?” I teased him.

“As I've always promised you,” he returned.

“Captain Harlan,” Ami said, darting a glance at me and away. “Should we not return for some reason, don't take Astar to Ordnung.”

“Ami—”

She held up a hand to cut me off. “I'm asking this of Harlan, though he owes me nothing.”

“On the contrary, beyond the contract that covers you also, I owe you and your consort my life. Where would you have me take him, Princess?”

“There's a manse near Windroven, at Lianore. Take him to Lady Veronica. And if it's not safe there, then anywhere but Ordnung.”

“He can stay in Annfwn, Amelia,” Rayfe supplied, in a quiet voice.

She shook her head. “I'll leave it up to Captain Harlan, but if we don't return, that might not be best for him, either.”

“You have my word,” Harlan told her. “I give it to you as I would to Ursula.”

“Thank you.” She pressed a kiss to Astar's brow, then—as if on impulse—stood on tiptoe to kiss Harlan's cheek and turned quickly away. Ash brushed the tears from her cheeks, a surprisingly soft expression on his craggy face.

“Let's move out,” I said, and everyone took their positions. I stepped to go, then looked back at Harlan. Danu take it. Closing the distance between us in a few strides, I kissed him long and hard, as best as I could without crushing Astar, not caring—very much—that we had an audience. “Danu keep
you
,” I told him. “And woe to you if you're not hale and hearty when we return. For we will be successful.”

“I do not doubt it.” He cupped my head and kissed me with exquisite gentleness. “Take care of my heart, for it goes with you.”

Moving in stealth goes slowly.

Easier to do solo, too, rather than hand in hand as Ami and I did. We'd experimented while waiting for nightfall and found that as long as we were in physical contact, the Star's heat remained constant. I'd had to wrap the pommel of my sword in a black silk scarf to dim the shine of the jewel, a fanciful look that Uorsin would have scorned, but there it was.

Ami proved decent at going quietly, her lithe dancer's grace making up for lack of experience. As for Ash, he moved so silently I had to stop myself from constantly checking over my shoulder to make sure he stayed with us. All the rest had taken animal form and melted into the night, eerily leaving us to feel like the only humans alive under the vast and brilliant wheel of Danu's stars.

Once we reached the cliff face, we kept to the shadows, testing each direction. The Star steadily heated under my hand until it grew burning hot, then cooled slightly. Retracing our steps, I stopped us at the point of greatest heat and we surveyed the sheer face above us. No surprise there that Terin would have picked the most difficult egress.

Word was, however, that he could take only the fox form, which meant there had to be a way to the cave for someone without wings. A snake slithered over my foot, nearly making me start. Thank Danu Ami had been looking up and didn't see it. The snake, possibly Zynda, wended a bit to the right, then up a path I hadn't seen in the dark. I let go of Ami's hand and moved hers to rest on the small of my back. She followed me up the path, Ash a knife-edged silhouette behind us. Something climbed up the cliff face and a raptor that shouldn't fly at night winged through the edge of my vision.

A baby's wail cut through the thick silence, and Ami's hands clutched convulsively on my waist as she made a small sound. She did well, for even my heart seized at it. The goddesses smiled on us indeed, for the cry came from a large cave mouth just to the left. Ash slid past us, ducking behind a rock that stood out from the cliff beside the entrance, becoming a shadow again, joined by other fluid black shapes.

I pressed a knife into Ami's hand, though she had her dagger ready, and signaled her to stay put. In the dimness, I could make out the circular prayer to Glorianna she drew in the air with her finger, which she bisected with Danu's blade and cut with Moranu's crescent. It might have been my imagination, but the Star seemed to burn hotter still.

Edging up behind Ash, I gave it a moment more, to make sure all our cohort had taken position. Then I pulled the scarf from the Star, letting it blaze bright.

T
he raptor, with a great cry, arrowed into the cave, and the rest of us stormed after.

As black as the bogs of Nemeth, the interior of the cave became an immediate tumult. Though I brandished my sword, the blazing Star my only light, I held off swinging at any animal that did not attack me first.

There were plenty of those.

Something like a boar crashed out of the shadows and into me, pinning me against the cave wall and painfully crushing my wounded thigh. With my left hand, I plunged a dagger into its eye, used that as a pivot to drive my sword through its heart.

With the boar's body as a barrier, I stayed close to the wall, willing my eyes to adjust, for the first time regretting I had no night-seeing beast to change into. The agony of my thigh coursed through my body, setting it singing with fighting fury.

Near me, Ash spun in a whirl of blades, nothing touching him. Rayfe could be any of the wolves, but I pegged him for one assailing a line of beasts forming a fanged and snarling wall across the cave. Beyond that lay my quarry, hiding behind his people, no doubt.

Don't think about him holding a blade to Andi's throat.
Throttling tiny Stella, her infant body so soft and vulnerable. Only the objective.

I let myself dissolve into the mind of Danu, feeling and thinking nothing but the slice of my blades.

I made my way forward, killing anything that attacked, dodging those that didn't. Dimly I became aware that Ash paced my progress on the other wall and two wolves guarded my back and flank.

A creature as big as a bear and fanged with it barreled out of the blackness, paw as big as my head narrowly missing my throat, claws raking the shoulder of my dagger arm as I barely ducked it. Far too fast, it swung again. Bringing up my sword, I impaled it, but the momentum carried me back, injured leg shouting with the warning of imminent collapse. I struggled against the massive weight, briefly thinking of Harlan's wrestling exhibition. Perhaps he could teach me some tricks for such eventualities.

Hot blood ran down my sword, slicking my grip. Making my hand slip.

A large black cat attacked from behind. Andi, by the flare of the Star. With a feline scream, she laid open the bear's throat with razor claws. It fell, bearing me down, and I twisted, yanking my sword free and, by the simple expedient of stomping down and leaping, cleared the final line of defense.

Terin, as wild-eyed as a cornered animal, crouched in the corner, a wailing Stella in his arms, blade held against her small body as I'd imagined far too many times.

“Stay back,” he panted. “I'll kill her.”

“And then what, Uncle?” I slowed my advance but did not stop. “A life—one with strong Tala blood—will be wasted. Then I'll kill you and you'll pass with all these others who died for nothing.”

“You'll kill me anyway.”

“Not necessarily,” Rayfe growled beside me, flowing from wolf to man but sounding bestial enough to stand my hair on end. “There are other punishments for traitors. We can put you over the border in your animal form and you'll never be able to cross back. Never be a man again.”

Terin laughed, the bark of a fox behind the sound. “You call me a traitor? Look to Salena and her get for that.” His eyes, reflecting the glow of the Star, slid from me to my side, where Andi drew close. “We are the loyal ones. Loyal to Annfwn and all it stands for. Salena betrayed us to the outside, trapped our people there for tens of years, bereft of home. We should have killed her when she destroyed Tosin, stopped her then.”

“Tosin killed himself,” Andi said with gentle surety, Ash coming up beside her. Behind us, the battle sounds dropped off into the crippled silence of whimpers and the harsh breaths of recovering fighters.

“She left him no choice. A hard woman. She'd already decided to leave him, to have a child by another man. She drove the knife into his heart.” His arms clenched on Stella and her fretful cries choked off. “This baby is ours. Blood price for Tosin.”

“She is yours, Terin.” I ignored Ash's glare, Rayfe's twitch. “Stella already belongs to Annfwn, as does Queen Andromeda. Salena paid your blood price with her life. No debt remains.”

“She gave you the Star.” Terin's gaze glittered on my sword and he focused on Andi. “And you have the Heart. The golden age of Annfwn has passed forever. Her borders will crumble, the magic die away. I failed. I'm sorry, Tosin.” Tears tracked down his face, a gleaming trail. He looked down at the now quiet Stella. “This should have been your daughter.”

“It's over now, Terin.” I edged closer. “All the should-have-beens and could-have-beens. They're gone, but we live. All we can do is move forward. Make a better future for all our peoples.”

“Give me the child, Uncle.” Andi urged beside me. “Do not answer death with more death.”

He made a harsh sound and stood, raising his chin in defiance, staring me down. “I see Salena in you. Heartless. Ruthless and without love for anyone. Go ahead, cut me down. Follow in the cold footsteps of your cruel mother.”

Though I knew his words to be the taunting of the enemy in dire straits, I also tasted the truth of them. Not that I'd let that stop me. “Hand the baby over and your own people will see to whatever justice they decide.”

“Kill me!” He screamed the words and, in his extremity, lost sight of Ash, who moved like a blur, knife flashing across Terin's throat and Stella falling to the stone floor.

Without thought, I dove, flying in a great leap to catch her in my hands, flipping to catch the babe across my body, letting my back hit hard on the rocks. Stella's renewed screams of fury sounded like sweet music and I lay there sending thanks to all the goddesses, trusting the others to dispatch Terin. Agony and gratitude feeling very much the same.

I let Ash carry the still wailing Stella out, needing a moment to recover my breath and strength anyway. We'd lost a number of the cousins from our side, and none of Terin's people remained alive. From the grim set of Rayfe's jaw, that was just as well.

Andi and another cousin shifted to horse form and carried Ash, Ami, and Stella back to our camp, a wolfish Rayfe pacing alongside as guard, along with several others. A few remaining cousins were too tired to risk shifting, so followed along with me on the long walk back through the early morning light.

Zynda shifted back to human, grimacing in relief as her minor wounds healed with the effort, then gave me a rueful smile. “How are you holding up, Cousin? We can rest a while before walking back. Sorry that none of us can be a horse for you.”

“That's okay.” Somehow riding a family member seemed uncanny and wrong. “Better for me to keep moving. Once I sit and the battle energy crashes, I'll stiffen up.”

“Smart of you to bind a consort with magic hands, then.”

I slid her a dark look, and she grinned in her mischievous way. “Don't look so mean,” she continued. “The women of our family may be fearsome, but they're also generous of heart, mind, and body—as you clearly are. I hope you won't give Terin's words any weight.”

So odd, to be considered part of a larger group, to share traits with a family besides Uorsin. “Did you—did you know my mother?” I asked.

She nodded. Then shrugged. “Barely. I was a girl when she left. And she was the Queen of the Tala, so it wasn't as if she came to the family celebrations or sat down with us at the beachside campfire. Still, I had more than a little hero worship for my famous auntie.”

That made sense.

“To tell the truth, I'm surprised that you're not more, well, royal.”

I raised an eyebrow at her and she gave me that unrepentant grin.

“You know, I figured, Uorsin's right hand, Heir to the Twelve Kingdoms, no animal forms—I always pictured you as more of an insane tyrant. Like your father.”

“He's not a tyrant.” Maybe it was letdown setting in from the fight, postbattle fatigue—I realized my slip too late.

“Isn't he? Maybe I'm wrong about him, too. So the tales of him executing anyone who stands in his way are false? The stories brought back from Tala who've escaped the prisons can be dire indeed, but those are hardly unbiased sources. And they say more than half the population is on the verge of starvation. I'm glad to hear it's not true—horrible to contemplate people living that way.”

Anyone else I would have suspected of baiting me. Or exercising an agenda. Zynda, however, walked along and whistled a bright tune, as if we'd gone on a pleasant stroll instead of limping home from a pitched fight to rescue our own.

“I've always been interested to visit but also afraid to,” she continued. “Maybe now that we're friends, I will. We are friends, aren't we?”

All so surreal, walking through the verdant meadow, the sky brightening as Glorianna's sun returned, fruit gleaming on the trees like jewels and the sea glinting in openings here and there. And this woman, much like me, though a few years senior, my cousin, asking to be my friend.

“Of course,” I answered, though I had no idea how we'd go about that.
I see you with your subordinates, the people who turn a blind eye to what you suffer. I have not seen any friends.
It felt like years since Harlan had said that to me. Perhaps I needed to learn how to do this, too.

“Good.” She smiled at me. “Gorgeous sunrise. It's going to be a lovely day.”

“Aren't they all in Annfwn?”

“True enough, Cousin. It is paradise, after all.”

They had a campfire going on the beach, with baskets of fish and shellfish steaming. In the aquamarine water, a seal-shaped cousin popped a head out of the swells to deliver a fish, dropping it neatly into Harlan's hands, who filled yet another basket. He'd doffed his weapons and shirt, standing knee-deep in the surf, tanned and glistening with sea spray.

Ami, sitting in the curve of Ash's arm, gave me a weepy smile, holding Stella to her breast, Astar on Ash's lap staring in fascination, reaching out for his sister with chubby hands and fighting Ash's restraining hold. Andi and Rayfe sat similarly together, on a log by the fire, deep in conversation. He had one hand wound in a long lock of her hair.

“The best part of getting to the party late is everyone else does the work,” Zynda commented. “I'm taking a dip to wash off some of the battle ick. Join me?”

Harlan had caught sight of me and straightened, surveying me with that intent look that I knew measured my every scrape and contusion, taking note of my pronounced limp. I held up my palms in acknowledgment of my bruised and bloodied self and he crooked a finger at me in a come-hither.

“Never mind.” Zynda laughed. “I see true love awaits.”

I snorted at her but toed off my boots, rolled up my trousers, and unstrapped my ankle knives. I'd lost several and would need to replace them eventually. I could have kept the others, but after a moment's hesitation, I decided to ditch them all. I didn't care to carry any weapons at the moment. Leaving even my sword in the pile, I went to Harlan, wading into the gentle water. It burned into a few open cuts, but I ignored that, sliding gratefully under the sheltering arm he held out for me.

His lips brushed my right temple. “They said you weren't badly injured, but that's a lot of blood on your face and neck.”

“No water to clean it off.” I started to bend, to splash my face, but his arm tightened to stop me.

“Stay next to me a moment more,” he murmured, then leaned his head against mine.