Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (43 page)

‘Girl. Teia.’

The unfamiliar voice woke her and she blinked drowsily at the shape squatting between her and the distant fire. Baer’s hard features swam into focus. Somehow the cave felt warmer now and she struggled out of her blankets.

‘Baer.’ Teia rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn. Her mouth tasted foul.

‘What you said before – that was a true telling?’

‘It was true.’

She sat up. Sleeping bodies were laid out across the floor of the cavern like rows of fruits for drying save for one man on watch, barely visible against the black night outside. ‘It’s late, Baer.’

He didn’t appear to have heard her, or didn’t think her demurral worth respecting. His hands fiddled with something in front of his chest that she couldn’t see. ‘The Wild Hunt will ride?’

‘If Ytha finds the key to Maegern’s prison, the same that locked Her away, then yes. And her feet are on that path.’ She smothered another yawn with her hand. Her baby dealt her a petulant kick and she winced. ‘The Raven sent two Hounds as a token of Her intent. When they arrived, I knew the Speaker would never listen to me, no matter what I said.’
I had to go. I’m so sorry, Mama. I had to go, for the sake of the people. Macha watch over you when the darkness comes
.

Baer did not look up from his restless fingers. ‘The stories tell that the iron men took the starseed from the battlefield. They don’t say where.’

Maegern’s voice scraped around inside Teia’s head again. ‘It’s in the city of seven towers,’ she said, the unfamiliar words making awkward shapes in her mouth. ‘I don’t know where that is.’

‘I heard tell of a city once,’ said Baer, ‘in the lands we lost. Dwellings of wood and stone, and all people living close in one place. All the time, in one place. They called it Fleet.’

A destination. Somewhere she might find men of the Empire. It gave her a little hope. ‘Then I shall go to Fleet. Perhaps someone there will know this city Ytha seeks.’

Baer shook his head. ‘They are no longer kin to us, girl. They won’t aid you.’

‘I have no other choice.’

He dropped what he’d been fidgeting with and she realised it was the end of his braid. Hard fingers closed around her arm.

‘Twelve clans surrendered. Their chiefs broke spears and gave their honour to the Empire. What chance do you think you will stand amongst them?’

‘I have to try.’ She eased her arm from his grasp. ‘I know the Empire has no reason to care for us, but even they will not be safe if the Hunt rides free.’

Baer sat back on his heels. Silhouetted by the firelight, his face was unreadable. ‘Brave talk for a bit of a girl, on her own and with a babe on the way.’

‘Moonstruck foolish, more like!’ put in Neve, from somewhere behind Teia. ‘’Twas the Empire as sent us here and no good can come from treating with them now.’

‘Neve.’ Baer’s tone held a warning. She made an indelicate sound and rolled herself in her blankets again, her point made.

Shaking his head, Baer looked out across the sleeping forms of his people. ‘There’s not a one of us wouldn’t give their all to return to our homelands,’ he said. ‘Every true-blood warrior would die for the chance to win them back. After all this time, if your Speaker promises we can go home, why should we stop her?’

‘She has no idea what she’s turning loose. She thinks she can call the Hunt to heel like herd-dogs, but she can’t.’

He looked back at her. ‘You know this for fact?’

Teia thought of Ytha, how she had stood eye to eye with the Speaker of her clan, and tried not to shudder at the memory. ‘When I defied her she ordered Maegern’s Hounds to kill me. They refused. They obey none but the Raven. In my dreams, I saw the land torn apart in blood and flame and Ytha was powerless to prevent it.’ She kneaded her aching head. ‘I speak truly, Baer. You do not have to believe me, or follow me. I ask nothing of you but the provisions I need to see me southwards.’

Another lengthy pause. ‘When?’

‘The spring full moon. Drwyn will gather the war bands at the Scattering and ride at their head with Ytha and the Hunt by his side.’

That rocked Baer back. ‘Old Drw’s crossed over?’

‘In the autumn, before the Gathering. Drwyn’s been Ytha’s creature for years and she means to see him do what Gwlach could not. He’ll be raised Chief of Chiefs at the Scattering, if not before.’

He rubbed his chin. ‘Less than a moon away.’ Baer pushed himself to his feet, hands now in fists at his sides. ‘Go to sleep, Teia. We’ll talk again tomorrow.’

25

DOUBTS

From the promontory she could see almost the entirety of the Mere, from the foaming column of Belaleithne Falls, veiled in spray, to the island at the far end on which Carantuil stood, its pale walls and indigo clay tiles gleaming in the morning sun. With the waters perfectly reflecting the blue of the sky and the green of the enfolding hills, Tanith felt as if she had somehow stepped into the crystal sphere surrounding one of the intricate coloured glass sculptures for which the craftsmen on the Western Isles were so rightly famous.

According to the stories Tanith’s father had told when she was younger, and curious about the parent she only hazily remembered, this had been her mother’s favourite view. She’d sat on the moss beneath the birches for hours at a time, he’d said, capturing the changing moods of the waters with her sketchbook and paints. Whenever the pressures of being High Seat had grown too much for her, an hour here had restored her more thoroughly than meditation, more thoroughly even than sleep. In a way, she was there still. Certainly Tanith always sensed something of her mother’s spirit lingering in that place, no matter how many years had passed since she died – something that was absent at the snowy marble mausoleum in the palace grounds that was her formal resting place.

Hello, Mama
, she said to the air, and sat down on a rock. Her bandaged foot throbbed; she’d ridden most of the half-mile or so from her house, but she’d left her horse at the end of the steep path and walked the last hundred yards through the dense birch-woods, and now she was suffering for it. With such a deep cut she should have sent for a Healer, but perversely she’d cleansed and dressed it herself and left it to mend in its own time. The pain was a reminder to be careful where she trod, in more ways than one.

I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long. I tried to speak to you almost every day whilst I was on the Isles – I hope you could still hear me
.

Around her the birches shivered in the breeze. She looked down at the spray of white flowers she held and touched their waxy petals. In the dappled shade of the trees they were so pale they almost glowed.

I brought you some morningstars – I know how much you love them
. The flowers nodded, and she plunged on.
I have so much to tell you I hardly know where to begin. I want to tell you all about my training, how proud I was when they gave me my Master’s mantle and asked me to join the faculty after just four years. Can you believe it? I’ve been teaching classes!

But that wasn’t what she’d come to say, and she couldn’t keep up the bright chatter when so much else weighed so heavily on her mind. She bit her lip, tried to marshal her thoughts, but they leapt and skittered about like saelkies in search of sweets and refused to be herded into any sort of order.

Now I’ve come home again. I had to. It was time – past time. I . . . Mama, I don’t know what to do here. The politics, the juggling of influence and interests – I’ve tried to understand it, truly I have, but it doesn’t come naturally to me and I’ve been away from Court for so long I think I’ve forgotten everything Papa tried to teach me. Not that I listened much
, she admitted, with a twinge of embarrassment that had her ducking her head even though there was no one else around to see her. She turned her mother’s favourite ring around and around on her middle finger, where she’d worn it since her hand had grown enough for it to fit properly.
I missed you terribly when I was growing up, but I’m glad you weren’t there to see it. I don’t think I did much to make you and Papa proud
.

All she’d done was make her father despair. Fallen headlong in love at barely sixteen and sneaked out of the house late at night to be with him when she should have been sleeping. Devoured medical texts and treatises on surgery when she should have been studying statecraft. And then she’d run away from a life she thought of as stifling, just to find herself face to face with it again five years later, still unprepared.

She twirled the morningstars back and forth through her fingers.
What a mess
.

Gently reproving, the trees shook their heads. Sunlight touched her face through the shifting leaves, and just for a second she imagined the warmth was a hand cupped to her cheek as her mother told her not to worry, everything would be all right.

If only she could believe that.

Mama, I don’t think the Ten quite know what to make of me. I’ve been living in the human world since before I was seventeen, and now here I am stepping up to the High Seat of our House. They don’t know me the way they knew you and I’m not sure they’ll trust me. They’re frightened by all the turmoil in the world and they’re on the brink of withdrawing behind the Veil, and I have no idea how I’ll ever persuade them that running away from trouble isn’t the answer
.

The irony of her words was bitter gall in her mouth. Overhead, the golden leaves on the birches rustled a sympathetic sigh.

There’s something else, too. Ailric. Do you remember me telling you about him, before I went to the Isles? He’s asked Papa’s blessing to seek my hand, but I can’t marry him, Mama. He’s become too much like his father, too arrogant, too inward-looking. He regards humans as little better than animals – I think he’d be happiest if the world outside Astolar ceased to exist
.

She fell silent, listening to the distant murmur of the falls and the eerie cry of a diver-bird somewhere out on the water.

I think you’d have liked the Western Isles, Mama. It’s a beautiful place, and the people are . . . people. Humans are more like us than we realise. Yes, they can be fractious and stubborn, but so can we, and I saw as much nobility and wisdom in them as I see in the best of us. They suffer from most of the same ailments we do, they birth their children the same way – I should know, I’ve delivered more than a dozen! When things are funny they laugh, and they cry when they are sad – sometimes they laugh when they should be crying. They put others before themselves, take hurts so others don’t have to and somehow find the courage to keep going even when their hearts are breaking
.

Tanith realised she was no longer speaking of humanity in general but of one person in particular, and bit her lip. She’d seen Gair’s heart break and had been unable to do anything about it. For all her physician’s training, she’d been helpless to save the piece of him that died with the woman in his arms. Her eyes flew closed, the scar on her forearm burning. Oh, spirits!

I’m sorry I can’t stay long, Mama. I’m to present myself at Court today as High Seat and I have to prepare. I’ll come back later and tell you everything, I promise
.

Limping carefully to the edge of the promontory, she lifted the morningstars to her face and breathed their delicate scent one final time. It reminded her of her mother’s perfume so powerfully her hand began to shake.

‘I miss you, Mama,’ she whispered, and threw the spray of blossoms out into the Mere.

Lord Elindorien sighed.

‘How I wish your mother was here. She should be the one to have this conversation, not me,’ he muttered, pinching his brows. ‘You are the only daughter of a noble House, Tanith. You are heir to the oldest realm in these lands. Sometimes we do not have the luxury of choice.’

She stared at him. ‘You’re telling me to marry him?’

Her father shot her a rueful smile. ‘I would never attempt to
tell
you to do anything, daughter mine. But time is passing, and you are past the age at which marriage is customary. Ailric’s offer is a good one. House Vairene is a fine family and he holds you in high esteem.’

She began pacing again and could not make herself stop. Even the pulses of pain from her bandaged foot did not break her stride. ‘I won’t do it.’