“Raider rule, my princess, do not leave a job undone,” he grunted then grunted again, “Lunwyn.”
“Lunwyn,” I whispered then felt a hand on my arm and that hand was pulling me to the door.
“Let’s go,” Balthazar, who had hold of me, said and we went.
But at the door, I turned back and saw the carnage, Phobin motionless and dead at my hand, Broderick’s head turned, his face pale and awful in his pain, eyes on me.
And I knew in that moment I would remember that scene, the blood, the gore of exposed wounds, the look on Broderick’s face, and I would do it until the day I died.
But for the life of me, I couldn’t find it in me to care.
Then I hurried out with my men and whispered, “Okay boys, somewhere close, there are two women…”
Chapter Thirty-One
Dragons
One month later…
“Finnie, Apollo requests your attendance.”
I looked from cleaning the wound to Lund and nodded. “Let me finish here, Lund, and I’ll go directly to him.”
Lund looked at the man I was working on then at me, his eyes soft as all Frey’s men’s eyes were soft when they encountered the shadow of mourning drifting steady and unrelenting in mine and he nodded.
Then he left.
I looked at the man in the cot. “Am I hurting you?”
He shook his head then lied through his teeth (literally because he was clenching them), “No, my Winter Princess.”
I smiled at him. I knew it was a sad rather than reassuring smile but I had to try and I didn’t have any smiles that weren’t. He didn’t smile back mostly because he was clenching his teeth and I decided to finish quickly so he could relax. I tipped my head and readdressed his thigh, cleaning it with spirits, biting back the impulse to blow away the burn as I heard him suck in breath then I dabbed it with clean cotton, spread a healing salve on it and redressed it.
Once done, I curled my fingers around his ankle, gave him a squeeze and caught his eyes. “It’s beginning to heal, Joshua,” I said softly. “I shouldn’t have to do this again for awhile.” To that, he nodded and I finally saw relief on his face.
I gave him another small smile, got up from the edge of his cot and looked to Lavinia and Valentine who were both seeing to other wounded. I caught their eyes, indicated the flaps to the tent, waited for their nods and walked out.
To get you up to date – Lunwyn was at war and if that wasn’t bad enough, one faction was at war with itself.
With the fall of Broderick, the conspirators, which did indeed include the heads of Houses of both nations, were fighting amongst themselves as to who would take the throne of the united land at the same time fighting against my men who were intent to regain control of the throne in order to keep it and Lunwyn safe until Frey and my child could assume his rule.
My notable Houses included Ravenscroft, Lazarus, Sinclair, Drakkar and Ulfr. The outside faction’s of note included Njord, Roar, Andreas and Viggo. These were of Lunwyn and didn’t include the Middlelandian crew, all of the heads I had met at the Gales (and all of them had feigned respect and friendliness while they were plotting my and/or my husband’s deaths) and all of whom felt their head should now assume the “throne of the united Lunwyn”.
The good news was, with Baldur still in Korwahk with a good deal of the country’s soldiers, the Middleland Houses were weak and the Lunwyn Houses were not the most powerful of the northern land. The other good news was, the infighting was causing disarray and skirmishes against my men were diminishing as they skirmished against each other. The further good news was, when rescued and taken from the highly fortified castle of the House of Roar that Broderick had chosen as his stronghold in Lunwyn, Lavinia and Valentine had regained their magic which they were using for healing as well as protection, cloaking of our troops and gathering (or “sensing”) information about our enemy. And the last good news was Oleg, Lund, Ruben, Max and Skylar had emerged unscathed from the attack on Frey’s lodge. Stephan was wounded superficially and had already recovered enough to join the rest of us. And Bess and Jocelyn had also not been wounded.
The bad news was Orion, Gunner, Annar and Thad had all taken arrows as had Esther and Alyssa. In rating the news, Orion, Gunner, Annar and Esther also had relatively superficial wounds and it was reported they would eventually recover, though it would take longer than Stephan so I was considering this good-ish news. The definitely bad news was that Alyssa had sustained critical injuries and, I was informed, Thad had moved to protect Jocelyn (and succeeded in this) and also sustained multiple injuries of which not one but two were critical. When Stephan arrived, he explained that Bess and Jocelyn were staying behind to assist the physicians, healers and witches in Kellshorn who were seeing to them as well as taking care of Skylar but it did not look good for either Thad or Alyssa.
Further, Ruben informed me, unbeknownst to me but another indication my husband would do all he could for my safety, Frey had hired a woman named Agnes, the witch I met the first night I arrived, and charged her with protecting me with her magic. This failed and the attack on Frey’s lodge could go ahead because Broderick’s men found her and killed her thus her protection magic died with her. Therefore the woman with the cranberry cloak who could jump from the second story of a building and had a face lined in a way where I knew she laughed much through her life was also no longer of this world.
Although my mind often moved to what occurred in the prince’s quarters and the blood on my hands and my heart turned over at the memories as my mouth filled with saliva when these memories reminded me I was a woman capable of those actions, receiving all this news made this phenomenon much less distressing.
The other bad news was that Aurora remained captive in the stronghold of Njord and the witch that wielded the sacred relics and magical implements had not been found by soldiers or through Lavinia trying to sense her. Although now that they were no longer in Broderick’s clutch and she no longer had hold over Lavinia and Valentine, her being at large was not a good thing for my side or the other who, spies informed us, were also scurrying to find her so they could attempt to control her.
And last, the wildcard news was that Kell had disappeared. No one knew where he was, no word, no sighting. He had gone to Sudvic to prepare for Frey’s fleet to leave but he had not been seen or heard from since the rebellion started and Balthazar and Quincy had both ridden to Sudvic and various other places in search of him. Balthazar had returned two days ago with zero information and Quincy just that morning with the same.
Valentine, with her magic back in her control, could have returned home but surprisingly she didn’t. She also didn’t share why she didn’t and, although she worked with me, Lavinia, the physicians and healers who saw to our wounded and she did this with her usual calm, cool composure that bordered on indifference, I knew she felt remorse for meddling between Frey and me.
I would need to discuss this with her and let her off the hook. I just had not had the time and on the infrequent occasion I did, she was not exactly approachable.
She shouldn’t have done what she did, this was true but it was me who said the things I said so that was on me. It was on me that the final words Frey heard from me were shrieked accusations and the absolute last thing he ever heard from my mouth was me telling him he didn’t love me.
That was on me.
All of it on me.
These were my thoughts as I walked through the busy camp of tents staked into the melting snow and men moved passed me, dipping their chins or giving me a shallow bow, horses rode passed and I lifted my chin to others standing by fires or exiting tents.