Page 148 of Ruled By The Alpha

“He’s fled,” Iasan tells me, slumping to the hay and herb-strewn floor. Donag bustles over with a folding stool, a tray of cheese and bread, and a tankard of cider, which Iasan wearily accepts. “House Lein turned its coat and threw their lot in with the Korkarr and Oneswogans. Their Water-mages dowsed the King’s fire. He retreated to the coast. Your lord Justlinn stayed behind to guard the retreat. I stayed at his left hand. A Korkarr Earth-mage broke our line, although they’d sworn not to use magic on the unGifted. He impaled Justlinn on a spear of stone. I don’t know how he’s still alive, Kieran.”

I carefully part the wrapping around my mate-in-name’s stomach and inspect the wound I can smell as well as see. Iasan’s right; he shouldn’t be alive. I’ve never seen a wound like this before, going clear through a man’s body, exposing pale innards. I rebandange the wound. It’s far beyond Rivvard’s needle.

“Lady,” Donag says, hovering by Justlinn’s feet, wringing his hands. “If Lord Justlinn dies—”

“Then we hold the hai for the Alphaheir just as we’ve held it for his father.”

Donag reaches across his prone lord and touches my shoulder for reassurance before he strides away toward the kitchens.

I turn back to Iasan. “Have you sent word to father? To our lady-mother?”

Iasan shakes his head.

“You’re the Alphaheir now, Issie. You must go home.”

“To what?” he asks, around bites of bread. “Do you think they’ll just let us return to our halls? All of us who supported Edaern are fugitives, Kieran. Marked men. They might spare father because of his age, but me? There’s no mercy for me. I’ll spend my last days here, if you’ll have me. You always were my favorite sister.”

I touch the sword at my hip. “They’ll come soon?”

Iasan shrugs. “I don’t think so. Justlinn’s broken. The Alphason’s a baby. For all the reports of your victory over the raiders and Justlinn singing your praises to the King with every fresh load of blackstone, you’re no threat. The Korkarr have blackstone of their own. They’ll come eventually, but they’ll be occupied with the Norr and the Dorsa first.”

I nod. “We’ll be ready for them, when they come.”

Iasan arches a scarred brow at me. “You can’t hope to hold out, Kieran.”

“What would you have me do? Abandon my son’s birthright?”

“It will come to that. You can’t hold this place forever. The Lein and the Korkarr will come from the south. The Oneswogans will come from the east. They’ll crush you between them.”

They’ll find House Tomarr not so crushable. “I’ll hold out as long as I can. Irenn will have a Gift one day. If I can hold the Tomarrhai long enough, his Gift might do the rest.”

Iasan shrugs. “Depends on his Gift. Do you have any idea of Justlinn’s ancestors? What their Gifts were?”

Remembering Morgan’s Gift, the sweet green of sage and nasturtiums filling my lungs, I have to blink away the prickling in my eyes. Although I hope our son has his father’s Gift, a more marital Gift might serve Irenn better.

“I don’t,” I say, which is the truth since Morgan never told me more than his own Gifts and his father’s. I clear my throat and ask the question that’s been burning in my throat since Iasanappeared at my door. “Speaking of Justlinn’s relations, what of his nephew?”

Ceili, one of the kitchen maids, sidles up quietly, passing Iasan a bread bowl of stew and putting a bucket of fresh water beside me. Iasan sets into the stew like he hasn’t eaten in days. Although battle makes all men gaunt, my younger brother had full cheeks when I last saw him at our father’s house. Now his flesh hangs hollow on his bones. This is the face of the vanquished, the lost.

“Nephew? I didn’t know Justlinn had a nephew,” Iasan says between spoonfuls.

“He’s the King’s General. Morgan is his name.”

“The General? I didn’t realize he was related to Lord Tomarr. I’ve only ever heard him called bastard. He fell at the battle of Tynaneddau when the Lein turned on us. I’ve not heard of him since.”

Morgan fell? I swallow hard to drown the burning bile that rises in my throat. That cannot be. I’d have felt it. Surely, if he was gone, I’d have felt it. Our bond has never been the full awareness that some claim, but it’s always been there, a golden thread among the tapestry of my days. If that thread was snapped, I’d have felt it.

I would know.

*

I cling to that hope through the days that follow, which bring no word from the south, only more boatloads of weary, bloodied men. They stop to pay their respects to Justlinn, who has never woken, although he still breathes due to the diligent ministrations of the midwife. They give me the same report: the Lein turned their coats; Morgan fell; the new King fled. Then they slip away into the villages and mines, not waiting for the Korkarr to pursue the remnants of the new King’s army.

My hope is in vain, as the hopes of Omegas so often are, and my brother is wrong. The end comes in less than a week. Not with turncoats and raiders crushing us between them. But with my uncle Korva riding into the hai’s courtyard with a force of men in colors I have never seen before.

My uncle, tall, strong, well-fleshed, as though the war has taken no toll on him, slides off his horse and embraces me in a way he has never embraced me before, his hands roaming down from my shoulders to my arse. When I push back from him, he smacks sloppy kisses on each cheek. I can smell the spirits on him even though it’s mid-morning and he’s been riding.

“My widowed niece, how fare you?” he asks, clasping my shoulders.

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