Page 19 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

“Because Riordan means to choose me?” I guessed, but I knew that it was more complicated than that when Helena’s mouth pinched thoughtfully.

“We certainly respect you as our king’s desired mate, since he is an Imítheos, but the very concept of a mate is one that belongs only to the Imítheos. The title ofthárrosiis reserved for Ktínos females who are deeply esteemed. Females who act with integrity, who willingly face great adversity and are willing to fight for truth and freedom. You defended our king, helped return him to us, and now mean to stand at his side to face down our oppressors.”

“Oh…” I breathed, stunned beyond words, the vials and silk clothing forgotten in my hands while I tried to absorb her words. Tried to comprehend the fact that the Ktínos evidently felt I hadworth that was unrelated to my romantic connection to Riordan. And I was not sure why, since it had not occurred to me that this distinction was important to me, but the knowledge was moving.

“You are surprised,” Helena noted with interest.

“Of course, I am. I never expected to have significance in the Vale beyond… being Riordan’s mate.”

“You are far too humble,” Helena advised me before she turned away again. “The Ktínos will not forget what you have already done for us. Nor what you mean to do.”

No pressure.

I collected the rest of the vials and clothing from off the bed and walked over to the bathtub, my mind still reeling from what she had revealed.

“So, how long have you served in the army?”

Helena was quiet for a moment, and I glanced back in concern that she might not appreciate me prying into her personal life. But her mouth was merely pinched in that thoughtful way again that let me know she was just taking time to consider her answer.

“I suppose it has now been almost four hundred years. That is my best recollection, since time moves differently here in the Vale than it did in Aeolia.”

“Right, Riordan said it is slower here,” I recalled as I set my bath supplies down next to the tub and then began to shimmy out of the illusioned dress. As far as everyone in the Vale knew, Riordan had been gone twenty years, but it had been two hundred years for him in my world.

“It has been a hundred years since Adonis forged the Kingdom of the Vale, and I served for three hundred years in the Aeolian army before we came,” Helena confirmed.

“And Riordan said you trained him too.”

“Indeed,” said Helena, shifting to give me more of her back when I stepped into the hot water. “Riordan was at a greatdisadvantage when he was first thrown to my mercy. Imítheos children do not train for battle right from their infancy as most Ktínos young do. But he was stubborn and determined to exceed all my expectations, and he did. Although it was not without suffering.”

“What do you mean?” I asked in concern.

“I have been training griffin juniors for the army for hundreds of years. It is a brutal process to turn youth into warriors that will not falter before death. The prince was older than most when he was given to us to train, and he was outmatched by the griffins his age who had already been training for decades. And to say that they took the opportunity… Let us just say that the king was not as well liked by my people in those days as he is now.”

My heart ached at the thought of what those days must have been like for my griffin. He would have faced the same distrust and aversion that I was subjected to now. Except that the ones who hated him had been allowed to act upon their feelings in the context of training for war.

“Orion hated him most of all. He is the one who broke Riordan’s nose,” Helena added mildly, shocking me with this unexpected tidbit.

“Really?”

“It was not until the incursion of the Fuath when Riordan risked his life to save Orion from torture by the enemy that their bond of friendship was put to seed.”

Interesting. Riordan had told me Orion was even more stubborn than he was, but that he would eventually come to care for me. I wondered if he was basing that off of his own experience with hisskiá. If so, he was going to be sorely disappointed, because I had no intention of risking my life just to get on Orion’s good side.

“You keep saying Riordan was given to you,” I noted with curiosity.

“He was. It was his father’s idea. His mother was the queen at the time, and she agreed, but I do not believe she expected to receive him back quite as she did. The young prince was idealistic, naive, and vocal about the harsh treatment of the Ktínos. I think she meant to show him our true brutality, and if we killed him, then it would have been due to his own foolishness for believing better of us. But instead of a humbled boy, I delivered her a warrior unparalleled by any that had come before him.”

I could not help smiling at the tone of pride that was so obvious in her voice. And I could not help wondering if Helena had been some kind of mother figure to my mate. Whether she felt that way about him too.

“I didn’t see his father below,” I recalled.

“He oversees the Agricultural Guild and was needed in Erétria where they are experiencing some… problems,” Helena explained haltingly. I could tell that this might be sensitive information, and I was quite liking her openness. I didn’t want to ask her about something that she wasn’t supposed to talk about, so I changed the topic.

“And what about Adonis? Riordan thought he would be a good king,” I said, curious to know her thoughts.

“He was a good king for the short time he had to rule, and perhaps in time he could have been a great king.”

“Were you there when he forged the Vale?”

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