Page 15 of The Queen and the Half-blood
Lyall’s feral gaze glinted. “But not yet desperate enough to agree to marry you?”
“She will be.”
Dolph muttered something under his breath.
“It’s all part of the game,” Alar assured him. He paused then, glancing back over his shoulder. His instincts stirred once more. Somethingwaswatching him. “It’s her move now.”
“Let her sweat,” Lyall agreed with a nod, his mouth curving into a smile that revealed sharp canine teeth. “Wait until despair creeps in. She can’t win this battle without us.”
“This is our moment,” Dolph added. “Finally, we’ll step into the light.”
“Aye … and not before time,” Alar replied before slowly reaching over his shoulders and drawing both his daggers.
The wulvers tensed and unsheathed blades of their own. “What is it?” Dolph murmured.
“I was tracked through the woods.”
“The Marav?” Lyall’s voice hardened.
“No.” Alar turned then, his gaze sweeping the edges of the glade. “Something else. I noticed claw marks on one of the trees … there could be a clag-doo nearby.”
Lyall cursed.
Clag-doos were rare, yet deadly. The lean, cat-like hunters were territorial and marked their domain with deep scratches that never healed. It had been years since Alar had last seen a ‘Black-claw’, although he wasn’t in a hurry to do so again.
He caught sight of movement then, sinuous dark shapes wreathing between the trees. Low, thin voices followed, moaning, hissing, and snarling.
Alar stiffened. “The Slew?” There was something worse than a clag-doo in these woods.
“Can’t be,” Lyall answered, his golden eyes snapping wide. “The nearest burial site is half a night’s walk away.”
More shapes appeared, slithering around the edges of the clearing, as if they were wary of moving out of the shadows. The Slew were the spirits of men and women who’d committed terrible deeds during their lives and so were forbidden from entering the Otherworld. Their crimes were so awful that they couldn’t enter the Underworld either—a cold, hostile place, where winter storms raged—and so they lurked in the Threshold or Albia’s dark corners waiting to feed on the souls of the living.
Dolph breathed a curse. “It’s still two moons until Gateway.”
“That may be so,” Alar replied, his skin prickling as he watched the shadows creep through the trees. Indeed, the only night of the year when the Slew ventured forth was the eveautumn slid into winter—the night when the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. On that night, they took to the skies and went hunting. “But they’re hungrynow, it seems.”
“They have been for a while,” Dolph answered as he too tracked the Slew. All three of them hadn’t moved since spotting the wraiths. The Unforgiven fed on the weak and fearful—and as such, the wulvers and their half-blood companion stared them down, even as their bodies tensed, readying themselves to run. “I think the Shee have something to do with it.”
Alar harrumphed. “It’s possible.”
His pulse quickened then. The balance between the living and the dead, and fae and mortal, was delicate at best. The last High King had hated that the fae could cross between realms while his people couldn’t. Talorc mac Brude was a butcher who loathed the Shee and all faerie kind, including wulvers and half-breeds like Alar. But now that mac Brude was dead, and the Raven Queen sat on the throne in Cannich and ruled The Uplands, Albia was changing.
Maybe the Slew knew it and grew bold as they prepared themselves for a new age.
Alar was readying himself too.
Even so, the restless dead made him uneasy. He wasn’t foolish enough to let fear creep in, or they’d sniff it like hounds on the scent, but it was wise not to linger here any longer.
“Come on.” He moved toward the trees on the northern side of the glade, where the Slew hadn’t yet reached. “Let’s get back to the others.”
“Are you sure?”
Lara stared down at where the yellowed pieces of bone, with symbols inscribed upon them, lay scattered over the sheepskin. She swallowed hard then, for it felt as if a plum had lodged in her throat.
After dismissing the Half-blood, she’d come straight to the seer’s tent looking for answers. But she hadn’t liked what he’d just told her. Maybe he’d misread the bones.
Ruari knelt before her, his brow creased in concern. “The Cauldron, The Wolf, and The Endless Flame,” he murmured, pointing to where the three bones had fallen side by side. “The Wolf represents Albia’s ruling family … your family … The Endless Flame is the wulver mark … and The Cauldron symbolizes unity. It looks as if youwillagree to marry the Half-blood.”
