Page 61 of The Queen and the Half-blood
They left the middens behind and descended lower still. The roundhouses flanking The Thoroughfare crowded closer together here, and half-naked bairns chased each other amongst the crowds. The air was only slightly less foul than the cesspits.
“Betrayer!” A woman shouted then from the front of the crowd. She was one of the fort elders, her white hair pulled back into braids, her dark eyes as sharp as flints of granite. “You will drag us all into darkness!”
Lara halted, her skin prickling at the woman’s venom.
The gathering crowd lining the road rumbled with anger now, like an approaching storm. She couldn’t walk on. She had to address this.
“My father already did that,” she replied, her voice cutting through the muttering that swelled around them. “He angered the Shee and brought the Raven Queen’s wrath down on us. And now they’ve allied themselves with trows and powries, and Gods-know who else.” She paused, her pulse thumping against her ribs. “If we don’t make strong allies ourselves, we’ll never take back The Uplands. Worse still, The Wolds could be overrun.”
Some of the faces around them screwed up. A man a few yards away even spat on the ground.
“Craven bitch,” someone shouted from the back.
“Traitor!”
“Your High Queen didn’twantto marry me,” Alar cut in. To Lara’s surprise, he’d stepped close to her, his stance protective as his gaze swept over the press of people. “But she did it anyway,to saveyourungrateful lives. She’s selfless and brave. Is this how you thank her?”
He broke off then as a brittle hush settled over the crowd. Meanwhile, Lara’s chest tightened. She should be vexed that he’d stepped in to defend her, yet she wasn’t. Instead, a knot deep within her chest loosened. No man had ever spoken up for her like this.
“Don’t think the Shee aren’t coming for you all,” Alar went on, an edge to his voice now. “Don’t stand here so smug and self-righteous. Duncrag isn’t untouchable. Mor is merely sharpening her blade … and soon she’ll march on The Wolds. When she gets here—ifshe gets here—there will be no mercy.”
22: HARBORING SECRETS
ALAR STRODE OUT of the broch into the grey afternoon. The temperature had dropped. His breath steamed in the chill air, and the cold prickled his bare arms. Ignoring it, he made his way across the yard toward the gate.
On the way, he passed the chief-enforcer and his second-in-command. Cailean and Torran had been talking, but they halted their conversation as he walked by, their hard gazes tracking him.
Alar ignored the enforcers.
Let them stare.
“Off for another stroll?” the chief-enforcer called out as Alar reached the stone arch that led out of the enclosure and onto The Thoroughfare beyond.
“Aye.”
“Without an escort this time?”
“I don’t need one.”
And he didn’t. Alar carried his fighting daggers strapped to his back. Anyone foolish enough to take him on would regret it soon enough.
Neither man replied to this, and he walked on.
However, Skaal, who’d been sniffing at something by a nearby wall, spied Alar. The fae hound’s ears pricked, and she trotted toward him.
“Skaal!” Cailean barked. “Stay!”
Surprisingly, the fae hound checked her stride before halting. Then, casting the chief-enforcer a reproachful look, she sat down.
Her longing stare followed Alar as he departed.
Outside the walls of the broch, he breathed a little easier.
After decades of living wild, amongst the dark forests of The Uplands, he wasn’t used to being confined. Like all the brochs of Albia, Duncrag was a stifling, windowless tomb. The afternoon was dull and damp, but it was preferable to the heavy air within, acrid with peat smoke. There were numerous vents throughout the broch to let out the smoke, but there weren’t nearly enough.
But that wasn’t the only reason he’d slipped away this afternoon.
He needed some respite—fromher.
