Page 61 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

“Growing up a prince, we have someone to do everything for us,” he said. “So how did the daughter of a duke grow up learning how to do something like this? Didn’t you have ladies’ maids or something?”

My fingers slowed unconsciously until I was left just standing there with his hair held taut in my hands.

“Linnea didn’t like anyone getting close to me,” I said, then forced my hands to move, twining one third of his hair into one braid, then going to work on the next. “Now that I think about it, she wanted me kept isolated. She hated that I went down to Nordred.”

“He was your true father.” Weyland nearly ruined my work, tilting his head back to look at me. “When we brought you down, when we carried you from the keep, he took you from us as we got the horses ready and then refused to let you go. Dane was worried there was a romantic attachment there—” I snorted rudely at that. “But that’s not it. You’re his daughter, in as much a way as a girl can be without a direct blood link.”

“Daughter of Nordred?” I paused again, considering, then nodded and went back to plaiting his hair. “I’d be a damn sight prouder of that than of being the duke’s daughter.” In my mind, I saw the Nordred who knew exactly what I needed this morning and came prepared to give it to me. “But you’re right. He’s taught me the skills I’m proud of. If I’ve learned how to cope with anything, it's due to his advice. I used to pester him as a little girl, dogging his steps and he could’ve just brushed me away. He had more than enough work to keep him busy. Instead, he was the one that was patient with me, that listened to me, that saw me hurting and did his best to help. Who made me feel…”

The splendid view of the town below, of what felt like all of Strelae and all of Grania, blurred as my eyes filled with tears. I needed to tell Nordred this, show him how much I appreciated him, but right now I shook my head, then wiped my eyes on my sleeve.

“They say a girl marries the man that resembles her father,” I croaked out, Weyland going very still under my hands. “Then, if my heart is what you want, be like him.”

I worked then much more swiftly, finishing the second braid, then the last before binding them together at the crown of his head.

“In Strelae, we expect a woman to test us, to make sure we are worthy of her, but you…” He shot me a sidelong look. “You’ve set a very high bar indeed.” Though, as he nodded slowly, I didn’t see fear or worry in his eyes, but rather a kind of quiet determination. “Now, come and sit by me, as close as you are comfortable, and you can tell me about life in Grania and I’ll tell you about the same here in Strelae.”

“… so women can own land here?”I asked, looking the town over much more closely now. It wasn’t as if I had the money to buy a plot of it or a house, but… “Does Pep own her own home?”

“She does. She works mostly for us, doing… all sorts of odd jobs,” Weyland said, “and we make sure to pay her well. She has her own house and could own a stall in the market if she so wished. Women are obviously mothers and caregivers in our country, but they are also warriors, business owners, spies, crafters—”

“So, I could be literally anything, as long as I had the skill or the capital,” I said.

“And what would you be, if money was no object?” he asked.

This was a meaningful question. I could tell by the shift in his tone. His voice grew softer, deeper. It was like I was a skittish horse and he had to go some way to gentling me at the first hurdle. I shook my head at that, but when I went to answer… My smile faded and I stared at him openly.

“I… I don’t know. I used to think I wanted to be a sellsword.”

“A mercenary!” His eyebrows shot up. “That’s a very brutal life.”

“Yes, and I don’t think I’d be very good at killing people just at a lord’s say so.” We both laughed ruefully at my very evident unwillingness to do as I was told. “Perhaps working with a bailiff to keep law and order? Or maybe a magistrate?”

“Ah, you want to use the strength of your arm to keep a community at peace, or uphold its laws.” He smiled gently. “You aim too low, lass. What you want is to be a queen. One of the warrior queens of old who rode into battle.” My heartbeat picked up at that and, as he spoke, I could almost hear horses’ hooves thundering. “One who led her people against those who dared bring trouble to her borders. Who’d never ask her men to participate in a fight that she wouldn’t ride into herself.”

In Grania, we talked sometimes about something we called a harbinger. A person or sign that had your teeth clamping down, the hairs on your neck standing on end, your heart racing with a kind of foreknowledge that was just out of reach, until such point as what was foreshadowed came to pass. Right now, Weyland’s words had the feel of that.

He was being self-serving, redirecting my desires towards a crown I assuredly didn’t want, but somehow, something had those words twisting in me. I assumed his lady mother didn’t lead their troops into battle, so why could I imagine myself doing exactly that? He stared at me, and I stared back, and when I did, I saw the dream I’d had before, of wolves, so many wolves, running across the plain. But in this vision, it altered slightly, because above the wolves flew a great black-winged raven, one which fixed me with its golden eye, right before it—

“Why does that feel right?” I asked of the wind as much as of Weyland.

“I don’t know if this is the way of it,” he replied, in just as faraway a tone, “or if every man who finds his mate feels she is the queen of the world, but it does, doesn’t it?”

He reached for me then and I went into his arms, letting him set me between his knees, the two of us staring out across the hills of Strelae and the plains around Bayard, somehow able to see hints of what I’d dreamed of playing out. But despite this moment of closeness, I shivered, because when I caught flashes of that raven, it wasn’t just its eye that was golden, it was its whole skull. Bared to the bone, stripped of flesh, somehow it flew, directing the hordes of wolves but to where? That I didn’t know.

But I would. All too soon I would find out exactly who they were.

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