Page 114 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

I gave you Nordred. What could be more precious than that?

Nordred gave me Nordred, a fitting payment for the extended life he was gifted. He did so for you.

I nodded then, my jaw tightening as I turned to my mates. This wasn’t fair. They deserved a moment. We all did, but we wouldn’t get it, because I received another vision then. I followed the trail of blood through the forest like a hound tracking a wounded deer. Spatters on leaves, scarlet handprints left on trunks, dragging footprints in the soft dirt and then… him.

When I saw Callum lying there, glassy-eyed, propped up by a tree trunk, I felt a thrill. He looked waxy, pale, dead. But then his hand moved, jerking the arrow buried in his heart out, something that no wounded man should have been able to do. A bright gout of blood spurted out as a result, staining his armour and that should have just been the start of it: blood should have pumped freely, the very mechanism of his heart ejecting his life’s blood from the hole I’d created, that he’d just made worse. But then his other hand lifted and familiar blue flames were conjured, right before he slapped them down over his heart.

“Gods be damned…” I hissed, feeling a black rage rise inside me, followed by yet another sharp twist of pain in my womb.

When I blinked, when the camp reasserted itself, I found my mates clustered around me, blocking the sight of Rath’s men dragging away the corpse of the king.

“Why do I think I’m not going to want to hear what you have to say?” Weyland said.

He looked tired then, beyond tired. Deep lines were etched in his face and there were shadows in those sky blue eyes where there had been none before. He needed to rest. We all did. We needed time, a bolthole, a place we could barricade ourselves in and lock the world away as we sought succour in each other’s arms. But the gods saw things differently. Or rather, a goddess did. I heard her chuckle in the back of my skull as I faced them down, ready to deliver yet more bad news.

An hour later, we were ready to ride. The army would follow in phases, some on swift horses with us, others going as fast as they could, but bringing with them equipment and supplies we couldn’t leave behind.

But there was one thing we couldn’t take with us.

A bier had been created for Nordred, logs of old wood set up to form a platform, his face scrubbed clean of blood and grime, his shield resting on his chest. Then there were his men, the young lads he’d wooed away from their homes with tales of glory. The ones he’d shown how to use the business end of a sword. I nodded to each one of them, not bothering to try and hide my tears now. They didn’t either. The men were a blurry mess in my eyes and yet somehow my brain made sense of them. They were loyal, they were good and they had come here to pay their respects to a great man, something they’d discovered when they met him, just as I had.

“Lass…”

One of my mates went to speak, to step forward and try and take this burden from me, but just as I couldn’t execute their father for them, they couldn’t do this for Nordred.

Only I could.

Part of me wanted that knife, to hack my hair down to the scalp and scatter it across his body, to shear every inch of softness from me and give it to him. But he’d never have wanted that for me. So I removed the bow that had been returned to me, the one I used to shoot that fucking bastard Callum with, and I laid it at his side, watching those stiff white fingers, begging, pleading inside my head for them to move and take it up.

Stay in the moment, lass.

I heard his rough voice as I snatched up the piece of wood wrapped with fabric and soaked in oil, then shoved the end in the crackling fire. I walked over to the bier that held the body of the only real father I’d ever fucking had and I laid the burning brand down with all the gentleness one would show a small child.

The branches caught alight quickly. Despite the rain, somehow they’d managed to find wood that wasn’t damp, making me wonder to what lengths they’d gone. But in some ways, it all made sense. An actual crowned king was executed without fanfare, his body dragged away and disposed of with as much thought as one might toss dead vermin on a midden. But a man actually capable of being a true king? He’d died with his last formal title being horse master, but everyone here who stood to watch Nordred’s body burn knew he was far more than that.

Despite the impending sense of doom building inside me, I stood there until the logs burned down, until his ashes and the timber’s had mingled before I nodded and then pulled away.

“He’s coming for Snowmere,” I said, and whether that pronouncement was made as their mate or their queen, I didn’t know or care anymore.

Because the curse of the living is, we must care about those we love. We want, need to protect the vulnerable. In my mind’s eye I saw Jan and Del, I saw Annis and the other refugees, then Mother Aeve and the other priestesses, even Kelly the pie maker and I knew we had to do whatever we could to protect them from the bloody Reavers who waited, patient as hounds, waiting to be loosed upon their prey by their master.

And he was coming. Callum’s eyes flicked open in my mind. He wasn’t moving like a panther, instead, his were the halting steps of the elderly, but he was still in motion. One step after another, to get to his Reavers.

“We ride until we reach the city and then we work out what the hell to do about a Reaver attack,” I added belatedly.

Dane chanced a small smile, then nodded before turning to the others.

“You heard your queen. We ride for Snowmere!”

57

The ride back to Snowmere was a nightmare. My consciousness was soft and hazy from exhaustion, coupled with pain and anguish, the like of which I’d never experienced, and weighed down with worry. Worry for Snowmere, worry that somehow Callum had reached his Reavers before us and was riding up the mountain towards Snowmere. Worry about Arden’s increasingly laboured breathing, the sweat flecking his neck white. If this was being a queen, I would’ve gladly stepped down in that moment. But of course, that’s not how it works.

I’d been horrified and relieved when we finally reached the gates of Snowmere. Manned by a small group of guards, they were held open to allow any and all to enter, something I ordered changed as soon as we got off our horses and walked them through. We were forced to keep our mounts moving, Nordred’s advice about the proper way to cool down a hard-worked beast in my mind as we did so, even if the pacing back and forth just set my nerves on edge. But the bulk of our troops followed us in, the word being put about quickly of what challenge we were about to face.

“So what do we do, Highness?” a guard asked Dane, then his eyes widened. He sketched a hasty bow and then corrected himself. “Your Majesty.”

“She’s Your Majesty,” Dane said, jerking his thumb at me. “I’m a royal consort. I’m not sure what honorific was used for them. That’s been lost to time.”

---