Page 115 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“Your Majesty,” I shot back. “If I’m forced to endure never hearing my name again, so can you.” But any tiny moment of levity was quickly lost as we considered what we had to do. “We need to mobilise any troops we have stationed here and put them at the wall. Food and water needs to be brought for returning soldiers. They fought a battle in the morning and they may be doing the same on the morrow. Pallets need to be found so they can sleep in shifts.”

“And the women and children?” The guard asked the question tentatively, expecting me to not give a damn about the issue he raised, but feeling like he had to.

I smiled then and placed a hand on his arm and, when I did so, I saw it. The cavernous halls of the citadel could hold many people, but all the women, children and elderly of all of Snowmere? I blinked then, remembering what lay beneath.

The sacred caves… As I saw it, I saw Eleanor and Nordred disappearing into their depths, furtive glances shot over their shoulders as they walked into all that golden light.

Part of me wanted to cling to the vision, hold it close to my chest and not let it go, even as the other half wanted to shove it all away. It was too soon to see a young, vital Nordred, love and worry warring in his eyes.

“Everyone who is not strong enough to fight withdraws back to the citadel,” I said. “We need to start the evacuation now. I don’t know when the Reavers will come. I just know they will. Dane, we have all those food supplies.”

He nodded then and smiled.

“We do. We can sit out a siege if needs be. Old Snowmere has done the same more than once.”

But was that what we were going to do? I tried to follow Eleanor and Nordred, to discover where they went and how they got across the border, but as was often the case, seeking a vision just made it fragment.

The guard nodded.

“I’ll ring the bells. That’ll force everyone into the main square at the front of the castle. You can address the people there.”

The sound of them, those bells, there was a heaviness to their clang, as if a complex mix of portent and warning rang out with them. We saw people come running out of their homes in response and then they saw us. Weyland waved them on, encouraging them to follow us as we walked the poor bloody horses. We already had a sizeable quantity of the army at our back, but the number just swelled and swelled as we crossed town, finally arriving at the square.

“What is the meaning of this?” A sharp voice shouted, cutting across the hum of chatter as we reached the castle and my heart sank as I recognised it. Aurora walked down the steps, looking every inch the queen. Her dress billowed around her ankles, her hair was coiled and wound around her head, a slender coronet on top of it all. Those cold blue eyes of hers found mine, the already irritable expression she wore souring further at the sight of me. “Why have the bells been rung?”

“War is coming. The full Reaver force is on its way,” Weyland replied with a sigh.

We couldn’t seem to muster any urgency in our voices. Everything we’d seen today, everything we’d endured, had deprived us of that. The moon should have been high in the sky, lighting our way. We’d been in the saddle for hours and morning couldn’t be far off, but when I looked upwards, I saw only the thinnest of crescents…

The dark of the moon. The Morrigan’s time. When I was supposed to fight a duel with the queen. Each realisation hit me like a gut strike, something that couldn’t help but make me flinch. Angry Darcy, vengeful Darcy, had been so intent on putting the woman in her place, stopping her petty tyrannies and protecting the men she was coming to see as her mates. But me, now? She felt as brittle and hammered thin as that slice of light in the sky, and just as full of darkness. She was able to kill the queen, Callum and any numbers of Reavers. Anyone and anything until we could finally, finally have peace. I rubbed at my belly absently, the sharp pains of before not ceasing but had having eased somewhat.

“Then where is your father, the king?” Aurora asked, but Dane ignored her, turning around to face the people. I moved with him, automatically going to stand beside him, as did the rest of my pack.

Not everyone person in Snowmere was here, but there were many, so many. We stared down into curious faces, worried ones, some bored and some mildly irritated ones. But they were silent, something that managed to surprise me still.

“The king is dead,” Dane announced, his voice ringing out across the densely packed square, then held up his hand when people started to respond. “The Reavers are coming.” No gesture would silence them then, people beginning to chatter in earnest, but enough wanted to hear what Dane had to say that quiet was regained. “And we must fight to protect our home. Every able bodied man will present himself to the wall with any weapons he might have.” He shook his head then. “With anything that he might repurpose as a weapon. The Reavers are a formidable force. What they will do if they manage to get into Snowmere…”

He gave the crowd, himself, a moment to remember all the tales of what the beasts had done and the silence seemed to grow heavier and more dense. My mind baulked, not wanting to go there again. I’d had more than my fair share of pain. I wouldn’t go seeking more.

“We need to ensure we don’t find out what will happen. At this point, we don’t know when they are coming, but we do know it will be soon. We must be ready to defend Snowmere. Men report to the city gates; women, children and those unable to fight will go to the citadel in old Snowmere.”

“Have faith,” a voice announced and it was then that Mother Aeve came down the stairs, each step seeming to take some effort. “The goddess watches over you and will keep you safe.”

I heard the Morrigan’s chuckle at that, making a mockery of her words.

“The king is dead?” The crowd was sharing the information between each other, then starting to move off to do as they were bid, when the queen strode closer, her eyes blazing. “How did this happen?”

“I executed him,” Dane replied mildly, watching his mother stop where she was.

“Father was going to kill you and us,” Weyland said, approaching his mother. “All so he could get to Darcy. He’d get new sons on her, with her permission or without it. He finally worked out what we understood from the moment we first met our mate.”

He plucked the coronet from his mother’s head, her hands clawing for it belatedly as she tried to process what he’d said, but he just twirled the bejewelled crown around his finger as he came to me, standing there for a moment, before lifting the circlet and setting it on my brow.

That dream I’d had, of wearing a heavy crown, of being weighted down by that and the ermine robe? I felt it now as the circlet rested on my head. I wanted to tear it off, toss it to the ground: what use would it have in the coming fight? But something sharp and brittle in Weyland’s eyes told me not to. I stared back into the eyes of a man I loved, seeing the pain there and just wanting to take it all away, knowing he felt the same about me. I reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze, the only badge of honour I wanted to wear.

“No, he wouldn’t… Ulfric wouldn’t dare!”

“We don’t have time for this, Mother,” Dane said, his tone withering. “King, queen, it’ll all mean nothing if we don’t protect the city from the Reavers.”

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