Page 55 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“I don’t know that you were invited to this meeting, son,” Ulfric said, casting him a steady look.

“As your heir and as witness to the Reavers attack, I just assumed you would want me present,” Dane replied. “Though it did take some effort to find out when and where it was being held. We did in the end, and that’s what matters.”

“Well, I, for one, want an explanation of that stunt the other evening,” A blustery man clad in rich velvets and gold said. “That could’ve been any wolf’s head—”

“It was far too big to be an ordinary wolf,” a gruff looking man said with a snort. “Must’ve been a long time since you’ve seen one in the flesh.”

“So there’s Reavers among us,” another man said, holding out his hands to placate the others. “Let's just agree to that statement for the interim. There’s been enough reports from stewards and from the army.”

“We’ve provided a map of all the attacks,” a man in uniform said, nodding to the map with a stern expression.

“So where the bloody hell have they come from?” the first speaker said, staring at it.

“From the mountains,” I replied, before I’d even thought to open my mouth.

I flushed as all eyes in the room turned to me, making me want to scuttle behind Axe, to let him face them down, but a heavy hand was placed on my shoulder, keeping me in place.

“What?” One of the men looked to the others. “Who is this woman and why is she—?”

“She’s the mate of my sons and your future queen,” Ulfric replied, staring at me in a way I did not like at all. It was as though I could feel his eyes sliding tangibly over my skin, as if his hand did the same, and that made me shudder. “But I would like to know how you speak with such authority, Lady Darcy.”

“I saw them.” I breathed out the words, because as soon as I said them, I saw the wolves again, swarming across the perilous mountains.

“The girl is cracked!” The one who doubted Dane’s ‘present’ spluttered. “My apologies, Your Majesty, but this Granian girl—”

“Where else would they have come from?” the general said, stabbing a finger into the map? “They would hardly have snuck over the Granian border, run past all of this fertile farmland and heavily populated areas to hit the mountain hamlets first. This isn’t a matter of conjecture or discussion. The data shows us clearly. They came down the mountains. And if anyone could be bothered to look in the peaks, I’m sure we’d find corpses mouldering there of those that didn’t make it over.”

I nodded slowly and the general inclined his head in recognition.

“They tore through the small villages on the outskirts of our country, and because they met little resistance, they’ve encroached further.”

“They were building strength,” I added, not even caring how this news was taken. There would be some who would recognise the true threat and some who wouldn’t. I couldn’t change that. “Every bit of destruction, every death, every defilement. It helps strengthen them, makes them harder, faster, even more deadly.”

“How does this chit know any of this—?”

“Well, it’s not a thing without precedent, is it?” Dane said, his voice a sharp knife slicing through conjecture. “Our old queen was able to sense the dangers to Strelae and mobilise our forces to counter them.”

Ulfric’s stare was unending, flicking from me to his son and back again.

“You can’t claim that this… girl is of the ilk of our former queen?” one man spluttered.

“She’s Granian and the princes are thinking with their cocks.”

“The era of queens died when ours went across the border to sue for peace with the interlopers. The idea of one of them coming here to rule us…?”

“But it was the intelligence report from Lady Darcy that had us moving on Aramoor to meet the Reavers,” the general replied. “We confirmed it by contacting the steward there by bird, but yes, it was her vision that alerted us to the attack, giving us enough time to get our troops mobilised.”

“Really?” The man who turned to face me had a clear challenge in his eyes and Dane shifted forward then, as if to protect me from it. “Well, then we need just wait then, don’t we? Where will the next attack be, future queen?”

Dane stared at me then, willing me to have an answer. And I knew that if I didn’t have that, he wanted me to keep my mouth shut, but I couldn’t. Whatever this was, whatever was going on, they deserved all the facts, even if it weakened our position.

“I don’t know.” My reply was met with grunts of frustration and guffaws. “The ability to feel her, what she’s going to do, it comes and goes.”

“Her? Which her do you speak of?”

When I stared over their heads and at the big pennant hanging on the wall, the emblem of the Strelan royal house displayed upon it, the black wolf transmuted into something else altogether. The fur became feathers and the golden eyes became a skull.

“The Morrigan…”

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