Page 109 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“Perhaps,” he said, pulling back, putting his fingers to the cut on his chest, then flicking his blood at me. “But they are like all other two-souled. Simple, bestial, loyal to a fault.”

My focus shifted then, hearing, seeing the Reavers converge outside the flames that ringed around us now. Nordred might be keeping them out of this battlefield, but he wasn’t stopping them from doing anything in the field beyond. I watched with dread fascination as the Reavers pulled away from their targets and some were felled for their lack of attention, but enough moved as one to make a scream form in my chest, ready to be loosed on the world.

Who will gift me the most precious of coins? the Morrigan said inside my head. Who will pay the highest price?

I’d intended it to be me, biding my time, wearing the man down before he took me out, his slaughter of me backfiring as it stripped him of all his powers, or by some stroke of luck, I managed to dispatch a centuries-old warrior in a duel. But making deals with gods is always a risky business, if the old tales are true. As I stood there staring, I saw the Reavers converge on my mates, ready to tear them apart. I spun around to see Callum’s blade lifted like an executioner’s blade. My muscles moved slowly, way too slowly to respond to his strike. But worse, Nordred suffered no such delay. He threw himself forward, into the path of Callum’s blade and I was forced to watch it descend by tiny increments, time, reality slowing to the pace of molasses before the tip sunk into Nordred’s chest.

Reality snapped back so abruptly my head spun, breath sucked in, my lungs struggling to accept the burden. I stood there, sword limp in my hands, no defence, no preparation as Callum jerked his sword free, leaving Nordred to fall limply on the ground.

“Lass… Lass…” Nordred gasped and I knew what he would say. Get your sword up, stay ready, don’t let your guard down for a second, but I was powerless to do a thing as I watched the only father figure I’d ever had bleed out on crushed wheat.

“Nordred?”

My voice was that of a five year old having slipped down the keep stairs at night, terrified of the dark, but more so of what lurked within the rooms inside. My muscles stung, then; now, my body ached.

“Nordred?”

I was a sobbing teenager, my tears falling freely onto the hay as I wavered, walking inside the stables.

“Nordred!”

And now I was a woman grown, seeing the incontrovertible reality and not wanting to accept it, even as I knew I must. I dropped down to my knees, weapon forgotten, Callum irrelevant now. He’d now cut my head off where I was, a voice in the back of my head told me, but I just bent my neck in preparation.

This? I shouted at the Morrigan. This is what you take?

What is more precious to you than him? She showed me glimpses of my mates, of the Maidens beyond. You told me I couldn’t have them or the children.

I told you to take me!

And why would I do that? Your misery, your pain… You are right. You give me my due in a far more appropriate way than this boy. He loves nothing but himself, whereas you… There is so much pain to be plumbed here. I will pluck each and every—

NO!

As children, we dream of the moment the world changes in response to our indignant shouts, but I was actually experiencing it. My head snapped up and as I moved, I felt the creak of bones, heard the flutter of feathers. My feathers. Callum took an involuntary step backwards right then, seeming to realise his mistake. The flames around us burned down and then fluttered, the life force sustaining them fading. The storm above quietened, no more thunder rumbling through the air. Instead, the clouds opened, sending a patter of rain down. My tears were washed away as they formed on my cheeks, their salty residue deposited on the earth.

And in that moment, I heard the heartbeat of the land itself, booming deep inside me, something this usurper never would. He raised his sword with shaking hands, but I sent it flying with just a slash of my arm, some invisible force plucking it from his grip and sending it tumbling away in the distance. Reavers tried to rally, to turn on the rest of our people, but somehow I reached out to them too.

The reverse of what I’d done before, when I’d helped our people find the other side of their soul. Now I reached in with shadowy talons and tore their beasts from the Reavers, stripping these interlopers of all of their strength and just leaving wide-eyed, empty-handed men. My people surged forward, cutting them down, ignoring their cries, their pleas, just as the Reavers had done to the men, women and children they’d brutalised, all to meet their lord’s needs. But I wasn’t satisfied with this. My consciousness whirled above us, flying on the wind within the flock of ravens, soaring, soaring until I found the rest of Callum’s troops. A group of ravens is called an unkindness and that was indeed what we were as we descended, circling as one, into the mass of Reavers, but not bringing with us the support they were used to.

I could hear my heart beating frantically in my ears as I struggled to perform the same act on these creatures, tearing the other half of their souls from their bodies, returning them to just weak, terrible men, who used the power of a wolf to carry out their atrocities, and I saw their heads turn in my direction, blue eyes watching my progress. They were silent sentinels, feeling the ravening desire their form took, and waiting to see if my desire to neutralise them had the requisite power to enforce it. My view of them shifted, wavered, my wings faltering, my body falling, falling until I was thrown back into my real body, facing down a now white-faced Callum, his sword back in his hand.

I don’t know where it had come from. I’d tossed my bow away, but suddenly it was back in my hand again, the same ash stave of my Granian bow, the arrow already nocked. He raised his sword, ready to strike back at me, but that just gave me the perfect target. I let my arrow fly and watched it slam into his chest, unable to be stopped now. But then, as he dropped to the ground, so did I.

The world was closing down, the earth beneath my cheek sticky, even as I heard my name being cried out by more than one voice. But I couldn’t reply. I couldn’t do anything, not while I stared at the man who’d been so important in my life.

“Nordred…” I ground out his name, the power to move my vocal chords seeming to come from the very depths of my being.

“You did it, lass.” His voice was so quiet, little more than a whisper, I wasn’t sure if I saw his lips move or I was just hearing his words in my head. “You did it.”

She stood above me, rain dripping from the edges of her raven feathered cloak. “Rest now, little queen, for you will rise again to serve me, over and over and over…”

When the darkness came, I went with it willingly. Anything to escape the sharp sting of her laughter.

55

I awoke to a red-hot agony, something that had me writhing, contorting as far as my bound body would go. It was then that I realised I was back in the king’s gilded tent, that ropes had been tied around my chest, my wrists and my ankles and they were being used to keep me affixed to a chair. On top of that, a deep, vicious pain, like a knife being thrust into my womb, was twisting inside me, forcing my breaths to become pants. Tears formed in my eyes all too easily now, falling onto the plush carpets spread out before us.

“The woman is awake, Your Majesty,” Lord Hale said with a curl of his lip.

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