Page 40 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“I’ve been through this before, so many times, with other girls, other descendants of the queen. It’s my curse that I’m destined to watch every single one of them find their power and…”

I understood now his reluctance. My muscles tensed, my body wound itself tighter, ready to do battle again, but I couldn’t work out where to direct my swords, so I just forced a long breath out myself.

“And each one has failed,” I finished for him. “Some way, somehow, they’ve failed.” Nordred nodded. “In what? Becoming queen?”

“What the queen was, her role in this country was something that people now would find difficult to understand,” he replied. “She wasn’t the mother of princes or a consort of the king.” His hand tightened around his mug, the knuckles going white with the effort. “The worship of other gods came later, but before the rest of the pantheon came here, there was her.”

“The goddess…” I said in a near whisper.

“The maiden, the mother and the crone,” Nordred said, and there was a ceremonial air to his words. “The queen shifts between each of the phases in her lifetime. When she is young, she is brash and will fight with every breath she has for her country. When she is grown, has found her pack and formalised the bond, she cares for and nurtures her lovers, her children, and her people. And when she is old, she uses her wisdom to guide them and the new queen, so the cycle can begin again. Until it was broken.”

He stared at the wooden tabletop for a moment, tracing the sweeping lines of the grain.

“The last queen, Eleanor…” I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, then surged on. “She was the mother of Strelae when she stepped down and went across the border to the Granian forces. Her eyes were filled with tears for every one of her subjects who had died in the fight, but more.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine. “For all the subsequent ones who would die still. In the interest of saving her people, she sacrificed herself. An uneasy peace was struck and the war ended, but…”

Nordred’s eyes wandered now, looking out at the hall.

“There have always been Reavers,” he said. “Men whose second soul has all the ferocity of a wolf, coupled with that of a man as well. Nothing soothes him, settles him, but blood and death. Old queens, back in the very beginnings of Strelae, would keep some of them caged up, ready to unleash on enemies when needed, but most recognised them for the liability they were. Those men affected were counselled, trained, worked with to try and control their nature or…”

I saw in my mind the flash of my claws, then my fingers curled tight as I felt the memory of slicing them through Reaver flesh.

“Or they were put down,” I said flatly, receiving a nod from Nordred.

“There has been no one to curtail Reaver numbers,” Nordred said, “and their commander… Usually Reavers are an erratic, instinct driven force. Easy to put down because of their lack of discipline. But these… Their number cannot be explained by the stepping down of the queen alone. We would have heard tales of Reavers before now, if there had been this many roaming Strelae.”

I saw then the desolate, arid plains that had appeared in my visions, the world reduced to dust as the wolves ran across it.

“Whoever commands their number, he is no rabid wolf. He has a plan. He has allies.”

“The Morrigan…” I said.

“What?”

“The Morrigan,” I repeated. “I could hear her when we were fighting. He feeds her death and destruction, and she grows more powerful. More powerful than the other aspects of the goddess. Pepin said that they were out of balance, the different aspects of the goddess, that ‘Granny’ was no longer the gentle usherer of souls into the afterlife.”

“And so you see the challenges ahead for all five of you,” Nordred said. “Usurp the pretender queen. Take the throne. Rally Strelae for the fight that’s coming or…”

“Or?” Dane said sharply.

Nordred smiled then, but his eyes went wide and staring. “Civilisations have risen and failed so many times over. When our people first came here, the goddess already resided in Snowmere, and she will remain long after we’ve gone. This could be the beginning of something or the end. We don’t know, but I do know this…” He blinked then, coming back to the conversation. “I’ll train no more potential queens. I’ve been gifted an extended lifetime to do just that, but my time now is done.”

He got to his feet and looked down at the lot of us.

“I’ll keep about my business, collecting up young men and training them to fight, so when you take the throne, you’ll have the best army I can muster as my last gift to you.”

“But that’s it,” I said, my voice breaking as I said the words. “You won’t stand by my side and advise me on what to do if I manage to take the throne. You won’t train me anymore.”

Leaving the keep, walking out on my broken father, none of that had hurt, not like this. I stared at the man, only able to take in small parts of him at a time. Those big, broad hands that had gently shifted my body until it took the right form, that broad chest that I’d flung myself against, sobbing too many times and those eyes that seemed to see all of me, right the way down to my soul.

Just like they did now.

“You want me around because none of the people that should’ve cared for you did, Darcy,” Nordred said, “not from any real need. You proved that yesterday. You’ll find Pepin in the city and when you do, you’ll get her to train you. She’s the one with the lessons now, lass, not me. I’ve loved every single one of the girls I’ve helped train, even if they were in my care for mere days or weeks, but…” He smiled then, the lines around his eyes creasing. “But none more than you. You’re the spit of Eleanor, with all of her pride and strength, and more besides. I’ve taught you everything I know. Trust in that, in yourself.”

When he pulled away from the table, I wanted to scream, and when he ambled away, my nails dug into the table top. I choked back a shout, one where I begged, pleaded for him to stay. But I didn’t. In the past, this would’ve been the moment when my chest tightened and my lungs seized, not letting air in or out, but not now. I didn’t get that relief. I was forced to keep breathing, one breath after the other, and just keep going, and with it came a pain that dazzled me.

“Darcy…”

My eyes jerked up at the sound of my name and when they did, I stared into Gael’s eyes, a world of understanding there. I was tired, weak, not feeling like I was up to anything that Nordred just described, which was why I did this. I launched myself at my mate, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face in his hair, just breathing him in with great noisy gulps as the tears came.

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