Page 97 of A War of Three Kings

“I know. Gods, I know.” Diarmuid shakes with shock, too. His hands have gone still on my feet, and they are so cold. “How did we lose this battle?”

“We underestimated the enemy. But they have played their hand, and we won’t make that same mistake again.”

A deep pit of despair is widening within me, trying to drag me under, but I cannot give in to it. My people need my leadership, and if I fall apart, none of us will survive the flight to Windkeep.

I pull the pieces of myself together and truly look around. So many injured soldiers, moaning softly or slumbering so deeply they look dead. Many of the druids and priestesses hold their heads in their hands or are curled up beneath their cloaks with barely audible sobs escaping from them.

I grip Diarmuid’s hands. “I don’t think even an enemy army ten thousand strong could take down our father. You have seen his fae form? The man is practically pure fire.”

My brother grunts. “It explains the temper.”

That brings the ghost of a smile to my lips. “He will not lose hope from this setback, and neither should we. We lost the first battle, not the war. It is far from over.” I squeeze his hands, then replace my stockings and boots, and stand. “You should try to get some sleep. I’m going to find our grandmother. That’s her son out there, defying the king’s army.”

Diarmuid says nothing. He follows me through the darkness until we find her sitting with one hand on the chest of a sleepingpatient, staring blankly ahead. I squat down and peer into her face. She jolts as though her thoughts were disturbed.

“Come and rest.” I take her bony hands in mine. The skin there is paper-thin and cold. “Diarmuid will give you something to help you sleep.”

She doesn’t protest as I lead her to a soft patch under a tree and lie her down on the moss, placing multiple fire-infused stones around her shivering body. Diarmuid gives her strips of some sort of bark to chew on, then takes some himself. I refuse his offer, mentally promising to watch over them both. My grandmother ends up resting her head in my lap while I stroke her hair, sitting with the tree trunk at my back. Diarmuid snores lightly at her side.

Long after I think she has fallen asleep, she speaks. “I know your father is a man in his sixties—not that he looks a year over thirty-five—but to me, he’s still my little boy. That tiny child who always had a mischievous smile on his face while he got up to all sorts of trouble. You have no idea how many times he set the place on fire with his tantrums.”

A small smile forms on her lips, then it falls immediately.

“And I left him behind, to all that death and destruction. To thousands of bloodthirsty warriors who want him dead.” Her voice is soft and frail, with no emotion at all in it, but her silent tears soak through the fabric of my pants. “When he was younger, we all rode into battle together, where Ronan and I could have his back. Then I grew old and frail, and your grandfather passed on. It is a terrifying thing, being stuck on the sidelines while everyone else fights.”

I stroke her hair and let her talk and talk. Eventually, she falls asleep. My grandmother, with her steely resolve and the temper of a wildcat, is so small and helpless in stature. She has little magic, apart from her flicker of lightning, and her body has failed her enough from age that she can no longer wield abow. Her sharp tongue and position as High Priestess give her a presence that is larger than life, but when she is asleep, my grandmother is a tired old woman still fighting for her family.

I don’t think she will ever stop.

I must fall asleep against the tree, because I wake with a start, hunched over my grandmother with pain shooting up my neck. We leave the camp with three fewer people who succumbed to their injuries in the night.

I miss Klara, who could have saved them. We spend another day and night in the forest and five more people don’t wake up the next morning.

On the third day, we reach the edge of the trees, and I send scouts on horseback into the meadows beyond to search for the enemy.

Thoughts of Aldrin fill my mind. I can hardly breathe when my fears get the best of me and throw up images of him lying dead in a ditch. Or in chains, taken by the enemy.

It is almost as though his presence unfurls within my mind, reaching out a hand to me. Warmth, love and strength wrap around my mind and pick me up. The vaguest sense of an enquiry whispers to me, a wordless question that seems to ask if I am in danger.

It can’t possibly be Aldrin. There is no way I can feel him in my head. Maybe I have lost my grip on my sanity under all the pressure.

That question sounds again, more urgent this time, but I can’t quite grasp it. I bask in his essence that feels like the heat of the sun across bare skin.I am afraid,I think at it, then visualize the open fields we need to cross and the injured people with me. A calm resonates through me at the stroking touch of that presence. I feel Aldrin, alive and uninjured, but fleeing on foot while a distant army pursues him.

The connection or delusion snaps as my scouts gallop toward me and slide off their mounts just under the tree cover.

I rush toward them. “What did you find?”

Fynbar, a soldier local to this area, speaks first. “The main army is nowhere to be seen. There is an enemy attack force scouring the land far to the west, but they were heading away from us. We have a window to get to the city if we move quickly.”

I glance back at the injured and the healers. Dark shadows ring their eyes and mud splatters their blistered feet.

“We don’t have a choice.” I turn around to face the bulk of my charges. “The injured are to share mounts, doubled up. I want soldiers on horseback who can fire a bow and arrow while riding in case the enemy catches up to us.”

There is a flurry of activity as we get moving. Guilt rolls through me as I take a horse of my own, but my archery skills may be needed. I convince Diarmuid to ride behind our grandmother.

We race across the hilly plain that stretches out in all directions, our band a long train behind me. It would be easy for the enemy to storm through on fresh mounts and cut down those tired souls at our rear.

A cool breeze runs across the meadow, making the long grasses move in synchronized channels. I shiver uncontrollably from the bite of the wind and the dread of being so exposed here.

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