Page 37 of The Queen's Huntsman
Indeed, until he’d hurled Borlewen’s blade into the bed behind her back, she had preferred to believe it all a beautiful lie rather than to consider that Loc might be the wrong man.
What a fool she had been.
Though when first she’d met him, so resplendent in his finery, his smile so bright and his appearance so golden, she’d wanted so much to believe in him… and yet, even blinded by this golden beauty and all her wellspring of hope, she’d kept close the things that would make her people vulnerable—the workings of their Dragon Lair, Porth Pool… her father’s illness and his connection to the land. Only now that she understood there had been a reason for her distrust, she also understood that she herself was not totally blameless.
Alas, she knew her father’s heart as she knew her own, and if Gwendolyn could be honest with herself, none of their actions had ever truly put first the spirit of this world.
Even before her father’s illness, her capitulation to the alliance was simply for the advancement of his interests—and hers as well, truth be told. It was never a truly selfless pursuit.
Gwendolyn had viewed her betrothal to Urien as the means to an end—the unification of these lands under one king… and eventually, one queen.
The entire time she’d kept her eyes upon Porth Pool, worrying, fretting, her one-true concern had not really been for the land itself, but for her father’s health.
Indeed, everything she ever did was for her father, and for Trevena and Cornwall.
But perhaps the land was dying, not so much because of her father’s illness or his death, but because her people had too long forgotten to seek wonder in this world?
This was what she must now reconcile: What was true, and what was not. What was still possible and what was lost.
Intuitively, she understood Málik held the key to her answers, and no matter what she felt about him—no matter what he felt about her, she must rise above it all and seek the truth.
“There’s a village ahead,” Málik apprised, when she feared she would sink to her bottom and never again rise.
“At last!” Gwendolyn exclaimed, but then she blinked as she took in her surroundings. Regardless that she had never actually ventured this far north, she recognized the rising landmark from the map in her father’s war room. Before her stood six stones, painted with blood and carved with daggers…
The Druid’s Crossroad.
ChapterFifteen
The village Málik spoke of was the one Gwendolyn feared.
Even at this early afternoon hour, with the sun shining so brightly, there was a pall to the glade, giving Gwendolyn a frisson of fear.
Unlike the Llanrhos Druids, who worked with Pretania’s tribes, serving as arbiters, this order did not welcome tribunals, nor visitors. And despite that they, too, were arbiters simply by virtue of their ancient order, their judgment was offered without mercy, and no man—no woman—was foolish enough to disturb these men.
“Málik?” she said, halting abruptly, but to her horror, he kept walking. “Málik!” she cried out. “This is no place for me! Neither for you, truth be told!” She rushed up beside him, daring to seize him by the hand, tugging frantically. “Please! No! Let us go!”
To her surprise, his fingers wove themselves through hers, and he squeezed reassuringly. “Trust me,” he said, gently. “This is one place Loc’s men will not seek you.”
“Doubtless!” Gwendolyn agreed. “Really, you must realize they’ll not welcome my kind, not even a queen.”
He lifted a brow. “Your kind?”
“A woman,” she hissed with horror. “I’m a woman, Málik!”
“Indeed, you are,” he said, with a wink, as though they hadn’t quarreled so bitterly only yestereve, and then gone for much of the day without speaking. Gwendolyn was relieved to see the end of their enmity, but this was neither the time nor the place for jests.
And she really, really didn’t wish to be here!
“Theywillwelcome you,” he insisted, dragging her along.
Gwendolyn had no choice but to follow. “Blood and bones!” she said, relenting. “I really hope you know what you are doing.”
“I do,” he said. And despite that, she worried.
This was the order that once made their judgment about a man’s innocence by shoving a dagger into his belly, slicing him to his entrails, then concluding their opinion by the way he stumbled and fell, and thereafter, by the way his entrails revealed themselves.
“The last man I know who came crawling to this village ended up eating a stew made from his own innards!”
