I’d never heard my mother’s response, for I’d clutched my chest and raced to my room before the sob could escape my throat. It was a terrible thing to have my fate decided without my consent, without even a single word of input, but even that wasn’t as painful as my parents’ consensus: that I was too repulsive for marriage.
But not long after, I came to realize my father had given me a gift. Girls of my standing had two paths in life: marriage or the nunnery. My father had opened a third path to me, one where I could live my life with all the freedom of a man. The only cost was that it came with the soul-sucking burden of loneliness.
And now, my father was mere feet away as I sat willingly next to a former enemy. Although after everything I’d done, it seemed to be the least of my crimes.
In calling them back from the dead I’d no doubt damned my clansmen and father, but there was a part of me that took great satisfaction in the revenge they’d given me. And if they were necessary to destroy the j?tnar, then there was an even greater part of me that didn’t regret dragging them back from the dead. I shivered at my thoughts. Where was this growing sense of ambition coming from? Had it always been there, lurking in my subconscious?
Gently, Leif turned my face toward his. “What troubles you?”
Many things, I thought, but didn’t say. I didn’t want to air my memories of my parents’ belief I was unsuitable as a wife—not to Leif. Besides, there were more pressing issues. My gaze shifted to my army of undead clansmen.
“No war was won without sacrifice,” Leif said. “This army has gifted you with revenge upon Sigtrygg—who not only murdered your father and clansmen, but was in league with the j?tnar—and the kingdom of Dubhlinn. Your army is a weapon; we will use them to crush the j?tnar. When our lands are safe, you’ll release them, and perhaps they will sleep in the peace you Christians always talk of.”
A hint of a smile touched my lips. The Northmen’s concept of an afterlife was anything but peaceful. “And what if our roles were reversed? What if you were the one to call forth your father and friends? For every trace of who they were to be gone, and for only walking corpses to be left? To watch them tear apart their enemies in mere minutes?”
“My father would accept such a fate with great zeal. Any of us would be proud to be einherjar, to be called upon to fight after death.”
I sighed, exasperated with the forever blood-hungry Northmen. “But if my father still retained his sense of self, he’d be filled with nothing but shame.”
Leif gestured toward the silent men in the dark. “He stands as motionlessly as all the others. Your father as you knew him is gone. What is left will save us all.”
I touched his hand for a moment, but then the echoes of my parents’ conversation reverberated through my mind. A warrior, not a maiden. I withdrew my hand. “You give me sound advice and more than a little comfort.”
He held my eyes. “I’m not your enemy, Ciara. I may have been . . . once. But that changed the moment I met you on the battlefield.”
I tried to laugh him off. “Because I defeated you so soundly?”
“Because you spared my brother. Because something about you made it impossible for me to look away.”
He was melting my resolve, yet still I fought it. We had allied ourselves together, and I had overcome the sense that he was my enemy, but I couldn’t shake the long-held belief I had that I wasn’t fit to be loved as other maidens were. I barely knew myself; how could I in good faith give myself to another? But Leif’s face blocked it all out. There were only the two of us in the darkness—alone.
“Your sister,” he said suddenly, and I froze. “Was it one of my own who killed her?”
Pain for me showed on his face—and regret. “It was a Northman, yes,” I answered, “but certainly none of the men who accompany you.” Very quietly I added, “She was only a child when I watched her be killed.”
“She was murdered . . . in front of you?”
“I’ve watched my sister being murdered in my dreams so often I know every detail,” I said, almost to myself, “down to the stray eyelash that had fallen on her cheek.”
He looked ill for a moment, and then angry, his jaw flexing. “I see my sister, too, in my dreams, and I can’t imagine how I would be now if I’d seen it all happen.” His eyes flicked to mine. “If I could take your memories from you and spare you that pain, I would.”
Almost against my will, I leaned toward him. “The proposal you made last night,” I said quietly, “will you hold to it again tonight?” My craving for closeness was a siren call I couldn’t resist; and indeed he was the only one who could understand me now.
He laughed under his breath. “You’ll kill me yet,” he said. But in answer, he pulled me down beside him and wrapped us in his fur mantle.
This man who had once been my enemy—with his strong arms around me—made me feel safer than I had in weeks, but still I did not succumb to sleep. “I still fear for Mide . . . and for my sisters,” I whispered into the darkness. Leif was silent, but I could tell from the slight shift of his body toward mine that he was listening. “We’ve killed King Sigtrygg, but soon others will come. They will see my father’s death as an open invitation to seize the throne—through marriage or by force.”
“Then you must take the throne for yourself,” Leif said. His words resonated through me like the vibrating strings of a lute.
Yes, whispered the voice inside me, and for once, I wasn’t sure if it was my own or the Morrigan’s. By law, I was my father’s heir, but I wasn’t sure if Máthair would contest it. Would she reveal the truth of my birth—that I was a bastard not even entirely human—or was my exile binding? Mide was a valuable kingdom, rich in resources. Without a powerful force to rule it, it would always be susceptible to other strong and ambitious kings.
“I’ll need help if I am to take Mide from my mother,” I said.
“I am your ally, princess,” he said. “One day you’ll see that.”
As I drifted off to sleep, I thought, Maybe I already have.
The dream stole upon me with such vivid imagery I knew it was more than just a dream.
I stood in the hall of the ruins of a great castle. Stars shone clearly overhead through a massive hole in the ceiling; roots pushed their way up through the stones of the floor, leaving cracks in their wake; hundreds of vines wrapped around the stone staircase before me.
Dark mist poured in, flowing around me like silk. If I stared long enough, I could just make out the form of a woman. Suddenly, the destroyed room was filled with crows. Their black feathers fell to the floor, solidifying into the figure of a woman who remained hidden in the shadows of the great hall. “You know the truth of your birth now,” the Morrigan said.
“Yes,” I said, my hands curling into fists at my side. “Though I’m still not sure why you went to such an effort.”
“We are not without our own seers, and we knew of the giants’ plans long before they stirred from their realm. I refused to stand aside and watch them destroy the land that was once mine. I may be too weak to battle with these monsters, but I could create someone who could. Your father’s bloodline gave me the perfect warrior. You.”
Confusion slowed my reaction. “His bloodline?”
The dark mist swirled until a vision of a woman in gauzy white robes stretched her arms out to the sun as it rose, the pale yellow rays bathing her in its light. The moment it touched her, the gorge behind her was illuminated, and other priestesses in white robes moved toward the light.
“Your ancestors the druids once lived and worshipped alongside the Tuatha Dé Danann, harnessing the power of nature to give them abilities beyond that of mere mortals: the gift of healing, the gift of sight, and the ability to travel between realms.” Her eerie gaze, dark and fathomless, fell upon me. “The druids have died out just as the Tuatha have been driven out of the mortal realm, but traces of their bloodlines, though rare, remain. Your father carried one of their oldest bloodlines, and it gave him the potential for great power. Power that was lying dormant, waiting for immortal blood to awaken it. Together, we made a powerful weapon.”