“It is.” The looks on their faces when they saw her use her gifts, her gifts, both of them. Not disgust or even fear. Only hope. All thanks to a silly prophecy and a couple of bards who could carry a fine tune. Still, it felt good. More than that, it had started to feel right.
They pass through three more towns on the road north, and in every village, Emilia and Mathilde find ears willing to listen. They meet in secret, in taverns and country houses. In dark, dusty barns and beside the soft banks of rivers. The people come carrying pitchforks and shovels as though they would be weapons. They see the warrior who has a cougar familiar, and they start to believe.
“What did I tell you?” Emilia says, turning the roasting rabbit on the spit above their campfire as Camden’s mouth waters. “They believe. They want change as badly as we do.”
“But can we win?” Jules turns her own rabbit, a much larger and meatier one than Emilia’s. “With an army of farmers and fishers and all of different gifts? They aren’t soldiers, and they’re as like to fight one another as they are to fight the queensguard.”
“We can win,” says Mathilde. “With enough of the island at our back, we can win.”
In the back of her mind, Jules hears the whisper that the queens are sacred. But she stamps out the thought. Queens are sacred. But these poisoner queens have failed them. They have corrupted the line. Especially Katharine.
“You should go easier on the exaggerations next time, Mathilde,” Emilia says, but across the flames, the seer only grins.
“Why? The crowds love to hear the grand tales. The grander, the better. So what if Jules did not really kill fifty soldiers during the escape from the Volroy cells? So what if her war gift cannot halt one hundred arrows?”
“Nothing as long as they never want a demonstration,” Jules says, and Emilia laughs. “You and the other bards are going to make people think I’m twelve feet tall.”
Mathilde chuckles, and tears a small loaf of bread into four chunks. She tosses them one each, and Jules takes up Camden’s share to press against the side of the rabbit to soak up the juices.
“That is the last of the bread,” Mathilde says. “We will have to go without for a few days. There is nothing between us and the foot of the mountains now.” Nothing, unless they turn south and make for the glen and the Black Cottage. Jules strips off a piece of meat and chews it as she snaps off a quarter haunch for Camden. It is not enough for the cougar. They will have to hunt again before dusk, but with her gift, game is easy to find. This sweet rabbit practically hopped into her arms.
“Up.” Emilia stands and nudges Jules with her foot. “Time to train. You are right about one thing: if we are to carry this off you must truly look like a better warrior than I am.”
Jules pats Camden on the head and tells her to stay near the fire. If the big cat comes along, she will only wind up pinning Emilia to the cold ground.
They find a small clearing in the trees, and Emilia tosses her a sword. Jules has graduated from the bluntness of sparring sticks.
“How much time will we need to train the soldiers?” Jules asks as their blades cross.
“More than we have.”
“But—” Jules parries. “We can’t send farmers against armored queensguard. Not without the right training.”
“We can with the right leader. Now pay attention or I am going to slice off your arm.” They cross blades again. Attack and parry. Nothing fancy. No flair. No heart. “But you are right about one thing. They are farmers. Tradespeople. They are not soldiers, and many of them will die.”
“But why? If we wait—”
“Because people die in war.” Emilia advances in a flurry. “They die for what is right. And if you are to lead them, you’ll have to let go of your naturalist weakness!”
Jules thrusts her palm into Emilia’s belly. Her war gift sends Emilia flying into a tree and knocks the wind right out of her.
“Oh!” Jules runs to her and kneels. “I didn’t mean for you to hit the tree.”
“It’s all right.” Emilia takes Jules’s hand and kisses the knuckles. “I kind of liked it.”
At the edge of the clearing, Camden grunts.
“Cam? I told you to stay with Mathilde.”
The cat grunts again and twitches her tail irritably. When she turns and dashes back the way she came, Jules knows well enough to follow.
At first, it seems that nothing is amiss. Mathilde is seated before the fire, nearly as they left her. It is not until Camden puts a paw up onto Mathilde’s shoulder that they see: the seer is stiff with a vision.
“Mathilde?” Jules approaches cautiously. “Emilia, what do we do?”
“Do not disturb her.” The warrior squats low and quickly moves nearby weapons and rocks. “When she comes out of it, she may jerk. Keep her from running into the flames, and keep her from falling and striking her head.”
She makes it sound worse than it is. When the vision is over, Mathilde simply twitches and blinks. Then a thin rivulet of blood leaks from her nose.
“Here.” Emilia presses a wad of cloth to it.
“Are you all right?” Jules asks.
“I am fine. Did it last for long?”
“Not long. Camden told us to come back, and then it was only a few minutes.”
Mathilde sniffs and reaches out to scratch Camden behind the ears. “Good cat.” She dabs at the blood; it has already stopped.
“What did you see?” asks Emilia.
Mathilde turns to Jules, her eyes large and sorrowful. “I think I saw your mother. I think she is in danger, at the Black Cottage.”
After Mathilde’s vision, Jules and Emilia wasted no time breaking camp and making their way toward the Black Cottage. The travel was slow in the dark, and by sunrise, their legs are too weary to increase the pace by much.
“Perhaps she was wrong,” Emilia says. “Or perhaps the vision wants us to go to the Black Cottage for some other purpose and is trying to lure us there.”
Jules glances at Mathilde, who avoids her eyes. Behind her, Camden swings her tail back and forth, swatting Emilia in the legs. It seems an age that they travel along in silence: another uncomfortable night’s camp in the mountains and another morning of walking, before the smoke from the Black Cottage chimney rises into view.
Jules looks down across the meadow at the dark, pitched roofs, the crossed timbering. The door to the stable is open, and a small flock of chickens meanders around near the stream. Nothing seems out of sorts.
“We may not be welcome here,” Jules warns them. “Old Willa might try to toss us out on our ears.”
“Old Willa.” Emilia grins. “Sounds like I’ll like her.”
They walk on, out of the trees, and a large black crow dives from the branches. It flaps its wings hard in Mathilde’s face and caws loudly into Camden’s.
“Aria!” Jules holds her hand out to her companions, to keep them from harming the bird.
“You know this bird?” Mathilde asks.
“She’s my mother’s.”
They hurry across the grass, already brown from hard frosts, and Jules leaps up the cottage steps, casting an eye toward the crow perched atop the roof’s edge. “Wait here,” she says, and she and Camden go inside alone.
Instantly, Caragh’s brown hound, Juniper, barrels into Camden’s side and licks her face.
Caragh comes to the door, and Jules walks into her arms.
“I hope you don’t mean to lick my face like that.”
“Your cougar doesn’t seem to mind,” Caragh says, and chuckles. She draws back, holds Jules at arm’s length. She studies every inch of her, from the tips of her toes to the ends of her cut brown hair. The tightness of her fingers speaks of how badly she wants to pull Jules close. “What are you doing here?”
“Madrigal,” Jules says quickly. “We saw Aria, and my friend”—she nods to Mathilde—“had a vision. Is she here? Is she safe?”
Caragh nods at Juniper, and the hound stops frantically pawing at Camden. Then she sighs. She is lovely as always, even in an apron and her brown-gold hair tied messily with a piece of twine. But her eyes are heavy.
“Pesky crow,” she says softly. “Always flying off places.”