Tilting her head back, Talbot drained the cup, then staggered backward, all but toppling over. Captain Byrne seemed ready for that. He grabbed her arm to steady her, deftly plucking the cup from her grip before it fell. She put her hands over her ears, her eyes wide and panicked, an array of emotions tracking across her face.
“You’ll learn to shut it out,” Byrne said, “and filter it, so you only take in what’s useful.” He glanced around, as if self-conscious at having these long-held secrets exposed in front of an audience.
Gradually, Talbot seemed to find her footing, resuming her ready stance.
The ceremony continued, as more blood was mingled with the earth in the garden to signify the connection between the queen, the bound captain, and the mountain home.
“Now,” Jemson said, “we have one more milestone to celebrate. Most of you know that today is the princess Alyssa’s sixteenth birthday. It is our tradition here in the north that the sixteenth birthday is the day of Naeming, when young people choose their vocation, and when the heir to the Gray Wolf throne is named the Princess Heir. We had hoped to celebrate this day along with her, and with the queendom at large. At present, Princess Alyssa is too far away to celebrate with us, and so we have chosen a proxy, who will bring the good news to her.” He turned to Hadley. “Captain DeVilliers, are you willing to serve as proxy for the princess heir in this celebration?”
“I am,” Hadley said.
Jemson went on to describe Lyss’s accomplishments, mostly on the field of battle, and the virtues and talents she would bring to the throne. This ceremony, at least, was familiar, since Ash had been present at his sister Hana’s name day ceremony. His mother participated in this one, her voice ringing out strongly as she asked Hadley the Three Questions. Clearly Hadley had been studying, because she delivered the Three Answers flawlessly.
Ash had never heard of this option for the naming ceremony—that of having a proxy—but Jemson said it had been done in the past, in times of war, or to solemnize a marriage between two people separated by distance.
Finally, Hadley knelt beside the queen’s chair and bowed her head. Queen Raisa leaned toward her and set the tiara of office on Hadley’s head. “Rise, Princess Alyssa ana’Raisa, named heir to the Gray Wolf throne.” She paused, then whispered, “Rise, Gray Wolf.”
Ash found himself joining a chorus of voices. “Rise, Gray Wolf.”
On the other side of the eastern ocean, in the city of Celesgarde, Alyssa ana’Raisa stood on her terrace, looking to the west, where the sun must be setting beyond the boundary of wind and water known as the Boil.
As on so many nights before, she’d awakened in the midst of a vivid dream of home. This time, she’d been in her mother’s rooftop garden. Talbot knelt before her, her sword resting across her outstretched hands, offering her blade like a knight in a story.
I’m coming.
After that, Lyss couldn’t sleep. Her mind seethed with plots and plans and schemes, each examined, tested, and discarded.
The meeting with Jenna Bandelow had kindled a spark of hope that still smoldered at Lyss’s core. Hope that her brother might be alive. Hope that she’d found an ally. Hope that she could use that connection to turn disaster into triumph.
Lyss and the dragon-rider were both keeping secrets, still treading carefully, doling out information bit by bit. For instance, Lyss had shared Ash’s real name, but hadn’t mentioned that she was the heir to the Gray Wolf throne. Jenna hadn’t disclosed the reason for her campaign against the empress, or shared the story of how she’d met Ash, or explained her kinship with the dragon she called Cas.
They’d agreed to meet regularly, in the same place, to discuss strategy. Jenna was a predator at heart—she wanted to separate her target from the herd and go in for the kill. Lyss worried that a poorly planned attack would only alert the empress to Jenna’s presence and send Celestine’s armies into the mountains to hunt for them.
She had a little time, at least until the dragon healed.
The shutters rattled under the assault of the wind. The weather was bad, and getting worse, even for a place where wicked weather was the norm.
Lyss threw the doors open and walked out onto the terrace, facing the ocean and the storm head-on.
The wind teased her hair out of its braid and frothed the Indio into gray peaks and valleys that smashed against the seawall below her feet. Waves like packs of gray wolves, leaping higher and higher, scrambling for a purchase on the wet stone. The hairs on the back of Lyss’s neck prickled, and she shivered.
I need to get home, she thought, even if the only way to get there is at the head of a Carthian army.
She saw Breon only at a distance, and always in the presence of the empress. He was like a bird in a gilded cage, dressed in his court finery, attended by serving girls seemingly chosen for their beauty.
I am going to save him, too, somehow, Lyss thought. She was, after all, in the habit of making impossible promises and dreaming impossible dreams.
Spray needled her face, startling her. She thought it was rain, until she tasted the salt water on her tongue. That couldn’t be happening—she was too high above the water. But when she leaned forward, she could see that now the waves were crashing just below the top of the wall. The leading edge of the Boil had rolled closer, so that she could have reached out a hand and touched it.
The ocean was coming to her. The wind continued to howl, although now it sounded more like . . .
No, she thought. That’s impossible.
As she backed away from the edge, she breathed in the familiar scent of lodgepole pine and wet fur. When she turned, meaning to flee back into the safety of her room, she all but ran into a massive silver wolf with gray eyes. The wolf’s fur was matted with the wet, and she dripped seawater onto the stones. As Lyss stood frozen, the wolf shook, spattering the entire terrace with droplets.
“You are a long way from our mountain home, Granddaughter,” the wolf said.
Lyss began to tremble, until she was shaking uncontrollably. Her mother often told stories of visits from their ancestors, the Gray Wolf queens, in wolf form. They usually came in times of trouble, bringing wisdom and warnings when the Line was at risk, or change was coming.
The wolves had been the unseen guardians of her childhood. The wolves had walked when Hana died, when their father died, when the assassins had come for Lyss in Fellsmarch. When the wolves walked, her mother kept her close. In Lyss’s experience, the wolves always brought bad news, though she’d never seen them herself. Maybe it was because she was never meant to be part of the Line. Maybe it was because she’d not yet been crowned princess heir, though her mother had seen them several times in the year before her coronation.
Lyss took one step back, then another. As she did so, she felt rather than heard the sound of paws hitting stone as more wolves arrived. Soon the terrace was packed with them. She was surrounded by a sea of silver fur and glittering eyes.
“Who are you?” Lyss whispered, her teeth all but rattling together.
“I am Hanalea ana’Maria, your many-greats grandmother,” the gray-eyed wolf said. Another wolf stepped out from behind her, this one with green eyes. “And this is Althea ana’Isabella, also my granddaughter. We bring greetings from your ancestors, the Gray Wolf queens.”
“All right,” Lyss said, a stone of dread in her middle. “Why are you here?”
“We are here because the Line of Queens is broken, and you must pick up the pieces,” Hanalea said.
“What do you mean? Are you saying that my mother—that my mother is dead?” Lyss’s voice rose until that last word came out in a kind of shriek. Regret sluiced over her like a rogue wave, nearly knocking her off her feet. She’d refused to go home and mourn with her mother, and that had led to a cascade of misfortunes, ending in this.
But Althea and Hanalea were shaking their heads. “Not exactly,” Hanalea said. “It’s . . . complicated.”
“What do you mean, it’s complicated?” Lyss shouted. “A person is dead, or she isn’t.”