wind-burned face impassive. “That may be, but it’s not the clans I’m worried about.”
“Well, obviously.” Bayar smiled thinly. “When you and the royal consort have repeatedly delivered young Princess Raisa right into their hands.” Distaste flickered over his face.
That was another thing that annoyed Raisa: Lord Bayar never used her father’s name. He called Averill Lightfoot Demonai the royal consort, as if it were an appointed office that anyone could hold. Many in the Vale aristocracy despised Raisa’s father because he was a clan trader who’d made a marriage many of them wanted for themselves.
But, in fact, the queen of the Fells had not married lightly. Averill had brought with him the support of the clans and counter-balanced the power of the Wizard Council. Which, naturally, the High Wizard did not like.
“Lord Bayar!” the queen said sharply. “You know very well that Princess Raisa is fostered with the clans as required by the Naéming.”
The Naéming was the agreement between the clans and the Wizard Council that had ended the Breaking—the magical calamity that had nearly destroyed the world.
“But surely it is unnecessary for Princess Raisa to spend so much time away from court,” Bayar said, smiling at the queen. “Poor thing. Think of all the dances and pageants and parties she’s missed.”
And stitchery and elocution classes, Raisa added to herself. A bloody shame.
Byrne studied Raisa as he might a horse he was thinking of buying, then said in his blunt fashion, “She doesn’t look any the worse for wear to me. And she rides like a Demonai warrior.”
That was high praise, coming from Byrne. Raisa sat up a little straighter.
Queen Marianna put her hand on Byrne’s arm. “Do you really think it’s so dangerous, Edon?” She was always eager to bring any argument to a close as quickly as possible, even if it meant throwing a bandage over a boil.
Byrne looked down at the queen’s hand on his arm, then up into her face. His craggy features softened a fraction. “Your Majesty, I know how much you love the hunt. If it comes to following the herds into the mountains, Lord Bayar will be unable to accompany you. The borderlands are full of refugees. When a man’s family is starving, he’ll do whatever it takes to get them fed. There’s armies of mercenaries traveling through, heading to and from the Ardenine Wars. The Queen of the Fells would be a valuable prize.”
“Is that all you’re worried about, Captain Byrne?” Bayar retorted, eyes narrowed.
Byrne didn’t blink. “Is there something else I should be worried about, my lord? Something you’d like to tell me?”
“Perhaps we should go on,” Queen Marianna said, decisively snapping her reins. “Micah and the others should have no difficulty catching us up.”
Lord Bayar nodded stiffly. Micah’s going to hear about this, Raisa thought. The High Wizard looked as though he could bite off someone’s head and spit out the teeth. She urged Switcher forward, claiming the lead. Byrne maneuvered his great bay horse so that he rode beside her, with the rest following after.
Their trail climbed through lush upland meadows sparkling with starflowers and buttercups. Red-winged black-birds clung impossibly to swaying seedheads left over from the previous year. Raisa drank in the details like a painter deprived of color.
Byrne looked about as well, but to a different purpose. He scanned the forest to either side, his back straight, reins held loosely in his hands. His men fanned out around them, riding three miles to their one, scouting the way ahead and monitoring their back trail.
“When does Amon come home?” Raisa asked, trying out her hard-learned conversational skills on the dour captain.
Byrne studied her face for a long moment before answering. “We expect him any time, Your Highness. Because of the fighting in Arden, he’s had to take the long way around from Oden’s Ford.”
It had been more than three years since Raisa had seen Amon—Byrne’s eldest son. After her three years at Demonai Camp, she’d returned to court at solstice to find that Amon was gone to Wien House, the military school at Oden’s Ford. He meant to follow in his father’s footsteps, and soldiers began their training early.
She and Amon had been fast friends since childhood, when despite their difference in station, a lack of other children at court had forced them together. Fellsmarch Castle had been lonely without him (not that she’d had much time to be lonely). When I’m queen, Raisa thought, I’m going to keep my friends close by. It was one more entry on a long list of good intentions.
Now Amon was on his way back to the Fells, traveling the hundreds of miles from Oden’s Ford on his own. Raisa envied him. Even among the clans, she always traveled with some kind of guard. What would it be like, choosing her own way, sleeping when and where she liked, each day brilliant with possibility and risk?
The hunting party turned west, following a trail that stitched its way along the side of the valley. Though they were hundreds of feet above the Dyrnnewater, the roar of its cascades floated up to them.
They passed through a narrow canyon, and it grew noticeably cooler as the stone walls closed in on either side of them. Raisa shivered, feeling a twinge of worry, a vibration in her bones as if the rich web of life around her had been plucked by unseen fingers.
Switcher snorted and tossed her head, nearly ripping the reins from Raisa’s hands. The gloom on either side of the trail seemed to coalesce into gray shadows loping alongside her, their bodies compressing and extending.
Gray wolves, the symbol of her house. Raisa caught a glimpse of narrow lupine heads and amber eyes, tongues lolling over razor-sharp teeth, and then they disappeared.
Wolves were said to appear to the blooded queens at turning points: times of danger and opportunity. They had never appeared to Raisa before, which wasn’t surprising since she was not yet queen.
She glanced back at her mother, who was laughing at something Lord Bayar had said. The queen hadn’t seemed to notice anything unusual.
Had Raisa been riding out from Demonai with her clan friends, they’d have taken her premonition as an omen, poking and prodding at it like a snake in the dirt, studying over its possible meaning. Being of the Gray Wolf lineage, Raisa was expected to have the second sight, and this skill was respected.
A voice broke into her thoughts. “Are you well, Your Highness?”
Startled, Raisa looked up into Byrne’s worried eyes, gray as the ocean under a winter sky. He’d come up next to her and taken hold of Switcher’s bridle, inclining his head so he could hear her answer.
“Well…um…I…” she stammered, for once at a loss for words. She thought of saying, I have a peculiar feeling we’re in danger, Captain Byrne, or, By chance did you see any wolves along the way?
Even if the gruff captain took her seriously, what could he do?
“I’m fine, Captain,” she said. “It’s been a long time since breakfast is all.”
“Would you like a biscuit?” he asked, digging into his saddlebag. “I’ve some in my—”
“That’s all right,” she said hastily. “We’ll have lunch soon, right?”
The canyon opened into a pretty, upland meadow. The deer herd had been seen grazing there a week ago, but they were gone now. In this season they were likely heading to higher ground, and with the wizard Lord Bayar along, the hunting group couldn’t follow. They were pushing at clan boundaries as it was.
They stopped for their midday in the meadow, just outside the mouth of the narrow canyon. The meal was an elaborate affair, laid out on fancy cloths, with cheese and cold meats, fruit, and bottles of wine and cider. While the rest of them ate, two of Byrne’s soldiers scouted ahead, looking for traces of the missing herd.
Raisa had little appetite.