Leaving his mother under the care of Ty Gryphon and Magret Gray, Ash met with Sasha Talbot and Captain Byrne in the sitting room of the queen’s chambers.
Talbot was visibly nervous, but determined and seemingly well prepared.
“Hear me out,” she said. “As you know, Captain Byrne, I’ve been researching queens and their bound captains in the temple library. I’ve asked you some questions, too. From what I’ve seen and read and heard, having a bound captain now would make Lyss safer, and I’m for anything that would do that.”
She stopped, as if waiting for questions or arguments, but Byrne only nodded. “Go on,” he said.
Once started, it turned into a landslide of words. “I may be getting above myself, but I’ve spent the last three years of my life by Lyss’s side, and I—I don’t think there’s anyone more devoted to her. I know her as well as anyone, and if I could trade my life for hers right now I would do it.
“I know the captain of the Gray Wolves has always been a Byrne, at least for a thousand years, and you might think I shouldn’t be angling for the job, but I have to speak my mind. Simon’s gone, and I’m here.
“Long story short, I’m asking to be named Princess Alyssa’s bound captain. Now, rather than later.” She stood there, then, her fist on her heart, back straight, jaw clenched, as if waiting to be turned down.
Byrne didn’t turn her down. He’d gazed at her, his eyes narrowed, rubbing his chin. Then he glanced at Ash and simply said, “Let’s talk about it in private, Corporal Talbot. I want you to know what you’d be signing on for.”
They must have come to an understanding, because, just two days later, Ash was called to participate in a binding ceremony.
The ceremony took place in the small temple within the queen’s rooftop garden, accessible by secret stairs from the queen’s bedchamber, and by others from the family wing of the palace.
When moonlight flooded through the glass, the handful of celebrants cast long shadows on the stone floor. But Hanalea breathed, as the saying went. The wind from the Spirit Mountains rattled the walls and drove shards of cloud across the night sky, obscuring, and then revealing, the eagle moon.
Ash wore his father’s robes, the Waterlow ravens over top. Sasha Talbot was barefoot, dressed in a loose, roughspun dedicate’s robe. She shifted from foot to foot, as if eager to see it done and over with. The naval commander Hadley DeVilliers wore a dress—something Ash had seen her do maybe once or twice in his life.
It was the first time Queen Raisa had left her rooms since the day she was poisoned. Magret Gray and Titus Gryphon had carried her in on a litter and set her down in a chair. She was wrapped in upland furs, covered in clan-made blankets, her pale face wearing a fierce expression that said, Still a wolf.
Participants could be distinguished from witnesses by their degree of nervousness. Hadley was as fearless as anyone Ash knew, but she stood, hands clenched, mumbling words under her breath, practicing. Speaker Jemson and Captain Byrne stood to either side of a small table bearing the regalia, which included a stone basin, a knife, a crystal bottle, and a silver goblet.
Ash shivered. Lately, it seemed that his life was one blood ritual after another.
“Welcome,” Speaker Jemson said, hauling Ash back to the present. “I apologize for the hour, but it was important that we do this without alerting any enemies of the Line. Tonight, we will celebrate not one but two milestones. Hopefully that will make it worth disturbing your sleep.” He paused, but nobody laughed; so he went on.
“We will begin with the binding ritual, a ceremony that is at least a thousand years old. It has occurred on a battlefield, at a roadside inn, inside a prison, and aboard ship. Believe it or not, this is the largest group ever assembled for the purpose. The essentials are a willing soldier, the blood of the line, soil from the mountain home, and a speaker of the Old Church. Up to now, the ceremony has been held in secret—even from the royal family—and the willing soldier has always been a Byrne.”
Talbot licked her lips, as if worried that she might be declared unworthy at the last minute.
Jemson smiled at her. “But times change, secrets are revealed, and traditions deserve examination. Perilous times require a certain . . . flexibility of practice and an agility of mind and spirit. We began descending this slippery slope, as some would say, with Captain Amon Byrne, who was bound to the princess heir Raisa ana’Marianna before she was crowned queen, and before his father, Edon Byrne, had passed away. This was done because then-princess Raisa was in danger. We continued this practice with Princess Hanalea, when Simon Byrne was bound to her.”
Jemson looked to Captain Byrne, who said, “Now Hana is dead, and Simon is dead, the Line is in grave danger, and there is a need for a new guardian. This time, it seems that the best candidate to perform this service to the line is not a Byrne, but Corporal Sasha Talbot.”
Talbot’s cheeks pinked up, but she kept her eyes on the floor.
“We have brought you all together to serve as witnesses. Going forward, you will hold the memory of what we do here, and be ready to testify to it if need be.” He looked around the circle. “Are you willing to be the memory of the realm?”
“We are,” the chorus came back.
“Corporal Talbot,” Jemson said, “are you willing to be bound forever to the line of Gray Wolf queens that began with Hanalea?”
“Yes, sir,” Talbot said, bringing her fist to her heart.
“Bare your arm, Corporal,” Jemson said, picking up the knife.
Talbot did, scraping back her sleeve. Jemson ran the tip of the blade down her forearm so that the blood welled up and dripped into the stone basin.
Now the speaker held up the stoppered bottle. “Behold the blood of the line,” he said. He didn’t specify whose.
Do they keep Lyss’s blood on hand, just in case? Ash thought. Is it our mother’s blood? Or does it go all the way back to Hanalea? He couldn’t seem to shut down his scientist mind.
Jemson spoke more words over the bottle, pulled the stopper, and tipped a small amount into the bowl. Lifting it, he swirled the contents together.
As the ceremony continued, Ash thought of all the bound captains since Hanalea, all the secret ceremonies held with one purpose—to protect the Line and assure that it continued into the future.
I’m bound to the Line by blood, too, he thought. I will not see it end while I live and breathe.
Ash’s amulet warmed against his skin. More and more, he was hearing his father’s voice again, though he’d not yet achieved the kind of meeting his father’d had with Alger Waterlow, their ancestor. He hoped, with practice, he would be able to see his father again in Aediion—that meeting place between worlds. Again, he heard his father’s voice.
You don’t get what you don’t go after.
Jemson poured the contents of the bowl into the silver cup, then held the cup out to Talbot. Talbot wrapped both hands around it, knuckles white, as if afraid she might spill it on the way to her mouth.
“Sasha Talbot, we ask of you this thing, that you be bound to the Gray Wolf line of queens, and, specifically, to the blood and issue of Alyssa ana’Raisa, Princess Heir of the Fells. You will swear that her blood is your blood, that you will protect her and her line until death takes you. Will you?”
“I will,” Talbot said, her voice strong and forceful, despite her jitters.
“Then drink to signify.”
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.”
But that wasn’t exactly true, was it? Case in point—the bloodsworn, who seemed to be somewhere between. Were they saying that her mother had—had—
“Complicated is what happens when people don’t honor boundaries,” Althea said, curling her lips away from her teeth and looking down her nose at Hanalea. A murmur rose from the gathered queens, mingled agreement and dissent.
“That’s what we do, Thea,” Hanalea said. “We cross boundaries. How else could we offer counsel to the living queens?”
“That’s been tradition for more than a thousand years,” Althea said. “But this thing with Alger Waterlow—and now Raisa—it sets a bad precedent.”
Alger Waterlow? He’d been the founder, with Hanalea, of the New Line of Gray Wolf queens. But that was a thousand years ago.
“I chose love,” Hanalea said. “This New Line of queens was founded on love, and breaking the rules, and I stand by that choice. And that was the counsel I gave to Raisa.”
“That’s turned out well,” Althea said.
“The end of this story isn’t written yet,” Hanalea said. “The journey through it is important.”
Lyss felt like a mortal in one of the old stories watching the gods squabble over her future.
“Hey!” she said.
The two wolves turned to look at her, ears pricked forward. The other wolves shifted and murmured.
“Since you’ve come all this way, I would like to be included in the conversation,” Lyss said. “You’ve said that the Gray Wolf line is broken, but my mother isn’t dead—well, not exactly—but I still don’t know why you’re here, or what happened to my mother.”
“Raisa ana’Marianna was poisoned,” Hanalea said gently.
“Poisoned?” Lyss’s knees buckled, and she would have fallen, but the wolves pressed in around her, supporting her, keeping her upright. “When? And how? And by whom?”
“Three days ago,” Hanalea said. “We don’t know the answers to your other questions.”
Three days ago. Lyss had awakened from a sound sleep, in a panic. She’d had that dream again, the one that had haunted her ever since the summer Hana was killed. Everyone was dead, and she stood on Hanalea Peak, alone with the wolves.
Althea sat, wrapping her tail around her feet. “Raisa crossed over and joined us, thereby breaking her connection to the living Line. Then, what did she do, but she turned right around and went back.”
“She went . . . back?” Lyss clutched handfuls of fur to either side, but the queens didn’t seem to mind.
“Your father interfered,” Althea said.
“My—father?” Lyss whispered. “He was there?”
“It must be that troublemaking Waterlow blood,” Althea said. “First he arranged these trysts between Hana and Alger, and then he—”
“You have Waterlow blood, dear,” Hanalea pointed out drily.
“Highly diluted,” Althea said.
“Anyway, he healed your mother and persuaded her to go back and rejoin the living,” Hanalea said. “But now we have a problem.”
“My mother is alive!” Lyss said, her emotions in a whiplash of confusion. “How is that a problem?”
“The Line was broken,” Althea said. “And that means that, technically—”
“Not just technically,” Hanalea said. She looked into Lyss’s eyes. “That means that you—Alyssa ana’Raisa—you are now the Gray Wolf queen.”