LADY OF WAR by Caitlyn McFarland
Leaning against the cutting wind, Riona raised a thumb and closed one eye, then opened it and closed the other, gauging the distance to the black cloud that darkened the sky to the east. Her horse danced, its hooves crunching the brittle blanket of snow spread over the clifftop. Riona jerked down on the reins and heeled the dappled gray stallion in the flanks until he stilled.
She turned to the knot of people huddled fifty feet down the slope. Dagny, the dragonskin woman who’d been assigned to attend her, sat on a bay gelding apart from the gray-clad members of the Queensguard, who lounged on their horses as if at a picnic.
Riona couldn’t remember the last time she’d lounged.
Slouching means a switching, girl, I don’t care whose blood you’ve got! Riona bit down on her back teeth, raising a mental shield against the memories. A thousand willow switches, fire-heated pokers, shoves into the stale blackness beneath the cathedral. The voice, like a razor edged in ice. No one likes you. Not the cinan, not even the guards. They think you’re incompetent. I think they’re right.
Riona gritted her teeth and turned back to the black cloud, tying down the voice and shoving it into the deep recesses of her mind. It was a storm. Had to be. Though . . . it didn’t move like any storm she’d ever seen.
The sound of hooves startled her. Dagny reined in at Riona’s side and peered out over the sea of trees and mist beyond the cliffs. The dragonskin woman’s eyes—like a rock lizard’s, with their diamond-shaped pupils—darted across the horizon. Two years with Dagny had done little to acclimate Riona to her alien sort of beauty. Human, except for those eyes and the shimmering scales that dusted the angles of her face and flowed over her arms from shoulder to fingertip—both features a match for the blue of the winter-washed sky.
“Sweet Fires,” Dagny breathed. “Those are birds. War-birds and crows and carrion eaters.”
Riona glanced from the dragonskin to the cloud, a frown pinching the skin between her brows. “It is a storm.”
Dagny opened her mouth, then, looking uneasy, closed it again.
Riona slid down from the horse, jarring her legs when she landed on the cold, stony earth. A thousand feet below, the city of Crann Laith tumbled like spilled bone dice from the black cup of the canyon. It was as siege ready as she could make it—almost. She still hadn’t laid the pretend bloody wards.
“Do you worry for your mother?” Dagny asked.
“What?”
“The birds. They’re right over the place where the armies must be. Do you worry for the queen?”
Riona cast her a disdainful look. “Queen Eilis is not my mother.”
Dagny’s voice went soft. “Morna Brannon is out there too.”
Riona flinched. Her true mother’s name was a needle beneath her skin. She turned away before Dagny could see that she’d struck a nerve. Riona should call up one of the Queensguard and have them take the woman away. The problem was, she hadn’t bothered to learn any of their names. “I don’t know Morna Brannon well enough to care. Nor you well enough to speak of such things.”
The scales on Dagny’s cheeks turned a deeper shade of blue, but her eyes did not look contrite, they looked annoyed. “Apologies, Queen-heir.”
Awkward silence fell. When Dagny spoke again, it was either to the sky, or herself. “When birds black the skies, War is coming. When the blood-winds rise, War is coming.”
Souls, not that miserable ballad. “Makkah’s Rise” was the most depressing story in all the Wilding histories. Besides, it wasn’t birds, it was a storm. And war wasn’t coming, it was upon them. Ten thousand Andrisi invaders moved through the Wildwood. And here was Riona, left behind to “ensure the city’s defense.”
Riona turned her attention back to Crann Laith. Its blocky whitestone buildings flowed in a wide triangle out from the canyon mouth with the river Eyea. Talonkeep and the cathedral sat at its apex, the rest of the city spreading out into the river basin until it hit the curving wall that stretched from one side of the canyon to the other, a dam that had leaked small houses and farms over the years.
Where to make a show of putting the powerless wards? Queen Eilis had only agreed to them to appease the cinan—the thirty-odd women who led the Wilding clans. And because she knew she wouldn’t be the one to stand there for an hour with her hand on a wall while a charlatan chanted at her. All Wilding magic—when they’d had it—could only be channeled through someone with the queensmark. Only two people with the queensmark ever lived at a time—in this time, it was Riona and Eilis. In Riona’s opinion, that meant it had always been useless, even when magic had mattered.
Riona frowned at the birds—no—the storm. Magic was dead, or close enough that it was completely obsolete. Despite her heart-mother’s orders—Riona had left the wards for last. A small victory.
When it came to Eilis, she’d take what she could get.
“Get out of the way! Let me pass!”
Riona and Dagny turned. Below, a dark-haired man leaped from a sweating horse and pushed against the guards, who’d drawn their bronze swords against him.
“Did you expect a messenger?” Dagny asked.
Instead of answering, Riona urged her horse down the stony slope. The man was tall. A green coat showed in patches beneath a layer of muck.
“Faolan Cuillin? Why aren’t you with your cinan at the front?” Riona waved away the women of the Queensguard and their swords.
Faolan surged forward. Twin brother to Brigid, the cinan of Clan Cuillin, the scout was a few years older than Riona. He was usually handsome, but now he was sweat soaked and wild-eyed. He dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the icy earth.
Riona yanked her stallion to a stop, her stomach lurching. That was not the greeting for the heir.
It was a greeting for the queen.
Oh souls. Eilis.
“Rise,” she whispered.
Faolan lifted his head, but didn’t stand. Riona’s stomach twisted again. Beneath the mask of grime and blood, the man’s face was contorted with terror and grief.
“Speak,” Riona commanded.
His mouth worked, but no sound emerged.
“Speak!”
He met her eyes. In that look, Riona saw something akin to a dagger flying toward her heart, and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.
He pressed shaking hands into the snow, as if holding himself up. “A message from Brigid, cinan of Cuillin. Queen Eilis nich Dalaigh”—he swallowed—“is dead.”
The mountain might have crumbled beneath Riona. Lightning could have struck. The breath been taken from her body. She pressed the heels of her hands into her stomach to stop the sudden sharp pain. “Eilis . . . is dead?”
You hate me, girl? I think you love me, and hate yourself because of it.
The guards dropped to their knees in the same bow as Faolan. Only Dagny remained standing, watching.
Faolan opened one of his clenched fists. A silvermask owl feather was nestled in his palm, the same size and shape as the birthmark on Riona’s neck. Once a generation, a Wilding girl child was born bearing the mark of the feather somewhere on her body—the mark that named her the next Wilding queen.
Despite the journey, the feather in Faolan’s hand shone bright, the silver marred by a few rust-colored specks. His voice was rough and low. “Long fly, Queen Riona nich Brannon.”
As if pushing through pine sap, Riona took the mangled feather. Silvermask owls did not have speckles. Those spots . . . they were Eilis’s blood. Riona’s ribs closed around her heart like a vise. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts of fog, snatched in an instant by the wind. “How?”
Eilis is dead.
Mentor, heart-mother.
Ha. There had never been any heart in her. But there had been moments. Fleeting, rare. Once in a great while, Riona would catch the flash of approval in the hard queen’s eyes. Every time she saw it, she’d craved more. For all she hated Eilis, she would have died to make the old queen love her.
The cloud caught Riona’s eye, reminding her that the Andrisi were still there, invaders still tried to take the Wildwood. She had the sudden mad urge to scream. What am I supposed to do?
As if in response, the cold wind slapped her face hard enough to steal her breath and snatch back her hood. Dark brown hair escaped her braided crown and whipped her face. Riona grabbed the wolfskin hood, clutching it hard.
Then, instead of drawing it back over her head, she let it go. She opened her palm, pinching the mangled owl feather in place with her thumb to keep it from the greedy wind. Reaching up with her other hand, she tugged one of the golden eagle feathers from the leather thong wrapped into her braid and slid the owl feather in.
Eilis is dead. Riona couldn’t bear it. Her heart was a rock in her chest. Her heart was an empty void. Her heart was . . .
Lighter.
Eilis is gone.
For twenty years, her life had bent toward this moment.
No more queen-heir. No more powerless, lonely girl, to be whipped and burned and slapped and locked in dark tunnels.
Riona nich Brannon. Queen of the Wildwood and Mountain Reach.
Riona forced her back straight and marched to the cliff’s edge, where she looked down on the city once more. She inhaled frozen air through her nose, filling her chest. “It’s my time.”
“Queen Riona?”
Faolan’s voice called her back. He’d risen. As she approached, he pulled a long, cloth-wrapped bundle from the back of his horse’s saddle. Tawny eyes downcast, Faolan settled the weight of the bundle into her hands. Riona flipped back the oilcloth.
“Cravh,” she breathed. The bone-shard sword.
She pressed the pad of her thumb to the cutting edge. Even after a thousand years, Frenna’s blade was sharp enough to draw blood. The droplet gleamed, poppy-scarlet against the frost-white blade.
“There is more,” Faolan said. An expression crossed the scout’s face that Riona couldn’t name. “She was killed by Makkah. The Lady of War.”
Dagny gripped her skirts in white-knuckled hands. “The birds. I told you. War comes.”
Riona’s grief and elation dissipated. Her lip curled. “You dare lie?” she hissed at Faolan. “In your sister’s name? To me?” She had grown up cloistered, not stupid. Makkah was a myth children used to scare each other. One of the Incarnations—beings formed at the dawn of time by human desire. Makkah was the Incarnation of War, a creature comprised of bloodlust and death.
“I do not.” In a shaking hand, Faolan held out a letter with Cuillin’s seal: a long-haired maiden in armor pressed into moss-green wax.
Riona snatched the letter and broke the seal.
To Riona nich Brannon, Queen of the Wildwood and Mountain Reach:
Queen Eilis nich Dalaigh has fallen. You will not believe Faolan, but I swear on the souls of my clan mothers, he speaks the truth. Makkah, Lady of War, is real, and she killed our queen.
The rest of the letter spoke of the battle. How the Andrisi were retreating until a winged woman appeared in the sky and began killing Wilding warriors with her bare hands, then snapped Eilis’s neck where she sat on her horse a hundred yards from the thick of the fighting. Riona rubbed her own neck, imagining Eilis in that last moment. Brigid continued.
“Deliver this message to Frenna,” the winged woman said. “Our game has long lain neglected, but it is not ended. I give her the throne, and play resumes.”
Frenna. Truly? A legendary monster had returned, and she thought Riona was the First Queen? Yes, Clan Brannon bore Frenna’s blood, but it had been a thousand years since Frenna had lived.
Riona’s fingers tightened, crumpling the letter. This nonsense would cause a panic. Divide the cinan, who’d already be in upheaval at Eilis’s death. Some would use it to their advantage, swoop in and try to snatch power. There had been queens in the past who had been ruled by the council, or a few powerful cinan.
Riona would not be one of those queens.
She pressed her fingertips to her temples. She hadn’t replaced her hood, and the tips of her ears felt like ice. “Obviously, the Andrisi have heard our legends and come up with a clever ruse. They’ve probably got some woman with false wings swinging from a rope they’ve flung over a tree branch. We must not fall for it.”
Faolan stepped forward, stopping when the guards drew their swords. “No! I was there. I saw—”
Riona silenced him with a glare and a flick of her hand. “You will not cause a panic.” She met the guards’ eyes, then Dagny’s. “Tell no one what this man has said. The Lady of War is a trick the Andrisi are using to make us afraid.”
Hundreds of others would have had seen the trick too. Riona wouldn’t be able to keep the secret once the main body of Wilding fighters returned. Rumor would spread, but she would slow it as much as she could. She wrapped her hand around Cravh’s hilt. It felt good to touch the sword. “I can—I mean—our people can handle anything the Andrisi fling at me. Us.” She would guide them. Show them. Make them listen. Belatedly, she added, “For Queen Eilis.”
A flicker of unease crossed the faces before her. Faolan looked unhappy, but he held his tongue. Good. Eilis had not taught her much, but Riona knew a queen had to be decisive, strong, and never bending.
“Go back down to Crann Laith,” Riona said to him. “Give your message to Steward Keelin. Except for the part about Makkah.” One of Eilis’s lackeys, the old woman would take the queen’s fall hard. Riona felt a pang of sympathy, but it didn’t last long. Keelin had been just as quick with a slap as Eilis.
“Your word is my will, Queen Riona.” Face a neutral mask, Faolan Cuillin swung into the saddle and rode down the mountain.
Queen Riona. The birds—they were birds, she saw now, but birds were to be expected when there had been so much death—massed over the place where Eilis had met her end. She’d heard the Andrisi thought the Wildwood was haunted—it was one of the reasons their invasion hadn’t come years before.
Perhaps Riona would fill her forests with their ghosts.
Next to her, Dagny’s mouth slanted into something that was neither smile nor frown. “So, it’s your turn. Will you join the ranks of the great queens?”
“The great queens?” Riona pulled herself onto her gray stallion, rolling over the words. Her childhood had been full of pain. Her present was dark. But she had intelligence, iron will, political savvy, and independence. That was another of Eilis’s lessons: Do not need anyone, do not trust anyone. Power shared was power lost.
Riona smiled at Dagny. The expression was unfamiliar on her lips. “Yes. I will.”
* * *
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