Song of the Huntress

by Lucy Holland

Genres: Historical Fantasy; Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Ancient

Synopsis

The acclaimed author of Sistersong transforms the story of Herla and the Wild Hunt into a rich, feminist fantasy in this stunning tale of two great warriors, a war-torn land, and an ancient magic that is slowly awakening.

Britain, 60AD. Hoping to save her lover, her land, and her people from the Romans, Herla makes a desperate pact with the king of the Otherworld. But years pass unheeded in his realm, and she escapes to find everyone she loved long dead. Cursed to wield his blade, she becomes Lord of the Hunt. And for centuries, she rides, leading her immortal warriors and reaping wanderers’ souls. Until the night she meets a woman on a bloody battlefield—a Saxon queen with ice-blue eyes.

Queen Æthelburg of Wessex is a proven fighter. But when she leads her forces to disaster in battle, her husband’s court turns against her. Yet King Ine needs Æthel more than ever. Something dark and dangerous is at work in the Wessex court. His own brother seeks to usurp him. And their only hope is the magic in Ine’s bloodline that’s lain dormant since ancient days.

The moment she and Æthel meet, Herla knows it’s no coincidence. The dead kings are waking. The Otherworld seeks to rise, to bring the people of Britain under its dominion. And as Herla and Æthel grow closer, Herla must find her humanity—and a way to break the curse—before it’s too late.

Release date: March 19, 2024

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 416

Sample

Tantone, Somersæte

Kingdom of Wessex

“Burn it,” she says.

Faces turn to her in the waning light. “Burn it?” Leofric repeats. “But Tantone is a strategically important piece in your husband’s—”

“You want Ealdbert to control it, or worse, the Wealas?” Æthel casts a dark glance at the fortification beyond the wall. Unornamented and squat, with greening planks of stout wood, it would still go up—with a bit of effort on their part. “Let us burn him out.”

Leofric shakes his head. It’s a shade greyer every time Æthel sees him, and more than likely, she is the cause. “I want Ealdbert dead as much as you, but firing Tantone is a step too far.”

“We did not bring a force to garrison it,” Æthel argues, starting to pace. “Do you think the king will be pleased to hear we left it behind for the taking?”

“My queen, Ine king himself ordered Tantone built. At least send word to him before making an impulsive decision.”

Æthel comes to a sudden stop. “Ine king is my husband, and he trusts me,” she says coldly, stamping on the flicker of doubt her own words sow. “He will support my impulsive decision.”

“I agree,” comes a new voice.

Edred is dressed a little too well for battle; a golden brooch pins his cloak to his shoulder, and his tunic is linen fine enough to wear at court. “The Wealas still roam these lands,” he adds with a vague gesture westwards, and Leofric frowns. “You know the natives—always searching for ways to undermine Saxon rule. Unless the king posts men here, Tantone is better off ruined.”

Æthel seizes the chance to say, “And he informed me of no such plan to do so.”

“Maybe true, my lady, but equally he gave no instruction to destroy it.” Anger mottles Leofric’s cheeks. “I must insist—”

“Insist, Leofric?” Edred raises an eyebrow. “To the Queen of Wessex?”

Æthel straightens her mail shirt while the man splutters, although she would rather not win this battle by rank. It’s a sensible decision. Any good commander would make it. Edred’s agreement is a surprise, however. He is her husband’s brother’s man and not one she knows well. Æthel regards him through narrowed eyes. Perhaps he seeks to win a favour from the king and hopes for her support. Whatever the reason, she’ll make use of it.

“All I meant,” Leofric says through gritted teeth, “is that—”

“The queen has decided. Your protests now are improper, if not downright defiant.”

Æthel presses her lips together before a smile can ruin her poise, but she has probably made an enemy this day. Well, it can’t be helped. “Burn it,” she orders her men.

After a moment, Leofric nods infinitesimally, and that small motion kills any humour Æthel had in her. How dare he give his permission—and the men look to him for it? It gnaws at her heart: the knowledge that Ine’s gesiths think nothing of her prowess in the field. No matter how many successful campaigns she fights, how swift her thinking or strong her arm, to them she is still only a woman. “Burn it all.” Her tone is harsh and Leofric walks away. Ostensibly to supervise, but his displeasure is a chill that even the rising conflagration cannot banish.

When the buildings beyond the palisade are fully ablaze, she picks up her spear, unshoulders her shield and ensures her sword and seax are loose in their sheaths. “To me.” A yell from the assembled men, and Æthel bares her teeth as she leads them up and over the earthen ramp, covered by arrow fire. Her blood thrills. Wild-eyed men are tumbling from the fortress as the flames spread, and she cuts them down, her anger at Leofric turning her blows savage. It is only after a dozen have fallen that she remembers they ought to take prisoners. And where is Ealdbert, the traitor she came here to fight?

They have brought a hellish dusk. The night is orange, the air choking and thick as old stew. A man—boy, she amends on seeing his thistledown beard—lunges at her out of the stables, carrying with him the frightened squeals of horses. She parries the blow, but the boy’s eyes lock with hers beneath her helm and widen.

“The queen,” he shouts, “it’s the queen!” In moments, another five of Ealdbert’s men surround her. Shit.

“Lady Æthelburg,” the eldest says with a mocking bow. “How considerate of you to provide my lord with such a fine ransom. How much will your husband pay to have you back unharmed?”

Æthel flinches at the thought of Ine’s face if she were to arrive trussed like game at the gates of Wiltun. She can picture his pained look perfectly. He would not blame her—he never did, even if he should—but the men of the Witan are a different story. Ine would be forced to make her excuses. Æthel’s fist clenches on the hilt of her sword. “I doubt he’d pay a silver penning,” she tells her assailants, already hearing the apologetic speech he would give the Witan. “I am far more trouble than I am worth.”

The man chuckles: her only warning before she is forced to parry a backhanded blow meant to knock her unconscious. The others are grinning too—at least for the first minute. One by one, their smiles fade as each attack fails to land. Æthel can feel her face set in a frozen grimace. Batting aside the sword of the man who mocked her, she sees an opening and takes it, thrusting her spear into his ribs. His leather slows the strike, but does not stop the spearhead sinking deep.

“Bitch,” the boy snarls as his companion staggers. Æthel tries to pull her spear free but it’s stuck fast. She draws her sword just in time to block the boy’s rage-fuelled swing.

A second man lunges for her. She catches the blow on her shield and spins to deflect a third that slices into her arm. Damned if I’ll let them take me. Yelling wordlessly, Æthel launches a flurry of blows hard and fast enough to send the boy to his knees—if it wasn’t for the fact she is facing four other men too. All of whom are starting to wonder whether she needs to be taken alive. Dodging a blow aimed unambiguously at her kidneys, she thinks, How dare they? Fighting for her life against the Wealas—Britons—is a given, and against the men of Mierce and the east to be expected. But these are her own people, Wessex born. How dare they raise arms against her?

The roof of the stables is afire now; Æthel can see her men hustling the valuable horses out of danger. Most of Ealdbert’s small force seems to be fleeing into the night, but where is he? A horrible thought hits her, along with another glancing blow. Was he ever even here? He had fled west; she’d spent a month driving him from place to place until she had cornered him here at Tantone. At least, she had thought him cornered.

Her sword is knocked aside. Throat sore from gasping smoke, Æthel watches it thump to earth cracked by summer sun and pulls the shorter seax from its sheath. Another man goes down with the weapon planted in his neck, and she snatches his sword as he falls. It is a poor substitute for her own pattern-welded blade, but they are forcing her onto lower ground where she cannot reach it. She coughs; the smoke is thickening, making her eyes stream. Æthel drags an arm angrily across them.

Blinking, she thinks she sees Edred’s face, but grey rolls across and a streak of silver swings at her in the dark. Everything slows. Æthel watches the blade part the smoke and knows she cannot raise her shield in time to block it. How ridiculous, a stray thought says. How incredible.

The iron stops an inch from her flesh. Still braced for the blow, Æthel blinks again, but the sight before her becomes no clearer. The boy warrior’s mouth is open, his eyes bulging. With the sureness of a woman born to the battlefield, she knows that he is dead.

Screams pierce the dark. Not the cries of the wounded, or the desperate fury of those fighting for their lives, but lost bitter wails. Æthel shudders. The next instant, sheer instinct throws her flat just as a blade scythes the spot where she was standing. Her helm slips; she pulls it off before it can blind her, to see riders among them like ragged ghosts, steering their mounts through the spear-din. Men are falling beneath sword and hoof; the slaughterhouse stench of spilled guts is thick in her nose. Æthel frowns, trying to gauge numbers, but the chaos is absolute. That is, except for one still point. She raises herself, sticky with mud and blood, and looks.

Like the eye of a storm, unreally calm, a woman looks back. Mounted atop a horse larger than any Æthel has seen, armoured in leather and fur, one of her gauntleted hands is curled around a blade as dark, surely, as the roots of the world. Many small braids tumble out beneath a horned helm pushed back from her face.

Something inside Æthel stutters, stops… and the figure is gone, become the chaos. She licks dry lips, tastes blood. Perhaps she has taken a blow to the head. “Leofric!” she yells, staggering to her feet. She does not expect a response, but the gesith answers from somewhere east of her and Æthel follows his voice to the edge of the earthen ramp that guards the fortress. “What’s happening?”

He is grim-faced. “That traitorous bastard must have had horsemen. They swept through and cut down two dozen of us before we even knew they were here.”

She curses. “If they’re Ealdbert’s, where are they now?”

Leofric shakes his head and Æthel wonders whether he saw what she did: that person—wild and beautiful and dangerous beyond all measure. She grimaces. A trick of the smoke and the pain of her wounds. More likely the riders belong to Ealdbert and she is a royal fool for failing to find them before the attack.

“You’re bleeding,” the gesith says, and she is surprised to hear a note of concern in his voice. Probably concern for his own hide—it will not look good if she dies on his watch.

Æthel shrugs. “It’s nothing.” And it mostly is, but the wound on her arm will need stitching up. “What of Ealdbert himself?”

“No sign.”

Although Leofric’s tone remains neutral, condemnation is writ large in his lowered brows. Tantone, he thinks, has burned for nothing. Men have died for nothing. Æthel looks away. “It’s one less place for him to hide.” Their losses are heavier than she had planned for. “Did we take any prisoners?”

“Two.”

Edred emerges out of the night, wiping his sword—the only dirty part of him—on his cloak, and Æthel recalls her brief conviction of seeing him among the men who cornered her. “Where have you been?”

“Ensuring we have these to question.” He gestures over his shoulder. His men are dragging a pair of smoke-stained prisoners, their wrists bound.

“Soften them up.” Æthel makes sure they can hear. “I will question them later. If they do not talk, kill them. I won’t feed traitors.”

Leofric nods approvingly and Edred bows. “Your will, my queen.” The men are led off, staring wide-eyed at the fortress that sheltered them. Clearly it had never occurred to Ealdbert that she would choose to burn the place. Æthel adds the absent ætheling to the list of men who have underestimated her… or think her merely unhinged. It is a long list.

Tantone is a beacon in the night. Those riders… She cannot convince herself they were Ealdbert’s. Else they’d have stayed to rout us. But if the fire had alerted them, it would alert others. Æthel turns her head west. “Gather the dead and bury them quickly. Geraint may have eyes in the area.”

“The King of Dumnonia is not brave enough to face us,” Leofric says. But he too turns to look westwards, where the land rises and falls in the first of the valleys that give the people of Dumnonia their name. Night blankets those forbidding dales; Æthel shivers at the thought of them. She was raised in open country, on a plain disturbed only by the ancient tombs of people gone before. Gentle, grassy mounds—unlike the tangled hills that hide the Britons. Space for a horse to run without pause while she clung to the reins and the wind and the sound of sun drying the grasses. She used to plait them while she waited for her horse to catch his breath. Keep your hands busy, her mother had said, and they won’t suspect your mind is at work too.

Æthel smiles at the memory; the sad smile that comes with knowing her mother cannot give her more advice. “I could do with it,” she murmurs under her breath and goes to oversee the collection of the dead. Despite her attempt to banish them, a pair of eyes burning brighter than the fire goes with her.

“Holy God, Edred. I said soften them, not beat them to within an inch of their lives.” Æthel crouches in front of one of the rebels. In the dawn light, his cheek is split and blood crusts his swollen mouth. “They do need to be able to speak.”

“Crazy she-wolf,” the man slurs.

Before Edred can raise a hand to strike him, Æthel catches it. “Peace. I don’t care what he calls me.”

“By insulting you, he insults the king,” Leofric remarks, and she keeps her expression blank with an effort. She would bet that crazy she-wolf is exactly what he thinks of her after tonight.

Æthel forces down exhaustion, leans forward and grabs the rebel’s chin. If he wanted a she-wolf, he could have one. “Where is Ealdbert?”

His lip curls. “If the king seeks him, why didn’t he come himself?”

“We are not talking about the king. Where is Ealdbert?”

“Gone.” He spits. Æthel ducks aside and it lands on Leofric’s shoe. The gesith makes a sound of disgust. “Ine won’t find him.”

“Few places would extend him welcome.” She flicks her eyes at Leofric. “Sussex?”

“Nothhelm would not dare. After the beating Cædwalla meted out, the realm’s sworn to your husband now.”

“You don’t know where he is, do you?” she says to the rebel. “Might as well admit it and save me the trouble of torture.”

The man glues his lips together, but she knows she is right. Both are likely no more than ceorls pressed into the ætheling’s service with promises of wealth. She tips her head on one side, considering what to do. Ine would probably exile them… and they’d swiftly join up with Ealdbert again. The hard decisions always fall to her. “Kill them,” she says and forces herself to watch while it is done.

The events of last night are blurring in the late-summer dawn. Searing heat, metal on metal, the scream of tired muscles—all seem a fancy. Except her. Æthel could not forget those eyes if she tried. They are there even now when she shuts her own, along with a face haunted by pride and grief. She shakes herself. Foolishness.

“The riders,” she begins and stops. A blackbird pipes gaily; the breeze is gentle. From where they are camped, Tantone is a slur on the green, its watchtower a smoking ruin. But something is moving. Æthel squints at a ripple in the grass, and her blood chills. “Leofric!”

“What is it?”

Æthel nods at the frisks of distant movement. “Look.”

Leofric follows her gaze, raising a hand against the glowing sky. “Deer, surely.”

“No,” Æthel says. “Wealas.”

“What?” Edred joins them. “Dumnonii—here?”

“I knew Geraint would investigate. He’d be on us already if we hadn’t moved our camp.”

“I cannot see any men.”

“And you won’t until it’s too late.” Æthel wheels round to bark out orders. “Move! Strike camp. Be quick about it.” No man looks to Leofric this time. They can hear the alarm in her voice.

“Why not face them?” Edred catches her injured arm and Æthel winces. “If Geraint is foolish enough to bring the fight to us—”

“Foolish?” She almost laughs. “Our forces spent the night fighting, burying bodies, and then marching out here to put some distance between us and Tantone. They are in no shape to take up the sword again so soon. Geraint is not foolish. It’s the perfect opportunity.”

“What do you mean we won’t see him until it is too late?” Leofric asks slowly.

Æthel hesitates. Plenty among the court do not believe what she has witnessed with her own eyes. And the bishops come down hard on such talk. “Geraint employs… unusual methods,” she says meaningfully, and prays he takes the hint. “You know the Wealas and their superstitions.”

“Superstitions can’t make up for strength of arms,” Edred says.

Æthel grinds her teeth, determined not to spell it out. Her credibility has taken enough of a knock. “Look at the men,” she says in a low hard voice. “They have been up all night while Geraint’s forces are fresh. Only a fool would stay and face him.”

“What forces? Some scouts, perhaps, but nothing more.”

I have seen them appear as from air, she tells him silently. As if Geraint and his men could blend seamlessly into the world around them. No battlefield prowess can explain that. And if those flashes of movement are anything to go by, he—or whatever power he prays to—is doing the same now. The Dumnonii will be on them while they stand here and argue.

“Enough.” She lowers her voice, so only Edred and Leofric can hear. “You know I value your opinions in the field.” Æthel draws a breath. “But, as you pointed out last night, Edred, I am queen. If I say to retreat, you will retreat, and I am not beholden to state my reasons.”

They glower. She has had this conversation more than once, and every time she wonders whether this will be it—the time they openly defy her. She wonders what she would say, how she would react. They are important men, trusted in court, and have proven themselves good counsel. It would cost Ine to exile them, but he would do it if she asked. He has never denied her anything. Except that. And as the years pass, she—not he—bears the consequences of his decision. In her darker moments, Æthel wonders whether it is guilt that urges him to support her, to defend her, rather than belief in her ability.

Between blinks, the blood drains from Edred’s face. There they are: lining the brow of a hill. She does a clumsy count—at least five score warriors—and shock courses through her, leaving no room for the pleasure of vindication. Only an overwhelming force would have the confidence to declare themselves so openly.

“We’ll pull back to Gifle,” Leofric says tightly into the silence. “Once we have walls around us, we dispatch scouts to keep an eye on Geraint.”

“And send a message to the king,” Æthel adds, eyeing the Wealas—more and more appearing by the second. “I have never seen the Dumnonii show themselves or their forces so blatantly.”

Leofric grunts agreement and Æthel mounts her horse, her thoughts in turmoil. First Ealdbert, then the nameless riders, and now Geraint. Foreboding cramps her chest like a winter ague. As she turns her horse south-east, she imagines she can feel Geraint’s eyes across the intervening distance, the mass of Dumnonia brooding at his back. What does he want? And more to the point, why did he show himself? His decision to drop his disguise, to threaten them openly: bluster or something else?

Æthel bites her lip. After years of uneasy truce, it’s as if the King of Dumnonia wants war.

Glestingaburg, Somersæte

Kingdom of Wessex

They sleep beneath the tor… until the moon is old and it is time to ride. Then Gelgéis raises a horn to her lips and Orlaith raises her song and they pour forth, their horses darker than the night. Herla needs no horn; her cry is a wild thing, and deadly. Life shudders when she throws back her head. The scurrying beasts of the grass burrow into it, and the owl on the wing veers sharply. Smaller shapes fall from the sky.

The shy deer are stirred to frenzy. Herla’s head is as proud as theirs: the horns of her helm upswept, one broken, its bone tokens a rattle. Beneath it, her hair is a mane of dark braids, her smile animal. The bloodlust is upon her, and she welcomes it.

Her hunters tumble after in a rough cavalcade. At the forefront are Nynniaw and Corraidhín, spears bundled behind their saddles. Then come Orlaith, Senua and Gelgéis. Others fall in behind. Their faces are cold as the ice that splits trees in winter.

Raising her eyes moon-ward, Herla catches a scent on the wind. We ride. Her order is not words, but impulse. The Hunt-tongue is simple. We ride. Draped in front of her saddle, the bloodhound adds his own curdling howl to their chorus. Herla’s shadow shrouds them and withers the late-summer leaves. If any person were to step outside, they might hear it: the echo of Gwyn’s laughter in Herla’s.

Mortal distance is nothing to the horses of Annwn; she closes quickly on her quarry. The fools have even lit a fire to announce themselves. Fire on the night of the old moon. Either they court death, or no one remembers the stories.

Or—she soon discovers—they are enmeshed in battle. Herla watches the tide of it, the ebb and flow of slaughter, and it tugs at something in her, buried deep. Smoke, stench, banners. The black sword hungers to join the fray and she lets it, swinging it in bloody arcs as she thunders among them. It takes the combatants some moments to realize she is there, for the screams to begin as her hunters cut a brutal path. The sword of Annwn shears through armour and flesh alike—all the frail tethers that bind souls to bodies—and Herla laughs, as the bright threads break before her.

Blood on her lips, she seizes a young man. Son of the dust. Will you ride with me?

“I don’t want to die,” is all he says, over and over until his soul is swallowed in the host. Her hunters toss down a score of warriors and the black sword sings. More this night to ride with her, hunt with her, sleep with her under the tor until the moon is old again.

A mailed figure catches Herla’s eye. The earth beneath the warrior is scuffed; she can see weariness in the set of their shoulders, in the way their weapon hangs low. Wheeling her horse, she charges, swings—and the warrior throws themselves flat, leaving Herla’s blade to cut air. Momentarily stunned, she watches as they rip off their helm with one bloodied hand and eyes like chips of blue ice meet hers. Short fair hair dampened with sweat. A woman, fierce-faced in the lurid night.

That gaze pierces Herla like the Otherworld blade. Her bloodlust falters, her head abruptly tumbling with colour. Smoke curls sweetly; a rabbit spitted over a cookfire; a tawny-haired woman leaning back on her hands. Faint lines crease the corners of her eyes.

The dog howls, and night returns. There is pain in her chest, and a terrible weight on her spirit: the souls of the reaped ready to crush her. With a gasp, Herla tears her gaze away, urges her horse into a gallop. It is only when she is running that she realizes she is running; from what is unclear. Obediently, her hunters follow. Although Gwyn’s hound thrashes, howling his rage, the hill and its flames, and the woman with ice-sharp eyes, are left behind.

The night is young, but she rides for the tor, spurred on by something nameless. Is this fear? Herla’s skin prickles with a feeling she is sure she knows, but cannot recall. Her memories are darkness, riding, killing, and dreamless sleep to ride again. And yet it lingers—the brief vision of the fire with its rabbit, watched over by a tawny-haired woman.

“Lord,” Corraidhín calls, and her voice cuts through Herla’s wild musing. How long has it been since she heard it? Like her, the Hunt speak horn. Their words are the flexing of horse muscle, the beating of shield and spear. That is language enough. Herla ignores the word, that slip of the old tongue. Still pursued by the thing unknown, still plagued by souls whose true weight she has not felt until this moment, she makes the only choice left to her: enchanted slumber in the deep halls of Glestingaburg.

Oblivion.

For the first time, Herla dreams.

She climbs steps she has climbed before, dread kerbs of stone that end at a door many enter and few leave. She is walking, each footfall remarkable because it is her own. Her hand, as she pushes on the wood, is unfamiliar. Skin browned from the marsh sun, knuckles rough. That hand, she knows suddenly, has braided leather, scrubbed pots with sand, cut kindling and laid fires. She cannot stop staring at it, wondering what else these strange fingers have touched. Cloth worn thin from river stones. Wool. The skin left on warmed milk. Softer things. Hair tawny as an owl’s wing.

She drops it with a hiss, as if the wood of the door has turned to forge-fire iron. Those new words are massing in her mind. Scrub. Sand. River. Milk. Tawny. No, not new. Old words she has forgotten how to say. She wants to hold them close. She is frightened of holding them close.

Caer Sidi swallows her footsteps. The Folk of Annwn are busy inside it—wasps in the nest of their chief’s heart. She sees him before she is seen. He is moving from group to group with determined, agitated strides. He looks up and shock rules him for so brief an instant she is sure she imagined it. Then his face relaxes into a smile. The same smile that bought and shredded her trust.

“Lord Herla.” Gwyn ap Nudd gathers a retinue around him. “I am surprised to see you. How are you enjoying my gifts?”

She opens her mouth. Her words are a howl, and the Folk laugh.

“Ah, yes.” The King of Annwn shakes his dark head. “As you have discovered, the art of conversation is no longer required from you. A relief, is it not?”

Herla’s eyes burn.

“Do not look at me like that.” With a nod to the sword sheathed at her side, “I gave you what you asked for, after all. Power your enemies could not withstand.”

She keeps her lips shut, keeps the savage language locked away, but in her dust-dead heart are the ashes of Rome. Slain by time. Along with her people and everything she loved.

Love? It is something from the old language, a word the Hunt-tongue cannot shape. Like fear, Herla thinks she felt it once, but it is far from her grasp.

“Please do not bear me too much ill will.” Gwyn ap Nudd comes closer and Herla fights the urge to retreat. “You are the unknowing architect of my deliverance. Of all this.” He spreads his arms at the pavilions beyond the castle’s doors, proud with pennants: a black hare; two golden rings linked with a chain; a wing on a bloody field. More banners hang above her, emblazoned with the famous cauldron of Annwn, the one that can heal death.

“I am grateful,” Gwyn whispers.

There is no remorse in him. No acknowledgement of his crime. She had not thought it a crime until now—the Hunt is everything. But here in the halls of the fortress that changed her, Herla is closer to herself than she has been in centuries. Other memories pile up behind her eyes; she has only to let them in.

And then Gwyn waves a hand. “You have trespassed long enough, Herla. Take my blade and return to your rest.”

Annwn unravels around her. She cannot refuse the order, but something has shifted. Scales tipped ever so slightly in her direction, away from the King of the Otherworld. Perhaps he feels that shift; her last sight of his face shows it frowning.

Herla wakes in darkness.

She has never dreamed before and she has never woken before. Her waking is the Hunt and when she does not hunt, she sleeps. So it has always been.

She cannot move. Her arms and legs are bound to her side like a sacrifice laid in the mud. Neither can she turn her head, but she senses them there, her hunters, bound and slumbering as she is supposed to be. Their horses sleep beside them. They lie as if in death, as if waiting for the world to catch fire at the end of days.

She makes a sound. It takes her a moment to realize it is a word, a real word, like the ones she spoke before. “No,” she says to the suffocating dark. Free me, or let me sleep. She strains, but it is like straining against fate. Invisible strings she has never wanted to believe in.

Weight on her chest is her only answer. Hot breath, claws. The dog has come to sit there and he is no longer small. She can feel how massive are his paws, how wide his muzzle. The Cŵn Annwn’s true form. Has he leaped down? I should not be awake to ask the question, Herla reminds herself. Three hundred years have passed the same way: waking, riding, sleeping. If breaking the curse were as easy as this, she would have thrown off the yoke long ago.

Sleep does not come. What comes instead is tawny hair. Tawny hair and green eyes, which change, slowly, to icy blue. A smudged face in the night, battle-weary. Not a face Herla knows, but she recognizes the spirit behind it. So familiar. So like another’s. She strains after a name, finds none. Only that lingering foxfire colour and a scent of cedarwood.

Wiltun, Wiltunscir

Kingdom of Wessex

“Your own wife,” Ingild says, slamming down the missive that brought the news. “That woman will be the ruin of this realm.”

With a surge of anger—anger he rarely feels—Ine rounds on his brother. “Lower your voice. As you point out, Æthelburg is my wife.”

“Even you must admit she has gone too far this time,” Ingild says in the same forceful tones. They are in the Witan chamber at the back of Wiltun’s great hall and only a partition separates them from the bustling space beyond, always full of servants tending the firepit, providing food for the men coming and going. Far too many ears to hear Ingild slander the queen. “You built that fortress at Tantone,” his brother continues. “Our enemies will not see us as strong or united if your wife—”

“Prevented Ealdbert from gaining a foothold.”

“Ealdbert wasn’t even th