Cinda Chima - The Gray Wolf Throne

The soldier wore a heavy gold ring on his right hand, engraved with circling wolves.

He’d seen rings like that before.

A memory came back to him: Rebecca’s Corporal Byrne smashing him up against a wall in Oden’s Ford, his hand in a choke hold around his neck, demanding to know where Rebecca was.

When Byrne had released him, Han had noticed the ring he wore. Wolves. Just like this one. Just like the ring Rebecca Morley had worn. At the time, Han had thought maybe she and her corporal had exchanged love tokens.

Now when he looked into the dead man’s face, he saw a reflection of the younger Byrne—the same gray eyes, the same bone structure. This was Corporal Byrne’s father. It had to be.

“Blood and bones,” Han said. The knowledge birthed more questions than it answered.

The elder Byrne was captain of the bluejackets. Han recalled that day in Southbridge when the younger Byrne had saved him from a beating by Mac Gillen, a brutal sergeant in the guard.

Maybe you’re the son of the commander, and maybe you go to the academy. That don’t mean nothin’, Gillen had sneered.

The dead soldiers—they were bluejackets for sure, then. Members of the Queen’s Guard traveling without uniforms.

So somebody had murdered a party of bluejackets in Marisa Pines Pass? But why? And who? Only the Demonai came to mind—if tensions between the clans and the Valefolk had erupted into conflict—but the Demonai warriors didn’t use crossbows.

And why would the guard ride unbadged? They must have crossed the border at Marisa Pines Pass. Were they coming back from some secret mission in the south?

Han didn’t know much about military matters, but he’d thought the Highlander army was supposed to handle spats across borders. Not the Queen’s Guard, who were more like bodyguards or constables. Their natural enemies were thieves, assassins, and other city criminals who would never attack soldiers traveling in a pack.

Whoever it was, whatever their purpose, it wasn’t Han’s fight. He had no use for bluejackets. They’d killed his mother and sister, had burned them to death in a stable. They’d hunted Han relentlessly for murders he didn’t commit. He didn’t owe them anything. He told himself this while he tried to put poor dead Ginny Foster out of his mind. While he tried to ignore Captain Byrne’s body lying in the middle of the trail.

Han and Amon Byrne had had their differences, mostly over Rebecca, but Byrne the Younger had stuck up for Han when nobody else did. Corporal Byrne seemed to have scruples at a time when scruples were scarce.

Han considered the blade, thinking he should leave it with Byrne, lay it next to him or press it into his hands. It seemed to belong with him, somehow.

But if he left it there, the next traveler through the pass would just take it and sell it in the markets.

I should take this to lytling Byrne, Han thought. He should have it—and the ring—along with the story of how his father had died.

Carefully, he slipped the gold ring off Byrne’s finger and tucked it into his purse.

That done, Han knew he’d better be on his way. He felt exposed, perched on high ground as he was. Danger thickened the air in the pass, making it hard to breathe.

But somehow it didn’t seem right to leave without some sort of ceremony.

Captain Byrne had died fighting. What did a person do for a soldier? After a moment’s thought, Han drew his own knife and put it between the dead man’s hands, the hilt pointing toward his head. He wasn’t much for praying, but he bowed his head over the body and commended Captain Byrne to the Maker and the Lady.

Han carried the sword back to Ragger, who was looking on disapprovingly. He slid the blade into his saddle boot next to his longbow and mounted up, thinking his home country was shaping up to be more dangersome than foreign places had ever been.

Raisa found her hiding place at daybreak in a small ravine a few hundred yards off the main trail down into Marisa Pines Camp. There the trail ran over solid rock, and the wind had swept it clean of snow, making it hard for anyone following to tell where she’d turned off. After she stowed Gillen’s gelding at the head of the ravine, she went back with a pine bough and did her best to brush away the tracks leading away from the road.

She fed and watered the horse, but left him saddled and ready to ride. She built a fire under an overhang, and huddled next to it, eating Gillen’s hardtack and sausage.

This might be your last meal, she thought, recalling all the elaborate banquets she’d attended at Fellsmarch Castle.

In fact, she was ravenous, and it tasted wonderful. She loved eating while breathing in the cold clear air, and being alive. She’d never really appreciated it before.

She’d learned so much in the past year—would it all go to waste now?

I’m only sixteen, she thought. I’ve got plans.

If she died in the mountains, Han Alister would never know what had happened to her.

And Amon. He was still alive—he had to be. She could feel energy singing along the connection between them. He would know she was in danger. He’d be frantic to get to her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry about your father. Stay alive and hurry home. I need you more than ever now.”

It was tempting to press on when safety seemed within her grasp. Marisa Pines Camp was an easy day’s ride away, if the weather stayed clear. She was tempted to make a run for it, to trust that she could evade her would-be assassins a little while longer.

But they would be waiting for her somewhere along the trail. They knew exactly where she was going, and they would bend all their efforts toward preventing her safe arrival. It was a bright sunny winter day. Everywhere she went she left tracks over the virgin snow cover. Each time she broke out of the trees she’d be visible for miles, a dark spot on white. Better to wait for the cover of darkness and then proceed cautiously, creeping off-trail whenever she could. Perhaps one person, alone in the dark, could slide through the traps they’d no doubt laid for her.

Sometimes inaction demanded more strength from a person than action.

She tried to look ahead, tried to convince herself she would make it to safety, that all of this struggle would not be in vain. She was determined to stay alive, to take vengeance on those who had murdered Edon Byrne. Who had tried their best to murder her.

At Marisa Pines, she could finally rest under the protection of the clans, and properly mourn those who had paid for her passage with their lives. Once there, she could send word to her mother the queen about the attack in the pass and the loss of her captain.

It was a grave attack on the queen’s authority. Maybe it would wake Queen Marianna to the real dangers circling the Gray Wolf throne. Perhaps Marianna would be willing to travel to Demonai Camp, as Elena had suggested, and allow clan healers to verify whether the High Wizard was still bound to the queen. They could determine how much damage Gavan Bayar had done and find a way to undo it.

If Raisa survived, she swore that she would bend all her efforts to helping her mother win this most important of battles. They would join together—mother and daughter, queen and princess heir. If Marianna would allow that, after Raisa’s year in exile.

They represented the Gray Wolf line—and nothing could stand against them.

Even Mellony could have a role to play. Raisa would seek out her younger sister, would quit seeing her only as a rival for power and her mother’s affections.

A brush with death could be the midwife to wisdom and good intentions. She prayed she would live long enough to carry them out.