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“Here, try this one.”
Danu plucked a ball of white cheese off a serving platter and popped it in her mouth. Her palate danced with the herbs and fragrant oil drizzled over the mild, creamy bite. “Mmm. That’s wonderful.”
Anya licked her lips and settled her hands over her belly. She was only just starting to show physical effects of being pregnant. If Danu hadn’t already known she carried a child, she would have guessed not from the size of her stomach but from the amount of food she’d just consumed.
On the way to Anya’s chamber, they’d stopped in the kitchen, where servants kept a healthy supply of Anya’s favorite dishes. They’d each carried a platter up to the north tower and had been stuffing themselves on spiced, cooked meats, roasted vegetation, and succulent cheeses. Watered-down beer was Anya’s preference over wine, which she hadn’t found palatable since learning of her pregnancy. Danu sipped a fruity red wine that made her lips tingle pleasantly.
They were alone in the chamber Anya shared with Riggs. It was a generously-sized room with a single window too narrow for a person to fit through. A large bed surrounded by curtains made a private, warm retreat for the lifemates. At the moment, however, it served as a den for two conspiring women.
Two bed warmers kept the space within the curtains cozy, and small trays provided a home for their soiled tableware. Anya lounged on pillows, and Danu reclined on a decadent bed fur. The pleasant company almost took the edge off how badly she missed Magnus.
“I canna imagine Seona as a goddess,” Anya said. “What do you look like? Help me picture her. I’ve only seen the statues in the temple, but none of them feel like a real woman to me. I’ve always been that way—unable to look at a sculpture and see it as in life.”
Danu could look any way she wanted, but she chose to describe her truest form, the one she had been created with and always reverted to. “It was no mistake that I made wolfkind to have Fae characteristics. I am slender and comely, as the Fae. My hair is gold, my skin sun-kissed.”
“You sound lovely, indeed.” Anya’s voice was wistful, as if she were imagining her sister in the body Danu had just described. “She’ll be back here with me when we defeat Hyrk, you say?”
Danu nodded. “At least, that is the plan. Duff has a role to play, and so will your sister. Although Magnus’s role will be the most difficult.” Her lover must defeat Hyrk. “If everyone plays their part, this should all be over before long.” It might be selfish of her, but she indulged in a fantasy of remaining in this form so she could spend a mortal lifespan loving her king.
“What will become of you, then?” Anya frowned.
Danu’s chest warmed at the worry on Anya’s face. She’d had the worship of mortals for millennia, but she had precious few friends. “With Hyrk destroyed, his prison will be no more. I’ll be restored to my true form and free to rule my people again.” She tried to sound happy about this prospect—and she was. But a thread of sadness pulled taut within her, like that string connecting her and Magnus. She sighed and rubbed the spot over her breastbone, where the string felt tightest.
“And the children will be home,” Anya said.
Danu latched onto Anya’s words as a distraction from the discomfort in her chest. “Those poor dears.”
“’Tis one matter to have Riggs away. I dinnae like it, but I ken he’s strong and he will return to me. Travis is another matter, altogether.” She wrung her hands in her lap. “He’s the youngest and smallest of them. And the most loyal to Magnus. I’m worrit for him.”
“He is your servant, yes?”
Anya nodded. “But more than that. He was the first to make me feel at home here in Glendall. He’s like—” She cupped her womb. “He’s like a son to me now, and I willna rest until I have him home again.”
“We shall have him back,” Danu said. “And the other children, as well as our men.” Realizing what she’d just admitted to, she cleared her throat. “You mentioned you have been wondering about this.” She lifted her moonstone and watched it wink in the lantern light. “Tell me your thoughts.” Anya struck her as a canny woman. Danu hoped they could rub their two minds together and come up with some way to help Magnus and his army, even if they could not be with them.
Anya smiled wryly, seeing through Danu’s abrupt change of topic, but she did not comment on it. Sitting forward, she took on a mien of planning and preparation. A whole new energy seemed to fill her at the prospect of solving a problem.
“I’ve been thinking,” Anya said with a tap to her temple, “and I dinnae think the stone is limited to translation. You see, when I first came to this realm, I was helpless and in the wilderness. Those bloody Larnians found me, and their plans for me were barbaric. Riggs rescued me, and I wonder if some magic didn’t ensure I would come to be in that very place at that very time for a reason. If I had come to any other location, I wouldna have met Riggs or overheard those boil-assed degenerates discussing Bantus’s harem. And that isna the only time I suspect that stone nudged my fate.
“See, I had it with me when I escaped the Larnian commander who took me from Riggs, and when Riggs and I came together the first time. Riggs made me his pledgemate that night, but somat more happened.”
“You became lifemates,” Danu said, wondering not for the first time how such a union had occurred while she’d been in prison.
Anya nodded. “You were locked up, so you couldna have done it for us. It must have been the stone.” Anya looked at it pointedly. “And when that bloody bastard Ari sent me through to Larna to face Bantus, I had the stone in my hand the whole time. I dinnae ken how to stab a man, but somehow I was able to grab a blade and stick it in just right. And Riggs was able to tear a great bolt from the beam he was chained to, allowing him to slay Bantus. My mate is strong, but I doona ken if he could perform such a feat a second time. ’Twas somat more than his own strength,” she said with a decisive nod. “Mayhap ’twas Faerie magic, the kind you said Gravois’s attracted to. The stone came from him, after all.”
Danu listened to all the miracles that had occurred near her moonstone. With each one, her gladness built. She had not been present to aid her people, but her moonstone had brought them aid in her stead.
“Not Faerie magic,” she said. “But the power of a goddess.” At Anya’s surprised look, she said, “This stone is my relic. I made it early in my imprisonment and sent it to the mortal realm with Duff to keep it out of Hyrk’s hands.” She rubbed the stone between her fingers, wishing she could make it work. Even if she wasn’t ready to return to her immortal form, she would like to use it to work miracles the likes of which Anya described. “If Hyrk was to keep me imprisoned for all time, I wanted a piece of my power to remain where it might do my people some good. I call it my moonstone.”
“Your moonstone,” Anya repeated. One corner of her mouth lifted. “So I’m no’ mad to suspect magic has been lending us aid all along?”
Danu chuckled. “No. You’re not mad. In fact, it seems to me you’re quite astute.”
Anya’s cheeks took on a rosy hue. “Well, you accomplished what you meant to by sending your moonstone away with Gravois. Somehow, he knew where I would be going. He slipped it in my pocket without my knowledge, and look at all the magic it worked for the good of wolfkind. Half the time, I forgot I carried it, but it was there all the time, helping us.” Anya sat up straighter. “Now that you have it back, you can wield its power!” she said as if she’d just realized what good luck they’d stumbled across. “You can make it help our men!”
“I wish you were right.” Danu let the stone fall to her chest. “It does not recognize me. I fear the only one who can truly wield its power now is Seona.”
“Because she’s in your body.” Anya’s eyes darted to and fro in thought. “Och, but it worked for me and for Riggs. Even Magnus uses it to speak with the human women. Mayhap ’tis aiding now and we dinnae even ken it.”
“Perhaps,” Danu said slowly, tapping her chin. “Perhaps my moonstone cannot be commanded by mortals. Perhaps its magic simply happens when it is needed, almost as if it is sentient.”
“I have learned that magic is not predictable. I think—I think it is sentient. It has motives that we can only guess at.” Duff’s words from her dream came to mind.
“Sentient? What are you haverin’ about?”
“Sentient,” Danu repeated. At Anya’s questioning look, she said, “Thinks for itself. Duff said he thought my moonstone was sentient.” Anya wasn’t the only one to experience miracles while holding her moonstone. “He had my moonstone for centuries. It provided him the means to circumvent Arwan’s curse. It bonded you and Riggs. It provided rescue for you in Larna. It allowed Magnus to speak with the human women. What if its magic gives the one possessing it whatever they desire most?”
Anya shook her head, chestnut locks dancing on her shoulders. “No. I could speak with Riggs before I even knew the stone was in my pocket. I dinnae desire to speak with him. I simply could—before I even realized we spoke different tongues.”
“Then it provides what is needed. The one thing that is needed most.” Excitement teased up and down her spine. This line of thought would take them in the right direction. She was certain of it.
“Like kenning the wolfkind tongue for me,” Anya puzzled out. “And wi’ Riggs, if we hadna been lifemates when Magnus met us on the plain, I fear he would have claimed me then and there. He was so certain I was his promised lady that he wouldna listen to either of us. Only the lifemate scent gave him pause. Even then, he had a pledgemate contract drawn up that very night. He merely included Riggs in the contract.”
Heat flashed over Danu’s face, there and gone, at the thought of Magnus claiming Anya. But the jealousy did not distract her from the fact Anya was right. Somehow, her magic within the moonstone had known what was needed most. Away from her, her power acted in her interest, in her people’s interest, of its own accord.
A frisson of fear felt like ice water in her stomach. It was her power, and yet somehow more than just her power, since it acted independently of her. Still, she had some understanding of its nature now, and its goals seemed in line with her character. Perhaps she and Anya could use the stone if they approached it with this new understanding.
“What is it we need most right now?” The moment Danu voiced the question, she thought of Magnus. She craved the feeling of his arms around her. She wanted to finish what they’d begun in his chamber last night before they’d received news of the children. She needed to know he was safe from danger. But she was being selfish. “Not merely what the two of us need, but what wolfkind needs.”
“Victory in Larna,” Anya said. “You said it yourself. You and Seona being back where you belong hinges on Magnus besting Hyrk. What we need is victory for our men.”
“Yes.” She nodded. Anya was right. She closed her hand around the stone and pictured Magnus and his army finding the children swiftly, besting Hyrk, and returning home as victors. She could not help imagining herself being here to greet her king. She would hold him and kiss him and take him to bed so they could finish what they had started last night. Of course, the last part was what she needed, not wolfkind. But still, she could not help herself.
“Who goes there?” A booming voice sounded directly outside the bed curtains. One of their guards must have come into the chamber without them hearing.
Anya went stiff at Danu’s side. Her eyes rounded.
“Maedoc?” Danu said. “Is that you? Is all well?”
A large hand whipped open the curtain at the foot of the bed. The hand did not belong to Maedoc. It belonged to Riggs.
Shock filled his dark eyes. Then rage. “What in the name of the moon have you done?” he shouted at Anya. “What is our bed doing in the middle of the Larnian mountains?”
Fat flakes of snow blew around Riggs’s head. Beyond his massive form was the animal-hide flap of a tent. The flap opened, and Magnus appeared silhouetted against the lamp-lit interior. At once, his face filled with shock and something that looked suspiciously like relief.
Both men crowded before the parted curtain, looking wild, shocked, and, at least in Magnus’s case, extremely appealing.
Magnus’s mouth opened and closed, but he seemed unable to form words.
“Explain,” Riggs said, fierce eyes pinning Anya.
“Dinnae fash at me,” Anya said. “’Twas her doing.” She pointed at Danu.
