SEASONS PASSED, AND the world suffered under the harsh reign of King Lorcan. Small rebellions were crushed with a brutality that washed the land with blood and sent even the valiant into hiding. Faeries, witches, seers, and all who dwelt within the Realm of Magicks were outlawed and hunted like wild beasts by the mercenaries who came to be known as Lorcan’s dogs.
Those who rose up against the usurper—and many who didn’t—were executed. The dungeon in the castle filled with the tortured and forgotten, the innocent and the damned.
Lorcan grew rich, lining his coffers with taxes, increasing his holdings with land taken by force from those who had held it, worked it, honored it for generations. He dined off plates of gold and drank his wine from goblets of crystal while the people starved.
Those who spoke against him during the dark times spoke in whispers, and in secret.
Many of the displaced took to the high hills or the Lost Forest. There magic was practiced still, and the faithful searched the sky for portents of the True One who would vanquish the snake and bring light back to the world.
There, among the farmers and merchants, the millers and artists who had become outlaws, among the faeries and elves and witches with bounties on their heads, the Travelers roamed.
“Again!” Aurora thrust with the sword and thrilled to the ring of steel against steel. She drove her opponent back, parried, pivoted.
“Balance,” Gwayne warned.
“I have my balance.” To prove it, she leapt nimbly over the sword swept at her feet, landed lightly.
Swords crossed, slid hilt to hilt. And she came up with a dagger, pressing the point to his throat. “And the kill,” she added. “I like to win.”
Gwayne gave her a little poke with the dagger he held to her belly. “So do I.”
She laughed, stepped back, then gave him a courtly bow. “We both died well. Sit. You’re winded.”
“I am not.” But he was, and he rested on a stump while she fetched a skin of water.
She has her father’s eyes, he thought. Gray as woodsmoke. And her mother’s soft and generous mouth. Gwynn had been right—about so many things.
The child had grown into a lithe and lovely young woman, with skin the color of pale, pure honey, hair black as midnight. A strong chin, he judged, murmuring a thanks when she offered the water. Stubborn. He hadn’t known a girl-child could be so stubborn.
There was a light in her, so bright he wondered that those who looked on her didn’t fall to their knees. She was, though garbed in hunting green and worn boots, every inch a queen.
He had done what he had been asked. She was trained in the ways of a warrior. In sword and arrow and pike, in hand against hand. She could hunt and fight and ride as well as any man he’d trained. And she could think. That was his pride in her.
Nara and Rhiann had schooled her in women’s work, and in magicks. Rohan had tutored her in scholarly matters, and her mind, her thirsty mind, soaked up the songs, the stories of their people.
She could read and write, she could cipher and chart. She could make the cold fire with a thought, stitch a wound, and—these days—take him in a sword fight.
And still, how could a girl of barely twenty seasons lead her people into battle and save the world?
It haunted him at night when he lay beside Rhiann, who had become his wife. How could he honor his vow to keep her safe and honor his vow to tell her of her birthright?
“I heard the dragon in the night.”
His fingers squeezed the skin. “What?”
“I heard it roar, in my dreams that were not dreams. The red dragon who flies in the night sky. And in his claws was a crown of stars. My wolf was with me.” She turned her head, smiled at Gwayne. “He is always with me, it seems. So handsome and strong, with his sad eyes green as the grass on the Hills of Never.”
Even speaking of the man she thought of as her wolf had her blood warming. “We lay on the floor of the forest and watched the sky, and when the dragon came with his crown, I felt such a thrill. Fear and wonder and joy. As I reached up, through a great wind that blew, the sky grew brighter than day, stronger than the faerie fire. And I stood beside my wolf in the blinding brightness, with blood at my feet.”
She sat on the ground, resting her back against the stump. With a careless gesture, she flipped the long, fat braid she wore behind her shoulder. “I don’t know what it means, but I wonder if I will fight for the True One. If his time draws near. I wonder if I will, at last, find the warrior who is my wolf and stand with him to lift my sword for the true king.”
She had spoken of the wolf since she could form words—the boy, and now the man, she loved. But never before had she spoken of seeing the dragon. “Is that all the dream?”
“No.” Comfortably, she rested her head against his knee. “In the dream that was not a dream, I saw a lady. A beautiful lady with green eyes and dark hair, and she wore the robes of royalty. She was weeping, so I said, My lady, why do you weep? She answered, I weep for the world while the world waits. It waits for the True One, I said to her, and asked, Why doesn’t he come? When will he strike at Lorcan and bring peace to Twylia?”
Gwayne looked into the forest, gently stroking her hair. “What did she say to you?”
“She said the True One’s hour is midnight, in birth, in death. Then she held out her hands, and in them were a globe, bright as the moon, and a star, clear as water. Take them, she told me. You will need them. Then she was gone.”
She rubbed her cheek against his knee as the sadness she’d felt came back on her. “She was gone, Gwayne, and I ached in my heart. Beside me stood my wolf with his green eyes and dark hair. I think he was the True One, and that I’ll fight for him. I think this dream was a portent, for when I woke, there was blood on the moon. A battle is coming.”
Gwynn had said he would know when it was time. He knew, sitting in the quiet forest with spring freshening the air. He knew, and it grieved him.
“Not all battles are fought and won with the sword.”
“I know. Mind and heart, vision and magic. Strategy and treachery. I feel . . .” She rose, wandered away to pluck up a stone and cast it into the silver water of the river.
“Tell me what you feel.”
She looked back. There was silver, bright as the river water, mixed with the gold of his hair, and in his beard. His eyes were a pale blue, and it seemed to her there was a shadow in them now. He was not her father. She knew her sire had fought and died in the Battle of the Stars, but Gwayne had been her father in all but blood all of her life.
There was nothing she couldn’t tell him.
“I feel . . . as if something inside me is waiting, as the world is waiting. I feel there is something I must do, must be beyond what I am, what I do know.” She hurried back to him, knelt at his feet. “I feel I must find my wolf. My love for him is so great, I will never know another. If he’s the one of prophecy, I want to serve him. I honor what you’ve given me, Gwayne. You and Rhiann, Nara and Rohan and all my family. But there’s something inside me, stretching, growing restless, because it knows. It knows, but I can’t see it.”
She rapped a fist against his leg in frustration. “I can’t see. Not yet. Not in my dreams or in the fire or the glass. When I seek, it’s as if a film covers my vision and there are only shadows behind it. In the shadows I see the snake, and in the shadows my wolf is chained and bleeding.”
She rose again, impatient with herself. “A man who might be king, a woman who was a queen. I know she was a queen, and she offered me the moon and a star. And while I wanted them with a kind of burning hunger, I feared them. Somehow, I know if I took them, everything would change.”
“I have no magic. I’m only a soldier, and it’s been too long since my courage was tested. Now I taste fear, and it makes me an old man.”
“You’re not old, and you’re never afraid.”
“I thought there would be more time.” He got to his feet, just looked at her. “You’re so young.”
“Older than your Cyra, and she marries at the next equinox.”
“The first year of your life I thought the days would never end, and time would never pass.”
She laughed. “Was I so troublesome an infant?”
“Restless and willful.” He reached out to touch her cheek. “Then time flew. And here we are. Come, sit with me on the riverbank. I have many things to tell you.”
She sat with him, and watched a hawk circle in the sky. “There is your talisman. The hawk.”
“Once, long ago, and most often behind my back, I was called the queen’s hawk.”
“The queen?” Aurora looked back sharply. “You were the queen’s man? You never told me. You said you fought with my father in the great battle, but not that you were the queen’s man.”
“I told you that I brought your mother out of the city, into the Lost Forest. That Rohan and the Travelers took us in, and you were born that night in the snow.”
“And she died giving me life.”
“I didn’t tell you that it was she who led me, and that I left the battle with her on orders from the king. She did not want to leave him.” Though his words were spoken softly, his gaze was keen on her face. “She fought me. She was heavy with you, but still she fought like a warrior to stay with her king. With her husband.”
“My mother.” The breath caught in her throat. “In my dream. It was my mother.”
“It was cold, and bitter, and she was in great pain. Body and heart. But she would not stop and rest. She guided me, and we came to the camp, to the place of your birth. She wept to leave you, and held you to her breast. She charged me to keep you safe, to train you, as she charged Nara to train you. To keep the truth of your birth from you until the time had come. Then she gave you to my hands, she put you in my hands.”
He looked down at them now. “You were born at midnight. She heard the bells, miles away in the city. Your hour is midnight. You are the True One, Aurora, and as I love you, I wish it were another.”
“How can this be?” Her heart trembled as she got to her feet, and she knew fear, the first true fear of her life. “How can I be the one? I’m no queen, Gwayne, no ruler.”
“You are. It is your blood. From the first moment I held you in my hands, I knew this day would come. But beyond this I can see nothing.” He rose, only to kneel before her. “I am the queen’s man, and serve at your hand.”
“Don’t.” Panicked, she dropped to her knees as well, gripped his shoulders. “By Draco and all the gods, what will I do? How could I have lived all my life in comfort, never knowing true hunger or hurts while the people of the world waited? How can I stand for them, free them, when I’ve hidden away like a coward while Lorcan rules?”
“You were kept in safety, your mother’s dying wish.” He stood, taking her arm to pull her up with him. “You have not been a coward. Nor will you shame the memory of your mother, your father, and play the coward now. This is your fate. I have trained you as a warrior. Be a warrior.”
“I would fight.” She slapped a hand to her sword as if to prove it. “I would pledge sword and magic, my life, without reserve. But to lead?” She drew a shaky breath and stared out over the river. “Nothing is as it was only a moment ago. I need time to think.” She shut her eyes tightly. “To breathe. I need to be alone. Give me time, Gwayne,” she said before he could argue. “If you must break camp and move on, I’ll find you. I need to find my way. Leave me.” She stepped aside as he reached out to touch her. “Go.”
When she knew she was alone, she stood by the banks of the silver river and grieved for her parents, her people, and herself.
And longed for the comfort of the lover she called her wolf.
She walked deep into the forest, beyond the known and into the realm of faeries. There she cast the circle, made the fire, and sang the song for vision. She would see what had been—and what would be.
In the flames, while the moon rose and the single star that dogged it blinked to life, she saw the Battle of the Stars. She saw the bodies of servants, of children as well as soldiers. She saw the king—her father—fight like a demon, driving back the greater forces. She heard the screams, and smelled the blood.
Her father’s voice came to her ears, a shouted order to Gwayne, who fought beside him, to get the queen, and the child she carried, to safety. To do this thing, as a soldier, even against the queen’s orders, for the world. For the True One.
She saw her father’s death, and her own birth. She tasted her mother’s tears, and felt the force of love beam through the magic.
And with it, the force of duty.
“You will not shirk it.”
“Am I enough?” Aurora asked the image of her mother.
“You are the True One. There is no other. You are hope, Aurora. And you are pride. And you are duty. You cannot turn from this.”
Aurora watched the battle, and knew it was what would come, not what had. This blood, this death, would be by her own hands. On her own hands. Even if it meant her end, she must begin. “I have power, Mother, but it is a woman’s power. Small magic. I’m strong, but I’m not seasoned. How can I lead, and rule, with so little to offer?”
“You will be more. Sleep now. Dream now.”
So she dreamed again of her wolf, her warrior with eyes as green as the hills. He was tall, and broad of shoulder. His hair, dark as her own, swept back from a face of sharp planes and angles, and a white scar slashed through his left brow like a bolt of lightning. She felt a curling in her belly that she knew for desire, one she had felt for no one but him.
“What will you be to me?” she asked him. “What will I be to you?”
“I know only that you’re my beloved. You and you alone. I’ve dreamed of you through my life, waking and sleeping, only of you.” He reached out, and she felt the brush of his fingers over her cheek. “Where are you?”
“Close, I think. Close. Are you a soldier?”
He looked down at the sword in his hand, and as disgust rippled over his face he shoved its point into the ground. “I am nothing.”
“I think you are many things, and one of those is mine.” Giving in to curiosity, following her own will, she pulled him to her and pressed her lips to his.
The wind swirled around them, a warm wind stirred by the great beating of faerie wings. The song rose up inside her, and beat in her blood.
She would have love, she thought, even if death followed.
“I must be a woman to become what I am to become.” She stepped back, drew off her hunting tunic. “Teach me what a woman knows. Love me in visions.”
His gaze swept down her as she stood before him, dressed only in moonbeams within the shimmering circle of magic. “I’ve loved you all my life,” he said. “And feared you.”
“I’ve looked for you all of mine, and come to you here, fearing everything. Will you turn from me? Will I be alone?”
“I’ll never turn from you.” He drew her to him. “I’ll never leave you.”
With his lips on hers, he lowered her to the soft floor of the forest. She knew the thrill of his hands, the taste of his skin, and a pleasure, a deep and drugging pleasure that caused her body to quake. Flames leapt beside them, and inside her.
“I love you.” She murmured it as she raced her lips over his face. “I’m not afraid.”
She rose to him, opened to him, entreated. When he joined with her, she knew the power of being a woman, and the delights.
When she woke at dawn, alone, with the fire gone to ash, she knew the cold kiss of duty.
“You should not have let her go alone.”
Gwayne sat honing his sword while Rhiann scolded and made oatcakes. The morning sounds of the camp stirred around them. Horses, dogs, women cooking at pots, children chattering, and men readying to hunt.
“It was her wish.” He spoke more sharply than he intended. “Her command. You fret over her like a mother.”
“And what am I to her if not a mother? Two days, Gwayne, two nights.”
“If she can’t stay two nights alone in the forest, she can hardly rule Twylia.”
“She’s just a girl!” Rhiann slammed down her spoon. “It was too soon to tell her of this.”
“It was time. I gave my oath on it, and it was time! Do you think I have no worries? Is there anything I would not do to keep her from harm, even to giving my life?”
She blinked back hot tears and took his hand. “No. No. But she is like our own, as much as Cyra and young Rhys are. I want her here, sitting by the fire, putting too much honey on her oatcake, laughing. It will never be like that again.”
He set aside his sword to rise and take his wife in his arms. “She is not ours to keep.”
Over Rhiann’s head, he saw her come out of the forest, through the mists of the morning. She was tall—tall for a girl, he thought now. Straight as a soldier. She looked pale, but her eyes were clear. They met his, held.
“She is come,” Gwayne said.
Aurora heard the murmurs as she walked through camp. They had been told, she thought, and now they waited. Her family, her friends, stood beside their colorful wagons, or stepped out of them to watch her.
She stopped, waited until all was quiet. “There is much to be done.” She lifted her voice so that it echoed through camp, and beyond. “Eat, then come to me. I’ll tell you how we will defeat Lorcan and take back our world.”
Someone cheered. She saw it was young Rhys, barely twelve, and smiled back at him. Others took up the shouts, so that she walked through the celebration of them on her way to Gwayne.
Rhys dashed to her. “I’m not going to have to bow, am I?”
“You might, but not just now.” She ruffled his mop of golden hair.
“Good. When do we fight?”
Her stomach clutched. He was a boy, only a boy. How many boys would she send into battle? And into death? “Soon enough.”
She stepped to Gwayne, touched Rhiann’s arm to comfort her. “I’ve seen the way,” she said. “The way to begin. I’ll need my hawk.”
“I’m yours.” He bowed, deep. “Majesty.”
“Don’t give me the title until I’ve earned it.” She sat, took an oatcake, and drenched it with honey. Beside her, Rhiann buried her face in her apron and sobbed.
“Don’t weep.” Aurora rose again to gather Rhiann close. “This is a good day.” She looked at Gwayne. “A new day. It’s not only because of what’s in my blood that I can do this, but because of what you’ve taught me. Both of you. All of you. You’ve given me everything I need to meet my destiny. Rhys, will you ask Nara and Rohan to join us and break fast?”
She pressed a kiss to Rhiann’s cheek as Rhys ran off. “I’ve fasted for two days. I’m hungry,” she said, and with a wide grin she sat to devour her oatcakes.