The Gray Wolf Throne (19 page)

Unfastening the clasp on the chain, she lowered the amulet until it rested on his bare chest. immediately, it began to glow, as if in greeting.

what if it does more harm than good? raisa thought. Amulets draw away power, don’t they? But they also store power and provide it to wizards who need it.

would there be any left after he’d used it to heal her?

pushing his damp hair out of the way, she fastened the clasp and tucked the chain under the collar of his shirt. Taking his hand, she poked it up under the loose shirt and closed the fingers around the amulet. Then she slid the blanket back up to his chin.

Still on her knees, raisa looked up at willo. “oh, willo,” she whispered, stroking Han’s cheek, stubbled with a shadow of reddish beard. “This is all my fault.”

The healer smiled, tears standing in her dark eyes. “really?

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i was thinking that it was all
my
fault.”

“i remember . . . something of what he did to heal me,” raisa said. “i know i fought him. i have so many secrets. i tried to keep him out. He didn’t save me because i am the heir to the Gray wolf throne. He . . .” Her voice broke.

willo put her hand on raisa’s shoulder, and power trickled in. “Heart’s ease, your Highness,” she said. “you don’t have to explain anything to me.”

“if you . . . if you think i can be of any help,” raisa whispered,

“i would be willing to sit with him, or take over the fans, or . . .”

“Thank you, your Highness, but perhaps you’d better rest another day or two before you take on the role of healer’s apprentice.” willo took raisa’s arm and helped her to her feet. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

As they shuffled toward the entrance, raisa heard voices in the next room. They ducked through the deerskin curtain to find three new arrivals in the Matriarch Lodge.

it was raisa’s father, Averill. And Amon Byrne.

Amon! raisa’s heart lurched in relief.

Amon’s eyes fixed on raisa immediately, raking her from her tousled head, over her knee-length shift, to her feet in their ridic-ulous heavy wool socks. He closed his eyes and lifted his face toward the sky as if sending up a prayer of thanksgiving. Then fixed his eyes back on her as if to make sure she didn’t disappear on him.

Amon looked awful. He might have come straight from hell to the Matriarch Lodge, with the memory of that place still engraved on his face. He looked years older, and yet dreadfully young. The gray eyes were clouded with pain and grief, and his 158

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face was layered with weariness under a stubble of beard.

“Sweet Lady of Grace,” raisa whispered. “Thank the Maker you’re safe.”

She wanted to throw her arms around him, to tell him how sorry she was, to tell him how his father saved her life, to tell him that none of this was his fault. She wanted to ask him a thousand questions. She wished she could banish everyone else from the room.

“Corporal Byrne,” she whispered, her voice still hoarse from the effects of the toxin. “i’m afraid i have bad news.” She took a faltering step toward Amon, stumbled, and would have fallen, save that Averill leaped forward and caught her in his arms.

“He already knows, Briar rose,” her father said. “nightwalker brought us the news.”

“nightwalker?” raisa looked past Averill, toward the door.

“is he . . . ?”

“He stayed on, in the city, to . . . to . . .” Averill’s voice broke, and he cradled her close, kissing the top of her head as if she were a young child. “Thank the Maker you are alive. you have no idea what i . . . when nightwalker told us what had happened, that you were badly wounded, i was afraid we had lost you too.” For a long moment, raisa allowed herself to be Averill’s daughter, to slide her arms around her father and press her face into his leather shirt. To rest there a moment, safe.

i’m finally home, she thought. Things have to get better from here on.

Averill set her down on her feet, carefully, as if she might break, keeping one arm around her shoulders for support.

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“Corporal Byrne,” raisa said, struggling for calm composure.

“your father was one of the bravest and wisest men i have ever met, and he was so proud of you—justifiably so.”

“your Highness,” Amon said. “i am so sorry. i should have been there. it should have been me.”

“no,” she said, raising her hand to stay him as tears streamed down her face. “Had you been there, i would have lost you too, and i could not bear that, to lose both of you.” She faltered, trying to regain control of her voice. “As it is, it is a grave loss to the line, and to me, personally.”

Amon nodded once, looking straight ahead, his eyes pooling with unshed tears. A muscle moved in his jaw, and she knew he was clenching his teeth. “Thank you, your Highness,” he managed to say. He swallowed hard.

raisa mopped at her face with her sleeve. it’s all right to cry, she told herself. Soldiers and queens are allowed to cry, aren’t they?

She was half Demonai. Demonai don’t cry.

“Captain Byrne and his triple were not the only heroes,” raisa continued, determined to shape the telling of this story before it got away from her. “After i was wounded, Han Alister risked his own life to save mine.” She paused, watching their faces closely. “i understand that some of you know him as Hunts Alone.”

Averill glanced at elena, raising an eyebrow. elena nodded, her lips pressed tightly together.

“Alister’s here?” Amon said. His gray eyes searched the room.

raisa tilted her head toward the back room. “He’s in there, fighting for his life.”

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“Blood of the demon!” Amon took a step toward the partition.

“was he wounded? what did he . . . ?”

“There’s more news, daughter,” Averill said quickly, a warning in his voice. “More news that cannot wait.” raisa turned around and looked up into her father’s haggard features, newly engraved with loss and grief—yes, and fear. For once, her father’s trader face betrayed him.

“Lightfoot,” elena said. “what is it? what’s happened?” Averill put his hands on raisa’s shoulders and looked down into her face. “She’s gone, Briar rose,” he said. “your mother—

Queen Marianna—she is dead.”

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Bequest

raisa twisted away from her father’s touch, shaking her head.

“no,” she snapped. “That can’t be. That’s not possible.” Her eyes searched the faces around her, looking for reassurance, finding none. willo’s expression said that this news was not unexpected, that it confirmed her worst fears. raisa could tell that her grandmother, elena, was already strategizing, turning this over in her mind, assessing what this might mean to the Spirit clans—the Demonai, specifically.

Averill looked as if he wished he could somehow shield raisa from this news and all its implications. He was widower and parent, both, in that moment.

“oh,” raisa said, her voice trembling, “this is a dark season.”

elena Demonai dropped to her knees and bowed her gray head. “Long life to raisa
ana
’Marianna, named Briar rose in the uplands, Gray wolf Queen of the Fells.”

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Amon drew his sword. He fell to his knees in front of raisa, laying the blade at her feet. “My sword and my life in your service, your Highness.”

Like a stand of lodgepole pines in a gale, they all went down, leaving raisa standing alone.

That’s the way it’s going to be, she thought. There’s no shelter for me—not from any of this. i’ll stand alone the rest of my life.

She stood, fists clenched, head bowed, allowing a shuddering sob to pass through her body as her dreams of a reconciliation with her mother collapsed into dust.

Flower Moon came up behind her with a cushioned chair.

Bright Hand brought a fur throw, and raisa wrapped it around herself gratefully, wishing she could pull it over her head and hide.

wishing she could be alone with her grief. Successor queens traditionally retreated to the temple for three full days of mourning before assuming their duties.

But, no. That was not possible—not now. even though her insides ground together like shards of shattered glass.

She gestured at the people on the floor. “please,” she said.

“Get up. or sit down. Make yourselves comfortable.” She blotted tears from her face with the heels of both hands. “Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”

“Briar rose . . .” Averill stopped and swallowed hard, glancing around the common room. “we don’t need to do this now—in public. your mother—”

“My mother is dead, and i feel like i’m hanging by a thread.

i need you to tell me everything—what you know, and what you only suspect. Then we’ll decide what to do, and if we can allow time for mourning.”

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Her father blinked at her. Took a second look. Then inclined his head in assent.

The apprentices brought in cushions to sit on, and raisa managed to get everyone off their knees. Amon sat at her right hand side, willo on her left. Averill and elena sat cross-legged in front of her.

willo spoke to Bright Hand, who brought a cup of steaming tea to raisa. She sipped at it, trying to ignore the cross signals her nerves were sending her, feeling strength coursing through her.

willo put her hand on raisa’s shoulder, and the healer’s touch calmed and cleared her head. raisa closed her eyes, wishing she could sink into the sleep of forgetting.

one thought was uppermost in her mind:
This is al my fault.

“How did it happen?” raisa said, opening her eyes. “And when?”

“She fell from the Queen’s Tower four days ago,” Averill said, looking down at his hands. “in the early evening. She fell from her balcony, landed in the courtyard, and was killed instantly.” raisa thought back. That would have been the night the wolves appeared to her. The night eight renegade guardsmen did their best to kill her. The night after edon Byrne died. it was too much of a coincidence. The events were linked—they must be.

She remembered Althea’s words:
The Bayar blocked up Queen
Marianna’s ears so she could not hear our warnings. And now she will
pay the price.

willo stroked raisa’s hair, gesturing for more tea. “you were both in the city at the time?” willo asked, looking from Amon to Averill.

Averill nodded. “Corporal Byrne had just arrived from the 164

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west wall with the news that Briar rose had disappeared from oden’s Ford.”

“i knew you were in the north, with . . . with my father, trying to get home,” Amon said, looking at raisa. “i knew you were in danger, but still alive. So Lord Demonai and i met with nightwalker to strategize. To discuss whether to send a guard to meet you.”

“nightwalker was there too?” raisa looked from her father to Amon. She knew that nightwalker rarely descended into the Vale if he had a choice.

Averill nodded. “He’s been there, off and on, for two months.

i asked him to come and attend me, with a handful of Demonai warriors.” He hesitated, as if not wanting to introduce more trouble into the present disaster. “Tensions have been running high with the wizard Council, and i needed a guard i could trust.” The implications of this settled like a heavy wet cloak, adding to raisa’s misery. The queen’s consort and the wizard Council had clashed for as long as she could remember, but the former Demonai warrior Averill Lightfoot had never felt the need for a handpicked guard before.

“we decided nightwalker should go to Marisa pines Camp to see if there’d been any word of you. He’d already gone when . . .

when word came of Marianna’s death.”

“Did anyone see it happen?” elena asked.

Averill shook his head. “The queen was resting in her bedchamber,” he said. “when Magret went in to wake her for dinner, her bed was empty, and the doors to the balcony stood open. Magret looked off the terrace and saw . . . she saw Marianna lying on the pavers below.”

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raisa fought to drive that image from her mind. “Magret?” She looked from Averill to Amon. “Magret Gray was attending the queen?”

Averill nodded. “Marianna had requested her specifically in recent weeks. She seemed more at ease with Magret than with anyone else.”

raisa’s dream came back to her, the one in which Queen Marianna stood on her terrace. She heard a noise and turned. . . .

“was Magret in the outer chamber the entire time?” raisa whispered.

Averill shook his head. “She divided her time between the princess Mellony and Queen Marianna. Since Marianna was asleep, she was attending the princess.”

“And the queen’s guard? where were they?” elena demanded.

“They were outside her door the entire time,” Averill said.

He paused, glancing at Amon. “That’s what they say, at least.”

“who was on duty?” raisa asked. “Are they . . . are they trustworthy?”

Clearing his throat, Amon named them off, a half dozen guards, none of whom raisa knew. “i know three of them,” Amon said, as if reading her thoughts. “The ones i know are good soldiers. And loyal.”

“Loyal or not, how difficult would it be for a wizard to get past them?” elena said. “you should be asking where the Bayars were during that time.”

willo’s hand tightened on raisa’s shoulder. “elena,” she said.

“we don’t need to—”

“All right—where
were
they?” raisa asked, wrapping the furs more closely around her. “Does anyone know? Have Micah 166

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and Fiona returned from the flatlands?”

Averill nodded. “They returned at least a week ago, though they stayed holed up in the Bayar compound on Gray Lady until the past few days. Lord Bayar has been in frequent meetings at the Council House. That’s where he was the night Queen Marianna died—if you are willing to take his word for it, that is. no one else was there as witness, save other members of the council.”