Queens Of The Sea

By Kim Wilkins

Five sisters, many kingdoms, one battle that will define them all. Thrilling, dazzling historical fantasy from a multi award-winning author.

The writing is elegant and lucid, and the story unspools swiftly and strongly... one of the best fantasy series I've read in a long while.' Kate Forsyth

The unthinkable has happened. Warrior queen Bluebell has lost her kingdom to the Crow King, Hakon, and her demented Trimartyr sister, Willow. While Bluebell would like nothing more than to storm the city with her army and crush Willow underfoot, the enemy's threat to burn its inhabitants alive prevents her. Worse, Willow seems to have the terrifying god Maava on her side.

Bluebell's niece Rowan has otherworldly power and can help her unite the warring tribes, but her third sister Rose is in hiding with her son, and her fourth sister Ivy, Queen of Sæcaster is fleeing abuse with her children. Ash, under-magician, is the only sister who might be able to help Bluebell solve the conundrum. Together they must cross the sea to the land of giants, and try to recover Ash's power and save the kingdom and those they love.

As the sisters' journeys converge, and the terrifying power of Maava threatens all they hold dear, matters come to a head. To survive they must fight the last battle together, but even with the gods and giants on their side, can they overcome the might of Maava and the unending malice of their errant sister Willow?

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781489257741

Kim Wilkins

Kim Wilkins published her first novel, a supernatural thriller, in 1997. Since then she has successfully maintained a busy writing career, as well as earning a PhD and holding down a job as an associate professor in writing and publishing at the University of Queensland. Under her pseudonym, Kimberley Freeman, she has published seven novels of epic women's fiction. She is published in twenty-one languages and has written for adults, young adults and children. She remains obsessed with misty English landscapes, Led Zeppelin, and chihuahuas.   Photo credit: Craig Peihopa

Book preview

Prologue

The queen is coming.

Just this moment, something has been set in motion. A heart breaks. A father loses his temper. A girl flees. The island, lately bereaved, senses its opportunity and calls for its queen. What will follow cannot be told, but we shall be summoned to serve; of that there is no doubt.

Life after earthly life the queen comes, over centuries as dense and high as mountains. Sometimes a smith’s daughter, sometimes a beggar, sometimes a whore. But this time, she is highborn and has four powerful sisters. Highborn women have allies and armies, enemies and encumbrances. She will bring all with her, whether she intends to or not. We shall not escape this. The sky will split and the mighty eoten will be thrust into the world of the Thyrslanders.

Here, at the ragged edge of the world, the last six of us live, bonded in pairs. Day after quiet day, in cold sunshine and sea spray, we cleave to the gateway as the eoten always have. The death of one of us is the death of another. We have only three lives to give.

Where I sit, on this high ridge near the seeing pool, I look out towards Thyrsland. I cannot see its green hills and deep coombs, I cannot see its ancient woodlands and soft meadows. But as the clouds fan apart and the rising sun sends bright rays across the grey water, staining it amber and gold, I feel familiarity, longing. Once my people lived there; our bones were the land’s bones. To return is impossible unless it is to return in sacrifice to these mennisc, with their tiny, fast-beating hearts and quick, light steps.

We will do what we must. We always have.

I had hoped for a softer end. But what are hopes, what is softness, when gods go to war?

One

The rider came in the long cold before dawn.

Bluebell had retired to her gloomy bower after four hours on the keep’s ramparts. Harrow’s Fell, the stronghold on the northern border of Bradsey, was a wild and grim place where the weak flickering of the torches was the only light for miles. Autumn fog covered the stars and wound around the bare branches of ancient oaks. Bluebell hadn’t slept well these six weeks; she never slept well at Harrow’s Fell.

She had only just plaited her long fair hair for sleep when there came a frantic knocking and shouting. Her dog, Hyld, lifted her ears and growled low.

‘My lord! My lord! A rider!’

Bluebell wrenched open the door. In the narrow, wooden hallway were two half-blood soldiers. They bred them short and slight up here. Not enough sunlight. She towered over them. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Sal.’

‘Just one rider?’

‘Just one.’

Salgar, son of Dunstan. He had survived. But what of the other four warriors she sent with them? Six of her finest thanes. Kara was lately married; Lofric was about to be a father. Surely they could not all be lost?

Bluebell hurried after the soldiers, Hyld close behind, her paws clattering on the rough wooden floorboards. The corridor opened into a common area made of stone and thatch, then through to the open ward of the stronghold. On the cold flagstones, in a blaze of torchlight, lay Sal. His tunic was stained with blood and his face and hair were caked with dirt and sweat. Soldiers and healers gathered around him in soft drizzle.

‘Sal!’ She pushed a healer out of the way and knelt next to him. ‘Are you going to live?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ he managed. ‘Though I wish I had died with my companions.’

Bluebell’s chest constricted, as though her ribs had frozen together. ‘They’re all dead then?’

‘All dead.’

For four years, since she had become king, Bluebell had made the regular journey north to this stronghold. This time raiders had been moving south, over mountains and through frozen caves, to terrorise the rough little villages scattered along the northern border between Bradsey and the Ice-Heart. The raiders came with their religious banners and their cruel hearts and their hard steel. Determined to end it, Bluebell had sent half of her retinue into the Ice-Heart, to Marvik, where her sister Willow ruled as Crow Queen alongside Bluebell’s long-time enemy, Hakon. Her aim had been assassinating Hakon and bringing Willow back alive.

After four years of reckless aggression from Hakon and his queen, Bluebell had come with such high hopes, not least for the thinnest possibility that she might be able to save Willow from the madness that gripped her. The dashing of those hopes was painful. Hard with guilt.

‘Please stand back, my lord,’ one of the healers said with a gentle push on Bluebell’s arm. ‘Let me clean and bandage his wounds and then you may speak with him at length.’

Bluebell eyed the woman with irritation, then decided that getting in a fight with a healer for touching her arm was not the way to help Sal or anyone. Not least those five of her best thanes who were now dead.

The soldiers lifted Sal into a hammock and carried him away, the healers following. Their white robes, customary dress for healers in the north, caught the colours of the fire. Bluebell found herself standing in the ward alone, while cold mist condensed around her.

Hyld whined cautiously. Bluebell glanced down, realising they were both getting wet. ‘I’m sorry, girl,’ she said, leading the dog back towards the keep. This was Hyld’s first journey north with Bluebell. Her old dog, Thrymm, was safely retired back home in Blicstowe, having grown too arthritic for war. Bluebell didn’t love Hyld yet. She missed her old dog. She missed a lot about home. Six weeks in Harrow’s Fell always felt like six months.

Bluebell abandoned all hope of sleeping. Instead, she stoked the fire in the common area and pulled up a bench next to it. Hyld settled at her feet and was soon whimpering in a dream somewhere, big paws twitching. Bluebell rested her head in her hands. In moments like this, her kingship weighed an ocean. She could wake Ash and tell her, or Sighere. She could wait and whisper it onto the pillow between her and her husband back in Blicstowe. She could close her eyes and tell her father, dead but not forgotten. But ultimately, the mission had been her choice, her burden.

Half her hearthband. The strongest and fiercest sons and daughters of high families.

The sound of footfalls. Bluebell looked up. Sal approached in a clean tunic and breeches.

‘No bandages?’

‘It was mostly other people’s blood,’ he said, sitting on the floor beside Hyld and reaching out to rub the dog’s ears.

Bluebell noticed he trembled. She watched him a little while in the firelight. The sound of rain deepened overhead. ‘What happened?’ she asked at last.

He sighed, shifted so his knees were pulled up under his chin. ‘We made it all the way to Marvik, of course. We knew a hidden passageway into Hakon’s hold. Everything went to plan, but then … she was there.’

‘She?’

He averted his eyes, as though afraid he would offend. ‘Your sister, my lord. The Crow Queen. We were trapped in the chamber. She came in with twenty armed men and she knew who we were. She knew we were Bluebell’s thanes, and took pleasure as we were slaughtered in Marvik in the name of the trimartyr god. We finished off eight of them, but we were outnumbered. She wields a sword well, my lord.’

‘How did you escape?’

He swallowed hard, and his body began to shake violently. ‘She let me go so I could tell you how they died. But I will not, my lord, for I would not have another soul know that horror.’

Bluebell laid a hand on his shoulder to still him, took a light tone. ‘I am glad you are back, and your father will be glad too. I don’t know how I would ever face him if I’d lost you.’

Sal reached up to grasp her hand and hold it tight, eyes fixed on her face. ‘My lord, she enjoyed it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Queen Willow. She enjoyed what they did to the others.’

‘You can’t know that.’

‘She smiled the whole time.’ He shook his head and sagged forward. ‘All that blood.’

Bluebell stood. ‘Put it out of your mind now, Sal. We will return to Blicstowe in a few days. Rest, and be proud of what you did.’

He offered her a pained smile that did not reach his eyes, but nonetheless stood and headed towards the sleeping quarters.

Bluebell watched him go. She smiled the whole time.

What kind of monster had her sister become?

Dawn and dusk were when the spirits were most likely to come. Ahead of the day’s edge or just beyond it, they were on the move. Ash stood by the stream in the long shadows of twilight. She’d discarded her shoes because the rocks were mossy and she needed to grip them with her toes, but now her feet were chilled to numbness. The sunlight seemed never to have penetrated the dark, gnarled oaks. Creeping cold congealed in layers. The woods were still and silent.

No words. Only thoughts. Grasp them with your mind and turn them to you.

A flash, felt rather than seen. Ash reached for it, not too desperate. But it was gone in a half-moment.

Again.

Ash climbed down from the rocks and gratefully pulled on her shoes. In the six weeks she had spent in Harrow’s Fell, her power had waned dramatically. Once a robust and tensile thing, her ability to use magic means to control the world had thinned and hollowed. She had come to keep her sister Bluebell safe from supernatural trickery, but now was not sure if she could fulfil her duty. It was for the best that they would soon be returning home.

She heard footfalls in the leaves and turned to see Sighere, Bluebell’s second-in-command, approaching. Ash gave a silent prayer of thanks that he had not travelled to Marvik with the other assassins.

‘It grows dark, Ash,’ he said.

She smiled and ran to him, crashing into his embrace, her ear against his chest, listening to his great heart beating slow and steady. His big hands were in her hair. How she loved the size of him, the smell of him.

He kissed the top of her head and she stood back, her hands sliding down to grasp his. In the low light, his dark eyes were almost black, his battle-scarred face almost grim. ‘My companions are dead, Ash. My heart is so heavy.’

‘They are in the Horse God’s train now. Their deeds will be told for years to come.’ She squeezed his hands.

‘Cold consolation for those who love them,’ he said. ‘I wish you would allow me to stay by you while you practise your magic. I have already lost enough of those I love.’

‘I need to be alone.’ She sighed. ‘Not that there is much magic to practise.’

‘Harrow’s Fell is not a safe place, unless you are inside the walls of the stronghold. And, as you say, your own … ability to protect yourself is failing. How would I explain to Bluebell …?’

‘If I was killed by raiders you wouldn’t have to explain anything,’ Ash said, laughing softly, reaching up to lift a strand of his dark hair and tuck it behind his ear. ‘We could take our little secret to our graves.’

‘That’s grim,’ he said, catching her hand and kissing her palm.

‘Well, we will have to tell her eventually.’

‘I have devoted my life to being loyal and true to your sister.’

‘As have I. She’s my sister.’

‘She will forgive you much faster than she will forgive me.’

‘Why do you think there is something to forgive?’

‘Because she asked me to protect you. Not to –’

Ash stood on her toes and kissed him to silence him. They had covered this ground many times before in the weeks since he had declared his love for her, up on the foreboding battlements on the stronghold. She had known, of course. They had been sidestepping around the topic for over a year. Wherever Bluebell travelled, Ash and Sighere travelled with her. They had brushed against each other, sought out each other’s glances, made excuses to linger. Thoughts of Sighere had filled her imagination for months before they finally spoke of it. Even though Ash made light fun of Sighere’s reluctance to tell Bluebell, she was relieved her sister did not know yet. It wasn’t possible to love Bluebell and not fear her at least a little.

Sighere broke the kiss and grasped her hand. ‘Come along. Back to the stronghold. We leave for Anad Scir in the morning. So few of us. What a horror this journey has been.’

‘When we are home, take some time off with me. I want to go to the sea. It’s where I am the strongest.’

‘I am at my lord Bluebell’s disposal,’ he replied. ‘I doubt there will be time away from my duties now her hearthband is so reduced.’

They fell silent as they walked, and she didn’t say to him, ‘Then I shall go alone,’ because then he would worry. But she had to get to the sea, to try her magic again. Perhaps it was being at Harrow’s Fell that had muted her, or perhaps – the fear she hid from him – it was being in love. She had to know, so she could decide what to do next.

Rain and mud plagued them on the narrow road from the border to Anad Scir, where Renward’s hill fort stood. Ash longed for a hot bath. She sat on a palfrey behind Bluebell, who had made her leave her usual mount back in Blicstowe. Behind them, between dripping branches, followed the much-reduced hearthband, stewards and pack horses. They ascended the steep fell in fog and thunder and crossed the flanking ditch as the rain eased. The gatehouse, hall, bowerhouses and granary were all built from the dark grey fell-hazel that was only found in the north-west corner of Bradsey. Night was closing in rapidly, but the torches had not yet been lit so the shadows ahead of them were deep. A huge old chestnut tree in the courtyard had shed most of its leaves, and they were slick and slippery on the muddy ground. Then a group of stewards and stablehands descended on them, and Bluebell dismounted and came to help Ash down.

‘Is King Renward expecting us?’ Ash asked.

‘He’s barely a king,’ Bluebell replied with a sneer. ‘He’s a warlord. The tribes have never united under him for any length of time.’

‘He calls himself a king,’ Ash reminded her.

Bluebell gestured to the rough wooden structure ahead of them, stained by smoke and damp. ‘He calls this a hall. I imagine little joy or honour in being king of Bradsey. One may as well be king of the fog. Yet he is expecting us, which means good food and ale once we are in dry clothes. Come.’

Ash glanced back to Sighere, who was giving orders to the stewards and did not see her. She hurried to keep up with Bluebell’s long stride, nearly slipping. The air was grainy with mist and damp. Some places in Thyrsland were beautiful in autumn; Bradsey was always bleak.

The door to the hall slammed open and Renward stepped out, beaming, arms open, three or four ragged children in his wake, as there always were. Renward was famed for his appetites and for happily adopting every bastard child he managed to father. He had no wife, but nearly a dozen heirs, most of them half-bloods.

‘Well, if it isn’t the king of Ælmesse,’ he said, engulfing Bluebell in a hug.

‘Renward,’ Bluebell said, through a mouthful of his long, wild hair.

He stood back and then grabbed Ash. She submitted to his greeting, even though it felt like her ribs were cracking beneath him. He smelled of smoke and sweat and sheep grease. When he released her she staggered back a step. ‘Greetings, King Renward,’ she said. The children surrounded them, and a little red-haired girl of about four grasped Ash’s hand and began to babble at her happily. Ash couldn’t understand a word.

‘Go on, away with you all. Leave King Bluebell and Princess Ash alone,’ Renward said, scattering them gently. ‘A new addition,’ Renward explained. ‘Grew up with the Gwr-y-Corcumbos. We’ll teach her how to be one of us, never fear.’

Renward had lived so long among the Ærfolc tribes that he was fluent in their language, and knew all their unpronounceable tribal names. He seemed to have genuine fondness and admiration for these conquered people who refused to be brought entirely under his rule.

Bluebell looked at him sharply. ‘Gwr-y … is that Rathcruick’s tribe?’

‘No. Men of the small valley. We also call them Coombers,’ Renward explained as he led them into a small stone chamber adjoining the hall on one side, and the largest bowerhouse on the other. The chamber was dark and smelled like lime. ‘Rathcruick’s lot are men of the many oaks. Gwr-y-Derileor. You’d know them as Woodlanders.’

‘I know them as fuckers,’ Bluebell muttered as Renward opened the door to the bower. It was warm and well lit, with sheepskins rolled neatly on the beds.

‘You really should learn some of the language. It’s the language of Thyrsland’s history,’ Renward said.

‘You’ve always been too close to the Ærfolc,’ Bluebell said.

‘On the contrary, they think I’m too close to you. Your room, my ladies,’ he said with a bow and a flourish. ‘Water is boiling over the fire as you see, and somebody will be along presently to help you bathe and dress.’

‘I need ale,’ Bluebell said.

‘Oh, but of course. Tonight there will be a feast in your honour, Bluebell.’ He leaned in close. ‘We are making your favourite dish.’

‘The deer in honey sauce?’

‘The very same.’

‘You’re a good man, Renward,’ Bluebell said, her grudging tone falling away.

‘So are you!’ Renward exclaimed with a mighty slap on Bluebell’s shoulder. Bluebell didn’t flinch. A moment later, Renward had left and closed the door.

Ash sat on one of the low beds and eased off her shoes. Bluebell was already stripping off, dropping her tunic and trousers on the clean rushes.

‘Are you worried about the Ærfolc?’ Ash asked.

‘Should I be?’

‘Undermagicians are tied to them. They use the Ærfolc magic.’ The Horse God’s favour had marked Bluebell so strongly that travelling in the magic wastelands of Bradsey was dangerous to her.

‘I am not worried about undermagicians either,’ Bluebell said. ‘I have you.’

‘I don’t know that I am much use to you at the moment,’ Ash said.

‘Nonsense. It will be fine.’

‘Bluebell, it’s not fine.’

‘Stop worrying. Tonight, and then one more day’s ride and we will be back in Ælmesse. I’ll be safe until then.’

‘I hope you are right.’

‘I am always right,’ Bluebell said. ‘I am going to enjoy my bath and my honeyed deer and my ale, and in a few days we will be back home in Blicstowe.’ A shadow crossed her face, and Ash suspected she was thinking about her fallen companions.

Ash stood and took her sister’s hand. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t predict it,’ she said.

‘Prophecy is not one of your gifts. You’ve said so many times,’ Bluebell replied.

‘Still,’ Ash said. ‘I’m sorry.’

Bluebell grimaced. ‘Yes, well. So am I.’

If there was one thing that northerners were good at, it was warming a dank, cold place. Renward’s hall, in the style of most halls this close to the border of the Ice-Heart, had a low roof for trapping the warmth, supported by a network of rough-hewn beams from which were hung charms: bird skulls and fox paws and feathers and shells. A dome-shaped earthen hearth sat at either end, and a blazing roasting pit in the middle. The smoke escaped slowly, and so the room was hazy and hot. Bluebell would barely have believed the wild, rain-laden wind still blew outside, if it weren’t for the howl of it across the smoke hole and the occasional violent rattle of the thatching.

She knew she was drinking too much ale too fast, but on the other side of the yeasty curtain of ale, a quiet mind awaited.

She sat among Renward’s thanes and family, and his unruly children ran about in all directions, as dirty and underfoot as rats but not as sensible. A tall, skinny one with bony knees poking out below a too-short tunic. A sullen teenage girl with hair the colour of burnished copper. A small group of overly energetic boys who larked about in so many places at once that it took Bluebell at least half an hour to realise there weren’t twelve of them. One hapless fatty straining against his clothes, whom two smug-faced others teased by poking his soft belly and arms. A sweet-faced red-haired boy of no more than three, who babbled incessantly to Bluebell while thrusting a puppy into her lap over and over. Hyld growled at him out of protective instinct or envy or perhaps both.

Bluebell kept drinking. Renward eventually tired of the red-haired poppet and ordered him away. Hyld, relieved, rested her big head on her paws and went back to sleep under Bluebell’s bench.

‘You need a wife,’ Bluebell said.

‘I don’t trust women,’ he said, then gave her a smile. ‘I don’t mean you.’

Bluebell shrugged. She certainly didn’t trust Renward. It was the way of kings not to trust one another.

A band played across the other side of the hall, strange stomping music with reedy pipes and a harp that sounded like ice singing. Bluebell watched them idly, then saw Sighere pull away from her other thanes, head down, and slip out the door. A sliver of cold, damp air fell into the room and was absorbed by the fires.

‘Look, you,’ Bluebell said, leaning into Renward. ‘My first thane, Sighere, has left the hall.’

‘Do you want somebody to go fetch him?’ Renward asked.

‘No. I want you to watch my sister Ash, who sits with the healers and priests near the northern end of the hall.’

Renward turned his gaze.

‘Give her two minutes. Perhaps five. She will go too.’

‘Are they …?’

‘They are.’ Bluebell laughed. ‘And they think I do not know, so they sneak about like naughty children.’

Renward’s grin split his bearded face. ‘My lord, you are cruel. They are in love, then?’

‘They had better be. Sighere ought not tup my sister if he doesn’t love her.’ She took a gulp of ale, pointedly looking away from Ash. ‘Is she going?’

‘As you predicted, my lord Bluebell,’ Renward said with a chuckle. ‘She has glanced your way, and is now hurrying to the door.’

Bluebell felt the brief shiver of cold, then heard the door close.

‘You do not mind their romance?’ Renward asked.

‘Not in the least. It makes me happy. I can think of no braver man in all of Thyrsland.’

‘Then why make them suffer with sneaking and guilt?’

‘For my amusement,’ Bluebell said, and Renward laughed until spittle flew from his lips.

Bluebell banged her empty cup on the table and one of the servants filled it, a small fellow with white skin and pale grey eyes, and hair the colour of carrot soup. The band finished playing and as they collected their instruments to leave, a man’s voice came booming over the crowd.

‘Hear me! For I have a tale to tell!’

The chatter immediately died away. Renward said close to Bluebell’s ear, ‘This is Armax, our finest tale-teller.’

Bluebell turned to see Armax approaching. ‘Oh, he is fine,’ she murmured. Tall and well built, stripped to the waist, his muscular torso and arms painted with decorative woad. Golden hair and moustache, and a flaming red beard in two neat plaits secured with silver beads.

He came to stand in front of Renward’s table, as was the custom, but it was Bluebell whose gaze he sought. ‘This tale,’ he said, ‘is of a warrior queen so fierce and mighty that dragons quake when they hear her name.’

Bluebell couldn’t help but smile. The story of her defeat of a dragon off the coast of Ælmesse was the most widely told tale of her deeds. She wished Ash had been here to listen.

‘Flatterer!’ she called to Armax, but he was away now, prowling the crowd, jumping on and off tables, acting out the story with his arms and face and hard, hard body …

‘You like what you see?’ Renward said to her with a leering grin.

‘Is it so obvious?’ she asked.

‘Your tongue is on your collar.’

‘He is hand-carved by the Horse God, surely,’ Bluebell replied.

Armax glanced over his shoulder at her. They exchanged smiles.

‘Lord, I’d love to get astride that,’ she said.

‘I think he’d be just as pleased,’ Renward replied. ‘I can have him sent to you.’

Bluebell sighed, shook her head. Five years ago, there was no doubt she would have. ‘I have a husband,’ she said.

‘So?’

‘So I once believed I would be happy to keep fucking around, until I thought of him fucking around and it made me so wild with rage I didn’t speak to him for a week and he didn’t know why.’

‘Hadn’t picked you for the jealous type,’ Renward said.

‘Nor had I.’ Damn everything. She needed to be home. She needed Snowy to take care of this ache between her legs. Bluebell pushed her cup aside and rose, then said, ‘I have to go. I can’t look at him any more.’

Renward opened his mouth to offer her some fond, drunken insult, but then the door to the hall blasted open. Icy wind gusted in, setting all the charms on the beams dancing. A general cry went up and Armax stopped mid-tale. A bird skull loosened and fell on Bluebell’s head, bouncing onto the floor. While she was distracted, she didn’t hear the whistle of a weapon flying into the room.

With a clatter and a thud, an axe embedded itself in the table in front of her, throwing up splinters. The axe was carved with a pattern of swirls and spirals, and the blade glowed faintly green.

‘What is this?’ She reached for it.

Renward stilled her hand. ‘Don’t touch it,’ he said. ‘It is a bogle axe.’

‘What is a bogle axe?’

At that instant, a huge hulking shape blocked the doorway.

‘An axe,’ Renward said, pointing, ‘that belongs to a bogle.’

Armax shrieked and clambered over tables on his way to the eastern exit. Panic fumbled its way through the gathering. Women clutched children and ran, others dived under tables, as the bogle ducked through the doorway and lumbered into the room. It had a head like a rock, misshapen and huge. No, not like a rock. It was a rock. Bluebell gasped as she realised. Its enormous torso, arms and legs were fashioned from stones and branches and twigs, held together with mud and magic. It stood for a moment, hunched down under the roof beams, and turned its head this way and that. Dull black eyes blinked as if it were thinking.

Bluebell unsheathed her sword.

The bogle saw the movement and lunged towards her. Tables split. People scattered. Hyld barked. The bogle stepped on the roasting fire, upending the remains of the spitted deer and stomping out the flames. Bluebell climbed over her table and slashed out at the creature. It raised its mighty arm and deflected the blow. Bluebell raised the sword again and the bogle half turned so its shoulder was exposed; the Widowsmith buried itself into the bogle’s shoulder and stuck.

Bluebell yanked as hard as she could, but the creature turned and the sword tore from her grasp. The bogle barrelled towards her, rock head slamming into her chest and crushing her into the table she had been drinking at. She gasped for air, dimly aware that Hyld snapping at the creature’s heels made no difference, that her thanes’ weapons were uselessly bouncing off its wood-and-earth back. The bogle would likely pummel her to death before they pulled it off her. Her hand flailed out, striking the bogle axe.

She tugged. It came easily into her palm. She raised her arm, struck out wildly.

The bogle stumbled back. Its arm, cloven clean off, dropped to the flagstones with a thud. Bluebell hefted the axe to take off its other arm, but then the bogle’s rock head fell off and smashed to the ground, narrowly missing Bluebell’s toe.

She leapt back, cracking her arse-bones on the table, watching in shock as the bogle fell apart. Its other arm plopped to the floor, its torso dissolved, until all that was left was a pile of stones and twigs, and Bluebell’s sword.

Bluebell realised the bogle axe was in her hand.

Renward ran over. ‘My lord, are you all right?’

She offered him the axe, pulse thundering in her throat. ‘Take this thing away from me.’

Renward flinched as if burned, hands flying up in the air. ‘I will not touch it,’ he said.

Bluebell stared at the axe between them.

‘And nor should you have,’ Renward continued. ‘But it is too late now.’

Bluebell tried the door to the bower but it was latched. ‘Ash! Sister! Are you awake?’ she called, thundering on the door.

A few moments passed, then Ash opened the door a crack and slipped out, closing it behind her. ‘Bluebell? What is it?’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Let us walk then.’

Bluebell could have laughed. It was night time, freezing drizzle blew sideways in the gusting wind, the paths between the buildings were ill lit and uneven. The only reason Ash wanted to walk was because Sighere was hiding in her bed.

‘I don’t need to walk,’ Bluebell said, brandishing the bogle axe. ‘This thing has attached itself to me.’ The faint green glow was only visible if her eyes were not on it directly.

Ash considered it, wisely keeping her hands clear. ‘And how did you come by a bogle charm?’

‘A bogle came with it,’ Bluebell said. ‘It’s a pity you retired so early and missed the excitement.’ She shook the axe. ‘Why do you call it a charm? Renward says this thing is cursed. I don’t want to be cursed.’

‘Bogle charms take many forms. This is the form you were most likely to pick up. Renward’s wrong. It’s not a curse. That is, it’s not necessarily bad to pick up a bogle charm. It means something unpredictable will happen to you. That’s all.’

‘Unpredictable like being poisoned by undermagicians? Slain by raiders?’

‘The problem with unpredictable things is that they are unpredictable,’ Ash said. Then she lowered her eyes. ‘This would not have happened if my magic was still flowing unhampered. I could have protected you.’

‘You weren’t in the room,’ Bluebell said, unable to keep the accusative edge from her words.

‘I would have been in the room. I would have been alert. Because I would have known that a bogle was coming, for certain. They are made of the natural world. I would have heard it with my blood.’

‘This was made by somebody,’ Bluebell said. ‘Can you see who? Renward said the only way to lift the curse is to return it to the magician who made it.’

‘It’s common Ærfolc magic,’ Ash said, her long dark hair gusting across her face in the wind. She scraped it back behind her ears. ‘It comes from one of the tribes, for certain. One that doesn’t like how close you and Renward have become these past few years.’

‘There are so many tribes,’ Bluebell said. ‘Not an inkling?’

‘I’m sorry. It’s as though my magic has had a thick blanket laid on it.’

Bluebell’s stomach lurched. She was cursed by a bogle charm, stuck in the middle of Bradsey among the undermagicians who hated her, and Ash was of no use. For years she had wished that the burden of dark magic hadn’t fallen on her sister – her favourite sister – but now she had come to rely on it. She was a king. She couldn’t afford something unpredictable to happen to her.

‘Heath may know,’ Bluebell said suddenly. ‘We will go to Rose. Heath is the leader of the Moonhorns. He will recognise the axe, these carvings.’ She ran her thumb over the handle.

‘We should get out of Bradsey,’ Ash said.

‘I am cursed, sister. I will not take that curse home to Blicstowe with me.’

Ash sighed. ‘You know you cannot rely on me any more. I pledge my heart and courage to you, but my magic is all but gone.’

Bluebell recognised the forlorn note in her voice and gently grasped her wrist. Her skin was cold, standing out in gooseflesh. ‘Perhaps it is for the best,’ she said. ‘You could have a normal life. Fall in love. Marry.’ She paused here, pointedly. ‘All without that great weight upon your shoulders.’

Ash wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘Perhaps.’

‘It is decided then. Tomorrow we ride to Druimach, to see Rose and Heath.’ She hung the axe on her belt. ‘And then life will become predictable again.’

Two

‘Is he asleep this time?’

‘I think so,’ she whispered. Rose closed the door behind her. Linden had been quiet, still, thumb trapped softly in his mouth when she’d extinguished the lamp. The nightly battle to get him to sleep wore her down. He was seven. When would it end? When he was twenty? She moved on quiet feet to where Heath stood by the firepit, in the centre of the large round room that made up most of their home. A door on one side led to the bower and on the other to a narrow alley and the weapons chamber, always locked against Linden’s curious mind. Woven tapestries hung around the walls. Rose had made them all herself in the years she had been here.

Heath seized her around the waist and kissed her neck. ‘And you?’ he said, his breath tickling her skin. ‘Are you interested in sleep, or in something else?’

‘Something else,’ she said, her hands fumbling at the ties that held up his breeches.

His mouth closed over hers, one hand on her breast and another on her bottom. Warm firelight enveloped them. Her body had changed over the years she had lived in Druimach: contentment and cold had yielded layers of extra flesh. Heath delighted in it, but sometimes she didn’t recognise herself.

Her skirts were in his fists, bunched up around her hips, when the door to the house flew open.

Heath leapt back. She pushed her skirt down and whirled around to see a red-haired girl of about seventeen, with fierce eyes and a swirling tattoo on her cheek. The cold blew in behind her.

Then recognition came.

‘Rowan!’ Rose cried, hurrying over to grasp her daughter’s hands. Then again, because she did not know what else to say, ‘Rowan. My Rowan.’

‘Mother,’ Rowan said, then arched an eyebrow. ‘Heath,’ she said, deliberately not calling him ‘Father’.

‘Why are you here?’ Heath asked.

‘I’ve run away from Netelchester. From Wengest,’ Rowan said.

‘Run away?’ Rose said, still too dazed to make much sense of her daughter’s words. Rowan had been taken from her at three years of age, and Rose had seen her only once in the years since.

Heath strode across the room and closed the door on the cold, then gently took Rowan by the upper arm. ‘Come sit by the fire and explain to us.’

Rowan allowed herself to be led inside, and Rose marvelled at her appearance. Last time she’d seen Rowan, her hair had been dark brown. If it was red now, did King Wengest suspect that he was not her blood father? If that was the case, was Rowan in danger? Would the peace between the kingdoms hold? But all these questions took second place after the delight, the relief, of seeing her daughter in the flesh. She sat next to Rowan, too close perhaps, and caught her daughter’s hand in her own.

‘You’re here,’ she said.

Rowan smiled at her indulgently. ‘Yes. Right here.’

‘You ought not be here. Wengest will be angry.’

‘Oh, he is so angry,’ Rowan said with a rueful smile.

‘Does he say anything about your hair? Does he still think he is your father?’

‘My hair turned red after my encounters with Rathcruick in the Howling Wood. Wengest knows it is magic. He loves me as he always has, as his daughter, but don’t ask me what happened between us because …’ Here, her eyes flicked to Heath. ‘Because I don’t want to talk about my heart.’

‘What do you mean?’ Heath asked.

Rowan shook her head, almost imperceptibly, and turned her eyes to her mother. ‘Can I stay?’ she asked.

Rose looked up at Heath. ‘Well, I –’

‘Does he make the decisions?’ Rowan said, archly.

‘No,’ Rose said quickly, trying to keep the heat out of her voice. ‘You are my daughter; of course you can stay. But you have come at a hectic time. The tribes are assembling here at Druimach for talks about unity, and about Renward’s bid for an alliance. Heath is the leader of the Moonhorns.’

‘I will not be any trouble. I will stay hidden in your house and be as quiet as the mist.’

‘You are always welcome here,’ Heath said. ‘You are my blood. You are Gwr-y-Llorcyrn.’ Heath leaned across, placed one of his big hands on her tattooed cheek. ‘You are not Rathcruick’s. You are ours.’

Rowan smiled up at him cautiously. Rose’s breath was stolen by her young beauty, the warm truth of her presence. She had stopped daring to dream of Rowan returning to her.

Then a scuff at the threshold of the bower. Rose turned to see Linden standing there, his dark curls messy, thumb in his mouth.

‘Back to bed, darling,’ she said.

Rowan saw him and leapt up. ‘Is this my brother?’ she said, her voice warm with excitement. ‘Why hello, little man. I’m your sister, Rowan.’

Linden stared up at her with round eyes.

‘He doesn’t speak,’ Rose said, realising she was afraid they wouldn’t like or understand each other.

‘Is he shy?’ Rowan asked, taking Linden’s free hand.

‘No. He doesn’t speak at all. He never has.’

‘Is he simple?’

‘Not in the least. He is very clever. He remembers everything. He loves maps and draws them all the time from memory, in such detail I …’ Rose trailed off. She couldn’t bear it when people thought Linden was simple. ‘He chooses not to talk. I don’t know why. He understands everything.’

‘Well,’ said Rowan, squeezing Linden’s hand and smiling down at him. ‘I would love to see your maps sometime, Linden. I know we will be great friends.’

Linden blinked up at her without smiling.

‘Come along, young buck,’ Heath said, taking Linden’s hand from Rowan. ‘It is late and you need to sleep.’

Rowan watched them go, waited until the bower door was closed, then turned to Rose. ‘He looks exactly like Wengest.’

‘I know.’ Linden grew more like her previous husband every year.

‘Does he know?’

‘Wengest? No! He would take the boy.’

‘I meant does Linden know? Who his real father is?’

Rose’s stomach clutched with guilt. ‘No. Heath is the only father he has known.’

‘It’s almost funny,’ Rowan continued, with a glance back towards the bower. ‘Wengest raising Heath’s child, Heath raising Wengest’s.’

Regret, fear, swirling coldly in her stomach. What a mess she had made of her life. ‘I’m not laughing.’

‘I said almost,’ Rowan said with a mischievous smile. She approached and wrapped her arms around Rose’s waist. ‘I missed you, Mama. I spend my whole life missing you.’

Rose squeezed her tight, a hand in her red hair. The joy of having her daughter with her was tempered by the new worry that talk of Wengest had aroused. He would come looking for Rowan, surely he would. Eventually he would wonder if his daughter had sought out Rose. And if he found her, if he came, if he saw Linden …

Rowan had said it herself. Linden looked exactly like Wengest, a king who needed a male heir more than he needed anything except breathing.

Rose wasn’t going to allow him to take another of her children.

Rowan woke in grainy light among warm, rough, animal skins. The room was familiar; the smells of cold peat ash and dried lavender were not. So many times as a child she had sent out her spirit to be in this room, among her family. She turned on her side so she could see the three of them, sharing the bed. Linden wedged between Heath and Mama, his little eyelashes fluttering in a dream. She smiled. It had been many years since she’d escaped her body and gone spearing through the sky like a swift bird, watching the world roll unnaturally fast beneath her, time and distance collapsing. As she’d grown older it had become easier; the feeling of embodiment at the other end stronger. But the last time she had stayed away too long. Her body had grown chill as the dead, and had to be revived by King Wengest’s physician. She had regained her senses in a hot bath, but her toes and fingers had tingled with cold for weeks afterwards. Rowan reluctantly came to understand that her life needed to be lived within her body, that she was in mortal danger if she continued seeking out her family with her spirit.

Rose stirred in her sleep and turned over, opening her eyes.

Rowan smiled and Rose smiled back. She mouthed the words, ‘Come on,’ and Rowan rose and followed her out of the bedroom and across to the door, which opened onto a low step.

Rose closed the door behind them and sat down, pulling Rowan down next to her.

‘What a lovely way to wake up,’ she said. ‘With my little girl in the house.’

‘Not so little,’ Rowan said grudgingly, holding out her long arms as evidence.

‘You’re tall like Bluebell,’ Rose said. ‘Well, not quite that tall. What a gorgeous thing you are.’

Rowan hid a smile. ‘It’s nice to see you too, Mama.’

Rose’s eyes went out over the patchy grass. Chickens were awake and pecking around. The morning air was damp and fresh. They sat together in silence a long time, watching the world wake up.

‘Why did you come?’ Rose asked at last.

Rowan knew she owed her mother an explanation, but hadn’t wanted to provide it in front of Heath. She stretched out her legs, digging her heels into the dirt. ‘Wengest was keen for me to make a marriage with the kingdom of Lyteldyke. He believed that King Wulfgar was considering an offer for one of King Tolan’s granddaughters, so he sent me up there for the summer. I was prepared to marry Wulfgar, Mama. He’s a nice man. Young, not ugly. Not a great military mind, but strong on building alliances. I was prepared to do my duty and become the queen of Lyteldyke, but then … it all went wrong.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘I fell in love.’ Ah, that stung.

‘With King Wulfgar?’

‘With his sister. Annis.’ Rowan studied her mother’s face, but she showed no puzzlement or shock.

‘Annis? I remember meeting her once, when she was a child. Stubborn. Headstrong.’

‘I told Papa … Wengest. He said I must forsake Annis and marry Wulfgar. But do you not see? I am in love with his sister. I will see her every day and yearn for her, then return to his bed at night. It would be impossible. Nor could I take her as a lover while married to her brother. How could she betray her own blood like that?’

Rose remained silent, and finally Rowan asked, ‘Are you angry at me for not doing what I was told?’

Rose shook her head. ‘No, no. It’s simply that … to hear you speak of lovers and alliances makes me feel old. It seems you were a round-cheeked babe just a moment ago. So, will Annis come here to meet you?’

Rowan sighed.

‘Rowan?’ Rose brushed the hair off Rowan’s cheek.

Rowan’s eyes stung with tears. ‘Six weeks ago, when Wengest sent the message that I was forbidden from seeing Annis, she and I started planning to run away together. We met in secret every day, organised it all … But when the time came to leave, Annis wouldn’t come.’

‘But you … are in love?’

‘I am in love.’

‘She is not?’

Rowan shook her head. She ached with it. She had experienced strong feelings for both girls