“Come on.” Mor jerked her chin east. “Our destination is close.”
The tall trees encircled them, their tips brushing the pale sky. The ground squelched underfoot, but the rain had ceased.
A short while later, the pines drew back, and they rode into a wide glen. The Goatfells rose directly overhead now. Huge jagged peaks of coarse dark rock with sheer sides. And ahead, in their shadow, perched upon a high hill, was a fort—three tiers of wooden and stone palisades rising to a broch at its crown.
Lara’s heart kicked hard. The Brooch of Albia.
9: SAFE CONDUCT
“WHAT’S THIS THEN?”
“A messenger.”
“I can see that.” Irritation laced Beathan’s voice. “What the fuck does he want?”
Standing at Beathan’s shoulder, Alar gazed down at the lone rider waiting before the fort gates, on the other side of the spike-filled ditch. A big man with a shock of red hair. Even at this distance, he recognized him. Roth mac Tav. “To find that out, we’ll need to speak to him.”
The chieftain muttered another curse under his breath. “This reeks.”
“There are barely twenty of them in the pinewood,” Lyall rumbled. The big grey wulver had followed Beathan and Alar up onto the walls at the base of the fort. “Two queens and their escort hardly make an army on our doorstep. They’d be wise to move on.”
Beathan cut Lyall a sharp look. “How is it that your wulvers have only just noticed them?”
“They appeared from nowhere through the pines,” Lyall replied gruffly. “We’ve got sentries on the highway … but they didn’t arrive that way.”
Beathan snorted. “So, how did they get here? On the backs of ravens?”
Alar didn’t care how they’d managed to get by their sentries. What mattered was that Lara and Mor had turned uptogether. His breathing grew shallow then. His wife was here. She—
He caught himself then, cutting himself off, mid-thought. Enough. He couldn’t let himself think of her as his ‘wife’. They were enemies now.
Alar glanced at Lyall. His captain was staring down at Roth, his golden eyes narrowed. Like Beathan, he was suspicious. Alar was too, but his curiosity was stronger—and they wouldn’t get any answers standing up here.
He stepped back from the edge of the wall. “Come on … let’s see what he has to say.”
The wind whipped Roth mac Tav’s red hair around him as he waited astride a large bay stallion. The beast pawed the ground, nostrils flaring. They’d just lowered the drawbridge, and Alar, Beathan, and Lyall walked out to meet the captain.
Roth watched them approach, lantern jaw set, cool blue eyes slitted.
And when his gaze settled upon Alar, something ugly rippled across his face.
Hatred.
Aye, Alar hadn’t just betrayed Lara the year before; he’d stabbed them all in the back. He’d find few friends amongst the High Queen’s escort.
“Good evening, Roth,” he greeted the captain with an offhand tone that made red flush across the man’s cheeks. “To what do we owe this visit?”
“The High Queen seeks an audience,” he replied, biting out each word as if it cost him.
Warmth kindled in Alar’s gut, but he swiftly shut his response down.
“Tell her and that Shee bitch she travels with to fuck off,” Beathan growled, charming as usual. “They’ll get no meeting with us.”
“They don’t want to talk toyou, mac Glen,” Roth answered coldly. His gaze flicked back to Alar then. “It’s the Half-blood who has been summoned. No one else.”
Alar walked across the meadow toward the dark wall of pines that rose up to the west. The wind had gotten up. The Whistle whined in his ears and slapped his cheeks. He welcomed the sensation though. It kept his senses sharp. He’d need his wits about him for the meeting to come.
As asked, he was alone. Only Roth rode beside him. He’d left his weapons behind too, divesting himself of the twin daggers he always wore upon his back. He felt naked without them. Vulnerable.
