There on her back was the same birthmark that Jehanne—her mother—bore.
Brienne was not just his bastard daughter—she was all that was left from the only time he’d defied his fate and the plans laid down for generations before him. His only failure.
He tried to remember how Brienne had come to be here in Yester and could remember only a wizened, old midwife arriving at the gates with a squirming, squalling bundle she said was his. She’d said the nameless mother died giving birth and asked what he wanted done with this one, the latest in a long tally of bairns born to women he bedded.
He remembered looking at this one and ordering her to be given to the blacksmith whose wife had just lost a child. For some reason, he had chosen to save this one rather than exposing her in the forest as he had other times. Even back then, in some way, he’d known that this one had meant something.
Now her power was a real thing, and he would mold her to serve the goddess in his plans to free her. She was either the prize who would push the balance to their side, or she was the seed of his destruction planted in the only woman he had ever loved. The woman for whom he had defied his father. The woman for whom he’d been willing to turn his back on his heritage.
In his father’s attempts to breed a fireblood that would be more powerful than any before and lead the fight to free the goddess, he’d refused Hugh’s request to marry Jehanne and forced him instead to marry Margaret. Jehanne, he’d said, was a mongrel, too much human and too little fireblood to allow her to taint their line.
His father had destroyed Jehanne to demonstrate that he could. And to show Hugh that anything less than complete commitment and compliance to his plans was futile. He’d torn Jehanne’s mind in pieces and cast her body aside. Hugh had learned the lesson that night but did not know until now that she’d carried a child.
Now their daughter stood before him, and from the amount of power she carried in her, she stood as proof that his father had been wrong about her mother.
Would this girl be his downfall? When the moment came to sacrifice her in the service of his goddess, would he be able to do as his father had her mother? Or was she his last chance to save his own soul from eternal damnation?
The sun burst through the clouds then, shining down on his lands and illuminating the fields and the hills around his castle. The followers were gathering, on his lands and near all four of the circles that needed to be destroyed to end the threat to Chaela forever.
Only days stood between now and his destiny.
He’d paid so much for the chance that was coming to him. Generations of his family had followed the goddess for centuries before him, believing in her and her right to rule the world, carrying out the plans that would reestablish her and place his family—and him— at her right hand.
A man rode through the yard below him then, leaving the castle as soon as the gates opened for the day. Peering through the shadows the walls cast, he opened his senses and felt the warblood moving away. De Brus went to visit those he’d left outside the village.
Did he know of his powers yet? Had the dampening effect of the stones and the bespelled chamber that opened into Chaela’s prison beneath the ruins kept him completely controlled?
Unfortunately, Hugh needed William’s powers unleashed to use them at the stone circle in Daviot. Fortunately, he had just the thing to draw the warblood into play. Hugh made his way back down from the battlements to break his fast.
There were many tasks he needed carried out to prepare to leave Yester. If the plans went as designed, he would never return here, to his lands or to these people.
So many things to do and now so little time in which to accomplish them. His blood raced with excitement, and he left his past and any regrets or doubts high above the castle.
William rodealong the path away from the castle and was surprised to see the blacksmith waiting for him. He stopped and dismounted and greeted the man.
“Sir William,” the man began, “have ye seen Brienne inside?”
William heard the pain and loss in the man’s voice and nodded. “I have. She seems well, Gavin.”
“He will destroy her.” Gavin met his gaze and continued. “And ye as well.” Did Gavin know of Lord Hugh’s seditious plans, then?
“Why would he do that? What would that accomplish?” he asked, trying to draw the man out.
“He is gathering weapons here and men in his northern property.”
“I’ve been inside the castle, the keep, and the other buildings, Gavin. I saw no weapons cache there, and neither have my men.”
“They are here in the village. Every cottage. Every building. Ready to be moved soon, according to the command delivered yesterday.”
William glanced around at the cottages, estimating their number and how many weapons could be hidden there.
“A score and ten,” Gavin replied to the unanswered question. “Cottages and storage huts here. More in Gifford Village.”
Even if only a handful of weapons were kept in each place, that meant that hundreds were at Lord Hugh’s command. And if there was a man for each weapon, or close to it, that would be a devastating army to put on the field.
“Why do you tell me this?” he asked the man who’d made a great many of those weapons.
“She told me to come to ye if there was trouble. Said to trust ye.” Gavin glanced over his shoulder and up the road. “Trouble is nearly here, and I thought ye needed to know.”
