Gavin’s accusatory question brought me out of the memory.
I’d given Naomi every single note. And watched her ball them all up and toss them into one of the dorm’s wastebaskets, often without even bothering to read them.
She was truly only here to attend her sister’s wedding, but that was supposed to be a secret. Naomi’s second-oldest sibling, Tara—the soon-to-be official Banrigh (the Scottish title for queen) of the Scottish Wolves—didn’t want her people to suspect that Naomi was using the Bridal Exchange as a free ticket to Scotland. Also, a convenient excuse to escape St. Ailbe, where she could be forced into a wolf mateship she didn’t want by the new leader at any time.
I hated lying, and I didn’t want Gavin to think I’d do something like that out of jealousy—even if he had zero interest in me. But admitting I had passed on the notes would only invite more questions.
So, instead of answering, I took a page from his book and averted my gaze, looking anywhere but at him.
I focused on the small kingdom castle where the king and queen lived…
…and the 14th-century bell-tower-topped church where their wedding ceremony would be held…
…and the two groups of boys playing in yard in front of a steepled school house, attacking each other ferociously with wooden swords painted green and red.
Hold on…
Now it was my turn to ask Gavin a question. “What’sthatall about then?” I stopped, watching as two of the fighters began tugging a boy with a ratty lace bridal veil clipped to his head back and forth between them.
Gail Glaswolf, the new school teacher was standing in the background of the skirmish, leaned up against the castle on the other side of the schoolyard. But she seemed more focused on her phone, taking advantage of one of the few wifi spots in Faoiltiarn, rather than the strange fight happening just a meter away.
“Oh, they’re playingScots and Irish!” Gavin stopped, too. “That’s a game us kingdom kids have been playing since the 1500s. Used to be my absolute favorite. The ones with the red-painted swords are the Scots, and the green are the Irish. The goal’s to get the ‘bride’—that’s the lad in the veil—across one of those rope lines to your side.”
I hadn’t noticed Malcolm and Amanda had also stopped until she asked, “What happens after that?”
As if in answer to her question, one of the red-sword boys yanked the “bride” across one of the rope lines on either side of the melee. Instantly, the green-sword boys turned their backs and began counting in what sounded like Gaelic. “Uhn… dah… tree… kehhir… kohig…”
Meanwhile, three red-sword boys picked up the boy playing the bride like a log and ran at full speed as the rest of their team raised their wooden swords in what even I recognized as a defensive position, despite being raised under an Ordnung that strictly forbade violence.
“The Scots now have to the count of fifty to hide the bride,” Malcolm explained on the other side of Amanda. “Then the Irish’ll have to break through their defenses to find her.”
“I think that one needs medical attention first!” I said, pointing at a brown-haired defense position boy who was bleeding profusely from the nose. My healer assistant instinct lit up, and I started forward.
“Nae, he’ll be alright.” Gavin blocked my path with an arm barred in front of my chest. “You’ll only embarrass him if you stop the game.”
I backed down, sensing one of the cultural differences we’d been warned about by Tara when she made the big speech welcoming our Bride Exchange to her Scottish kingdom.
But Amanda pressed both hands to her chest as the green swords boys concluded their fifty count and attacked the red swords with a renewed ferocity. “I just don’t understand why you would give children weapons and let them play like this,” she said. “This village has no enemies.”
“That you can see,” Gavin corrected. “The Irish Wolves willalwaysbe our enemy, and Scots and Irish is part of a tradition passed down through the centuries. First, you train them on wood, and when they’re good enough, you give them swords tipped with silver.”
Gavin pulled up his sleeve to reveal a scar, angry and welted despite his magical healing abilities, which told me he’d been cut with one of those swords tipped in silver, an element we wolves were deeply allergic to. “Got this fighting for the Scots when I was sixteen.”
He threw me a pointed look. “No patching up, and I still kept fighting to help my team to victory.”
His voice rung with pride, but Amanda’s face was aghast. “I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. “Why trainchildrento fight like this?”
“Because one day they might need to.” Malcolm regarded Amanda with a solemn look. “You see, lass, five hundred years ago, the Irish Wolves invaded us during a royal wedding reception, just like the one taking place tomorrow. Those devils stole our newly crowned Banrigh Mairi, and every other female they could get their dirty Irish claws on—even a few of the babies!”
“And we do meandevils,” Gavin chimed in, picking up the story. “Rumor has it that the Irish Wolves worshipped three serpent gods and believed in mating in husband pairs, and sometimes even husbandthrees.”
Amanda clasped the neck of her plain blue dress. “How ungodly! Please tell me you were able to rescue them!”
“We were not!” Malcolm answered with a dramatic relish that made me suspect he was enjoying telling Amanda this historical horror story. “We sent boats after them and scoured that emerald isle for months. But none of our females were ever seen or heard from again, including our pregnant queen Mairi, who’d already pledged her troth to the Scottish king.”
This was a story—maybe even a myth—from over five hundred years ago, I told myself.
But a chill ran down my back as Gavin concluded the terrible tale with, “Ever since then, the Irish Wolves have been banned from our lands, and we train to protect our own. To defend the womenwe’re sworn to protect, in case they ever get it in their devil heads to try us again.”
