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“We’ve dismissed this idea before.”

“You and Scott have dismissed it, not I. Moray’s support becomes ever more important as my brother-in-law stirs the Lowlanders. I will not be forced into war.”

“Are you asking my advice as your commander, or are you ordering me to treat with him as my queen?”

I know the answer before she gives it.

“That, my dear Stokerton, is an official order.”

Goddammit. It will be a waste of valuable time we do not have. Born and raised in the Highlands, I know they’re much too stubborn to be convinced of anything against their will.

“Very well.”

I bow as Cettina takes her leave. My family land borders Moray’s, so at least I’ll be able to pay a visit to my family.

“Oh,” she calls back over her shoulder, “while you’re there, perhaps you should enter so you might champion your queen. It would do well to remind everyone why you were chosen for this position.”

I watch her walk from the yard toward the keep, trying to make sense of her words. Enter? Champion?

And then I remember.

2

Reyne

Ledenhill, Edingham

“Oh, Father, ’tis magnificent.”

Though he doesn’t answer, my father proudly scans the rows and rows of tents as if he organized the event himself. He didn’t, of course. The Tournament of Loigh is commissioned by the Highland Council, with a new host chosen each year. There will be a sennight of eating and drinking and, for the participants, training, followed by a mock battle in which the two sides will compete to capture each other’s warriors until just one man remains as champion. One uncaptured warrior who is not only honored at the tourney itself but for many years to come.

My father’s look of ownership is because he has been champion more times than any other man. A fact he’s reminded us of many times. So often, in fact, that Mother forbids him to mention it again.

As we continue to ride toward the colorful tents, which still do not rival the bright blue of the sky or the vivid green grass, I can feel Father studying me.

He’s pleaded with me to attend for years, and for years I denied him. Until now. This day marks my first voyage from home since Fara died. My sister had always wished to attend the tournament, to see the Highland lords put forth their best men in a melee, but she was considered too young. So for years I stayed away, not wanting to experience what she could not. Now, at twenty and three, I am of an age that most would consider it odd that I have never been to a previous tournament.

“I wish Mother could have joined us for my first tourney.”

“You may soon wish to be home with her, comfortable in your own bed,” he calls as the men catch up behind us. More than a few of Father’s men will be participating this year, and a few of them are good enough to be crowned champion.

I wish I’d have been brave enough to come before now. The fact is, since Fara died, I’ve been a coward. For nearly a year I refused to get close enough to the lake to even spy it from a distance. Even now, I will not go near its banks.

And since the voyage always requires river crossings, two to get to Ledenhill, I’d never even considered it until this year. Five years since Fara’s death. Ten years of cowering at Blackwell. It was time.

“Do you see them, Reyne?”

I look down at the valley of tents and squint, trying to make out whichever figures he’s noticed.

“Nay, there.” He points past them, to the mountains.

“The mountains?”

“Aye.” He sits up straighter in his saddle. “The very mountains where Aidan, son of Onry, fled all those years ago.”

I try hard not to audibly sigh as my father launches into his most preferred speech of all, the tale of how Edingham was formed. My father is a man who enjoys his stories, but there is none he likes better than that of the prince who avoided his father, the King of Meria, by hiding in the mountains. This tournament, held each year at the very spot where the Treaty of Loigh was signed after our bloody war for independence from the Kingdom of Meria, is considered a way of honoring and preserving the Highlanders’ way of life.

Apparently sending a few dozen men after each other from opposite sides of a field to maim and capture their opponents is an ideal way to honor such a memory.