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I watched the corona of dawn burn across the floor. Only one voice remained unsuffocated from the touch of the Siur Dobh. Spideog. My sister’s laughter echoed through the hollow halls of my head.

Vertebrae popped as I rolled my neck while I stalked down my query, pulling lazy sips from the flask I had procured and filled to attend me on my mission. The falcon at my shoulder ruffled its feathers, adjusted its wings, and dug its claws deeper into my shoulder as it watched the silent flight of an owl overhead. I should have felt its talons, but I didn’t.

The Samhradh camp had been posted not within the walls, as the rest of the courtiers, but beyond the walls of the palace proper, deep in the heart of the hunting wood that surrounded it. Out in the wilds of the land, they were at liberty to hold their own courts and adhere to their own ways more easily.

Unlike the rest of the courts, the Samhradh were not ruled by a single crown out of Aibhéis Draig. While Lady Ever Bright was their mouthpiece and considered the Lady of Samhradh, she was but the most appealing of the courtiers. A convenient pawn propped up by the warlords of each clan to represent their interests to the other crowns. Scratch a nail on her crown, and you would scrape away the paper-thin gilding to find mud beneath it.

The true power of the Samhradh lay in the warlords who held their own clans to their own laws, motivations, and contracts as mercenaries. Some, like Lord Stormbeard, for whom I was bound, were more reasonable and amenable to new contracts than others. If my falcon had seen true, Lord White Throat and Lord Stormbeard were at odds in a petty dispute over a shipment of the black glass that fed the forges of Lord Stormbeard’s clan and supplied them with new weapons. Lord White Throat was both late with the shipment and had delivered the last two shipments lighter than agreed, leaving Stormbeard suspicious of White Throat.

In all the many times Daróg had threatened me with the death of my sister, there was only one Fae he had mentioned in connection with that, Lord White Throat of the Burning Boar. Whether he had her hidden in a dungeon somewhere or merely keeping her under surveillance, I couldn’t be sure. Not without assistance.

I wandered down the wide main row of low-slung and open-faced tents that the warlords had set up to face each other. The order of the Samhradh encampment was a welcome exhale compared to the chaotic assortment that had sprung up at the palace. In our bailey and courtyards, tents of all colors, sizes, and purposes sprang up like they were grain tossed to hungry chickens. No order, no reason, barely any room between them. But not this encampment.

The central row was wide enough for six horses to walk shoulder to shoulder without spooking. The initial row of tents faced into the central row, and the tents behind them faced away from it into a circle around a communal fire. Each family within a given clan had its own circular encampment, and every clan had its own sector.

It made finding the encampment of Clan Flintback easy, and by extension, Lord Stormbeard was almost too easy to locate. He lounged on a low sofa of pillows, talking with two other Fae while they sipped cool tea.

Etiquette in the Samhradh camps was different from that in the palace. While I knew the basics of it, it was still a dangerous thing to come uninvited within their territory, even if it was allotted at the whims of a madman. I stopped at the welcoming carpet that aligned perfectly with the edge of the wide central row and bowed at the waist before sinking to my knees to wait for acknowledgment.

There was a story about Samhradh pettiness, a minor lordling of a forgotten house, left kneeling on the welcome carpet for three whole weeks before he was finally acknowledged. Once committed to being acknowledged, to move was to declare you had wasted their time with your presence. To demand their attention was declaring that you were more important than they were. Only the bastard with the crown could stand on the carpet, but even he would not move away from it for fear of insulting them.

Time ticked by, but I was committed to finding my answer. I owed it to the laughter still bubbling in the back of my mind.

I didn’t have too long to wait, only an hour by the movement of my shadow.

“I see you have been returned your bird, son of Árus Láigh.” It was not Stormbeard who acknowledged me but his daughter, Ash Grimhand.

I raised my head, and her bright, flashing grey eyes met mine, a smile on her face. By any measure of any court, Ash Grimhand was a beautiful Fae. She had not taken the name by chance; her hair was a moonlight silver, her eyes the color of a thunderstorm, her skin pale, adorned with silver lightning tattoos creeping up her arms from behind armor pieces. Her hands were the only exception, dyed blood red with black fingertips.

Of all of her father’s warrior courtiers, Ash Grimhand was the deadliest and the most decorated. There were few Fae I would consider a peer in battle, and she was one of them.

“My Lady Grimhand.” I bowed my head again. “May your blades strike true and your next battle be a worthy one.” I greeted her with the blessing I had learned long ago on fields sticky with ankle-deep mud.

“And may your next battle be your enemy’s last,” she replied with the rote response. “Come, Ard Tiarna of Árus Láigh, join us for tea. Tell me how you managed to survive the iron marks long enough to have your beautiful falcon returned to you.”

The raptor at my shoulder puffed its feathers at the compliment, stretched its claws, and gave a soft click of its beak in appreciation.

She extended her dark hand to me, and I took it as a show of trust, rising to my full height. She was looking me straight in the eye, a feat not many other Fae could claim.

I followed her a few steps into the open-faced tent and settled into the offered pillows. Lord Stormbeard watched me approach, twisting the edges of his braided silver beard.

Grimhand poured me a small silver cup of tea and pushed a tray of sweet fruits and nuts while Silverbeard and the male Fae at his side watched me carefully in silence.

“It is no tale of battles won, my lady. Merely a tale of persistence and patience.” I took a sip and relished in the dark tea, honey, and kiss of orange blossom washing the bite of the dark sister from my mouth. My tongue already longed for it by the time I swallowed. “I was given the opportunity to water the tree. And I took it and survived.”

All three pairs of brows lofted, and the other Fae leaned forward. “Who did you fuck to achieve such a feat. I have heard tales that the task is not one that many survive with their cock intact.”

I snorted my amusement, as did Grimhand. “Excuse my brother, Ard Tiarna . . . Raven?”

The question was a polite one. My court name, The Raven of the Dawn, was a moniker associated with my disgrace. It was a mockery of both my court and the declaration that made me a scavenger of the dead. It was ignoble and unworthy of a crowned scion of the Árus Láigh. She merely asked if it was still appropriate.

The irony of my elevation was both that it was just as shallow as Daróg, and as incomplete as I was. Yes, I had the crown of my position returned, as well as the ink in my tattoo fading and the magic upon it destroyed, thus returning my falcon to me, but my name had not been returned. I was still The Raven of the Dawn, still reviled and exiled from the best of society. I walked a tightrope of a razor, between the honor of my title and the animus of being a criminal.

I nodded to assure her the name was still accurate; it was easier than explaining that I was an Ard Tiarna to a court of ghosts.

“We have not crossed blades. I am Oakjaw Mace Breaker. You may call me Mace.” Mace lifted his ax to show its blade, spun it, and then returned it to the loop at his belt.

“I am The Raven of the Dawn, Ard Tiarna of Árus Láigh.” I lifted the standard-issue sword at my side from its scabbard and let it fall back. “And to answer your question, I watered the tree from my veins.”