Celeda Bolinbroke knelt there, telling an eight-year-old girl from Innis Lear everything I wanted to know about that dagger. I will never forget that, the way she made me feel, even if I don’t know what she looks like anymore, or what color are her eyes.
Hal had gripped the edges of her drawing pad so tightly she bent the thin wooden binding. Do you know other stories about her? Will you tell them all to me?
Mora allowed herself a smile now, remembering. She’d loved Hal for ten full years, and been loved in turn. She believed that. Hal would not let Celedrix kill her.
Only a year ago, Hal had knelt before Mora and sworn her life and death to Mora’s name. Lady Hal of Aremoria, she’d been dubbed, only because she could not be Bolinbroke then.
Two of Mora’s other Lady Knights, Lady Ter Melia and Lady Imena, had not joined the rebels, remaining here with the palace guard instead. Mora’s guard. Lady Talix had gone at Hal’s side, though, and of course the squire Nova Irris, too, for her infatuation with Hal. Mora did not know where the rest were—or if any would remain now, or be allowed to remain under Celedrix’s rule. Nor did she know of those who had fought, who had fallen. Rovassos was dead, but who else?
The things Mora did not know could fill a hole the size of the sea.
Horns and trumpets blared outside at the arrival of the new queen in the People’s Courtyard; she heard footsteps in the hallway, voices on the other side of the small panel door that led into the throne room itself.
If only Vindus Persy, the next duke of Mercia, had remained with her—and against the rebellion. A knightly retainer in Rovassos’s service, Vin had been assigned to the palace during the king’s absence, because Mora had asked for him. But Vin had left two months ago, called to his mother’s side in Mercia, along with his brother Devrus, still a squire in the palace. He’d known since then, Mora suspected, what was coming. Vindomata of Mercia had wanted her sons fighting beside her. But Mora would have preferred Vin to remain at her side. He should have chosen her. He’d been such a brutal comfort to her, charming and violent in equal strokes, whichever she needed most. And she did not have to manipulate him, thanks to his rough reluctance to dissemble. Even when he tried, the truth was there in his touch. Fingers curled around the hilt of his sword, pressing hard to the small of her back, the tremble of tense muscles at his jaw. And when he was amused, he always laughed. She’d been nearly ready to make him her husband and the future king of Aremoria. Would he return the favor now? Keep their association and make her instead the future lady of Mercia? Perhaps if Hal could not fight for Mora’s life, Vindus would.
But he’d left. And then Hal, too.
Even Lady Ianta Oldcastle had gone—drinking herself stupid in her leaning town house down by the docks. Every day since word had come of Rovassos’s death.
Alone, Mora would not weep; she would not tremble. She was a daughter of Aremoria and of Innis Lear and of the Third Kingdom. Three strong bloodlines united.
“I am Banna Mora of the March,” she murmured to herself again, and left it at that.
When the door opened it was not Hal Bolinbroke who entered: it was a woman in worn leather and steel armor, walking hard in war boots, a pine-green cape pinned over her oyster-shell pauldrons. Red hair braided in a crown was incongruously set with small blue flowers.
Lady Hotspur grinned and strode across the marble floor. “Mora,” she said, voice light for such a compact figure.
Mora could not return the smile, though she liked Hotspur Persy well enough. She’d witnessed the famous baiting of that Burgundian earl last year, at the Persy Tournament, and had shared a hearty meal and heartier laughter with the soldier.
But Hotspur had helped depose Rovassos, and she was here to take Mora’s title.
And behind the Wolf of Aremoria came Hal.
Prince Hal, Mora supposed, feeling the cold drain of uncertainty hardening her expression as she met Hal’s rich brown eyes.
“I knew you’d be here,” Hal said. “Didn’t I, Hotspur.”
Hal was in orange and Bolinbroke purple, both of which suited her creamy complexion and her stark black hair. Unlike Hotspur, Hal had no armor, only a fine jacket with a full skirt that split