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“I think itcouldhappen,” I said.
He stared up at me for a moment, fear shining through him.
“But even when I was a lass, and I didn’t have to worry about that, my mum taught me to fight. You never know when you’ll need to.” I pointed at Nix. “And you’ve got the best teacher in all the worlds. You should exploit that opportunity—”
I gasped as pain shot through my ribs.
“Son of a bitch!” Nix screamed.
“Did I do it, Papa?!” Vanna asked, jumping excitedly, holding a bloody dagger the length of her forearm. “Did I do it right?”
Grasping his side, Nix plucked the dagger from her hand. “I was telling youhowto stab. I wasn’t telling you tostabme.”
Despite the pain burning through my chest, I had to laugh. Where Mirobhail struggled, Vanna excelled.
“You said I could try.”
Groaning, he squatted to her level. “I didn’t mean for you to actually do it, lassie.”
“Well, you should’ve said so.”
He glared and roughed up her hair. “Fair enough. And yes. You stabbed meright.”
She turned to me with the biggest smile. “It’s alright, Mummy. If Mirobhail won’t stab someone who tries to hurt us,I’llstab them.”
This was supposed to be a serious matter, but I couldn’t keep from laughing.
“I wanna do it again.” She spun back to Nix. “Can I?”
“It isn’t a fair fight now,” he grumbled. “But aye. Once this heals, you can try and stab me again.”
“Oh, I won’ttry. Iwill.”
“You want me to be like her?” Mirobhail waved at her. “She’s mad, Mum.”
No, she wasn’t. She just didn’t tolerate shite from anyone. She was determined to be strong like the men she saw carting swords on their hips. She saw queens in power on this world, and she wanted to be just as strong as they were.
Although, I had worried that she wasmad, in Mirobhail’s words, in the past. I’d even dipped into her thoughts to check.
She wasn’t like her cousins, Michael and Gabriel. She didn’t getpleasurefrom defeating an enemy. She got relief. A sense of safety and pride.
Vanna may have looked just like me, but inside, she was far more like her papa.
* * *
We’d done as we planned to the day Venark, Hana, and El died. All twenty-two of us took residence in the Land of Light. Our families came with us. Alastair, Drogo’s mother, Emja’s mum, Errol’s sisters, Sanvi’s son, even Heylel. Anyone they could use as collateral against us, we refused to leave behind.
The morning after Nix and I had that talk in the inn, we found the queen of this land, Iliantha, and we told her. We told hereverything.
She was heartbroken, furious, and she called a meeting with queens from all over the realm. Within a week, the armies had begun training beneath us. Nix was excellent with a sword, as were many others in the par animarum, and we taught them everything we knew. Endurance training, however, was a gradual process that couldn’t happen overnight.
But within a year, progress was made.
The army worldwide was just over two million strong. It was more than we’d had before, but for all that time, no matter how strong the men and women we’d trained had become, an impending sense of doom settled deep in my gut. It hadn’t left since the morning when Lux showed at my door.
I think we all felt it.
But we played with the children as though we didn’t. We taught Mirobhail to ride a draken, although Vanna did it better. Nix was determined to teach Friel how to play the guitar, even though it was the same size as him.
