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Another pirate raid, Rowan thought with a curse. He’d received word thirty minutes before while reviewing the day’s training plan. A group of pirates had landed seven longships along the coast and taken to raid and pillage the nearby villages. They usually remained at sea, attacking ships that dared to cross into their territory. Among the waves and sea storms and drowned legends, they reigned high and inspired dread. It struck Rowan as unusual that they’d targeted the coastal villages.
The royal family’s fall has made Norland vulnerable and open to threats.
It was an open door he meant to close. Blanchette’s delicate features entered inside his mind. Rowan felt the stirrings of battle fever leap into his veins as he and his men rode past the town and toward a village.
The carefully paved roads and stone walkways gave way to indistinguishable dirt paths that crisscrossed each other and seemed to lead nowhere. The town’s taverns, businesses, and bustling shops soon fell behind Rowan and his escort. Norland’s coastal villages' poorly tended wilds and all-important trade ports lay ahead.
Three miles later, the breeze carried the salty scent of the sea.
Five miles later, smoke and ash choked the air.
Seven miles later, the scent of death mingled with that smoke. As Rowan approached the village, the stench of death grew stronger and overwhelmed him. The thick smoke in the air burned his eyes and made them water. He could hear the distant caws of carrion crows as they paid court to the bodies that littered the ground.
His heart sank as he reached the top of the precipice and looked down at the village. The once bustling town was nothing more than a smoldering ruin. Skeletal frames, blackened by the fire ravaging the village, were all that remained where the homes and shops once stood tall and proud.
Rowan felt a knot form in his stomach as he dismounted from Sunbeam. Heat emanated from the ashes as he went down to the village. Merciful Christ. I’m going to cook in my armor. Debris and the remains of what had once been people’s lives littered the ground. He felt the weight of the tragedy pressing down on him at the unbearable sight.
As he wandered through the village, he heard the faint cries of the survivors, mourning the loss of loved ones. The sound was haunting. The villagers huddled together, their faces etched with fear and pain and despair. Rowan watched as Smoke lowered his head to the dirt and tracked the dead and dying.
He felt a deep anger and sadness as he surveyed the destruction. He glanced over his shoulder, where his black wolf banners flapped in the breeze. Sir Royce bore his flag; his eyes were a winter’s chill. Unreadable. Jonas, who Rowan had recently taken on as his squire, was beside him on a courser that was rearing from the scent of death.
I shall have to help Jonas train that beast, Rowan absently thought.
The smell of death was all-pervading. He mounted again and rode through the terror.
He saw mothers cradling their dead children, their faces twisted in grief and pain.
Rowan pulled Sunbeam to a stop, then dismounted in a single movement. He felt himself swell with anger and heartbreak all at once. The child lying before him was only three. Eyes as gray as Norland’s sky stared up and saw nothing. Rowan felt a shaky breath hitch in his throat. He swept matted dark brown hair from the boy’s face, then ran his palm over his eyelids and shut them. His gaze traveled over the child’s body. He silently shook his head at the arrow shaft embedded in his abdomen.
Probably not a quick death, he thought, his fury building.
“I’m sorry, lad,” he whispered, then rose to his feet. “I wish I could have been here sooner.” He examined the carnage and bloodshed once again. “Much sooner.”
He couldn’t change the past but could ensure a different future.
I shall do everything in my power to make it so.
Smoke lowered his muzzle and licked the boy’s cheek, and without another backward glance, the wolf strode into the wood and lost himself in the thicket of trees to hunt.
* * *
Blanchette hardly crossed the great hall and audience chamber before two guards stopped her.
I truly am a prisoner in my own home.
She sighed wearily and eyed the gleaming weapons. Dawn’s first light caught and rippled along their smooth metal. Then she averted her eyes to the portly guard before her. She didn’t recognize these men. They hadn’t belonged to her father’s guard. Through the slits in the man’s helm, his eyes shone like dagger points, and in a startling realization, she saw he hated her.
He hated her without knowing her at all.
And she hated him. She locked that hatred in a corner of her soul, where she now kept all her grief and loss.
“Pardon me, sirs, but I should like to pass.”
The fat guard’s eyes narrowed at her demand. He stood a little straighter. “That’s fine, my lady, but my lord requires you. And you’re in no place to make such requests.”
A shiver snaked down her back, though she set her features into a hard line and refused to show fear or anguish.She’d never get used to hearing him be called lord of her castle.
“Well,” she said, smoothing down the front of her dress, “we shan’t keep Lord Dietrich waiting then, shall we?”
