Contents

Title Page

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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Glossary of Character Names

About the Author

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Copyright

Memory Thief: A Prequel Story takes readers back to Jane’s final days at Chadwick Hollow School for Orphan Girls and the first steps of the magical journey she’ll discover in The Queen’s Fayte series. The prequel is available for free to the Readers Brigade at www.DDCroix.com/thank-you-readers.

CHAPTER ONE

The seat beside my mother’s window was just as it always was—a perfect place to observe the village below. So often I lingered there to marvel at the blacksmith hammering his red-hot metals, the tanner stretching his hides, and the women scurrying between food stalls, shouting happy greetings as they gathered provisions for their family meals. Each marked a compelling thread, yet when combined, they formed the rich tapestry of our world.

Nothing remained of that tapestry now. As I gazed down, not a single sign of Icenic life stirred among the clusters of round houses or out along the fields, where the farmers’ huts stood empty, if they stood at all.

It seemed nothing was left of our world since the Romans dragged my mother—the great warrior queen Boudica—along with my sister and me back from the battlefield.

Instead, I saw our enemy. The emperor’s savage centurions had replaced our tribesmen, and now they trampled the fields that should have been thick with a harvest-ready crop but instead lay bare from neglect as they marched their daily drills under the watchful eye of Commander Marius Gaius Cerulius.

To see that man gazing upon the centurions with such pride, you’d think he’d been their leader throughout the campaign, not newly appointed. I’d heard whispers he was still awaiting orders since his predecessor returned to Rome, where he was being hailed for our capture and making arrangements for a Triumph, a grand parade that would see us carted back to Rome and culminate with my mother’s execution before Emperor Nero himself.

Something irked the new commander, however. The usual Roman order was disrupted by one centurion, then another, then several who quite literally danced themselves out of formation. I chuckled as I watched them slap at the air above, then sway and bob to avoid something I couldn’t see.

“Dragonfly!” one centurion yelled, but I must have misheard him because it was far too much fuss over a dragonfly. A swarm of midges, perhaps. Or bees.

Whatever it was, it made Cerulius turn away in disgust and stride back toward our stronghold.

Good. Served them right for imprisoning us here in these northern rooms for days on end. I looked to the horizon. Fayte Hill stared back, thick with its ancient oak and yew forest. It gave me comfort to know the druids were there, on the far side of that hill, performing the sacred rites that would restore our world. Perhaps they had sent the pests to bedevil our captors.

The thought cheered me a little. It still wasn’t enough to save us.

That’s the thought that scratched at the back of my mind like a hound at the door. We would die at the hands of these Romans, and I’d never see my sixteenth year. That truth became inevitable the moment Mother’s war chariot lurched and lost a wheel, sending us all plummeting into the mud and giving the centurions the upper hand.

The feeling of someone behind me interrupted the memory. I turned to find my sister, Cait. Her iron stare locked not on me but the centurions still swatting at the air.

“It’ll be nightfall soon.” She crossed her arms and jutted one slender hip, stretching the folds of her emerald-green tunic that was wrinkled and stained from a week of wear. “They’ll be bringing food.”

“How can you be hungry?” The stale bread and gruel they’d sent up at daybreak still sat untouched on a table across the room. It was unappetizing to be sure, but it was also a painful reminder that our servants were gone. None of them would have delivered something so bland and tasteless, even under duress.

“Who said I was hungry?” she answered quietly, so no one beyond our room could hear. “While they’re all occupied out there, we can twist a sheet into a rope, and if you’re hiding behind the door, you can toss it over the centurion’s head when he makes the delivery. If you keep hold, I can knock him down and take his blade. Do exactly as I say, and we can be out of here before anyone catches us.”

“You will do no such thing.”

My sister grimaced at our mother’s quiet reproach, but she didn’t argue.

We waited for her to say something more, but she merely sat in the chair she’d moved to the center of the room. She’d remained there most of the day, running a brush through the long length of her copper hair and watching the doorway that was usually covered by a mere curtain but was now blocked by her wooden dressing screen with at least one Roman centurion standing guard on the other side.

I’d already asked my mother several times if she was feeling unwell. It was rare for her to be so still for so long. But each time she’d said, in that unusually reserved tone, that she was fine, merely considering her options.

At that, I’d turned away. She and my sister often teased me that the twists and quirks of my expressions could be read as easily as the runes, and today was not the time to share my thoughts.

Though she seemed to believe she was still queen and possessed some power, I knew better. The Romans were in charge, fully and completely. Yet I had no other plan to offer, so why not sit and wait for the end?

At the sound of a flurry of footsteps in the corridor, I wondered if that end was already at hand. Then I heard a voice—not a centurion or the commander, but a woman, speaking in low and frantic tones.

Our guard returned a brutish reply.

More words lost in whispers.

Then someone pushed the screen aside.

I rose at the commotion, bracing for some new form of indignity or harassment, but when the old woman rushed in, I nearly collapsed with relief.

“Una!” Tears raced down my cheeks even before I could embrace the handmaid who had cared for my sister and me since birth. I buried my cheeks in the soft cradle of her neck, and her thick, silvery hair cascaded over me as the sobs took hold.

“Now, now, dear heart. No need for all this.” Her words were steady, but I sensed her urgency. So many questions battled within me: Why hadn’t we seen her since we’d been dragged back from battle? Where had she been? Where were the other servants?

I tried to compose myself, but only when I peeked over Una’s shoulder and saw Cait, her fists on her hips and her lips twisted in dismay, did the crush of emotion truly leave me.

I was doing it again, she would say. Giving in to sentiment and not behaving as a daughter of the realm. Such outbursts, she liked to remind me, were unseemly and diminished the trust of our people. It was our duty—my duty—to be strong and resolute, to put on a brave face, even when it pained me to do so.

I saw all this and more in the flash of my sister’s sea-green eyes, and I hated it.

Perhaps she could make a stone of her heart, but I could not, and why should I? I wasn’t destined for the throne. I wasn’t the heir. She was. She was older by less than a full cycle of the seasons, yet that was enough to make her the golden one. The favored one. The one destined rule.

As far as I was concerned, she was the one who should hold herself to the higher standard of a future ruler, not me. I could do as I pleased, and right now I was happy to take my comfort in dear Una’s arms.

I wiped my eyes and released the woman. “It’s been so long. I was sure you were… I thought…” I couldn’t even say that dreadful word: dead.

She pulled back, and I could see shadows beneath her eyes where they had never been before. Her cheeks had thinned too. What had the Romans done to her?

“I’m here now. Let’s be happy for that blessing. Let me look at you.” She straightened her spine, and her gaze roamed over me, head to toe. “What have you done to your hair, Eithne? It hasn’t seen a comb in an age.”

My cheeks colored, and my hands flew to the autumn-blond braid that spilled over my shoulder, trying to smooth the wild clumps that had tugged themselves free. Still, after all we’d been through, after everything that had happened, why was the woman worried about my hair?

“We’ll get to that in a moment. Now, Cait.” She turned her attention to my sister. Her eyebrows lifted with approval. “You have not been idle, I see. Is everything in good order?”

“As good as can be expected, I suppose.” The words were sullen but not impolite. Cait was never impolite to Una.

When Una turned to my mother, her face crumpled. She dropped to my mother’s knee and bent her head. “My Queen. I tried to come sooner.”

My mother’s hand reached out to touch Una’s hair but pulled back. “Do you bring news?”

Una rose and shuffled away, her hands clasped behind her and her gaze still cast down. “Yes, but it’s not as we’d hoped.”

My mother winced then caught herself and closed her eyes instead. She shook her head as she rose. “It is as I expected.” She crossed the room toward a cabinet that once held her swords and daggers but was now stripped of all weaponry. She pulled out a ceremonial chalice and motioned with a single finger to Una, an indication to come closer.

The older woman moved quickly, and the two bent their heads together and whispered.

Cait watched as intently as I, but neither of us could hear anything beyond murmurs. I searched for clues in their expressions. My mother’s shoulders straightened, and she nodded, but there was a weariness in her eyes. Whatever news Una communicated, it was bad. Yet how could it be anything else?

Another commotion in the corridor turned our attention, but this time it was Commander Cerulius who entered. He flipped back his crimson cloak, revealing the wide and burly shoulders of a man who might have been in his prime, but the craggy lines along his mouth and at the corners of his eyes betrayed more advanced years. “What is the meaning of this?”

His glare roamed the room until it settled on my mother and Una. His mostly bald head swung back to the guard standing at the door. “I said there were to be no visitors.”

The centurion’s face blanched. “The visit was approved. By the commander’s own hand. Your hand, sir. She—” He shot a look at Una then at the vellum he held, the sort that often conveyed Roman directives. He offered it up to his leader.

Cerulius knocked it away without even looking at it. “Forged, you imbecile.”

The guard’s fear turned to confusion then rage. He stormed up to Una. “Get out. Now.” He grabbed the hilt of the dagger sheathed at his waist.

Una patted my mother’s hand and retreated to the door, barely sidestepping the guard.

Cait stepped up, preventing the guard or anyone from touching Una. “She’s not harming anyone. Let her stay.”

“I must go, dear heart,” Una whispered.

I pulled back. “But where have you been all this time? Where is everyone else?” There were too many questions that hadn’t been answered and might never be answered if she left now.

“Stop talking,” Commander Cerulius said, his voice rumbling low in his chest. “Go, woman, or I’ll take your head.”

The guard waved Una out again, and she stepped around Cait to follow his command.

“Mother, won’t you do something?” If she was going to pretend she was still Queen, then she should act like one. She could demand Una be allowed to stay.

Cerulius sneered down the knot of his nose, glaring at our mother. “Yes, what will you do, great Queen Boudica? Do enlighten us.”

My mother had been watching this standoff, but now she sighed and let her gaze drift to the northern window. She set the chalice on the windowsill. “Girls, she must leave. Let’s have no more trouble about it.”

No more trouble? The woman who defied an emperor now didn’t want trouble? I looked to Cait. She had a twitchy look, and I wondered if she planned to attack the guard herself.

I stepped forward. “When can she return? This isn’t fair.”

The commander looked at me as though he were noticing me for the first time. “So, the little one demands justice, does she?”

Una moved between us, trying to divert the man’s attention. “I’ll go. Take me back to my cell.”

Cell? What cell? Had they imprisoned her and the others as they had imprisoned us?

The commander considered her for a moment then stepped aside and held out his hand.

The guard moved out of the way, and Una strode out of the room with her chin high. Behind her, the guard slammed the wooden screen back into place, reminding us we were trapped.

CHAPTER TWO

When we had the room back to ourselves, my mother motioned for Cait and me to join her at the window. Would it be another lecture? A scolding?

I shuffled along behind my sister.

“I wish you would see it’s only a matter of time before they kill us,” Cait hissed at my mother. “We must strike first.”

“We have no leverage,” I countered. “We should wait for the right moment.”

“This is the moment,” Mother said as she ran her finger around the lip of the silvery chalice with its golden band and rose-colored crystals.

“It is?”

Cait sounded as surprised. Our mother’s change of heart had caught us both off guard.

Mother’s gaze settled on us both. “Yes, it is.”

My sister beat me to the next question: “Why now? What changed your mind?”

The great Boudica wove her fingers together and contemplated them. “Una brought news.”

My suspicion had been correct. More had transpired between those two than a tearful reunion.

“What did she say?” I was too curious to stay quiet. Worried, too.

“She tried to send an emissary to Fayte Hill to seek the druids’ counsel and an appeal to the Maiden on our behalf. Alas, the Roman guards are too watchful, and she could not pass.”

Is that why my mother had been so calm during this storm? She’d been waiting for the Fayte Hill Maiden, the Ancient One who had given her the strength and cunning that nearly defeated the Romans.

When father had died, he’d decreed half the Iceni kingdom should go to the Romans and half to my sister, thinking the Romans would be satisfied. But the invaders demanded both portions for themselves.

Desperate, my mother had turned to the druids. They took us to their sacred grove to summon the Maiden, who they called Druansha.

Every Iceni child is told stories of the Ancient One with teardrop ears who has lived among the trees since before man walked the land. That dark solstice night, however, was the first time I’d laid eyes on that grand woman. She’d emerged from a cloud of mist and placed her hand upon my mother’s brow, engulfing her in violet light and filling her with a mysterious and otherworldly power.

Druansha had called the power Fayte and told us it would increase my mother’s natural abilities—her raw strength, battle skills, and cunning—as well as impart talents known only in Druansha’s otherworldly realm.

After that Fayte gift, Mother changed. She became an unstoppable force—or at least we believed her to be. Her fervor for the uprising consumed her. She explained it was more than a gift Druansha had given her but rather a covenant she’d made with that Ancient One because Druansha was as keen to rid our home of Romans as we were.

Soon after that ceremony, our great warrior queen and loyal Celt armies carried out the unthinkable. They destroyed not one but three Roman settlements, and not mere outposts, but Camulodunum, Londinium, and Verulamium—Rome’s most prized colonies. The death toll had soared into the tens of thousands.

Boudica had been so victorious for so long that when she fell at Watling Street, it hardly seemed possible. Even when we were returned to this confinement, I believed—we all believed—it wouldn’t last.

I’d been so certain. But as the days passed, that certainty waned. Then, it seemed, my mother lost her will to fight at all.

But now, I knew she had merely placed her hopes in Una, wonderful Una, who possessed nearly as much sacred knowledge as the druids who lived in the hills. She had been a teacher and guide to Cait and me, the one who took us to pray and give offerings in the forest, and the one to help us win the favor of the gods and Ancient Ones.

Yet, I recalled, even Una had been shaken by the appearance of the Fayte Maiden. Although such a visitation had precedent, one hadn’t occurred in her lifetime. The stories of such visitations to long dead kings and warriors were legend, passed down in songs and fireside stories. Some among the Iceni didn’t even believe them, saying they were nothing but tales to scare children and amuse adults.

But there was no denying the old stories now. And if the Fayte Maiden had favored us with her help once, perhaps she would do so again if we could reach the druids.

“Come.” My mother interrupted my thoughts. She pulled off the wide bronze torc that encircled her throat and worked off one end cap, revealing a hollow opening within. She shook the ornament, and a blade the size of her small finger fell into her waiting palm. She dropped the torc, raised the blade above her head, and closed her eyes.

Then in a whoosh, a movement so quick and without preamble it was nearly a blur, my mother stabbed the metal point into her wrist with ferocious force.

Before I could react, before I could even move, a stream of blood seeped from the wound.

I rushed to her, but she waved off my attempts to stanch the flow. Instead, she grabbed the chalice from the window and held it beneath the steady red rivulet flowing down her arm and off her elbow. I watched wide-eyed as my mother’s blood drained into the cup.

“It must be done.” The determination in her expression left no room for doubt. Whatever she meant to do, she would not be stopped.

My sister watched as aghast as I, disturbed but not willing to go against our mother’s wishes.

When a small pool had collected in the chalice, my mother extended it to me.

“Drink,” she commanded.

I stared, horrified. Had the pressure of our incarceration finally broken her? Had she lost all reason? “Mother, sit down. You’re not feeling well.”

She shrugged off my attempt to lead her to her chair.

“I am well, and my mind is clear. Drink before it’s too late. Before it’s all lost.”

Beyond the door, I heard a commotion again. But this time, it wasn’t one set of footsteps, it was a full legion barreling along the corridor.

My sister gaped at the screen as though trying to see through it, as though she could divine whatever calamity was brewing on the other side.

“It’s Una. It’s a diversion,” my mother said, breathless. “We must act quickly.”

As she forced the chalice into my hands, blood continued to flow down her arm and onto the floor, puddling at her feet. When I tried to refuse the cup, she held it in my hands herself, blood soaking us both, and lifted the cup to my lips.

“Drink,” she demanded. “Don’t let this end with me. Don’t let the gift and our sacrifices be for nothing.”

I recoiled. “Stop, I won’t!”

But as I struggled to form the words, she hooked my neck and tilted the vessel to my lips. The metallic smell of blood and rancid wine gagged me, making me choke even before the thick liquid hit my tongue. It filled my mouth and slipped down my throat before I could push away.

Finally, she pulled back and I doubled over, choking and spewing blood and saliva on the floor. I wanted to expel it all, yet I could feel the strange warmth of it inside me, sliding through my chest and down into my gut. It burned like fire inside me, like something with a life of its own.

“Give it to me.”

My mother turned at Cait’s demand, but my sister grabbed the chalice and was drinking from it without force.

We heard a scuffle in the corridor, then the wooden screen was ripped away. Through the open doorway, we could see the guard with his gladius unsheathed hacking at a throng of Iceni men and women.

I recognized them! They were our servants. They were the members of our own household freeing us, all of them looking as wan and gaunt as Una. Where had they been? What had they endured? One of the larger men tackled the guard and toppled him. Others rushed in.

“You must flee, your highnesses. You must go!”

His last breathless word emerged with a guttural groan, and he dropped to his knees. Behind him, a centurion yanked a blade from his back and pushed him, face first, to the floor.

When another centurion appeared, my sister leaped onto his back, pulled at his hair, and kicked into the back of his thighs. My mother squared off with a third guard, a stout man brandishing his blade. She had nothing but the chalice to defend herself as blood still streamed from her wound.

I moved to help her when Una ran through the door. “Eithne! This way, hurry!” She waved at me, urging me to escape.

But I couldn’t leave my mother. I looked at the door and back at her. She towered over the Roman, and the bloodstains streaked across her arms and gown gave her a vicious look. Her eyes were as wild as they had been when she careened through the Roman settlements on her chariot, setting fire to anything that would burn.

My mother caught my eye. “Go!” she yelled. “Take your sister; go!”

But I froze, too paralyzed by fear to move.

Then somehow I was flying toward the door. Cait had grabbed my arm and was pulling me. I tried to keep pace, but I stumbled and nearly fell over the chalice that was now rolling along the floor. I scooped it up and continued to the door.

Una tried to make space for us in the hallway, but the crush of fighters—both Iceni and Roman—pressed her forward. The guards were closing us off. I feared we wouldn’t make it.

Behind us, the harrowing screech of my mother’s battle cry stopped everything. All eyes turned to her, and she appeared as savage as a banshee and armed with a wooden chair that she brandished in a whirling blur of chaos.

The guards surrounding her pulled back.

I stared, as transfixed as the rest, until Cait leaned into my ear and whispered, “Go!”

In a rush of action, that’s exactly what we did. With Cait in the lead, I followed as she pushed toward the door. The room was so crowded with our household servants, it was impossible for the handful of Roman guards to find us in the throng.

Perhaps that was Una’s plan.

When we reached our old governess, she was in the corridor. She tossed us a bundle of wool draped over her arm. “Put these on. Quick!”

That bundle turned out to be two hooded cloaks. I kept an indigo one and handed the green one to Cait. We pulled them on and lowered the hoods.

Una issued a sudden, high-pitched whistle and immediately the crowd grew fiercer and more crazed. Arms flailed, punches flew, legs kicked. At first, I was perplexed by the surge of violence, but when Una grabbed our hands and pulled us through the carnage, it made sense. They were creating more distraction to cover our escape.

I yanked back my hand. “We can’t leave without Mother.”

I searched the melee for her and found her across the room, squaring off with no ordinary centurion but Cerulius himself. With bared teeth and a face reddened with rage, he stabbed at her with his gladius, but each time she blocked him with her chair in one hand and tried to knock away his blade with a candleholder she held in the other.

Somehow, across that raging pandemonium, I caught her gaze, and in that instant, my mother dropped the chair and the candleholder, and her body went slack. Something stirred deep within me. Perhaps it was her Fayte-touched blood or merely the protective love that had always existed between us, but I knew without a doubt this was the end of her fight.

Everything around me fell away, so there was only her and me. Time slowed to a crawl and then, in one long, inevitable motion, the edge of Cerulius’s blade swept across her, leaving a gash in the pale white of her throat. I stared, too stunned to move and not at all registering the commander’s triumphant cheer. He didn’t matter. None of it did. Nothing would ever matter again because my mother had given herself willingly to that fatal blow.

CHAPTER THREE

I don’t know how long I stood there, too numb to move and too terrified to think, as that bright flame of a woman, our warrior queen and mother, slumped at Commander Cerulius’s feet into a widening pool of her own blood.

No, no, no! The words shattered every other thought. This wasn’t happening. She’d never leave us this way. We needed her.

I needed her.

“She’s gone.”

My sister’s words warmed my ear, but they made no sense. Nothing made sense. I was empty.

“We have to go, Eithne.”

Still, I couldn’t move.

“Get them!”

Those words belonged to the commander, and he was staring at us with his slate-gray eyes sparkling with victory and a thirst for more bloodshed. “Don’t let those girls leave!”

That’s when my sister yanked me out of my stupor. I tightened my grip on the chalice and stumbled after her, moving around and sometimes colliding with the servants still clashing with the centurions. We ducked out of the room and hurried down the hall, away from the guards and away from the servants.

We hurried through the royal residence’s labyrinth of stone corridors until we reached the outer huts that housed the cooking hearth and the servants’ rooms.

“Where are we going?” My question met with an insistent “Shh!” from Una and a cutting scowl from my sister.

But we were running in circles. I was about to say so when I caught something in my peripheral vision as we crossed a corridor leading to the rooms my father once used for official business. It looked like a man in a Celtic cloak, but he was gone as quickly as he appeared.

I dismissed it until I caught sight of him again.

Pulling back, I glanced down an intersecting corridor and caught sight of that cloak disappearing around a corner toward the great hall. A black cloak of rough weave with a band of gray along the hem. Not the product of a Roman loom, to be sure. This man was a Celt, but not one I knew.

So what was he doing in our stronghold?

Go after him!

The words rang through me, more like an order than a thought. I swallowed hard and hurried to see where he was going.

When I caught sight of him again, his hood covered his head and he was standing between two corridors. Stymied, it seemed. He glanced one way, then the other. He didn’t seem to know where he was going, and I had the strong feeling—an absolutely certain feeling—that he didn’t belong here, and I needed to find out why.

When he took off down the southern corridor, I followed, driven by curiosity.

I could catch him if I tried. But even as I made gains, he still outpaced me. From one corridor to another then another, he remained close but just out of reach.

Then, the clang of metal colliding with metal broke the relative quiet of my pursuit. It came from behind me, from somewhere close. I froze, trying to pinpoint the sound.

A guttural cry filled the air, and I knew it was my sister.

She was in trouble.

I abandoned my pursuit of the stranger and ran back toward her wail.

Retracing my steps through the corridors, I found Cait locked in battle with a centurion, a man nearly twice her size. He had her backed against a wall and his gladius pointed at her heart. She was trapped, with no hope of escape.

The sight of it paralyzed me. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t!—lose my sister and my mother on the same day. All the sorrow and grief about my mother’s death and the fear of experiencing it again with Cait gathered into a white-hot ball in my chest and then, in a fury, it hurled me toward that man. By the time he saw me, it was too late. I clocked him with the edge of the vessel, and the force of our collision sent us both tumbling to the floor. My sister stared at me in shock, but she wasted no time in pinning him down.

“The hearth house,” she yelled at me.

I didn’t move. The surge that had propelled me was spent. What remained was a yearning to help with no idea how. Should I hold him down? Hit him again with the chalice?

“Now!” she screamed. “You’ve already caused enough trouble.”

There was venom in her eyes, and I knew she was right. I’d put us all in danger by slipping away. I needed to get back to Una.

The man jerked beneath her, trying to free himself. She jammed her heel in his gut. The way he curled in pain made it clear she had the upper hand. But of course she did. She always had the upper hand, and she never needed my help.

After another of her nasty looks, I relented and ran back toward the hearth house without wasting another moment.

When I found Una standing in the doorway, she waved me inside. A sense of comforting familiarity came over me as I crossed the threshold.

During the days imprisoned in Mother’s chamber, I’d missed this place most of all. The cheerful chatter of the cooks, the gossiping of the maids. As long as I didn’t tell Mother where I was, Una and the others allowed me to stay as long as I liked. Sometimes I brought my scrolls to practice my letters. My father insisted we learn the Roman writing, a rule my mother enforced even after he was gone. Most of the time, I left the scrolls behind and helped with meal preparation. I chopped vegetables or watched a simmering stew, anything to just feel part of it all.

How different it felt now, vacant as it was of any living soul. I wondered again where the Romans had taken everyone.

“What happened to you?” Una said, pulling me from my thoughts. “Were you seen? Where’s Cait?”

I didn’t know which question to answer first, so I started with the safest one. “She’s behind me. Taking care of a centurion.”

Just then, Cait rounded the hearth house door, but her gait was off. Her left leg dragged, and she held her elbow close to her side. Then I noticed the blood.

“Cait!” I screamed and lunged at her.

“Quiet, girl,” Una snapped and pulled me back.

Voices traveled from beyond the door. Men’s voices.

Una ran to my sister and wrapped a supporting arm around her waist to pull her inside.

I stared at them, horrified. “We can’t stay here. They’ll find us.”

Our governess kept moving, dragging Cait toward the massive cauldron suspended over the fire pit at the north end of the room. She lowered Cait onto a bench, which the cook sometimes used as a chair when there was stirring to do or as a table to hold ingredients before she dropped them in.

But today, the bench was pushed against the wall, which was really only a drape because the back of the place butted up to the rocky hillside, so there was no need for anything more substantial.

“Watch for Romans.” Una held Cait and looked at me. She jerked her head toward the door. “Tell me when they are close.”

I did as she said and moved as close to the door as I dared.

I peered out.

No one.

I listened.

The voices were growing more distant. They were heading back to the main rooms.

Then a crisp, regimented voice shouted out, “No one this way, Commander.”

Fear tightened my chest.

“Did you check the cook’s house?”

“Will do, sir.”

I whipped around. “They’re coming,” I whispered hoarsely. “They’re coming here!”

But where were Una and Cait? The bench was empty. The entire room was empty.

In a distant whisper, I heard, “This way, Eithne.” It might have been Una, but in my panic I couldn’t be sure.

“Where are you?” I cried.

“Behind the hearth. Behind the wall.”

The words were hardly more than a murmur. Had I heard them correctly? There was only rock behind that wall.

Outside, the scuff of leather soles and the clatter of metal armor and weapons told me the centurions were getting close.

I had no time for questions and certainly no time to dither. I rushed to the drape and pulled it aside, expecting to find only rock.

I saw that, but there was also something else: A gaping hole near my knees, perhaps wide enough for a dog.

Roman footsteps scuffled closer.

“Bend down,” I heard Una call out. “There’s plenty of room if you bend down.”

Was she in there? Was she inside the rock?

“Did you hear that?” one of the men asked outside.

“Came from in there.”

The men were outside. I could see four towering silhouettes against the door’s flap.

“Check inside. Check everything.”

Without another thought, I dropped to my knees and scrambled through the hole, scraping my shoulders on the rocky edges, but I didn’t care. Once I was through, I looked back to be sure the drape fell back over the opening, and I held my breath, afraid any sound might give me away.

“There’s nobody here, sir,” a centurion said.

More scuffling, more men were entering, but how many I didn’t know.

A pause. Leather soles scuffed across the room. “They couldn’t have gotten far,” a familiar voice said. It was Commander Cerulius, and the thought of that man only feet away from me made my blood run cold. “You, follow me. You two, search the place. I want those girls found.”

Crisp and stern “Yes, sirs” echoed back.

Even when half the search party headed outside, I knew I wasn’t safe. Not yet.

Footsteps padded across the flagstone. Chairs tumbled aside. Tables tipped over. Cabinets were dragged away from the wall.

The centurions were inspecting every inch of the cooking house by the sound of it. Eventually, they’d find this hole just as I had. Should I move and try to get away? Should I wait and keep quiet?

My body went cold with indecision as perspiration slithered down my back.

“No one’s here,” a gruff voice said at last.

“If the commander wants us to stay back,” another, whinier voice said, “we should keep looking.”

“He said search, not stay. You can stay, if you like. But those girls fled, sure as I’m standing here. You saw the commander’s face when he found his scribe cut down with the man’s own blade. One of the girls did that. Savages, just like their mother. He’ll have their heads on spikes by nightfall, and I want to see it.”

“But they’re to be sent to Rome. The commander has orders.”

“Orders or not, he wants blood, and he’ll get it. Mark my words.”

Footsteps headed toward the door and beyond. It took only a moment for others to follow. In the distance, I heard, “Hold up, Marcellus. I’m coming with you.”

Then, finally, I breathed.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Romans were gone, but I remained crouched in that dark crevice behind the hearth, frozen in fear and shivering against the cold stones until the sound of soft footsteps in the darkness broke the silence. A flame alighted. I looked up to see Una holding a torch. This was a cave, I realized, and my sister was crouching behind Una.

“You’re all right. It’s safe now.” Una’s words should have soothed me, but I was beyond consolation. I wrapped my arms around myself and sobbed. We’d come so close to being caught because I’d been foolish and chased that stranger. And for what? The compulsion had been so strong, but thinking back, I couldn’t even say why.

Yes, it was odd that a strange Celt was walking freely in our rooms, but what good would have come from confronting him? Mother was dead, and the Romans wanted our heads. That was all that mattered. It had been reckless to waste precious time when we should have been making our escape.

If Una was right and we were safe, it was no thanks to me. What my sister so often said was true: I was useless. Maybe I was something even worse.

I curled more tightly into myself. “I’m so sorry,” I murmured again and again.

“Shh. It’s over.” Una kneeled beside me and dragged her fingertips lightly over my back like she used to when I’d have a nightmare and she’d sing me to sleep. How could she forgive me so easily? I couldn’t even forgive myself.

“I should have stayed with you. I shouldn’t have gone after that man.” The words blubbered from me.

Her fingertips continued to trail over my back. “What man, dear heart?”

I sat up and wiped away the tears. Her thin lips made a downward crescent.

“I don’t know. I saw a man in a black cloak running along the corridors like he was looking for something. He wasn’t a Roman or Iceni. I didn’t know him.”

She touched her lips. The skin around her eyes tightened in the way it did when she was trying to hide her alarm. It never worked as well as she thought it did. “Did you see his face, perchance?”

“No. He wore the hood up, and I never got close enough.”

Her lips curled in, and she nodded. Disappointment carved deep lines around her mouth.

“It was stupid. I don’t know why I did it, but I had this feeling that I had to, like something was forcing me to do it.” Even as the words tumbled out, I knew they were nonsense, so I stopped, adding only, “I was wrong to do it, and I’m sorry.”

Her fingers moved to the back of my head. “I know you are. Now come, we have far to go.”

She helped me up, and I brushed the dirt from my dress, though it hardly helped. The clasp that held my cloak in place had slipped down my back, so I tucked the chalice under my arm and yanked it back into place as I stared over Una’s shoulder at my sister. The hard glare in her eyes told me she hadn’t forgiven me and probably wouldn’t for a good long while. My gaze moved past her to the blackness beyond. “What is this place?”

Instead of answering, she moved the torch toward the darkness, revealing a long pathway carved into the rock.

“Has it always been here?” I asked.

“I suppose so,” she answered. “No one knows for sure. Some say it was here before the first Iceni king made this his stronghold, that it’s been here since the Ancients still walked the land.”

“Come now, Una,” Cait chastised as she stepped deeper into the tunnel. “No one believes those children’s stories.”

Una slid me a glance that said the matter was closed, then she lifted the torch higher so we could see farther ahead. The tunnel’s stone floor and walls gave way to bare earth after the first few paces, but the dirt was packed hard and smooth.

“Where does it go?” I asked.

Una shrugged. “To Fayte Hill, if you believe the old tales.” She paused, probably waiting for another snide remark from Cait, but my sister said nothing.

We’d made our way to Fayte Hill many times along the narrow road, but I couldn’t imagine such a journey underground.

“Do you believe those tales?” Unease laced my words.

Una stared into the void in front of us. “I do now. Shall we get moving?”

I hooked the chalice onto my belt, winding the leather around its stem to keep it secure, and followed her.

At first, we made good time. Cait limped, but she didn’t fall behind. In places, the tunnel narrowed, so we had to shift our shoulders to make it through, but those tight spots never last long. Most of the way, the tunnel remained wide enough that we could walk two abreast.

It wasn’t too bad, really, if you ignored the smell of moist earth and stagnate roots. I had to force myself not to think about fresh air or the open sky. Instead, I focused on the centurions thirsting for our blood. That kept me moving.

When thick tree roots began protruding through the sides of the tunnel, I knew we must have reached the edge of the forest. Some of the roots sliced through the opening so that we had to bend beneath them or shimmy over to continue on. It was after Una and I crawled over a particularly large root that I realized Cait wasn’t with us. She’d fallen several paces behind.

I stopped to wait for her and noticed her limp had worsened. Her left leg hardly moved at all, and her left arm held tightly against her side. A few times, I caught a grunt or moan. I would have thought I’d imagined it, but Una’s troubled glances told me she’d heard them too.

When Cait reached us, Una touched her arm. “You girls could use a rest. Let’s stop for a moment.”

Cait shook her head and tightened her arm against her side. “No. Keep going. The sooner we get out of this place, the better. It’s starting to stink.”

She wasn’t wrong. The air had grown heavier with the musty smell. I was breathing through my mouth to avoid the worst of it.

“Are you sure?” Una asked, looking certainly less than sure herself.

Cait’s answer was to push by us both and continue on.

After what seemed an interminable amount of time, Una took in a sharp breath. “We’re nearly there.”

I wanted to believe her, but she’d been saying that for so long, I wasn’t sure she even knew where we were. Already I was imagining what it would be like to be trapped down here. Had the old stories been wrong? Were we wandering in circles or to nowhere at all? What if the tunnel just stopped, and we had to go back?

All these fears circled my thoughts like buzzards over a carcass when Una grew quiet. I wondered if she was doubting herself. Would she even tell us if she were?

“It’s not far now.” Una sounded so certain. If I still believed her, it might have cheered me.

By then, I’d fallen behind even Cait, and if I hadn’t been watching my feet and grumbling my grievances to myself, I probably would have noticed the tunnel was widening. It wasn’t until the temperature dropped and the cooler air tickled my cheeks that I glanced up and saw the torch’s glow wasn’t the only light brightening our darkness. I might have thought my mind was playing tricks on me if Cait hadn’t squealed.

Was she hurt? No, when I looked, there was a smile on her face. A genuine smile.

Relieved and exhausted, I closed my eyes and breathed in glorious gulps and vowed never to doubt Una again.

“That’s more like it,” she said. I could hear the relief in her voice too. At the tunnel’s end, she pushed away a tangled bramble to reveal the soft glow of the near-twilight sun.

“Watch it,” Cait snapped at me. In my eagerness to see the sky, I’d pushed by her and nearly knocked her over. But instead of pushing back, she was hunched over in pain. I offered a hand, but she ignored it. I leaned closer to see what was wrong. “What happened?”

She didn’t answer, and I could see the white knuckles of her fists.

“Cait, do you need—”

What was left of the color in her face drained away, and she swayed. I caught her before she fell. “Una!”

The older woman was already outside stamping out the torch’s fire. She stuck her head back inside. Seeing my sister slumped in my arms, she rushed back and slid an arm around Cait’s waist. “The poor thing hasn’t eaten. She must be faint.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” I said, taking hold of my sister from the other side. The fact Cait was submitting to help without complaint worried me.

Together, Una and I maneuvered my sister through the bramble to an area dense with old oaks. Even through the canopy of dark green, gold, and rusty red leaves, the sun was still bright enough to help us move my sister to a dry spot beside an ancient oak. We propped her head against the trunk, and Una brushed soothing fingertips over her face and throat.

Cait’s eyelids twitched, as though she were trying to open them but couldn’t. She mumbled something indistinct.

Then something more alarming caught my attention. I pointed to my sister’s left side. “Una, did you see that?” Something dark was soaking through the green cloak beneath her left arm.

Fear flashed across Una’s expression, but only for a moment. She quickly replaced it with a serene smile and bent over my sister. “Let’s have a look beneath that arm, shall we, dear?” She pulled away her arm and peeled away the wool to reveal a gouge that not only tore through Cait’s gown but had ripped deep into her flesh.

That fight she’d had with the Roman when she’d come after me had been worse than she’d led us to believe. I knew little about the healing arts, but seeing Una’s face go white was evidence enough that it was bad. With that placid smile still intact, Una wadded up the end of Cait’s cloak and pushed it against her wound. She laid Cait’s hand over it. “Hold it there as tightly as you can. There, that’s a good girl.”

When Una rose, she motioned for me to follow her. When we were a few paces away and out of earshot, she whispered, “If I’m reading the trees correctly, Druid Village is over that ridge. Go there, tell them to send a healer.”

I glanced around at the trees, trying to orient myself. How could she tell where we were? “We’re on Fayte Hill? Are you sure?”

She nodded.

We’d taken the long road to Druid Village so many times to make our offerings to the gods and the trees, but this place didn’t look familiar at all. “What if I get lost? What if I can’t find them?”

My heartbeat quickened as panic set in.

Una took my arm and held it. “You must go. We don’t have time to waste. She doesn’t have long.”

When we returned to Cait, she lay slack against the tree with her eyes closed. She might have been sleeping. I hoped she was sleeping. I was no healer, but I knew my sister wouldn’t last long without one. There was no time for indecision or doubt.

“Over that ridge?” I pointed to the northwest slope, trying to be sure. Una nodded. “How far?”

“You’ll see the valley after the crest,” she said. “Then the outer huts. But the healers will be in the central houses.”

I remembered the outer huts. They were round houses like the ones in our own village, made of strong wooden planks, thatched roofs, and walls of woven twigs, but they tended to be small, as they were used by the solitary druids. The central houses were larger and occupied by whole families and the druid leader.

When I’d assured her I knew what I was looking for, I set off at a run with every ounce of strength I had left and prayed to the gods it would be enough. By the time I reached the top of the ridge, my breath came in gasps, my cheeks burned, and my legs screamed in agony.

I looked back for Una and Cait, but they were lost among the trees. It didn’t matter. I was close. In a few more paces, I’d be able to see over the crest.

Finally, when the valley should have come into view, I nearly dropped to my knees and cried. Dense fog had rolled in from the marshland, obscuring everything but the very tops of the valley’s trees.

I bit back the tears. The fog didn’t matter. The druids were there, I just had to get to them. I ran again, easier now because of the downward slope, and when the ground went flat, I took a deep breath and screamed.

“Hello! Hello!” The words cracked, so I yelled them again, adding, “I need your help!” My heart leaped when I saw a small hut emerge from the hazy gray cloud.

“Hello?”

The silence unnerved me. When we’d come before, the woods had been filled with the sounds of the men, women, and children who lived here. But there were no village sounds at all.

Where was everyone?

“Hello?”

As I neared the hut, tiny hairs prickled on my neck, and I tried to blink away a sight I didn’t want to believe. Half the thatched roof was burned away, and the walls were charred black. Around the perimeter, the herb bundles and stones and twig braids that usually hung by the openings had been ripped from their places and were strewn about in disarray.

Stools and tables lay in similar chaos, as if thrown in anger or defense. Tools and bowls and cups were piled in heaps.

I hurried to the next hut and found the same. When I reached the inner circle, the devastation took my breath. Every structure had been torched: the huts, the barns, even the storage rooms. Some were burned to the ground, some, remarkably, stood mostly intact.

My chest shuddered. The Romans had done this. I’d seen the aftermath of Mother’s battles enough to see the signs, but something else whispered their name to me as well, something that came from that same deep place that sent me after the man roaming our stronghold.

I called out again, but I knew in my blood and my bones, there would be no answer.

CHAPTER FIVE

Where were the druids? I couldn’t imagine Fayte Hill without its inhabitants. The people who were born here or who had sought its sanctuary. Like so many of the druid communities spread across the countryside, it was a quiet refuge dedicated to reflection and worship of the gods, the healing arts, and all the rituals and ceremonies that held the balance between this world and the Other.

The druids were our guides through dark times, and we needed them now more than ever.

I wandered on along the perimeter of huts, searching—hoping—for signs of life but only expecting death.

I didn’t find that, either. Destruction like this had every hallmark of a Roman attack, but there was no carnage. No casualties of a fight or signs of execution. That, at least, gave me hope.

“Hello?” Fear made my voice tremble, though there was no one to hear it, for even the pens that once held goats and sheep now stood as empty as the rest.

There was no one who could save Cait. I had failed again.

I’d made a full rotation of the cluster of houses, or what was left of them, and found myself again in front of the largest one, one that fire had only half consumed and still had some of its herb bundles tied and drying near the door, alongside the usual twigs bound by twine and contorted into shapes suggesting stars and circles and tiny human forms.

It beckoned me closer, but I resisted. Una was waiting. Yet, I could see the room within was partially intact. Perhaps I’d find something useful there, something I could take back to help Cait.

At the door, which was only scorched, I pulled aside what was left of the flap and peeked inside. A sleeping pallet had collapsed on one side, but the flames had spared the other, where a cabinet and worktable were covered with three mortar and pestles of varying sizes, twigs and dried leaves, and too many stoppered jars to count.

“Anyone here?” No answer came, of course. But a healer had lived here. I was certain of it, far more so than I should have been, considering what little I knew of the healing arts.

All our lives, Una had tried to teach Cait and me such things, but neither of us paid attention. Cait was more interested in hounding father to take her hunting or convincing the boys to spar with her with the wooden training blades. I preferred to sneak off to the bustle of the hearth house, where the servants always gathered to share their gripes and gossip and all the news of the day. That was always more amusing than Una’s talk of tinctures and poultices.

Besides, we relied on the druids for those concerns. They knew how to tend wounds and cure ills, which herbs to steep and drink and which to crush into a paste and apply to the skin. If druids weren’t on hand, there was always a wise woman like Una who knew what to do.

So, Una should have known it was a mistake to send me for help. She should have known I was no help to anyone.

Still, my curiosity about the healer’s table lured me closer. I picked up a small clay pot, pulled out the stopper, and lifted it to my nose. My nostril tingled at the minty scent. Peppermint, good for soothing stomach complaints when the leaves are chewed or steeped in tea.

Why did I know that? I put it back and lifted another. I removed the stopper and smelled the delicate, almost sweet scent of bee venom. A pain reliever when mixed with animal fat and applied to the skin and especially good for sore hands, feet, knees, and elbows.

I stared at the jar. I didn’t remember Una ever using bee venom or telling me the uses of the substance, yet I knew exactly how to mix it and with what and where to apply it for optimal effect.

But how?

“Are you searching for something in particular?”

I stiffened at the man’s voice behind me. There was no anger or aggression in the words, but I hadn’t heard anyone approach. The surprise nearly sent me into a panic.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t know anyone was here.” I pivoted back and almost stumbled. In the doorway stood a wizened man with long silver hair spilling over the front of his robe, which looked like it had been white once, but was now so dirty, it was more a dull gray. The straggly ends of his hair tangled with the silver whiskers of his beard. He stared at me with black pebble eyes from beneath brows so thick they looked like two caterpillars perched upon his forehead.

It was the great druid Gledruith, the village elder. I’d never spoken to him before, but he was always the one who led the solstice ceremonies and performed the binding and death rituals for our people. Everyone said he spoke to trees and could walk among the dead and other realms.

With this new awareness within me, the strange knowing I didn’t quite understand, I also knew I was trespassing on his home and that my presence here surprised him as much as he’d surprised me. Druids weren’t accustomed to being caught unaware.

“Who are you?” His voice trembled with age, but his gaze didn’t waver, and it weakened my resolve.

“I came from down the hill,” I said. I wanted to ask for his help, but I was finding it difficult to form coherent thoughts.

“Down the hill,” he repeated slowly. It wasn’t a question, as though he were tasting the quality of the words.

“What happened to everyone?” I tried to mask my fear but knew I wasn’t succeeding. I was the trespasser, after all.

“I am all that is left.”

I’d been right. It was as I’d feared. The Romans had little tolerance for druids. They despised their power and understood little of their ways. They rarely needed reasons to kill, but they took particular delight in killing druids.

He stared at me for a long moment before adding, “The Romans came, but the people were already gone. We were given the gift of time. Those who wanted to flee had time to do so.”

Given time? By whom? My chest tightened, already knowing the answer. The Fayte Maiden had intervened. She had warned them.

As if reading my thoughts, he nodded then looked back at the devastation.

Centurions had found the village empty, so their attack had been carried out as a show of their frustration more than an exercise in terror.

The old druid leaned against his walking stick, a long branch shaved smooth and wrapped at the top with leather straps, most of which had some small vessel or feather or trinket tied to its end. “Child, you came with a purpose,” he said, his voice deliberate. “Tell me what it is.”

Yes, I was forgetting my purpose. “My sister,” I blurted. Of course, I was here for Cait. The thought rushed through me. How had I let myself get distracted by the herbs and oils? I rubbed at my forehead, trying to clear my muddled thinking and focus. “She’s hurt; she needs help.”

The man considered me with a long, singular glare then took one of the leather pouches from his stick, closed his eyes, and hummed a low, sonorous hum.

I’d never seen a druid do this before. Was he communicating with gods or the Ancients? Was it magic?

As the old man hummed, I kept silent and waited. Several heartbeats later, he opened his eyes. “Where is your sister?”

I pointed back the way I’d come. “Beyond the ridge. And we must hurry.” I started toward the door and he stepped aside, allowing me to pass. I continued walking, hoping he would follow.

“If you came from below,” he asked, his voice thoughtful and perhaps wary, “how did you make it past the Romans?”

I turned back. He was still standing in the doorway.

“We came through a tunnel.”

Hard lines deepened along his cheeks, bracketing a frown. “Who showed you such a thing?”

Why did he care about that? My sister needed help. I tried again. “The Romans are looking for us. My mother’s maid took us through the tunnel.”

His eyes darkened. Was it anger? Suspicion?

“She said she’d never used it before,” I said, trying to offer a better explanation. “I don’t think Una ever would have mentioned it if...”

His hand went up, stopping me. “Una from the great house? Una the Queen’s handmaiden?”

I nodded.

His frown vanished, and light sprang to his eyes. “You are a daughter of the Fayte Guardian?”

He said the words with a reverence that bordered on awe.

“I am, but…” The image of my mother falling at Cerulius’s feet came back to me. I clenched my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see it. There was no time for any of that now.

“But what, child?”

I swallowed hard. Why didn’t he know? Didn’t the wind whisper these things to the druids? Hadn’t the birds carried this terrible news? I didn’t want to say the words aloud and make them real. I opened my eyes and found him staring at me, waiting. The rigidity of his expression had softened.

But the question within me persisted: Why hadn’t my mother survived Cerulius’s attack? She had survived so much worse, why not that? I wanted to scream at the sky that it wasn’t fair. Why was my mother dead while Cerulius lived?

“They killed her?” he asked.

I closed my eyes again and nodded.

I heard his sharp intake of breath. Then, roughly, “By whose hand?”

“Commander Cerulius.” The syllables scraped through me. They soured my tongue.

The old druid slumped, and his face turned the color of ash. His chin lowered, but he glanced up and fixed me from beneath those wiry eyebrows. “The blood, was it lost?”

Lost? Blood was certainly spilled. Is that what he meant? Then it came to me. My mother cutting her own wrist and collecting the crimson droplets in the chalice dangling from my belt.

Gledruith leaned forward, holding firmly to his staff, eager for my answer.

Shame came over me, but I had to tell him. It was a compulsion I couldn’t ignore. “She made us drink from the gush of a wound before she fought.”

His eyes grew wide—not with surprise or hope or any emotion I understood, but something wild, almost feral. Something that sent shivers racing from a place even deeper than my heart and out to every extremity. He whispered, maybe to me, but it seemed more likely to himself or to the wind and the birds and the trees, “The Fayte Legacy endures.”

CHAPTER SIX

The old druid was nimbler than he appeared and outpaced me much of the way back to Una and Cait.

When we finally reached the place where I’d left them, we found my sister sleeping against the oak tree where I’d left her, cradled by the contours of its roots. Her face had lost even more of its rosy glow.

Una sat beside her but shot up when she saw us. “Gledruith, you needn’t have come yourself. I hardly meant to trouble you.” She cast her eyes downward out of respect for the elder.

“My child, it is no trouble.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “But you should know, there is no one else.”

She looked up. “What of Tarthruin or Clandagha? They are able healers.”

“They have gone.” His voice barely rose above a whisper, as though he knew this could be devastating news. “They have all gone.”

Una shook off the notion. “Why? Where would they go?”

His eyes cast downward, but I could still see the pain he was trying to hide. “They had to flee, my dear Una. The Romans raided the village. They set fire to everything and would have done worse if they could.”

She touched her lips. “How many were…?”

“All survived,” he rushed to say before she could voice her fear. “Druansha warned us of the attack when we Converged with her at the New Moon. The next day, they set off for Mona to seek sanctuary with the druid elders. The Romans still fear Mona.”

The village on the island of Anglesey was known to be the oldest druid stronghold, and stories about it and its inhabitants swirled through the countryside. Some say the druids who live there are descended from a race of giants who migrated from the north. Some say they wield powerful magic they learned from the Ancient Ones. Others claim they are the Ancient Ones.

No one knows what they are anymore, but it wasn’t always that way. Before the Romans arrived and before Anglesey closed itself off to outside world, the wisdom of those druid elders flowed through the land like the rivers and streams in the spring. But, with the passage of time, that wisdom dwindled to hazy memories that in turn became little more than stories and legend.

“Our people will be safe there,” the old druid said, though his eyes didn’t reflect the optimism of his words.

“Are you sure?”

I sensed the doubt in her question.

“If it is not, then nowhere is safe. They have taken the underground passages to evade the Romans. We must believe they will be successful, or all is lost.”

“Of course, you’re right. We must hope,” she repeated.

He brushed his skeletal fingers across her cheek. “It is so good to see you.”

She embraced him and pressed her cheek to his chest.

“Why did you stay behind?” Her voice muffled against the coarse weave of his robe.

He pulled back and considered her. “How could I leave? This is my grove. I belong to it, as it belongs to me. I could never leave.”

“But the others need you.”

He shook his head. “They have good shepherds. As you said yourself, Tarthruin and Clandagha are capable.”

“But they do not have your knowledge,” she countered.

“They have their own. The gods smile upon them. Druansha listens to them, and she will speak to them. Of that, I’m sure.”

As much as I didn’t want to interrupt, my sister needed help. I stepped forward. “How long should we allow Cait to sleep?”

The lines along the older woman’s forehead deepened as she regarded my sister.

The druid moved to her side and, with the help of his staff, bent to one knee. He caressed the air around her wound and closed his eyes. “The injury is deep.” Then he lifted his weathered face upward, his eyes still closed, and murmured something to the sky.

I turned to Una. Silently, I begged, What is he doing?

She responded with a frown and a hard shake of her head. Do not interrupt, she seemed to say.

I held my tongue, waiting for the man to emerge from his trance, or whatever it was. Finally, he exhaled a long whoosh of a breath and lifted his hand from my sister’s side. He lowered his staff and grabbed a tethered leather pouch, unwinding it until it was free. From it, he dumped a small mound of dried and crushed leaves into his palm.

Instantly, the air smelled of sage and cinnamon. He set down the staff and enclosed the pile in both hands. Lifting his interlocked fingers to his lips, he blew into the space between his thumb and forefinger then deposited the leaves onto my sister’s forehead. Pressing them gently with two fingers, he mumbled another incantation. At the end, he used his staff to rise to his feet. “Una, I would speak to you for a moment.”

Had I just been dismissed? Her expression told me I’d read his meaning correctly.

“Please, dear heart,” she whispered. “You must be hungry. You’ll find a wild berry patch over that hill, just beyond the trees. They are lovely and ripe this time of year. Perhaps you could gather some and bring them back.”

If I didn’t trust Una with my life, I would have refused. But she would never put Cait or me in danger, and if she trusted this old druid, then I would do the same. “Fine,” I groused. “I’m not hungry, and I don’t want any berries, but I’ll go.”

I went to the ridge but kept watch on the druid and Una until the old man pulled her behind the tree and blocked my view.

It was infuriating, being treated like a child this way. What did they need to discuss that required secrecy? I had a right to know. Cait was my sister, after all. Anger clawed at me until I nearly screamed.

Then my stomach grumbled. Yes, Una was right. Again. I was hungry, and it made me even more furious to admit it.

As I moved along the path, the sun slid behind the hilltops, stretching the shadows into fingers inching toward the meadow below. I half searched, half sulked.

How far were these berry bushes? Had I missed them? Probably. My mind had been wandering. When I turned back, I caught movement behind a tree. An animal, perhaps? Had I caught the interest of a stag or doe searching for the same berries as I?

“Hello?” I listened for the crunch of dried leaves or the snap of a twig. Only the breeze rustled the branches above. I retraced my steps along the path, searching among the tree trunks for signs of a creature.

Had I imagined it? No, something was there. I sensed it, like the tingle of a gaze on my back. Something was out there.

My mother would have advised caution. Packs of wolves were known to roam these lands and other things too. Bears, lynxes, vipers. All could attack an unprepared traveler. Daylight was not a friend to these creatures, but as the sky darkened, it was possible I was being hunted.

The feeling of being watched grew keener. Was I in danger? The rise of the soft hairs on my arms and the back of my neck told me I was, and that the danger was close.

My stomach rumbled again with hunger, but even the promise of sweet berries wasn’t enough to risk an attack. I broke into a run, back to Una and the druid and back to safety.

In my distraction, I’d forgotten how many ridges I’d crested. I passed one and then another, and they all looked the same. With each one, the sky darkened a little more and my fear heightened in kind. Finally—finally!—I came around a familiar bend and saw them, Una and the druid, kneeling beside my sister.

She sat upright, fully awake. I was so happy to see it, my fear melted on the spot.

“There you are, Eithne,” she snapped. “We thought we’d have to go looking for you.”

I stared at her, too elated to be insulted. “You’re awake.” It was obvious, of course, but I could still hardly believe it. She seemed completely restored. “How are you feeling?”

She hopped up to her feet and approached me. The limp was gone, and even in the twilight, I could see color had returned to her cheeks. “Rested and good as new,” she said. “Una said you were bringing back berries. You didn’t eat them all, did you?”

There was that reproach in her voice again. I searched Una’s expression for an explanation, but she looked as surprised as I was. The druid watched Cait but said nothing.

“I didn’t find them,” I said. “It was getting dark, so I came back. I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”

She stretched her arms at her sides and lolled her head. “Just needed a rest. I told Una that, but she doesn’t believe me.” She spun around to emphasize that Una had been wrong to worry. When she turned back, her good humor had returned. “I’m starving. There must be something to eat around here.”

“I can feed you,” the druid said.

I had my doubts. “The Romans burned everything. Is anything left?”

A new glimmer brightened the old man’s eye. “They burned what they could find. It was not everything.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The druid led Una, Cait, and me back to his village, but instead of descending the slope to what was left of the huts, he veered toward an outcropping along an adjacent hill.

He turned to Una and pointed at the rocky formation. “The caves are there.”

“I’ve never heard of any caves,” she countered.

He smirked. “Luckily for us, the Romans and their informants haven’t either. They are known only to a few. Soon, you’ll see why.”

“What do you mean?”

“Patience,” he told her and nothing more.

While we walked in silence, I focused on the horizon, searching for signs of the Romans and doing my best to think about anything but the empty pit in my stomach.

When we approached the outcropping, night was falling and with it a light shower that was making the dirt path muddy and slick. The druid hurried to a crevice where two massive granite boulders pressed against each other. Did he mean to use the small alcove as a shelter?

No, he pushed his staff through a dense ivy patch growing down one boulder’s face and slid it aside to reveal a hidden opening. He gestured for us to enter.

Cait went first. “A bit cramped, isn’t it?” she snapped, swiveling sideways so her shoulders wouldn’t scrape along the sides. “And dark.”

“Not for long,” he said. “Keep going.”

I went next then Una.

When the old man released the vines, eclipsing what little moonlight penetrated the space, inky darkness enveloped us.

“You should see the chamber soon,” he called out from behind.

“I can’t even see my hand in front of my face,” Cait yelled back. “How do you expect me to find a chamber?”

The druid mumbled a quiet incantation. Then, all around us, a soft, bluish light pierced through the rocky walls, as though the mineral veins themselves glowed. We followed the streaks deeper into the hillside until we came to the chamber. At least, that’s what I assumed it was. It was far larger than any chamber I’d ever seen.

In the center, three jagged spires of pink-tinged crystals rose almost to the towering ceiling. Water burbled from their tips and spilled into a shallow pool at their base. Like the veins in the earthen walls, the spires emitted a strange, incandescent glow.

How was it possible? I wanted to ask but there was too much more to see.

Adorning the smooth rock walls were woven mats depicting triskelia and braids in purple, blue, and aquamarine. I turned back to Una. “What is this place?”

She caught the druid’s eye. “Is it what I think it is?”

He offered one solemn nod.

“This is our most sacred and secret place,” she whispered. “The place of Convergence.” She turned back again to the druid. “I was told only the elders were permitted here.”

He looked around and shrugged. “We are the last. Does that not make us all elders? That is not why I brought you here, however. Come with me.”

He shambled past us and approached one of the purple tapestries. When he pushed it aside, it revealed an opening to another, smaller chamber.

We followed him inside. What a marvel this place was. “How is any of this possible?”

Una touched my shoulder. “So many things are possible when one is open to the wonders of this world.”

“That’s hardly helpful,” Cait said. “Right, Eithne?”

She wanted me to support her, as I usually did, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I’d seen more wonders today than I’d seen in my lifetime. Instead of answering, I followed Una into the smaller room.

The mineral streaks carried the same bluish light into the room, but there were no crystal spires or tapestries here. Only burlap sacks bulging with roots, tubers, and the like heaped in piles against the walls. A pallet of dried grasses, rushes, and animal furs formed a bed in a bare space among them.

Una’s gaze settled on the bed.

“This is where I have been sleeping,” the druid said, answering her silent question.

“And cooking?” Una moved to a patch of freshly turned dirt and poked it with her toe.

The mention of food made my stomach growl again.

“You are correct,” he added. “There are vents for an open flame, but an ember cook has been safer in these uncertain times. Better to keep the smoke to a minimum. Here.” He handed her a short, iron spade. “The embers may still be warm from this morning’s use. That pile of branches there can be used as fuel for the fire. The twigs and dried leaves are kindling, if necessary.”

“This should do quite nicely. She kneeled beside the cooking hole to dig out the loose earth. “Girls, gather a few tubers and brush away the dirt as best you can.”

“You’ll find onions there,” the druid pointed to a smaller sack, “and there’s a bit of salt in that jar.”

Una grabbed the baked clay canister from the small table and examined the contents. “This will do very well indeed.”

I had to agree. The cave was almost cozy, and far better than anything left in the village.

For the next hour, Cait gathered and cleaned a small basket of potatoes and carrots while I peeled the dry skins off several onions with her blade. By the time we finished, Una had produced a modest fire in the hole.

She moved the smoldering wood to one side and nestled the vegetables together on the other before filling the space with the dirt she’d piled neatly beside her. “There.” She patted the small mound when she was done. “In an hour or so, we’ll have a decent meal, despite a rather difficult day.”

I sat on the floor beside the cot, pulled the chalice to the side so my knees could reach my chest, and tried to rest. My sister and Una still wanted to talk about the Romans, especially Cait.

“What weapons did they use?” my sister asked the druid. “The gladius? Spears? We could have held them off if we had bows and arrows. The centurions are deadly at arm’s length but so clumsy at a distance. With a properly outfitted bow, I could take out half a legion myself. We never should have let them take us. We should have fought harder.”

I don’t know why Una was letting my sister ramble in front of the druid. Usually she quieted her when she got like this.

When the talk of fighting became too much to bear, I stood to stretch my legs.

“Are you all right?” Una asked. She’d noticed my agitation.

“I’m going to get some fresh air,” I replied. “I won’t be long.”

Una frowned, and I thought she was going to forbid it. Instead, she said, “Don’t wander far. We’ll be eating soon.”

Outside, a light rainstorm had passed, leaving a few clouds still stretched across the twinkling stars. The chill that had settled over the slopes made me glad for the cloak, and I pulled it tight around myself as I navigated the puddles along the path.

Despite the dark and the cold, it was a relief to be away from my sister’s endless talk of returning to our village to avenge our mother’s death.

I mourned her too, but couldn’t Cait see that returning would only ensure our death as well? Una was trying to be the voice of reason, but how long could she listen to my sister’s relentless call for violence? She had always been quick to anger and aggression, but this was something else. I suppose if I’d nearly been impaled on a Roman blade, I might be hungry for revenge as well.

Perhaps it was her way of grieving for our mother. To be fair, it was probably what Boudica would have done herself. Cait always took after her that way.

Not me. I was always the quiet one, the sensitive one, the other one. Mother said I took after my father. I didn’t think so. He was not especially quiet or sensitive. He was less prone to violence, that was true. He preferred to keep the peace by seeking a mutual understanding, to negotiate with an enemy toward compromise.

I was not nearly so diplomatic. I merely kept to myself. I found I could do what I wanted and with more ease when I didn’t stir up a fuss like my sister. When I sought companionship, I could find it among the servants. They knew all the best gossip. To be fair, they knew everything. My sister would have died of shame a thousand times over if she were aware of all they knew. I might have too, but my life was not nearly as adventurous—or scandalous—as hers.

As the heir, she was the one with the suitors and the visitors seeking to curry favor. I was merely an afterthought. Free to remain in the shadows, unnoticed and unencumbered, as long as I kept out of trouble.

That was always my preference, anyway.

Let Cait have the attention. Let her have those obligations. I was happier in my own chamber or chatting with the maids and cooks and other servants in the hearth house. I was happy to remain in the background.

I suppose that’s what unsettled me most. Cait was still the focus of attention; she was a leader. But now what was I?

Was I still a daughter of privilege? Was I a fugitive? We had fled the Romans for the safety of the druids, only to find them gone. There was no safety here, and even if my sister wanted to talk about revenge and raising armies, I knew it was pointless. With a clarity I’d never had before, I knew her way would only lead to more destruction, our own and what remained of our people.

I knew it with absolute certainty, just as I knew I was no longer out here on this hill alone.

At first I believed the presence must be Una or Cait, come to collect me. But no, this was someone I didn’t know. The longer I remained focused on this presence, more information flowed into me. This person was watching me, with… Was it suspicion?

No, not suspicion, but with interest.

He was looking for something. He? Yes, it was a man, and that realization sent a fresh wave of pinpricks along my limbs. Though I didn’t say a word, he sensed my alarm.

A twig snapped. A foot squished into a muddy puddle. A sigh escaped into the breeze. He knew I heard him working his way closer; he knew I was afraid.

I caught sight of him in a sliver of moonlight between two trees. It was a man with a dark hood and gloves, and around his shoulders hung a cloak. A black cloak with gray trim.

It was the man I’d seen from my window and hiding in the shadows of our stronghold. A spy, or worse.

Without a plan and without a second thought, I lifted both sides of my skirts and ran.

The stranger darted after me. To evade him, I pushed through a patch of thick shrubs, but even when I thought I was in the clear, he was never far behind. Every time I paused, I sensed him near, just out of sight.

Was it a Roman tracker? An assassin? It was too late for me, but I could still lead him away from the others. I could still save them. I ran past trees and boulders, thankful for the meager moonlight that kept me from crashing into either. It wasn’t long, though, before my chest heaved and my limbs burned.

When I fell into a ravine, I knew it was the end. My end. I surrendered to each roll and tumble, every collision of my back, my limbs, my side against the hillside.

As consciousness drifted away from me, I knew it was my final moment in this life.

I prepared to meet the gods, though my thoughts turned again to Una and Cait. To Mother. The prospect of a reunion with her was a comfort as I slipped farther and farther from this world.

Until something pulled me back.

How long had I been gone? Moments? Hours? I hardly knew. I was only aware of a white light hovering over me. A pinprick in the black that was growing larger until it wasn’t a pinprick at all, but a dragonfly shining with brilliant iridescence.

What strange world was this where a simple, fluttering creature glowed brighter than the stars?

“I don’t think she’s hurt. We’ll know soon enough.”

The creature spoke? The shock of it nearly sent me into another swoon, but no. It wasn’t the insect. The shadows beside that luminous needle resolved into the shape of a man. He was bending down and reaching out to me.

“Here, take my hand.”

It was a man’s voice. Deep but not old, like the druid, nor a boy. It was strong and determined, but anxious too, if my hearing served.

“I can nearly reach her. If you could help with that vine there.”

My eyes were open, but the shadows were playing tricks because it looked as though the dragonfly lifted an ivy vine from the steep hillside and carried it until it was within the man’s grasp. He grabbed the vine, wound it twice around his hand, and it seemed to steady him.

“Much better. Thank you,” he said. He leaned farther and grabbed my hand.

The moonlight outlined his full lips, surrounded by a short, trim mustache and beard, but the rest was hidden in the darkness beneath his hood.

Every part of me ached to leap up and run, and I would have, but I was at his mercy. “Who are you?” I demanded, as though I had a right to demand anything in my vulnerable state.

“My lady, it appears you’re right. I should not have doubted it.”

“I am not your lady,” I shot back. “I am the daughter of King Prasutagus and Queen Boudica, the first of my name and second in line to rule the Iceni kingdom.”

I braced for my immediate death.

Or an apology.

I was not prepared for laughter.

“Do I amuse you?” I groused.

He tightened his grip around my wrist and gently pulled till I was sitting upright. I shook off his hand as soon as I had my balance.

He pulled back and considered me. His dark eyes roamed over me in a way that made me shift uneasily.

“I’m amused because I wasn’t speaking to you.”

I searched the surrounding area. “There are others here? You’ve brought friends to help take me down? One girl is too much for you, then?”

“Yes, she does have a way about her, doesn’t she? Perhaps her sister is not the headstrong one after all.”

I hit the dirt with both fists. “Who are you speaking to? Who is there?”

The strange insect, who I’d almost forgotten in my rage, swooped in front of me, nearly brushing across my nose. I batted it away.

“Careful with those hands,” the man cautioned. “You don’t want to hurt her.”

I stopped swatting at the air. “Her? The dragonfly?”

“Believe me, she’s no mere dragonfly. She sent me to help you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

I rubbed the back of my head and wondered if I’d struck a rock. The motion dislodged a number of twigs and leaves, along with a clump of dirt, but nothing felt amiss. Still, I must have hit something because this stranger’s words made no earthly sense. “Did you say the dragonfly asked you to help me?”

He crouched and the moonlight caught the side of his face. He was no Roman. His cheeks and the side of his neck bore the markings of the northern tribes, though not any I recognized. His hair was dark, and it curled about his ears beneath his hood. I must have been staring at the bronze clasp adorned with druidic spirals because he glanced at it too. He slipped off one leather glove and touched the metal. “Are you familiar with the design?”

I shook my head. The spiral looked like many I’d seen, but it didn’t mean he was an ally. He might be a spy, a traitor, even a thief. Whatever he was, I didn’t trust him.

He glanced up at the dragonfly, which was darting about in wild circles above us. “We’ll be fine. Yes, I’ll be sure she makes the journey. Do what you must.”

At that, the odd insect flew away.

“She talks to you?” I lost sight of her in the shadows.

“You could say that.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “We should get back. The others will be wondering where you are, and, if I’m not mistaken, there are potatoes to be eaten.”

“Did the dragonfly tell you that?”

He chuckled as he stood, adjusting his cloak to fall over one shoulder. “She didn’t have to. I smelled them at the cave.”

He’d been there? I watched him, trying to decide whether I should go with him or try again to run.

“I suppose you want to know why I followed you.”

Once I was upright, I straightened to my full height and did my best to exude the dignity of my station. Mother would expect that. I might be a girl covered in dirt and leaves, but I was a royal daughter. “I’d like to know many things. That is certainly one of them.”

He cleared his throat. “Of course, Your Highness, but perhaps it would be best to explain it to all of you at once. Let me assure you, however, I mean no harm. My purpose is only to help. Shall we make our way back to the others?”

He held out his hand to help me up the steep incline. I stared at that hand, still free of its glove. The long fingers were thick and rough from difficult work. Not a cleric’s hands and certainly not a nobleman’s, either. Who was he? I still had no solid answers, but I also knew it would be futile to run. My choices narrowed down to two: return with him by choice or be dragged back under duress.

“I shall go with you.”

His eyebrows spiked. He’d expected me to fight. If I were my sister, I suppose I would have.

But I was not my sister.

As we made our way back to the cave, I kept a furtive eye on him, trying to discern his trustworthiness. I caught him watching me as well, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his mind.

When we had nearly reached the hidden entrance to the cave, I held back.

He was a few paces ahead of me when he stopped as well. “Are you wondering if I know the way?”

I stared back. “Do you?”

He smirked and shook his head. “Why did you return with me if you still think I am a danger?”

“What choice did I have?”

He pushed back his hood and ran his fingers through that wild mane. “We all make choices. Every day we make so many choices, and rarely do we know if they’re right or wrong, or whether they matter or they don’t. But I’ll tell you this: Every choice is sacred. Every decision is a step on the journey of your life, and only you can decide where that journey will take you.”

“Are you a vagabond or a philosopher?”

“Neither. Maybe both. Who’s to say?” He bent to pick up a stick from the side of the path and poked it into the vines, just as the druid had done with his staff, and parted them.

So, he was telling the truth. Now I wanted to know what else he knew.

“I should enter first,” I said.

He stood aside and motioned for me to enter.

We had almost reached the crystal room when Cait met us in the tunnel, her fists on her hips. “Do you know how long you’ve been—”

She stopped at the sight of the man behind me. In an instant, her blade was in her hand, and she crouched for a fight.

“No, Cait.” I held out both hands, urging her back. “He says he’s here to help.”

Una appeared behind Cait. “Who is this?”

The stranger stepped to the side so Una could see him. He dipped his head to show respect. “I am Laisren of Mona. The Lady of the Fayte foretold of your distress and sent me to escort you to the Safe Lands.”

Moments later, we were sitting in the back room on mats, sharing the cooked roots and tubers Una had dug from the embers. We peeled away the rough skin to remove the dirt and ash and dined on the steaming meal.

“Tell us about the lady you mentioned.” Una had shown the stranger every hospitality, but now that he was comfortable with food before him, it was time for explanations.

Cait sat across from him, watching every move.

He lowered his potato. “She is known to us as the Lady of the Fayte, but she said you would know her as Druansha or the Maiden.”

Una’s gaze snapped to the old druid. His movements were so slow and deliberate, it was difficult to know whether this surprised him at all.

Cait was the one to respond. “What do you know of the Maiden?” She leaned forward with something like a sneer on her lips.

Una frowned at her and gently shook her head. To our guest, she said, “Forgive her. She takes matters concerning the Maiden quite seriously. We all do.”

Laisren’s gaze lingered on my sister for a moment before sliding back to Una. “As do I, I assure you.”

At the back of the room, the old druid cleared his throat. It was a long, drawn out process typical of older men. “Mona, you say? You journeyed from there? How long since?”

“Many moons now. I was sent to the Iceni lands after the Queen and her daughters were captured. I hastened my pace when I met your brethren along the road.”

The old druid’s eyes widened. “You saw my people, did you? How do I know you speak the truth?”

Laisren took another bite of potato and swallowed it. “They were in good spirits when I found them, and they told me they had enjoyed a peaceful journey, at least to that point. When I told them my destination, they bade me to find you and beg you again to reconsider your decision to stay behind.”

Gledruith dismissed the words with a wave of his hand and returned his attention to his own helping of mash. “Yes, that’s exactly what they would say.”

I knew I was expected to sit silently while the elders decided what was to be done. Una practically screamed that at me with every piercing look. But I had reached the limit of my patience.

“Tell them about the dragonfly. Tell them what you told me about that peculiar friend of yours.”

Una and the old druid—and even Cait, for that matter—leaned forward, curious.

“Did you say dragonfly?” the old druid asked.

Laisren shoveled more food into his mouth. When he’d swallowed and everyone was still looking at him, waiting for his response, he sighed. “She is a friend. You might say she is a messenger. She delivers… well, messages. From the Lady of the Fayte.”

“Druansha’s messenger?” The old druid’s eyes locked on Laisren.

The younger man nodded.

Gledruith leaned back and closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them again. “I’ve heard stories of the dragonfly. I’ve heard…” His voice trailed off.

I wanted to shake him awake. What had he been about to say? Una watched him too, and I thought she would demand he continue. Instead, she turned to the newcomer.

“If you’ve come to help, what kind of help can you possibly provide?”

He set down his empty potato husk and wiped his fingers across his lips. He seemed to be stalling, then finally he met Cait’s glare squarely. “The Romans plan to attack this place at first light, so you need to be far from here if you want to survive. I’m here to help you escape.”

Cait sneered. “Why should we believe that?”

I wasn’t surprised by her skepticism, but Una and the druid looked wary too.

The distrust hardly seemed to faze Laisren. He picked up another potato and peeled away the papery skin. “The Lady of the Fayte told us of your plight. My brethren and me. I’m only here at her urging.”

Gledruith straightened. “Druansha told you?”

Laisren ignored the challenge in the old man’s voice. “The Druid Circle communicates with the Lady every New Moon,” he said, “when the veil is thinnest between our worlds. She foresaw the trouble and sent me.”

The old druid grunted but said nothing more.

“If only there were some way to verify your claim.” Una leaned back and shook her head as though she had already decided.

Undeterred, Laisren reached beneath his collar and pulled out a black leather cord that hung around his neck. At the end of it hung a violet crystal.

I had never seen anything like it, but the old druid’s eyes glimmered with recognition.

Laisren held the crystal high and watched the way the light from Una’s small fire played along its facets. “This stone has been dipped in the waters of the Lady’s land. She calls it a Faytling, and it was given to me to aid my search for you.” He walked it to the old man, who accepted it like a sacred relic.

“A Faytling, you say?” Gledruith marveled at the pendant. “It’s quite fetching.”

“It’s more than that. It can enhance certain gifts and act as a beacon for the Lady.”

“Is that so?” The old man lifted it to examine it from every angle.

“Is this trinket meant to convince us?” My sister’s barbed tone made it clear she was not convinced.

“Would it be better for me to give you some reassurance that the covenant between your mother and the Lady—”

“Her name is Druansha,” Cait snapped.

“That the covenant between your mother and Druansha is still in effect? I believe there might be some concern on your part about that?”

Cait looked at Una, whose expression betrayed nothing.

“Who told you about the covenant?” Una was trying to keep her voice calm, but I heard the undercurrent of concern.

Laisren shook his head. “My lady, what have I been telling you?”

One side of her mouth tucked up, and that’s when I knew he had won her over. “Yes, all right then. So blood was exchanged and the covenant is intact, so what now? How do you propose we fend off a legion of centurions in the morning?”

“We leave this place,” he said directly. “We put as much distance between us and the Romans as we can and as soon as possible.” He shrugged his cloak over both shoulders as though he were ready to set off this instant and expected us to be as well.

Una didn’t move, so no one else did, either. “The girls cannot undertake such a journey until they’ve had proper rest.”

“Was I not clear? Roman centurions will be here soon after first light, and they will not care who is rested and who is not.”

“I understand that.” Una rose sharply to her feet. “But it has been a long and tumultuous day. If the Romans are not coming until morning, give the girls a few hours to rest, and we can still be on our way before sunrise.”

Laisren glared at her. An argument seemed to work through him, yet he relented. “We must leave well before sunrise. As soon after midnight as possible.” He watched Una, waiting for another protest.

She nodded and turned to us. “There are blankets there. Wrap yourselves and get some sleep. It’ll be warmest by the fire.”

Cait’s fingers twitched near the hilt of her blade. “I think I’d prefer to go our own way. Who’s to say he won’t lead us directly into the Romans’ hands and take payment for it?”

That thought had crossed my mind as well, but the man knew about the blood covenant. He knew about Druansha. If she had sent him to help us, as he professed, how could we refuse it?

“I think we should go with him.” I hadn’t realized I’d said the words aloud until every head turned in my direction. Every eye fixed on me where I sat.

“What did you say?” Cait glowered at me. She wanted me to recant. She wanted me to follow her lead as I always had.

This time, I couldn’t do it.

“I believe he speaks the truth,” I said, “and I believe our only chance to survive tomorrow is to do as he says. He’s here to help, and we should accept it. I don’t even know how to get to Mona. Do you?”

Cait turned to the old druid. She was going to suggest he be our guide. But he was already shaking his head.

“Fine,” she said in a huff. “I hope we don’t come to regret this.” She grabbed a blanket and stretched out beside the fire, turning her back to us.

I waited for Una to take Cait’s side, as she usually did. Instead, she grabbed another blanket and handed it to me. Her gaze weighed heavily with concern. “Do you truly believe this is the right path?”

The question surprised me. She had never sided with me before. I pulled the blanket over my shoulders and thought about the question. Was I sure? I glanced at Laisren. That new voice inside me was saying yes, he was telling the truth. But there was something else as well. “I saw the dragonfly with him. I’m putting my trust in her.”

Una nodded. She was putting her trust in me.

CHAPTER NINE

It must have been after midnight when Laisren shook me awake. “We must leave. Now.”

Once my eyes fluttered open, he moved on to my sister.

I rolled onto my back and wondered how long I’d slept. It couldn’t have been long, for the embers of the fire were still smoldering.

He nudged Cait’s shoulder. “Time to make our way.”

“Touch me again, ruffian, and you’ll lose that hand.” My sister didn’t sound sleepy in the slightest. She’d probably been lying awake for hours, plotting her next move.

I wondered if she intended to share her plans with me.

“Please, Cait,” Una said, exhaustion weighing on her words. “It’s too early for threats.” She sat up, grabbed the leather cord beside her, and wound it around her loose, silver hair.

Laisren paced near the doorway. “I’ve been down the hill. The Romans just lighted their morning fires. It’ll take them at least an hour to arm and make ready. Another hour to get up the hill. That should give us time to put a good distance between us, but only if we leave now.”

Una swung her tethered hair to her back and went to the platter of uneaten tubers. She grabbed what was left and stuffed them into the satchel she’d tied to her belt. “We’ll be ready. Won’t we, dear hearts?”

I folded the blanket that had kept me warm through the night and grabbed the chalice I’d set nearby.

“What’s the point of keeping that old thing?” my sister grumbled. “She’s gone. It won’t change anything.”

To be honest, I didn’t know why I was holding on to it. I just couldn’t leave it behind. “It’s all we have left,” I said. “And it reminds me of her.”

Cait made a face and kicked her blanket to the wall before murmuring something under her breath. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I didn’t have to. I knew her meaning: another useless sentiment.

Una collected our cloaks and handed them out. Cait and I accepted ours, but the old druid waved his off.

“I am not leaving,” he said.

The rest of us stared at him.

“You cannot stay here,” Una said. “They will find you, and they will kill you, but only after they force you to tell them where the others have gone. They’ll hunt them down and kill them too.”

Gledruith shook his head. “I’ve hidden from the Romans before, I can do so again. They will not find me. I know this land better than anyone.”

Una wrestled with her thoughts for a moment. “But we need you.”

“No, my dear.” His chin sank to his chest. “It is kind of you to say so, but you do not need me. Laisren will get you to the Safe Lands.”

She went to his side and kneeled. She touched his knee as she had touched my Mother’s knee. “Then I will stay as well. The girls don’t need me. They can go with Laisren. I will stay with you.”

Laisren moved to interrupt. Una raised her palm to stop him.

The old man shook his head. “The offer is much appreciated, but you are not needed here. You are very much needed in Mona, however. I have seen this in my dreams. Be strong and be brave. That is what the visions tell me.”

Una took his hand in both of hers and bent her head. She didn’t speak, but the shuddering of her chest betrayed powerful sobs.

The old druid bent his lips to her ear and whispered something only she could hear. When he pulled away, she nodded and wiped her tears. She gave his hand a last squeeze and pulled away. “Yes, of course, you’re right. That is how it must be.” She went to the sack filled with what remained of the previous night’s meal, pulled out three potatoes, and left them on the table.

“Take them,” the Gledruith said. “I have plenty. Please take whatever you can carry, as well. Provisions may be scarce along the way.”

“Thank you, sir,” Laisren said and grabbed another sack. He filled it eagerly with more tubers and some onions.

Una gave him a disapproving look that he shrugged off.

“You two,” Laisren said, indicating my sister and me, “fill your satchels. Our host is right. There’s no guarantee we’ll find enough to sustain us along the way. Anything we can bring will help. You don’t strike me as a pair who are used to hunger.”

“You know nothing about us,” my sister shot back.

He ignored her and threw his sack over his back. I filled my satchel and tied it to my belt. Cait, despite her rage, did the same before stomping to the door.

I’d never been embarrassed by my sister before, but I was now. I wanted to call after her and tell her to at least thank our host, but I feared doing so would only bring more attention to her rude behavior. Instead, I went to the druid myself and bowed. “Thank you for sharing your shelter and your food with us. May the gods smile on you and keep you safe.”

He patted my hand. “The gods have already smiled upon me, child. May they do the same for you. You have a long journey ahead. Very long, indeed.”

“Thank you, sir.” I hurried to join the others, but his words stayed with me. Even as we made our way to the outer hills with only the stars and the moon to light our way, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we might never see him or these lands again.

“Stay together!” Laisren barked the order as we trudged along the narrow dirt path that skirted a rocky hill. We’d been walking for hours, but the dark night sky was only beginning to give way to the cool gray of morning. “I’m going ahead to check on the Romans’ progress. They may be close to reaching the druid village.”

“I’ll go with you,” Cait said.

The way he stared back at her, I expected him to refuse. Instead, he gritted his teeth. “Fine. As long as you’re quick and quiet and don’t get in my way.”

The look on Cait’s face sent icicles down my spine. “I wouldn’t dream of causing you any trouble, ruffian,” she replied in a saccharin tone.

If he noticed her sarcasm, he didn’t show it. Instead, he pointed ahead. “The stream runs that way, but a better path veers to the west.” He bent down and drew the configuration in the dirt with a stick. “Keep following it, and she”—he jerked his head toward Cait—“and I will find you. Be sure to stay on the path.” He glanced at my sister, who had wandered away. He shook his head and hurried after her.

I almost pitied him, having to deal with this mood of hers.

Still, it was a relief to be free of her for a while.

“I’m glad we have a moment alone,” Una said as we walked side by side, watching the light push back the darkness.

“You are?” I blurted the words indelicately. Her preference for my sister was no secret. She always favored Cait and did her best to placate her whenever she slipped into one of her moods. I suppose it was expected, since my sister was the heir.

“I’m worried about Cait.”

Of course. This was still about my sister.

“She’s quicker to anger. Have you noticed it?”

“Can you blame her? She lost her mother, and we’re running for our lives. Not to mention she was savagely attacked. It’s a wonder she has any fight left in her at all.” Was I really defending my sister’s behavior?

“Yes, it is surprising. Worrisome, even. Did you know the wound she suffered has healed entirely? You saw it. I thought there was no hope for it. Gledruith thought the same. We let her rest beside the tree, and not more than a hour later, she stirred. I went to refresh the bandage, and while there was still blood, the skin had knitted itself back completely. When I wiped it clean, you could see no trace of the wound at all.”

“Perhaps the druid performed his magic.” Isn’t that what druids did? No one really understood their powers to heal.

“He told me he did nothing. There wasn’t time.”

“Perhaps the wound wasn’t as bad as we thought.”

Una looked at me.

“Yes, you’re right. I saw it. It was bad.”

“I believe it is the blood covenant,” she whispered. “It must be. Gledruith agrees.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you noticed anything else out of the ordinary? High emotions? Unusual strength? Anything?”

Those were the gifts Druansha had given my mother: the courage and strength to stand against the Romans. They were the gifts she’d hoped to pass to Cait and me through her blood.

“I feel nothing different.” But was that true? There were moments that stood out… the strange understanding of the herbs in the druid’s hut, the awareness that Druansha had warned them to leave. I pushed those thoughts aside. They were only suspicions.

We approached a tree that had fallen across the path. I went first and helped Una over.

“I sense a change in you both,” Una said when her feet were back on the ground. “Cait is too hot-headed, too prone to violence. It is not a good trait for a leader.”

She paused. I looked back to find her watching me.

“What are you saying, Una?”

“Gledruith saw it too. In his dreams. He told me as we left.”

The furtive whispers as we left. That sadness in Una’s eye.

She was waiting for me to ask. She wanted to tell me, but I didn’t want to know. I wanted things to be the way they were, the way they had always been. I was comfortable hiding behind Cait and letting her lead the way. I wanted that old life.

But that would not stop Una from telling me what she had to say. She touched my arm, perhaps to steady me, or perhaps to stop me from running away. “Our future, whatever it holds, is up to you, dear heart. That’s what I’m trying to say. The blood covenant has fallen to you.”

I stared at her. How could she say such a thing? “You’ve got it wrong.”

She tightened her grip on my arm and locked on my gaze. “Your sister cannot be the bearer. You see it yourself. The blood has changed her but not for the better.”

I yanked back my arm. How dare she speak that way of Cait, the firstborn. The rightful heir. What did this old woman know about anything? She didn’t understand what my mother’s blood was doing to us. Only Druansha could know that, and where was she now? She had cared enough for my mother to help her in her time of need, but what of us? We still needed her, and she was… nowhere.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped. “Cait has always been destined to lead our people, and nothing has changed that.” My heels pounded against the earth as I stormed away, leaving Una behind me and, I hoped, leaving my own doubts behind as well.

We continued that way, Una and I, for some time. Me marching ahead, anger powering every step, and her keeping her distance behind me. She might have been angry herself, or disappointed, or something else entirely. I told myself I didn’t care.

But I had to repeat it again and again to stop myself from turning back.

When I was on the verge of apologizing, I noticed movement ahead. A man was coming toward us, silhouetted against the brightening sky. I would have been alarmed if he didn’t have a familiar cloak swaying behind him. Laisren was back, just as he said he would be.

But where was Cait?

As he neared, he waved wildly at us. Was he motioning us to go back? Why? I turned to see if Una had spotted him too.

“Something’s wrong,” she said, trotting up beside me.

Then I saw Cait coming around the bend. She was running.

He was near enough to call out, so why didn’t he? Why was he frantically but silently gesturing? When he was only a few paces away, he called out a single order in a raspy whisper, “Go back. Go back to the stream.”

Una stopped. “Why? What happened?”

“Romans ahead,” Cait yelled, her manner not nearly as panicked as Laisren’s. She turned to him with a sneer. “We could have cut their throats before they even knew we were there, but the ruffian didn’t have the nerve.”

“Two, three throats at most, and then they’d have us. Your sister and your governess would have walked into their trap, and they’d have them as well. Is that how you want your mother’s legacy to end?”

Cait pulled out her blade and flashed its sharp edge at him. “Speak to me that way again. I dare you.”

I stared at her, horrified. “Cait, you don’t mean that.”

When she looked at me, I expected her to flash that dagger at me. The shadow I caught in her eye made me wonder if she was considering it.

Una frowned at me and shook her head. I could almost read her thoughts: Now is not the time to fight among ourselves.

No good would come from challenging my sister, so I turned to Laisren. “Where are the Romans?”

He was bent over his knees, trying to catch his breath. “Next ridge over. They’re hidden among the rocks where the path slices through a narrow pass. There’s no way to get through without their notice, and we’re defenseless against them. We must go back and take the path over the ridge.”

“You need rest,” I said. It was clear he wouldn’t make it another ten feet if he didn’t.

“There’s no time for that,” Cait jeered. “I’m sure they saw us. There must be forty of them, and they aren’t far. We’ll have to fight whether we like it or not.”

“You’re right,” Laisren said, standing and looking more in control of his faculties. “I’ll fight while you take your sister and Una back to the other path. Head over the ridge; I’ll catch up.”

“I’m not leaving. I can fight.” Cait took a defensive stand, as though the Romans were already upon us.

Laisren pulled out that violet stone from beneath his collar. He lifted it to the rays of the sun, which seemed to make it glow. “This will hold them off. You go with your family.”

“How is that going to do anything?” I demanded, but I had to admit, I’d never seen a crystal glow that way.

“Trust me.” His eyes focused on the stone. “But you must go before they see you. They cannot know which direction you’ve gone.”

Cait remained crouched. “I’m staying.”

The rumble of marching feet rose above the ambient forest sounds.

“Come now, dear one,” Una begged. “Your sister and I need you.”

Cait’s haughty expression softened. Doubt flashed across her face.

“Yes, Cait. Please come.” I hoped I still had some sway on my sister’s heart.

“But…” she turned back toward the army of marching feet and gripped her dagger.

Laisren lifted the Faytling higher and muttered words I didn’t understand. As he did, wisps of pink and lavender light shot from the stone.

Like Cait and Una, I froze, mesmerized by the tendrils tangling about his hand and arm.

“What magic is that?” It was unlike anything the druid had conjured, unlike anything I’d ever seen.

Laisren’s eyes shone with the same brilliance as the stone. Whatever magic was in that crystal now filled him, making him a powerful and frightening sight. “Run!” he yelled at us, but it was hardly necessary. We were already running for our lives.

CHAPTER TEN

We ran as fast as our tired feet would carry us, as fast as our exhaustion allowed, and we didn’t look back. With the chalice bouncing against my hip and my chest heaving, all I could think about was the relentless thump-thump of the centurion ranks bearing down on Laisren.

Why was he staying behind?

The question swirled around me like an angry phantom. Then I heard a war cry, a primal scream like nothing I’d ever heard before. Looking back was pointless. We’d already rounded the bend, and the hillside now eclipsed our view of him.

Should I go back to help? Should we all go back? Every fiber in my body told me it was the right thing to do, but he’d been so adamant we leave.

As I struggled with what to do, a powerful gust from behind knocked me to my knees. I staggered back to my feet and saw I wasn’t alone.

“What was that?” Cait dusted the dirt from her limbs and seemed as annoyed by the gust as she’d been at Laisren.

Una rose more slowly. Her attention was on the copse of trees that separated us from him. Each one had broken in half, the tops all lying in orderly lines. What could have caused such powerful destruction?

“Girls, keep moving.” Una rushed by and waved us onward. I wanted to know what had happened, but the fear on her face told me this wasn’t the time.

To Cait’s credit, she didn’t argue. She hurried with us as we made our way back to the forked path. On our new route, we passed through the meadow and stuck close to the trees, seeking the safety of their shadows but knowing there was something out there far more powerful than that.

I considered this in silence, as we all did, waiting and bracing for the sound of the centurions’ footfalls.

It wasn’t until the sun had reached its peak and we had crested the next ridge with no sign of our enemy that we finally breathed easier.

Still, we proceeded with caution as the land sloped downward and spread into a vast and grassy plain. From our vantage point, we could see the stream after the next pass. When we emerged on the other side, the northern lands finally came into view.

What a sight they were. I’d never been farther than a league beyond our stronghold, and it surprised me how different it appeared. The hills were steeper and the slopes rockier, with fewer trees and moors that stretched far into the distance.

The more I saw, the more I marveled. Each landscape was unique yet similar to the others, like tapestries woven separately but still united by a common weaver’s hand.

How much more, I wondered, was there to see?

When the sun dipped in the west, the three of us stopped in a clearing to rest our feet. Una portioned out some of the cooked tubers, and we ate in silence. No one had the will or energy to speak, and no one could bear to ask the question burning through us all: What had become of Laisren?

I might have drifted off to a midafternoon nap if a flock of birds hadn’t chosen that moment to take off in a mighty whoosh from a nearby glen we’d already passed.

Something had startled them, but what?

“Shh!” Cait demanded, though no one had said a word, and she jumped to her feet with her dagger bared. She hunched in a shadow and craned her neck to check the path.

I knew what she was thinking because I was thinking it too: the Romans were near.

I crept behind my sister to see for myself.

“Come back. You’ll be seen,” Una hissed. She had good reason to be afraid. We all did. If the Romans could strike down Laisren, what hope did we have against them?

Yet Cait would not let that stop her from putting up a fight. She braced at the first sight of a figure moving in the distance.

We waited for the rest of the regiment, but there was only one and a wavering gait suggested injury.

Only when he emerged into the daylight and his black cloak swung around did I see the intruder was Laisren.

I ran to him, ignoring Cait’s shouted warnings. I knew I shouldn’t show myself in the open that way. I knew it could be a trap, but I didn’t care.

This man had saved us. He had held back the Romans. I knew it without a doubt. I could feel it in my bones and in my heart. He was the reason we weren’t now shackled and locked in cages, and it was clear to anyone with eyes that he needed help.

“Are you hurt?” I searched for blood and signs of injury.

He held his right arm cradled in his left, and I could see the violet stone he’d called a Faytling gripped in his fist.

He didn’t answer or even look at me. It seemed to take every ounce of his strength to keep moving. I inched closer and tried again. “What can I do to help?”

Still no answer.

I didn’t wait for one. I moved in beside him and wrapped my left arm around his torso. He slumped against me. That was answer enough.

Together, we maneuvered back to the safety of the trees, where Cait and Una waited. With their help, I lowered him to the ground and propped him against a sturdy trunk.

I couldn’t help but stare. What had happened to him, this strong and clever man that never showed fear? His lips, which had been pink and full when we last saw him, were now dry and chapped, and his right hand, the one holding the stone, was battered and bruised.

Una dribbled water onto his lips, and the sharp knob of his Adam’s apple bobbed, a hopeful sign that at least some of the liquid was making its way down his throat.

She paused. “There’s more when you need it,” she whispered.

He remained still, as though he’d fallen asleep.

I moved closer and tugged his cloak over his shoulders, though it wasn’t cold. Actually, the afternoon sun had warmed considerably, but I had to do something. I wanted to be helpful, even if I didn’t know how.

Cait stood over him with her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you catch up to us? We thought you were dead, especially after that… what was it?”

Laisren twitched but otherwise didn’t move.

I tried to push her back. “Cait, maybe you should let him—”

His moan stopped me. I leaned closer. “What is it? We’re listening.”

Weak fingers curled around mine. “The Faytling. Too powerful. Too close.”

I looked to Una and Cait. Had they understood his meaning? It made no sense to me.

He touched his forehead and rubbed the spot between his brows. “It was too powerful, and I was too close.” He coughed again and his chest heaved. When the fit passed, his eyes closed, and he seemed to melt against the tree.

The three of us sat with him, waiting for him to speak again. But he didn’t. He hardly moved at all. There was only the slight rise and fall of his chest, and an almost imperceptible snore.

“Leave him to rest,” Una urged. “That’s what he needs.”

Cait rose and kicked the dirt. “If we’re going to be stuck here, I’m going to have a look around.”

Una grimaced. “Don’t wander far.”

We both knew the warning was pointless. Cait would do whatever she pleased.

Hours later, when the sun was setting behind the western hills, Laisren finally awoke, but Cait had still not returned. The worry lines deepened along Una’s cheeks, but she said nothing. Instead, she pulled out tubers from her bag for us to eat and offered Laisren more water.

As we sat together, waiting for my sister, I wrapped the uneaten half of my tuber in a fresh leaf, the cleanest I could find, and tucked it back in Una’s satchel as I worked up the courage to ask Laisren the question we’d all been wondering. When I couldn’t wait another moment, I asked, “That stone, did it topple the trees?”

“It did,” he said.

I already knew the answer deep inside, yet I struggled to believe it. “How? It seems impossible.”

He stared at his tuber for a long moment then nodded. “It seems impossible, but that doesn’t stop it from being so.”

The answer didn’t satisfy me. “It knocked all of us down too, and we weren’t anywhere near you.”

“You were lucky you were not.” He stared hard at the potato.

“Is that how you were injured?”

He sighed. “I told you the Faytling enhances natural gifts, but it has other uses as well. They can be called upon by those who know them, but those uses exact a price. This was mine.”

“Show me how to use it.”

Cait’s appearance beside the tree’s wide trunk and her blunt demand startled me.

“When did you return?” I demanded. I wondered if she was coming back at all.

“Maybe an hour ago. Didn’t you know I was here?” She came around to join us, and her smirk was proof enough that she’d been hiding from us on purpose.

“Are you hungry?” Una asked. I knew she wanted to reprimand Cait, but we both knew Cait was beyond shame.

“No. There are some lovely berry bushes up that way. I must have eaten a bushel.”

My mouth watered at the thought of plump, sweet berries.

Una asked, “Did you bring any back with you?”

My sister’s expression twisted, like our governess had suggested she bathe in mud. “I’m not your servant. I told you where they are.”

Una shook her head and finished tying the food satchel.

I, however, couldn’t let the nasty remark go unchallenged. I wheeled on Cait, even as a tiny voice inside told me my instincts would only worsen the situation.

Laisren must have heard my inner voice too because he rose and dusted off his trousers, showing more signs of vigor than he had all afternoon. “The sun’s going down,” he said before I could speak my mind to my sister. “It’s time to get moving if we want to get to Mona by week’s end.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Laisren grew stronger as we pressed onward. It wasn’t long before he was back to his old self, grumbling about the need to move faster and threatening to leave behind anyone who lagged.

By now, we knew it was bluster. After a few days, he was almost pleasant, despite Una’s empty food satchel. To compensate, we nibbled on whatever berries, dandelion leaves, and wild onions we could find. He never complained.

The same could not be said for Cait. She reminded us several times a day she was capable of trapping a tasty hare or fowl.

“The smoke and glow from a fire would give us away,” he said apologetically, though I wasn’t sure why. Our meals might be limited, but we were alive, thanks to him. He knew the roads well enough to navigate them by the moonlight. He knew where it was safe to rest among the trees during the day. And it was his Faytling magic that had saved us from the Romans.

Cait didn’t see it that way, and it didn’t stop her complaints. When she wasn’t peeved at being hungry, she was sulking because she hadn’t been allowed to attack the Romans. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen her smile. When I looked at her now, I hardly recognized her.

Her dour moods seemed to wear on Una most of all. Maybe that’s why she pulled Laisren aside on our sixth day as the sun was about to come up and my sister was ranting again as we searched for a place to rest for the day.

“The girls need a decent place to sleep, at least for a few hours. They aren’t used to the road,” I heard her say.

I wanted to add that I didn’t mind sleeping under the trees, nestled between their roots, but the truth was, I did miss the comfort of a proper bed. There was a constant pain in my lower back I couldn’t shake, and it was getting a little worse every day.

“Is there someplace where we could seek lodging?” Una pressed. “You must know of something.”

“The Romans will have their eyes on the villages, and they have a network of spies who will be glad to direct them to fugitives for a few coins. We’ll reach the coast in another two days, three at the most. They can manage.”

Una glanced at Cait, who was trudging along behind us all. “Surely the Romans wouldn’t be looking for us here.”

Laisren scoffed. “They have eyes and ears everywhere. Now hurry. Once we crest the next hill, there’s a grove where we can take refuge for the day.”

He quickened his pace, bringing the conversation to an abrupt end. Una watched him go, disappointment carving lines along her cheeks. I thought she might cry.

I hurried to her side. “Don’t worry. We can manage.”

“Yes, you perhaps,” she said, patting my arm. “Your sister, I’m not so sure. Her mind is…” She didn’t finish her thought, or maybe she was afraid to. We both looked back at Cait, swinging her blade through the leaves and small branches in her way.

It was growing clearer by the day that something had changed my sister in a profound and, I feared, irreversible way.

The journey had given me time to think about what Una had said. Was it the blood legacy? But if so, why hadn’t it changed me as well? Why didn’t I feel the same rage my sister felt? Why didn’t I feel the same courage that had driven my mother?

All I felt, each day as we pressed through so many fields and meadows and glens and groves were fleeting moments of knowing things I shouldn’t—such as the healing properties of herbs and other substances—and the visceral fear that this beautiful land might fall entirely into Roman hands. We’d all seen what the invaders had done at Londinium, Verulamium, and Camulodunum. They’d turned our villages into cities of brick and dust. They’d cut the trees to make way for their roads and ruined the landscape. Sometimes when I sat with my palms to the ground, I could almost feel the earth crying out in pain.

The Romans had taken so much from us, and I knew they intended to take more.

As I wandered in my thoughts, Laisren fell back. Were we not moving quickly enough? Was he going to berate us again? The way Cait eyed him, I worried she might take that dagger of hers to his throat if he crossed her one more time.

He was too bothered by something else to notice. He pulled Una aside and whispered.

She leaned closer and covered her lips then her whole face. What was he telling her? When he pulled away, she darted off the path toward a thicket of bushes and motioned for Cait and I to follow.

I hurried to catch up. “What’s wrong? Where are we going?”

She pressed her finger against her lips and took cover behind a round boulder.

When Cait and I joined her, I could hear the clopping of horses coming around the bend.

“Romans?” I mouthed at her.

She shook her head.

We crouched low and peered through the shrubs. Laisren was still at the path, but he had pulled his hood down over his eyes and was using a broken branch like cane as though he were an elder. He bent his head as a strapping Celt rider on a handsome chestnut steed passed by, leading two dozen men and women dressed in peasant rags scuffling along behind. Their cheeks were ruddy and gaunt and their eyes dull, but they were under no duress. If they were captives or prisoners, they easily could have run. So why didn’t they?

When the procession was out of view, Laisren waved us back to the road.

“What was that?” Cait demanded, looking the direction they’d gone, though there was no more sign of them.

“A servant caravan,” Laisren said, pushing back his hood and shaking out his thick, dark hair. There was sadness in his voice. “I’d say a profitable one for that merchant too, by the size of it.”

I’d grown up hearing about servant caravans, but I’d never seen one for myself. I half-thought they were a fiction, a scary story told to children. Who could believe slippery tongued merchants could lure peasants from their farms to work in Roman houses?

“How could anyone walk away from their land and their homes to serve the Romans?” Cait admonished.

For once, I agreed with her. The very idea was absurd.

Laisren shook his head. “The land can be an unrelenting oppressor. Hunger, cold, disease. Any of these and more could lead a farmer to make the choice. It is not for us to judge.”

I’d never heard anyone speak sympathetically of those who joined the caravans. I’d been raised to believe it was no choice a true Celt could ever make, but now that I’d seen those haunting faces, I knew their choice had not been made lightly. I could feel their pain deep inside me as if it were my own. I could see myself walking among them. I could feel their sorrow and despair.

“What is it, Eithne?” I hadn’t noticed Una beside me. Her hand was on my shoulder. “Dear heart, you’re shaking.”

Her touch brought me back to myself. I tried to shake off the swirl of despair. “Those people,” I said, my voice a raspy whisper, “they aren’t traitors, not like people say. They are only trying to survive.”

She patted my back. “Have you eaten enough? Here, take this. Eat what you can.” She opened my palm and placed a handful of berries into it.

I could hear the worry in her voice, but still I couldn’t shake the strange feeling that had come over me.

“Come on,” Cait said. She was up and halfway to the road, where Laisren was waiting. “Stop wasting time, Eithne.”

I knew I should be up and moving too, but I couldn’t make my limbs move. My whole body felt like a stone. I should have been alarmed, but truly all I wanted to do was sleep.

“Stay here,” Una whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

I tried to respond, but I struggled to do even that. All I could do was lean back so my head could rest against the rock. My eyelids drifted closed.

I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until I was startled awake by loud voices. My sister and Laisren were arguing again. What was it this time? I didn’t even care. I tried to ignore them and return to that peaceful oblivion.

“You’re lucky they let you live.”

Cait scoffed at Laisren’s remark. “I didn’t steal anything. I was only looking around. I asked if they had any scraps to spare since we haven’t eaten proper food in days.”

“We? You told them about the rest of us? Are you daft?”

“There is no danger, ruffian. That’s what I’ve been telling you. These are good, honest people, and they want to help.”

“You’ve been gone an hour. What makes you think you know these people?”

“Calm down, both of you.” Una moved between them to separate them. “Cait, what do you mean they want to help?”

“The farmer has offered us food and shelter. He seems very kind.”

Laisren slapped his hand to his forehead and spun away. “How can you be so naïve?”

“Allow her to speak,” Una admonished. “Cait, what did you tell them?”

“Only that we’ve been on the road and that we’ve had no meat to speak of. I told them we would be incredibly grateful for the hospitality.”

“No, we won’t because you aren’t going back,” Laisren said, his voice a strained and hoarse.

“Of course we are,” my sister shot back. “You’re just sore because you didn’t find the place first.”

“I’m not sore, and I will not allow you to lead us into danger.”

“I told you, there is no danger. I told them we became separated from that merchant caravan and only want to get back to our homes in the north.”

He looked her up and down. “Only a fool would believe you. You aren’t going back.”

“You cannot stop me. In fact, maybe you should leave. No one wants you here, anyway.”

Her words were so hateful, I could scarcely believe she’d uttered them. After all he’d done to help us.

“Cait!” Una scolded. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. We don’t need him.” She sniffed the air. “Can you smell that? It’s the ocean. We’re already near the shore. We don’t need him. We can get ourselves to the Safe Lands, and it’ll be easier with full stomachs.”

How could she say such hateful things? He’d done nothing but help us, and she was reproaching him for it. I wanted to tell her to stop. I wanted to tell her she was wrong. But she was my sister. She was the heir. Even in this dark mood of hers, I couldn’t go against her. It wasn’t my place.

Laisren stewed on her words another moment then threw up his hands. “Fine! Do what you like. If you won’t listen to me, there’s nothing more I can do for you. Good luck on the rest of your journey. You’re going to need it.” He spun around and stormed off into the darkness.

I was standing beside Una, and both of us stared after him, too stunned to say anything.

“Good riddance!” my sister called after him.

Una wheeled around. “Stop that this instant.”

Cait shrugged her off and went to the tree where I’d been sleeping and sat down beside it. She didn’t look sorry for what she’d said, but she didn’t look like she regretted it, either.

Una stared into the darkness, frantically searching for our guide. “Laisren! Please, you’ve made your point.”

I listened hard, waiting for the sound of his boots scraping against the ground or any sound of his return. There was nothing, only a lone owl hooting into the night.

I couldn’t believe Laisren would leave us. But after an hour passed, with Una pacing and Cait sitting with her back against the tree, it was clear that was exactly what he’d done.

Una wouldn’t give up hope. “He’ll be back,” she repeated, again and again.

Cait didn’t argue, and neither did I. I was too stunned to act, but Cait seemed to be enjoying the moment. She was almost smiling as she sat there, carving lines into the dirt with a twig.

When the silver light of dawn brightened the tops of the eastern ridge, she put down the twig, rose to her feet, and dusted the dirt off her cloak. “You can wait around here all you want, but I’m hungry, and I’m going to take that farmer up on his offer.”

Without another word, she headed back to the road.

When she was out of earshot, Una turned to me and whispered, “What does your heart tell you?”

My heart was telling me I should have stopped my sister when I had the chance. I shouldn’t have let her run Laisren off. He was our best and maybe only chance of getting to the Safe Lands in one piece. But I’d been silent when every part of me had wanted to speak out.

Una was still waiting for an answer.

“I think we should go with her. Laisren isn’t coming back.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Una and I trudged through the morning mist, sullen and silent behind Cait. I feared saying anything would only cause another argument, so I held my tongue. I suspected Una felt the same.

Cait hardly seemed to notice, which didn’t surprise me. In fact, she seemed downright cheerful. “I hope they have bread,” she blurted as we crested a hill. “I miss bread slathered in butter even more than I miss meat. What do you miss, Eithne?”

I missed my home. I missed my mother. I missed my life. “Bread with butter sounds good to me too.” Better to agree with her and keep the peace.

Una halted. “That’s the farmhouse?”

The mist had subsided to reveal a broad field of tall grass. At the center stood the largest round house I’d ever seen, with three outbuildings and a wide pen full of sheep.

Like Una, I couldn’t help but stare. Iceni farmers lived far more modestly.

“I told you,” Cait said with a smug gleam in her eye.

As we hurried down the lane, a skinny, ginger-haired boy in a servant’s tunic rushed to greet us.

“Master Tollsyn sends his warmest welcome, travelers.” He bowed slightly. “Please, come with me. You must be hungry.”

We followed him into the main house, where we were led to a long table with benches to seat a dozen or more. A platter of carrots, berries, and tender baby onions sat beside a plank bearing a small crock of butter and bread still warm from the oven. I nearly swooned at its sweet, warm scent.

“Is that for us?” Cait asked, sitting beside the bread though she hadn’t been invited to do so. I frowned at her, but it hardly mattered. She wasn’t paying attention to anything but that loaf.

“Cait!” Una whispered harshly. “We’ll kindly thank our hosts for their generous hospitality first.”

The boy startled. “That won’t be necessary, ma’am. The master and lady of the house have been called away, but they said you’re to make yourselves at home. We can provide anything you need.”

Una frowned. “We didn’t see anyone pass us on the road.”

“They left before daybreak. The lady’s people live to the north. They received word right after you left, miss”—he turned to Cait—“that her father took ill.”

“What terrible news.” Una touched her chest. “They must be beside themselves with worry.”

“Indeed, ma’am.” The boy nodded so vigorously I thought he might hurt himself. “They left with the messenger and asked me to beg your forgiveness that they couldn’t be here to greet you themselves. They should be back soon, however. Very soon.”

“No forgiveness is necessary,” Una said. “It speaks to their gracious hearts to show such hospitality to strangers during such a trying time.”

“To be sure,” the boy said, “but you should feel free to make yourselves at home. Is there anything I can get for you?”

I raised my hand. “I wonder if you could tell us the quickest way to the shoreline?”

Surprise flickered in his wide, blue eyes, but it was Cait who spoke. “Honestly, sister. Can we at least eat in peace before you have us running off again?”

I ignored her and looked at the young man, waiting for an answer.

He bit his lip before replying, “I’m afraid I don’t know, but I shall speak to the stable hand.”

“Thank you. I would be most grateful.”

“Of course, miss,” he said and bowed before leaving us.

Cait sat by the bread and pulled off another handful. As Una and I settled in behind her, she gave us another smug grin. “Aren’t you glad you listened to me?”

She was gloating, but she had a point.

After we ate our fill, we moved to the fire that was burning low beneath an opening in the roof that allowed the smoke to escape. It was only smoldering, but it was still radiating more heat than I’d felt since leaving my mother’s chamber. Una took the iron poker and jostled the embers to bring the flames back to life.

Cait and I both scooted closer to the pit, letting the warmth envelop us. We’d been traveling on foot and sleeping on the ground for so long, merely sitting on a bench felt like a luxury. I don’t know how long I sat there, gazing into the flames and listening to the household sounds beyond the walls.

A woman shouted at an animal who’d escaped the pen and somewhere in the distance men argued about where to pile the feed. It reminded me so much of home that I found my mind drifting back to those days. I longed for those moments when Father and Mother governed our land without fear of the Romans.

Before long, the others dozed off, but not me. I sat, staring into the fire, wondering what would become of us. When we had started the journey, I was thankful merely to be alive, to have escaped our captors and to be headed to the Safe Lands, though I didn’t know what would become of us there.

Now, with Mona so close, I still harbored more questions than answers. What would happen when we arrived? How would we be treated? How would we live?

Una was so wildly optimistic, and Cait was the opposite. I felt the tug of both, but hardly knew what to expect.

All I knew for sure was wallowing in my own doubts and speculation wouldn’t change anything. I had to believe everything would get better once we reached Mona. We just had to get to the shoreline.

But how would we get there? The young man had never returned with the answer.

Was it a day away? More? Every moment on the road made us vulnerable to Roman attack. We had eluded them so far, but I feared that had little to do with luck and everything to do with Laisren’s ability to keep us safe.

The more I mulled it, the more my stomach churned with worry. Soon, any hope of sleep was gone. I needed to walk. Maybe some fresh air would calm my stormy thoughts.

As quietly as I could, so I didn’t disturb the others, I adjusted my cloak and made my way out the door.

Outside, I lifted my head so the sun could warm my cheeks.

“Is something wrong, miss?”

I spun around to find a servant girl holding two wide, woven baskets, one in each arm.

“May I get you something? More food? Something to drink?”

She reminded me of the youngest handmaidens from home, with the same ruddy cheeks and plaited brown hair down her back. That reminder of home made me smile. “No, thank you. But let me help you with those.” She was struggling to keep her grip on the baskets. I moved to relieve her of at least one of them, but she swiveled away.

“No, miss. That isn’t necessary. I can…”

“Don’t be silly.” I grabbed the closest one. It was heavier than it looked, but I recovered quickly. “What do you have in here? Stones?”

She giggled. “Potatoes. For the cook.”

More potatoes? I’d hoped I’d seen the last of them for a while.

“Honestly, you needn’t trouble yourself,” she added.

I tightened my hold on the basket. “It’s no trouble. It’s the least I can do to repay your generous hospitality.”

Something uncertain flitted across her face. “It’s not my hospitality, miss. It’s the master’s. I’m only doing what I’m told.” She stared at the ground and hurried toward the building beside the great hall.

I followed her, trailing behind until she reached the cooking fires. She set her basket on a table, and I did the same.

“I’m sorry if I misspoke,” I said. “I just wanted you to know I’m grateful. We’re all grateful.”

“Kind of you to say, miss.” Still, she avoided my gaze.

I glanced over her shoulder at another table piled high with fresh morels beside a platter of leafy herbs. “Those look lovely. Are they for a stew? Potatoes and morel mushrooms make an excellent stew. But you’ll need a few onions, yes?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “How did you know? You’re…” She looked away, suddenly sheepish.

“I’m what?”

“Sorry, miss. It isn’t my place.” Her nose crinkled.

That’s when I knew what she was trying to say without saying it: that I couldn’t know about cooking because I wasn’t a servant.

Maybe she had a point.

I went to the morels and sifted through the pile, picking up any with visible dirt and brushing it away.

The girl rushed up behind me and tried to shoo me away. “Please, you shouldn’t be doing that.”

I grabbed another morel. “If I don’t do something, I might waste away from boredom. I only want to help.” I paused, then added, “And you’re much better company than my sister. What’s your name?”

She pulled her hand away. “Niisi. But, miss, you’re a grand lady. The master of the house said you are Queen Boudica’s daughter.” Her hands flew to her mouth. “I don’t think I was supposed to say that.”

Hadn’t Cait told them we were with the merchant caravan? Apparently, she wasn’t as convincing as she’d thought.

“It’s all right, Niisi, but I’m not so grand.” I wiped the grime from another mushroom and set it aside with the others I’d cleaned. “My sister, she’s the grand one. She’s the heir. But do you want to know a secret?”

Her round face turned to me, curiosity shining in her tawny eyes.

I lowered my voice. “Back home, I used to spend most of my time with the cooks. It was the only place I could go where my sister would never find me. It was the only place I could laugh and be myself.”

After a moment, I realized I was telling this girl things I’d never told anyone, things I’d never even admitted to myself. Talking about my home and the life I’d left made me miss everything all over again. All those happy moments in the hearth house. All the friends and the family that were gone. The Romans had taken them along with everything else.

Somehow, I was still talking when Niisi reached over to take the mushroom I was cleaning. At least that’s what I thought I was doing, but I couldn’t be sure. The tears were making it all a blur.

I hadn’t realized I’d dozed off until Cait jabbed me in the side with her dagger’s hilt. “Wake up. You’re snoring, and it’s ruining the music.”

“I wasn’t snoring,” I groused back, low enough that I hoped I wouldn’t disturb Una or the others who had gathered to listen to a young man play a clay flute by the fire.

Of course, I probably had been snoring, but I wouldn’t admit it. After I’d returned from helping the young maid prepare the vegetables for the cook, I’d rejoined Cait and Una in the main room. They slept while I watched the fire. After a while, another handmaiden served us bowls of the stew at the table. I downed three full servings with a good portion of a fresh loaf.

Sleep was difficult to resist after that.

I had no idea how long I’d been sitting with my chin on my chest. The smidgen of cloudy sky I could see through the roof’s smoke vent showed night wasn’t far off.

I scooted across the bench to Una and whispered, “Will we spend the night?”

Her chest heaved. “I wasn’t planning on it. While you slept, I convinced your sister we should be on our way, but the master of the house still hasn’t returned. It seems rude to leave without expressing our gratitude. The servant boy said they are expected any time, so maybe we should wait a bit longer.”

When they still hadn’t arrived by nightfall, Una rose and collected her cloak from the back of a chair.

The handmaiden who had served us the stew rushed up to her. “Oh, no. You aren’t leaving, are you? I’m sure Master Tollsyn wouldn’t want you venturing out into the darkness. Please, stay and rest awhile longer.”

Several of the servants sat along tables at the back, enjoying their own meal and the music. But I noticed Niisi watching us from the shadows. I tried to catch her eye to motion her over, but each time she looked away.

Una gnawed at her lip. “Thank you. It’s very kind of you, but we should be on our way.”

“Oh, but Master Tollsyn will be so disappointed to have missed you,” the handmaiden implored. “He’ll certainly be back by morning. Couldn’t you stay till then? We have extra beds for you.” When she noticed Una hesitate, she pressed, “Please, he might think it was our fault, that you left because of us.”

Was that fear on her face? I couldn’t imagine anyone holding his servants responsible for such a thing, but what did I know? I’d overheard servants in our own house recount stories of previous masters that had nearly boiled my blood. Was this man as awful as that?

I could see doubt on Una’s face. Was she wondering the same thing?

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said, warily. “We can stay a bit longer. I would like to thank Master Tollsyn properly.”

The maid nodded. “I’ll prepare the beds, just in case.” When she turned back toward an opening to the sleeping quarters, she exchanged a long look with the horn player as he ended his song.

His gaze seemed to ask, “May I stop?”

When she shook her head, his shoulders sank, and he launched into another tune.

Una, Cait, and I sat beside the fire, glassy eyed and slumping, for another hour. When the handmaiden approached Una again, our governess was too tired to persist. “I suppose we’ll take that offer of beds after all.”

The woman clasped her hands. “Oh, good. We’ve already prepared them. Please, come this way.”

Cait yawned and forced herself up. I did the same. We followed the woman back to the smaller sleeping quarters, where we found a cozy pallet covered in thick, inviting furs for each of us.

Despite our lazy day, sleep came quickly. It seemed I’d barely put my head on the pillow and burrowed under the covers when a hand was on my shoulder, shaking me awake.

“Wha—”

Fingers clamped over my mouth, sending a jolt of fear racing through me.

“Shh, miss.” It was Niisi. “Listen, please.”

In the darkness, I could see only the shine of her eyes as she kneeled beside me. I nodded, and she continued, “You must leave before the master returns. He’s fetching Romans.”

It took a moment to absorb her meaning, but slowly the horror of her words sank in. She pulled her hand away.

“He went to them?” I was still hoping I’d misunderstood. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw the agony on her face.

“You must go, miss. They’ll be coming for you.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me from the bed. “They could be here any moment. You must leave.”

I shot up so fast my head swam. I held the side of the cot to steady myself. “But why? What did... How…” So many questions churned through me, but none of them mattered. I took Niisi’s small hand in mine. “Thank you. You’ve saved us.” I grabbed the chalice and my cloak and hurried to rouse Una and Cait on the other side of the room.

My sister rose quickly. Una was more difficult. It took Cait and me to get her out from beneath the furs and to the door.

Outside, the moon hung low in the sky. Morning was close, and if we didn’t hurry, daylight would make it harder to slip away.

Una adjusted her cloak and took the lead. “Girls, follow me.”

Cait followed, but I held back. Something tugged at my thoughts. “Go. I’ll catch up.” Before either of them could protest, I ducked back into the great room.

I followed the route to the hearth house and was relieved to find Niisi there. Not cleaning or preparing food, but sitting on a stool with her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes still as wide as they’d been at my bedside.

I searched to be sure she was alone before I entered.

When she saw me, that agonized expression returned. “You can’t be here,” she said.

I glanced around again to be sure it was safe. “There’s something I must ask you.”

“Miss, go before they find you.”

“How do you know Master Tollsyn went to get the Romans?” It wasn’t something a master would divulge, so how could she have known?

“I was serving him tea when he told the mistress to prepare to leave.”

It still made little sense. Why would he speak of it so openly? “He must have known you would overhear.”

She gave me a funny look, as though this were something any child could understand. “They always speak that way, as though we aren’t there. They hardly notice us.”

How could that be? Yet it had been the same back home, hadn’t it? Father and Mother always spoke freely in front of the servants. The handmaidens, the pages, the cooks, they knew everything. We considered them to be like family, but I wondered if they saw themselves that way. Or, was it as Niisi said, that we just didn’t notice them?

The thought stayed with me, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it. I took Niisi’s hand and kneeled before her. “I will never forget how you’ve helped us. Thank you, truly.”

At that, I left and found the first rays of the sun cresting the eastern hills. A breeze rustled the nearby branches, and birds chirped their songs.

In the distance, dozens, maybe hundreds of marching feet broke the morning calm.

The Romans were close.

Had Una and Cait heard them too? I searched the road but found no sign of them. Yet Una would avoid the road. She’d do as Laisren had taught us and take cover among the trees.

At a dead run, I took off toward the closest grove and slipped into their shadows. I searched for my sister and Una but saw only trunks and shrubs and boulders.

Somewhere beside me, somewhere close, a voice whispered, “Stupid girl. Going back like that nearly cost your life.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The dark figure stepped away from the tree, and the sun glanced off the markings on his cheek and neck. Laisren. The breath I’d been holding rushed out in a gush, and my knees nearly buckled with relief. “You scared the life out of me. I thought you were gone.”

He glowered at me. “In the next village, I overheard a stable keeper complaining about a man who had been in such a hurry to reach the nearest Roman outpost, he’d taken their best horses with only a promise of later payment. Said he’d pay double once he collected the bounty on the heads of two fugitives staying at his home. Boudica’s own daughters, he’d claimed.” He sighed and glanced away. “I blame myself. I should have sensed it was a trap.”

Niisi had been right. The farmer had ill intentions from the start.

“I came back and would have collected you myself if that little maid hadn’t warned you first.”

Behind us, the clatter of shields and swords grew closer. Someone yelled a command, and the marching stopped. Through the thicket, I could see armed centurions gathering along the road in front of the farm.

“We have to go,” he urged. “Una and Cait have gone ahead. I told them to meet us in a grove of trees behind the village.”

I was sorry I’d missed that. Had Cait apologized to him for misjudging the farmer? Somehow I doubted it.

Laisren and I avoided the road by cutting through the woods, which made our progress slow. It gave me time to think and to worry. I matched his footsteps, as he’d instructed, in case any Roman trackers were following us, but the silence was getting the better of me.

“How much far—”

The word hadn’t even passed my lips when he turned back to me and shook his head. He put his finger to his lips and stared at me until I nodded.

I knew he worried Romans might find us, but wouldn’t we hear them if they were close? All I could hear was the breeze in the branches over our heads and the crunch of twigs and dried leaves beneath our feet. Occasionally, a bird squawked or chirped or took flight from a tree branch when we came too close.

Finally, I caught sight of a small village through the trees. I hurried, eager to rejoin Una and Cait.

Laisren grabbed my arm so hard I nearly fell backward.

“Why did—”

His finger shot to his lips, and he leaned close to my ear. “Look. There.” He pointed to the space between two huts, where I could see a stool and a cooking fire, then the flash of a metal helmet and red cloak moved between the huts. A centurion? Here?

Laisren pointed to the left, where two more Romans were standing over a farmer, interrogating him by the look of it.

We ducked behind a fallen tree and watched, trying to determine the number of centurions. I’d counted five when I heard leaves crunch behind us.

I cut a glance at Laisren, who already had his hand on the dagger on his belt.

“Thank the gods we found you.”

I was so happy to hear Una’s voice, I nearly fainted. Instead, I whipped around and threw my arms around her. “I’m so glad you’re safe. I feared the centurions had caught you, or worse.”

Laisren tapped my leg, reminding me to be careful or we’d all end up captured by the centurions.

“What happened?” he whispered when Cait dropped down beside him, looking more annoyed than relieved to see us.

“When we got here, the Romans were already here. Maybe a dozen of them, and they were so loud we could hear them before we entered the village. We’ve been hiding back here in the brush like you, waiting for them to leave.”

Laisren squinted at the village again, watching the centurions move from one hut to another. “You didn’t speak to anyone in the village?”

“No. We never got that far. We stayed behind those trees back there.” She jutted her thumb toward a dense patch a rock’s throw away.

“Good. No one can lead them to us, then. I thought we’d have some time to rest before heading for the coast tomorrow. But if they’re here, I’m sure they’ll be watching the shoreline as well. We should stay here until the sun sets then head north. It’ll take longer, but it’ll be safer.”

“What about food?” Cait wailed. “When the centurions move on, I’m going into the village to find something to eat. We can’t survive on berries.”

“I told you I grabbed carrots before we left.” Una fished one out of her bag and handed it to Cait, who turned up her nose.

“I smelled rabbit or venison on a fire earlier. What’s the harm in asking for a morsel or two once the Romans are gone?”

“The centurions won’t just leave,” Laisren said through gritted teeth. “They’ll leave a scout behind. It won’t be safe.”

Cait folded her arms and rolled her eyes, but at least she didn’t argue.

For the rest of the afternoon, we huddled behind the tree and took turns napping. Laisren took the first shift. Cait was next, and when she jostled me awake when it was my turn, I instantly smelled cooked meat.

“Where is that coming from?” I sniffed the air.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Here.” She handed me a cooked joint of what might have been a squirrel or small rabbit.

I pushed it away. “Where did you get that?”

I’d forgotten to whisper, and my voice roused Laisren. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Get what?”

“Proper food,” Cait lashed back. “You can’t expect us to survive on leaves. Don’t worry, I didn’t go into the village. This curious little thing came right up to me. Wasn’t any trouble at all.”

Laisren wasn’t looking at the cooked meat anymore. He was scanning the ground. He stopped when he spotted the small campfire, still smoldering in the pit my sister must have dug. His gaze popped up at the branches above, then back at Cait. His cheeks and neck grew redder by the moment. “Do you know what you have done?”

Cait tore off a piece of meat and put it in her mouth. “I prepared us a proper meal.”

Laisren closed his eyes and shook his head. “You’ve told the Romans exactly where to find us. They’ll be on the lookout for cooking fires, and you’ve given them exactly what they wanted. You stupid, stupid girl.”

In an instant, Cait had her dagger in her hand and leaned toward his throat. “Watch your tongue, ruffian. You will not speak to me that way.”

Una shot up, ready to intervene, but voices in the distance stopped her.

We froze, every one of us. My heart pounded in my ears. The voices were Roman.

“Commander, this way! It came from those trees.”

I looked at Una. She’d heard it too. Laisren stood absolutely still, listening.

“What are you waiting—”

Una’s hand went up and stopped Cait midsentence. She leaned, listening intently.

“Commander Cerulius. I found tracks.”

It took a moment for my mind to absorb what my ears had heard. Cerulius. Here. My mother’s murderer was in these woods.

“You see?” Laisren hissed, pumping his finger the interlopers. “They’ve found us. Grab what you can. Follow me.”

We scrambled to collect our cloaks and darted after him. The chalice dangled from my belt.

He bolted into the densest part of the wood. The rest of us chased along behind. We ran between trees and bushes as quickly as we could. Our feet pounded against the soil, but there was another pounding too. A slower, rhythmic pounding. Was I imagining it? No, a seabird glided above the treetops and I knew. The shoreline was close. Very close.

It was our only hope.

The toe of my boot snagged a root and sent me stumbling. I teetered, my arms flailing, but before I could right myself, I was upside down, strung up by my ankles in a rope trap that had been hidden beneath the twigs and dried leaves.

I wasn’t the only one. Once I got my bearings, I saw Una, Laisren, and Cait strung up just the same.

Cait and Laisren wasted no time. They both had their daggers in their hands and were doubled over, sawing at the rope that bound their feet. Hope surged through me. Once they freed themselves, they could give Una and me the blades, so we could free ourselves too. There was still a chance.

But that hope lasted only a moment.

Before Laisren or Cait could slice their way free, we heard them approach. I twisted and wriggled, searching. At the first sight of a pair of leather-strapped sandals, the last ounce of fight left me. I closed my eyes and tried to wish them away. I wished for Laisren to use his Faytling stone, or for Druansha to intervene. I wished for the blood legacy to do something, anything to set us free. We’d need the intervention of the gods or magic to free us now.

The footsteps multiplied as we dangled, and they all came to a stop somewhere behind me. They were gathering around, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at them. Then I heard that familiar rumble of wicked laughter.

When I opened my eyes, Commander Cerulius stood surrounded by a dozen men, most of them centurions but trackers too.

“You’ve enlisted some help, I see.” The commander strode toward Laisren, who was still furiously hacking at the ropes. He walked around our guide, scrutinizing him. “I remember you. By the river, that was you, wasn’t it? With that druid stone?”

Laisren glared at the commander. “It’s much more than that, Roman.”

Cerulius’s eyebrows rose. He glanced back at his men with amusement. “He speaks!” Then he waved his men toward Laisren. “Find the stone. Whatever it is, I want it.”

Laisren responded with grunts as he slashed harder at the rope.

Six centurions drew their blades and converged on the man, patting him down, searching for the pendant.

“Here, commander,” one said, pulling the leather cord from beneath Laisren’s collar and ripping it from his neck with his blade. The lanky centurion handed it to Cerulius, who eyed it with interest.

“All that power from this little nugget? How does it work?”

“It will never work for you,” Laisren spat back.

Cerulius chuckled. “No? That’s a shame.” He held it up, letting the late afternoon sun glance off its facets, making it glow bright. “It’s such a pretty thing.” As he held it up, he walked toward a thicket and parted the shrub with an outstretched arm.

Through the opening he’d created, I could see the glisten of the ocean. We were on a cliff above the shore.

The commander glanced back at the rest of us. “But we really can’t have it messing about, can we?” He shook his head, answering his own question, then pulled back his arm and threw the rock as hard as he could into the waves.

As the stone splashed into the surf, a look of physical pain enveloped Laisren. With one final cut of his blade, he dropped to the ground, landing hard on his rear. Instead of scrambling up and trying to fight, he lowered his forehead to his knees.

“Don’t just sit there, ruffian, fight!” They were my sister’s words, but I wanted him to fight too. I wanted him to free us so we all could fight.

But he only sat there, with the centurions standing around him, waiting for directions from Cerulius.

The commander strutted back to us with a triumphant grin. “Tsk-tsk-tsk. It would seem the fight has gone out of that one, Your Highness.”

He drew out the last word, distorting it into something cruel and insulting. How dare he mock Laisren. I wanted to scream that he was wrong, that he had not broken our guide. Our companion. Our friend.

I wanted our champion to rise and defend himself, but he didn’t. He only sat, hugging his knees. Then I knew.

Cerulius was right. There was no more fight in him. There was no more fight in any of us.

He had won.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It had only been an hour since the centurions had shackled us under a single guard’s care while the others set up a camp. As they worked, the commander strutted among them, pushing them to work faster and gloating about our capture.

“By Jupiter’s hand, there will be a Triumph yet.”

No one was paying attention to him, but he hardly seemed to notice.

“Imagine the smile on Emperor Nero’s face when he sees not only the body of the so-called warrior queen strung up like a sacrificial goat, but her two brats caged like the feral beasts they are. Count yourselves lucky, men. You will tell your children and your grandchildren that you served under the commander that tamed this wild land once and for all.”

“Hardly,” Laisren muttered under his breath.

The remark caught Cerulius’s ear. He bore down on Laisren with a sneer. “What was that? Did I hear you say something or are you just moaning about your sad state of affairs? Once you tell us who hired you to help the fugitives, I’ll be happy to put you out of your misery. You certainly aren’t worth carting back to Rome.”

“Do what you want with me,” Laisren snapped back. “But I know what you fear.”

The commander straightened and made a show of looking surprised. “What I fear? Oh, do enlighten us. What do I fear?” The chuckle that followed held more menace than amusement.

From where he sat, Laisren locked onto Cerulius’s gaze. He was a prisoner, but he was making it clear he was not beaten. “What you fear, what we know you all fear, are the druids of Anglesey. They beat back your kind once, didn’t they? A battle so brutal, no Roman has dared to step foot on that island again. Am I right, commander?”

Something uncertain flitted over Cerulius’s expression. A doubt? Perhaps Laisren was right. Perhaps the man did fear the druids.

“Think what you like, prisoner. It hardly matters, does it?” The man leaned over Laisren, so close the point of his nose nearly jabbed into Laisren’s forehead. “Your little rebellion ends here. No one will be stepping foot on Anglesey. Not me, not you, and certainly not them.” When he jutted his chin toward Cait, Una, and me, Laisren lurched forward, crashing his forehead into the side of the commander’s nose. Blood spurted from the spot and streamed down Cerulius’s chin, staining his white tunic and the cloak. He grabbed his face and reeled back.

Laisren scrambled in his shackles to attack Cerulius until the commander’s men converged with blades drawn. Cerulius staggered, still clutching his nose.

“Stop, it’s no use,” I screamed, trying to make Laisren see reason. “You’re only making it worse for yourself.”

No one listened to me, not even Una or Cait. They were as riveted to the scene as the centurions. No one was paying attention to anything but Laisren and Cerulius, so it was no surprise they didn’t notice the buzzing around my head or the flutter of iridescent wings softly landing on my shoulder, out of sight of the others.

When I turned to see what the dragonfly was doing there, wide silvery eyes stared back at me. Don’t look this way, just listen.

She didn’t speak the words, not aloud, anyway, yet I heard them with perfect clarity in my mind. But how?

Her tiny feet pranced on my shoulder, demanding my attention. No questions. Listen. This is what you must do.

Her instructions were simple, but I still didn’t know how her plan could work, not until she rose from my shoulder and landed on my shackles. As she sat there, a violet glow began beneath her feet and radiated outward until it encompassed the shackles. Then, all at once, the iron lock popped open, and the glow went away. I glanced up to see if anyone had noticed. They all still stared at the confrontation between Laisren and Cerulius.

Go now!

The dragonfly zipped around my head, bringing my attention back to her. Before I could think twice, before I could second guess any part of this small savior’s plan, I scrambled up and ran as fast as I could to the bushes that blocked our view of the ocean. I clawed my way through them, ignoring the twigs that scratched like a thousand tiny blades, until I emerged on the other side.

I teetered on the edge of a steep cliff, frightened by the sight of the waves crashing against the rocks a dozen feet below.

“Get her!” the commander demanded. His order sent every one of his centurions after me.

Without a moment to lose, I tried to run down the steep slope, but mostly slid, until I reached the sandy beach. Waves crashed against me, trying to push me back as I flailed into the shore. Behind me, the centurions called out, threatening me to stop, but only a few careened down the slope after me. The others hacked at the brush with their blades, removing the obstacle that was slowing them down.

I waded deeper into the sea, ignoring the freezing cold as best I could, and followed the dragonfly buzzing beside my ear.

Only a little farther. A little farther. There!

The water was up to my waist, but I didn’t care. I gulped in a chestful of air and plunged down into the icy seawater to pat the coarse sand around my feet. My right hand nudged something. I grasped it and popped back up to catch my breath. When I opened my hand, the purple crystal glowed blindingly white.

“She has the stone!”

I don’t know if it was Cerulius or a centurion who called it out, but it didn’t matter. Suddenly, all of them were thrashing into the surf after me.

Hold it high. Be quick!

The commander and a host of centurions were closing in, but I knew what I had to do. When I looked up again, the patch of brush had been leveled and I could see Una, Cait, and Laisren, still shackled but craning their heads to see what they could. Laisren must have known what was coming because he was straining against his chains, trying to shield them. He must have convinced them, because they all pulled back and hunched into a protective huddle.

That’s when I did what Druansha’s messenger bade me to do and lifted the stone over my head in my open palm so it faced the centurions. As a fiery rush shot up through my spine and out to my fingertips, I screamed at our captors with every ounce of strength within me. No words, no message, just a primal, vengeful, raging scream at all they had taken from me.

The crystal grew cold in my hand and strands of light lifted from it, tendrils that reached and twisted upward and then, in a powerful blast, shot out like lightning at my attackers.

That light struck the commander and each centurion in the chest and sent them flying backward with a powerful wallop. Each one lay lifeless where he landed in the shallow surf or the wet sand. Even the men still atop the cliff fell to their feet, lifeless or barely moving.

In every direction, I saw only bodies. Panicked, I scanned the plateau until I saw them, Una, Cait and Laisren, still huddled against whatever it was I’d done. I scrambled through of the surf with the stone and my chalice intact. My dress and cloak clung to me in a sopping wet mess, and sand that had worked its way between the bottom of my foot and my sandals was grating my skin raw, but I didn’t care. I only wanted to reach them.

They must have worked themselves free from their shackles, because both Una and Cait were standing at the cliff’s edge, waving their arms, screaming at me, “Eithne! Eithne!”

Laisren was there too, waving me back. What was wrong with them? We’d won. The stone had decimated them all. Weren’t they happy?

No, that wasn’t happiness on their faces. It was panic and fear. I’d saved them, hadn’t I? Not me, exactly, but the stone. I opened the palm that held the stone and stared at it. Was I missing something?

That’s when I heard the splashing behind me. I whipped around to find Cerulius nearly upon me. He held his shield, dented and scratched from the impact of the stone’s fury, in one hand and his gladius in the other.

Without a thought, I again lifted the stone high over my head and did as the dragonfly had told me. But Cerulius was so close. Would he bury that gladius in my belly before the stone could work its magic? But then he dropped his blade into the shallow surf and grabbed my hand, enveloping my small fist.

“Give me that stone!” He yanked at my hand once, trying to force me to release it, but then he froze. He didn’t just stop yanking, but he stopped moving at all. He stood with his lips pulled back in a sneer and his limbs paralyzed. Only his eyes seemed to move, and they were staring in horror at the hand that held mine.

When I looked, I saw the reason. His hand had turned a brilliant, glowing purple, exactly the same as the stone when it was filled with light. And it wasn’t just his hand. The light was creeping up his arm to his elbow and then over his shoulder before spreading to his head and his other extremities.

With a hard yank, I freed my hand from his grip. Without me to hold him steady, he began to sway with the motion of the waves. I don’t know what possessed me, but watching him move that way made me want to reach out and push him over.

So, that’s what I did.

With a strong shove, I pushed him into the next wave and watched him topple over like an old, dead oak. As he fell, his gaze locked on me, and I could see his fury.

“That’s for my mother, Cerulius.”

I don’t know if he heard me or if he was even capable of regret, but it felt like justice for what he’d done to her.

For a long while, I stood there, watching as the sea pulled him deeper into the channel until he was completely submerged. I continued to watch the space where he had been and thought about Boudica and how much I missed her. I wondered what would become of us—Cait, Una, and me.

When I finally turned back to the shore, I found Cait, Una, and Laisren had freed themselves and worked their way down the cliff. As I approached, Una fussed, Laisren scolded, and Cait sulked, but I didn’t hear any of it. I heard only a soft buzzing above my head, and then that wondrous dragonfly alighted on my shoulder.

It is done, Eithne. You are safe.

Then she flew away.

The rest of us walked among the fallen, nudging bodies with our toes to assure ourselves they were truly dead.

All of us, except Laisren.

He must be checking on the other centurions, we decided. Ensuring the threat was truly gone. I noticed his absence, but I was too shocked, too numbed by all that had happened, for it to evoke anything more than mere acknowledgment.

I didn’t even notice Cait had worked herself up into a new fury until she was standing in front of me, nostrils flaring and chest heaving.

“What’s wrong?” I scanned the shoreline, searching for the source of her rage.

“Why did she go to you? Why did she choose you?” Her fingers curled into fists as she glared at me.

It took me a moment to realize she was referring to the dragonfly.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was because I was farthest from the centurions, and she thought I had the best chance of getting away.”

Why did it even matter? The scheme had worked. We were all free, and the Romans were dead, even Cerulius.

“I could have done it.” Cait’s voice had lowered to a menacing growl. “I’m the heir. I should have done it. It was my place and my right.”

She advanced on me. I checked to be sure she had no blade, because the look in her eye gave me no assurances that I would be safe if she did.

Una came up behind me, slowly and like someone trying to calm a wild dog. “Cait, dear heart, it was not Eithne’s doing. The Maiden and her messenger make their own choices.”

“Do they? Or were you just so eager to take my place? Or was it you, Una? Have you turned on me as well?”

“No one has turned on you, Cait,” I wailed, confused and alarmed by my sister’s threats.

Our standoff was interrupted by Laisren, who appeared from a bend in the cliff. He was dragging something large behind him. As he neared, I could see it was a small boat with only two benches and two oars and weathered from a long history of use. Still, it was enough for the four of us to cross the channel.

“What do you think?” He stopped and proudly gestured at his prize.

Una moved closer to examine it. “How did you find it?”

“I hid it in the bushes in the next cove.”

“Did you now?” She bent down and ran her fingertips over the edge. “You knew it was there the whole time?”

“I did,” he said. “It’s how I made the crossing, and how we can make it back.”

Una pondered that for a moment. “You think this little thing can get us across the channel?”

A deep crease formed above his nose. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

Una glanced at me then back at Laisren. “I suppose we don’t have a choice.”

“Madam, this vessel has seen me through worse than this.” He glanced up at the abundant sunshine and patchy clouds.

“I suppose we’ll have to take your word for that.” She turned back to Cait and me. “Girls, help us get this into the water.”

“First things first,” he said. He turned to me and held out his hand. “I believe you have something of mine.”

I stared at the Faytling in my palm. This remarkable little stone had saved me. It had saved us all. I placed it gently in his hand and whispered, “Thank you.”

“Are you thanking me or the Faytling?”

“Both, I suppose.”

Cait grunted as she pushed past us and grabbed the side of the boat. I’d hoped her mood would improve now that the danger had passed, but she appeared as annoyed as ever.

The rest of us followed her lead and took hold of an edge, Una and me on either side near the front, and Laisren and Cait at the rear. When we dragged it into the surf, the waves lifted it, making our progress easier.

“Hop in,” Laisren hollered at Una and me.

We scrambled over the side and took places along the front bench.

Laisren and my sister continued walking the vessel into deeper water. When their legs were nearly submerged, Laisren motioned to Cait. “You next, Your Highness.”

She grabbed the side of the boat and tried to lift herself up, without success. She changed her position and tried again. Still no success. She pushed back with frustration. “You get in then pull me up.”

“I think if you were to—”

Cait stopped him with a glare. “It’s a simple request, Laisren.”

Perhaps it was the surprise of her using his given name instead of an insult, but he nodded and clambered in. When he turned around to extend his hand to her, she had already thrown every ounce of her weight behind the boat and was pushing with all her might.

The motion made Laisren sway and crouch so he wouldn’t fall overboard. “What are you doing? You don’t need to push. We can row from here. Give me your hand.”

She gave the boat another shove then backed away.

“Cait, hurry!” I yelled out, even as I realized this was no mistake. There was defiance in her eyes, and something else. Anger? Frustration? My sister was doing exactly what she meant to do.

She cupped her hand to her lips and shouted, “Go to the Safe Lands. Seek sanctuary with the druids. That cannot be my path, not when Druansha has turned her back on me. I will find my own way.”

The splash of the waves hitting the sides of the boat nearly drowned out the buzzing of the dragonfly that flew in wild circles around us. She was moving so quickly, she was little more than a blur, but I begged her anyway. “Tell her she’s wrong! Tell her Druansha didn’t turn her back. Tell her she should have been the one. Tell her!”

My words grew more frantic as the tide carried us farther from my sister. Why wasn’t the dragonfly saying anything? Why were Una and Laisren doing nothing? My sister was disappearing in the distance. I wanted to jump overboard and swim back to her. We couldn’t be separated. We’d never been separated. She was the Chosen One, and I was… I was not.

The dragonfly flew down and hovered in front of me. She stared at me. Your sister has made her choice. Now you must make yours.

The words were crystal clear, but they made no sense. What choice did I have? I knew my place as well as I knew hers. Our roles were set at birth, and nothing could change them. It’s what I’d always been taught and what I’d always believed.

Both Una and Laisren remained absolutely still and silent. Had they heard the dragonfly’s words?

Was the agony on Una’s face her own, or was she merely mirroring mine? And Laisren, was that wincing smile his way of trying to help?

Again, the dragonfly fluttered in front of me.

Will you choose your sister? Or will you choose your destiny?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Two men and two women, all in long, white robes, sat atop a flat-topped boulder adorned with a bower of woven twigs and white-petaled thistles as they whispered furiously among themselves, their silvery hair flowing freely over their shoulders.

The rest of us—Una, Laisren, and me, along with dozens of Mona’s inhabitants—sat in silence in the clearing in front of them, a sacred space bordered by standing stones, waiting for them to come to a decision.

“Wake up.” Una touched my knee to rouse me.

I wasn’t asleep, but I had closed my eyes. “I can’t help it. I’m tired.” It was a weak excuse, but I didn’t care. We’d been sitting this way for hours, and all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and drift off.

“They’ve welcomed us. They’ve pledged to help us. We’d be in Roman cages if not for them. The least you can do is remain attentive.”

She was right, of course. Not only had the druid elders dispatched Laisren to aid us, they had a small group waiting the moment our little boat washed ashore. A messenger from the Druansha had alerted them, they said. Told them when to keep watch. It was a comfort to think the Maiden had been so sure we’d escape the Romans when, until the moment her dragonfly guided me to Laisren’s Faytling, I was sure our journey had ended in defeat.

Even now, it didn’t feel like success without Cait. I could still hardly believe she’d abandoned us. Abandoned me.

The weariness had struck me as we crossed the channel, as the shoreline and my sister disappeared from view. Laisren said it was the Faytling’s doing, that it had pulled something from me to create that magic, and I remembered how it had left him depleted when he’d used it to save us at the stream.

Knowing the cause changed nothing, however. When we’d reached the shore and were escorted to the village, I’d hoped for a chance to rest and recover.

Instead, we’d been brought here and forced to listen to strangers drone on about defending our land from the Roman invasion. Every plan put forth centered on some variation of the same idea: fight them with weapons or magic or both.

Even in my drowsy and depleted state, I knew such plans could never work. The Roman army was too large and their people too ruthless.

On this island where Romans feared to tread, the people didn’t understand that. They believed, wrongly, that the balance of power skewed in their favor.

But I knew the truth.

In Iceni, where we had coexisted with Romans for years, we knew the limitations of our arrangement. We only lived as independently as we did because of my father’s skilled diplomacy. In the end, even that failed, forcing my mother to take up arms.

If anyone could have defeated the Romans on a battlefield, she would have been the one to do it. Yet even with her otherworldly gifts, she failed.

“We cannot fight them.”

Every eye turned my direction.

“Eithne, no.” Una dropped her head in her hands, horrified I would interrupt the debate.

“Let her speak.” It was one of the women on the Elder Rock. When she tilted her head, I could see something buzzing near her ear. A dragonfly, perhaps. “She is the Iceni princess. The Fayte heir. Tell us, child, what would you have us do?”

I stared at the council, unsure what to say.

“Go ahead, girl,” the old woman urged. “Speak your mind.”

As the silence lingered, the dragonfly flew at me and hovered near my ear. Tell them, Eithne. Tell them your plan.

But I had no plan.

At least it didn’t feel like a plan. It was only an idea. A simple understanding that we could never overpower the Romans. My mother had proved that.

The alternative I was considering had seeped into my thoughts like a dream as I’d dozed. Then suddenly, in a flash of recognition, I saw it plainly.

I jumped to my feet and cleared my throat. “There is a way to protect ourselves—our people and our land—without taking up arms or fighting at all. What we need to do is get close to the Romans and to listen.”

The gazes that had been locked on me with hope and expectation now turned to their neighbors or rolled skyward.

“Oh, that’s all, then?” one sarcastic voice shouted. “If we listen, the Romans will tell us all their schemy little plans.”

They didn’t understand. How could they? Here, men and women lived as equals. They didn’t know it was possible to live alongside people you never notice, even as they see everything you do and hear everything you say.

You must tell them.

I stared at the dragonfly buzzing near my forehead. Now I understood. This was why I was chosen instead of Cait. My sister was a fighter, and she would always choose that path. I was something else.

You know how to exist in shadows. You thrive in the dark.

I suppose I did. I’d lived my entire life in Cait’s shadow. But I was also happy to remain in the background while Cait basked in her attentions. Perhaps that was the true difference between us. She craved the light, while I always preferred to remain on the periphery. It would be no sacrifice for me to live the life I saw laid out before us now.

Tell them.

So I did. I told them about Niisi and our own household, and I told them of the peasants enlisted by Romans to work in their households. I told these people—now my people—how we could mold that into an opportunity.

We could infiltrate the homes of the Romans. We could learn their plans then send word through a network of spies so defenses could be put in place.

“We could do more than that,” someone shouted.

One of the elder women nodded. “Yes, in time, we could do much more, but let us begin as listeners. If we can make ourselves invisible to their eyes, as the Fayte heir suggests, we may finally have a means of protecting our homeland.”

The decision was met with angry murmurs from some in the gathering.

“We will not bow to the invaders!” someone called out.

“You are right. We will not bow. We will only serve the invaders because it serves the greater good,” that elder called back. “Our true service is to our homeland and to ourselves.”

Another round of murmurs was interrupted by the dragonfly circling the space between the elders and the rest of us. As I watched, as we all watched, her circles left a trail of violet light that wound and stretched, creating a bright column of tiny, brilliant stars. As that column lengthened, towering over us all, Druansha stepped out and gazed upon us.

The Ancient One stood in a loose gown that shimmered silver, then blue, then violet, then back again as if it were made of magic and moonlight. The distinctive points of her teardrop ears poked between the soft curtain of her long, pale hair.

No one spoke. We only stared in startled awe and reverence.

“Listen to words of Boudica’s daughter,” she said, her voice low and lyrical. “And know, you will be serving your land and yourselves. I, too, pledge my help to you. When I foresee trouble or threat, I will convey it to you. Together, we will protect the future of this land and keep it safe from harm. As Eithne is the Fayte heir, you will become the new guardians, the Fayte Guardians. Through her, you will keep Queen Boudica’s legacy alive. The covenant I forged with her, I extend to you, if you will join me.”

That night, after the promises to Druansha had been made, the covenant upheld, and the Fayte Guardians’ new journey took shape, I lay inside the small round house Una and I had been given and begged for sleep to come.

Every part of me ached with exhaustion. My eyelids drooped with it, yet every time I closed them, images assaulted me: the Faytling’s blast from my own hand, the final battle with Cerulius, my sister shoving the boat away. There were other memories too: the last time I saw my home, the last time I saw my mother, and the chalice—a remnant of the moment my life had changed forever.

I stared down at its finely worked metal, lying cradled in the cushion of my folded cloak beside my bed.

When it flashed a silvery light, I shot upright, believing some magic to have taken hold, before realizing it was only Una, pulling aside the door’s drape.

“What is it, dear heart? What troubles you?” She moved closer and touched my cheek with a gentle hand.

Inside, I ticked off a long list, but to her, I named just one. The only one that truly mattered. “I want to be what Druansha believes I am, but I fear I am not. Cait was always the leader, not me.”

In the darkness, I heard a soft tsk. “Cait’s way would only bring more conflict. You know this. You have seen a way that offers hope without strife.”

“But I don’t know how to be a leader, not like her.”

“No, you will never be a leader like Cait. You will be your own kind of leader. You will find your own path.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

She was quiet for a moment, then rubbed my hand. “But you do, dear heart. It is only another journey, and every journey has a beginning. Find yours.”

I waited for her to say more. Instead, she settled into her own bed, and it wasn’t long before I heard her the soft snores of her slumber.

That’s when I knew Una couldn’t tell me what I had to do. No one could. I had to find my own way. I’d thought the Safe Lands would be the end of our journey, but it was only another beginning.

The rest of the night, I stared at the ceiling, considering my old governess’s words and what I was going to do next.

When the darkness gave way to the first morning light, the only answer I had was that in order to move forward, we had to remember all that had brought us to this point. My mother’s sacrifice, my sister’s pain, our kingdom’s loss, none of it could be forgotten, and I was the one who had to keep those memories alive.

My father, in his wisdom, had given me the means to do it. I would write it all down, so that nothing would be lost.

By the time the sun had crested the eastern hills, I had assembled what I would need: a brush, some ink, and a fresh scroll. I wrote these words:

I am Eithne, first of my name and youngest daughter of Queen Boudica, the fierce warrior who led the Great Uprising after my father’s death.

No one loved this land more than my mother, and no one fought harder to protect it from the Roman invasion. Her efforts—aided by those in this world and the Other—did not prevail. Perhaps if the gods had smiled on her that final day in battle, this would be her story. After her death, it should have belonged to my sister, who had been groomed since birth to ascend the throne.

Alas, it falls to me.

I am the keeper of the promise, the spark in the darkness, and the heir to the Fayte Legacy.

This is my story.

__________

Thank you for reading Guardian of the Realm: The Queen’s Fayte Book Four. I hope you enjoyed this new chapter in the The Queen’s Fayte series. If you did, please consider leaving a review at Amazon or Goodreads. Good reviews and positive word of mouth are immensely helpful to an author and always deeply appreciated.

THE QUEEN’S FAYTE SERIES

Memory Thief (prequel story)

Dragonfly Maid

Slivering Curse

Shadow Rite

Guardian of the Realm

Memory Thief: A Prequel Story takes readers back to Jane’s final days at Chadwick Hollow School for Orphan Girls and the first steps of the magical journey she’ll discover in The Queen’s Fayte series. The prequel is available for free to the Readers Brigade at www.DDCroix.com/thank-you-readers.

Glossary of Character Names

Boudica (BOO-dik-uh) is the mother of Eithne and Cait and wife of King Prasutagus of the Iceni lands. A legendary warrior who led a powerful uprising against the Romans.

Cait (KAYT) is the oldest daughter of King Prasutagus and his queen, Boudica.

Marcus Gaius Cerulius (MAR-kus GUY-us SER-ul-ee-us) is a Roman commander holding Boudica and her family captive.

Druansha (DROO-an-sha) is a fae figure and guardian of Fayte Hill who gave Boudica otherworldly strength and cunning to aid her fight against the Romans.

Eithne (AYN-yuh) is the youngest daughter of King Prasutagus and his queen, Boudica.

Gledruith (GLEH-dree) is the leader Fayte Hill’s druid settlement.

Laisren (LAS-rain) is a Celtic man of unknown origin with unknown intents.

Master Tollsyn (TOL-sin) is a wealthy farmer in the countryside northwest of the Iceni kingdom.

Niisi (NEE-see) is a servant girl who works for Master Tollsyn.

Una (OO-na) is a handmaiden to Boudica and served as governess to the Eithne and Cait.

About the Author

D.D. Croix writes fantasy for teens and adults that conjures magic and history with a twist of mystery. Under a pseudonym, she also writes award-winning contemporary romance and historical novels that have been translated into multiple languages. When she isn’t plotting new adventures for her characters, she oversees O.C. Writers, a network of published and aspiring authors based in Orange County, Calif. For more information, visit www.DDCroix.com. 

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Despite multiple rounds of editing, errors sometimes sneak through. If you discover something amiss in one of my books, I’d like to know. Please email me at dd@ddcroix.com.

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Guardian of the Realm: The Queen’s Fayte Book Four

Copyright © 2022 D.D. Croix

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Guardian of the Realm: The Queen’s Fayte Book Four: by D.D. Croix — 1st ed.

[1. Teen and Young Adult Historical Science Fiction and Fantasy — Fiction. 2. Teen and Young Adult Fantasy and Supernatural Mystery — Fiction. 3. Science Fiction and Fantasy Coming of Age — Fiction. 4. Science Fiction and Fantasy — Dark Fantasy — Fiction. 5. Science Fiction and Fantasy — Myths and Legends — Fiction.]