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“She’s not one of us.”

“I was always going to take an outsider to wife.”

“Aye, but she’s not a daughter of the crown. She is beneath you and weakens your position.”

“She serves a purpose.”

“And what purpose is that? Wetting your cock? Your father must be rolling over in his grave. What did that girl do to you, lad? Geldyou?” Arkin sneered. “Two weeks ago you wanted an indisputable claim to the crown. Now you will accept this? They’ve insulted you. All of us. We fight their battles, bleed for them, and they laugh at us. They think we’re their dogs.”

I shook my head and started leading the horses again, turning my back on him. “Have no fear. It is I who shall have the last laugh.”

Arkin crowed with approval, “You have a plan!” His heavy steps crunched over leaves, hurrying to catch up with me.

Of course I had a plan. It involved assembling my army and laying siege to the City in the spring after the snow melted—showing King Hamlin and the lord regent that no one fucked with me.

“I’ll not forget the insult,” I calmly asserted. “They will pay.” In addition to being immensely satisfying, routing the incompetents from power would be a kindness to every man, woman, and child of Penterra.

“That’s right!” Arkin crowed gleefully. “And we should leave her here! That will show them what we think of theirroyal princess. If the animals don’t finish her, brigands will, or maybe a huldra will find her and make a soup of her. We’re close enough to the skog, after all.” This last bit he flung out accusingly, a stab of censure. He didn’t like that we had stopped and set up camp. He thought we should be pushing on.

I dropped the reins, swung around, and shoved him to the ground. “I grow weary of your insolence. You serve me, Arkin, and I already warned you to leave off. She is mine to deal with.”

He glared up at me. “You protecther? What would your father think?”

“He’s dead. Has been for some time. I’m Lord of the Borderlands now... and she—” I stopped. Shrugged. I didn’t owe Arkin an explanation. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation. Not even the king. As far as I was concerned, he had forfeited my allegiance when he lied and trapped me in marriage to the wrong woman.

Tamsyn was a pawn. She didn’t deserve the fate Arkin would have her suffer. I didn’t know what she deserved or what we would be to each other—if anything—but I wouldn’t hurt her.

“This is it, then? I served your father. I serveyou. And you treat me like...” His words faded, and he shook his head in disgust, latching on to what offended him the most. “You choose her.”

I gathered up the reins in my hand again, giving him a curt nod. “You understand my meaning.”

Turning, I left him in the dirt.

19

Tamsyn

THERE WAS SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN THE AIR WHEN Iwoke. A quality that had not been there before. A crisp newness. Except that was wrong. This world, this wild country teeming with life and magic had been here long before I was born, long before my parents—whoever they were—drew breath. There was nothing new about any of it. It was ancient, primeval, still humming with the echo of dragon wings and spells cast into the ether.

Iwas thenew. A stranger entering the cool, mist-shrouded morning with eyes blinking like an infant against an unfamiliar world.

I was alone in the furs, my body warm, muscles relaxed. A boneless, sinking weight.

I had slept hard. A dreamless slumber. Fell was gone, but he had stayed most of the night with me. I knew that without owning the memory. His scent remained, clinging, wrapped up in the bedding, in me. I felt him still, that big body folded around mine, his warmth lingering, the echo of his black opal a nourishing stamp on my skin.

I gazed up at the canvas of the tent, the sifting shadows. The faint stirrings of the world outside alerted me to the fact that I was not the only one awake and that I needed to rejoin the land of the living—the party of warriors who thought me weak and in need of coddling, who looked at me as though I were a ghost among them, someone already gone. They did not expect me to endure.

Shaking my head, I moved briskly, reapplying the salve to my skin, although I hardly felt a need for it anymore. Thora had instructed me to do so, and I felt compelled to oblige her. Dressed, hair braided once again, I emerged from the tent, revitalized, to face the day.

Warriors were packing up in the predawn. As soon as I stepped outside, they moved in and started working to disassemble the tent.

Mari appeared, waving me to one of the few remaining fires with her usual efficient manner. “Come. Eat.”

I motioned to the tree line. “I need a moment first.”

She nodded. “Don’t stray far.” Rotating back around, she returned to the fire and tea brewing there.

Another quick scan failed to reveal Fell. He must be with the horses, watering them for the day’s ride.