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“Hold my hand,” Cormag told me.

“Oh, Cormag, how did this happen? I…” I began, then shook my head. There had been someone in the crowd. Someone had tried to kill me. Cormag had taken the arrow in my stead. I remembered a commotion at the back of the crowd. Fabius had called out to warn me, and Corva had gone after the assailant. Who had dared send someone into my own fort to kill me? On Yule, at a celebration before the twin goddesses? I set aside the rage that filled me and turned back to my husband.

I squeezed Cormag’s hand, looking into his blue eyes. “We’ve got you.”

“If you wanted to know my performance secrets, King Consort, you didn’t have to be so dramatic to get it out of me. The trick, you see, is the liquid I pour into my mouth,” Fabius told Cormag, showing him a flask on his hip. “I must protect my lips with a little ointment first, and then?—”

But the talk had been a distraction.

Fabius nodded to Damhan.

With a tug, Brodi holding Cormag’s shoulder to steady him, Damhan pulled the arrow from Cormag’s back.

I tried not to wince when I saw blood spurt out and spill onto the floor.

Cormag went still a moment. He swayed in his seat, Brodi and Damhan steadying him. Cormag turned to me. He was pale and sweating but said, “No worse than a blackthorn.”

“Liar.”

Cormag winked at me.

A moment later, Conall entered with the village healer, Arixus, who always attended our family. He hurried to Cormag, looking over the wound.

“I set off for the fort at once,” he told us, then went to inspect Cormag’s wound. “As clean of a removal as you can hope for. With your permission, King Consort, I will clean and bandage the wound now.”

“Very well,” Cormag told him.

I sat with my husband, watching him do everything he could not to wince at the pain as Arixus worked.

“It is not a deep wound, thank the twin goddesses. We will need only to clean and stitch the wound, a little salve, and a tonic for pain.”

“His armor protected him,” I said.

“A far cry sturdier than the beautiful frock you are wearing, my queen. In the future, you, too, should put on Votadini leather before the crowd. You are a mighty queen, Cartimandua. Youwill always have enemies. And, when I am done here, I will get you a salve for that cheek.”

“Cheek?” I asked, my hand going to my face.

Fabius handed me a handkerchief. “A small cut,” he told me.

“From the fletching, by the look of it,” Arixus added.

I patted the cut, red blood marring Fabius’s handkerchief. Seeing it made me realize just how close to disaster we had truly come. My father used to ride in a simple tunic and breeches around the fort, not worrying about an assassin’s arrow. But that was before… Before the Parisii tried to help themselves to Mydils, before there were defectors in Setantii lands, before the Carvetti had been absorbed and the Dardani liberated with my aid. As much as I wanted the darkness to be behind me, it wasn’t. And it may be many years before it would be again.

“Any word from the village?” Brodi asked Conall. “The assailant?”

“Corva set off on horseback, the mount’s hooves on fire. If there is anyone who can catch the culprit, it is the red-robed priestess,” Conall replied.

“Was anyone else hurt? Are the people all right?” I asked.

“Yes, my queen. The arrow was, sadly, only trained on you,” Conall replied.

My gaze went briefly to the window. Through the slats in the shutters, I could see snow falling once more.

Whoever had made an attempt on my life, who had harmed the man I love, would not live long enough to regret their decision. And those behind it…

All the fires of Yule were nothing compared to the vengeance coming for them.

CHAPTER 9