A Little Fate Read Free

own. You will have his eyes, and his courage. My mouth, I think,” she murmured and kissed it, “and what runs in my blood. So much depends on you. Such a small hand to hold the world.”
    She smiled over the baby’s head. “She will need you,” she said to Nara. “You will teach her what women need to know.”
    â€œYou would put your child into the hands of a woman you don’t know?”
    â€œYou heard the bells.”
    Nara opened her mouth, then sighed. “Yes, I heard them.” And she had seen, with a woman’s heavy heart, what would pass this night.
    Gwayne came into the shelter, fell to his knees beside her. “My lady.”
    â€œShe is Aurora. She is your light, your queen, your charge. Will you swear your fealty to her?”
    â€œI will. I do.”
    â€œYou cannot leave her.”
    â€œMy lady, I must—”
    â€œYou cannot go back. You must swear to me to stay beside her. Keep her safe. You must swear on my blood that you will protect her as you have protected me.” She took his hand, laid it on the child. “Gwayne, my white hawk. You are hers now. Swear it.”
    â€œI swear it.”
    â€œYou will teach her what a warrior needs to know. She will stay with the Travelers. Hidden in the hills, and in the shadows of the forest. When it is time . . . you will know,you will tell her what she is.” She turned the child so he could see the birthmark, a pale star, on the baby’s right thigh. “All she is. Until then, Lorcan must not know of her. He will want her death above all things.”
    â€œI will guard her, on my life.”
    â€œShe has her hawk, and her dragon watches from the highest point of the world,” she murmured. “Her wolf will come when he’s needed. Oh, my heart, my own.” She pressed her lips to the child’s cheeks. “This is why I was born, why I loved, why I died. And still, I grieve to leave you.” She drew a trembling breath. “I give her into your hands.” She held the baby out to Gwayne.
    Then she held out her own, palms up. “I still have something left in me. She will have it.” Light spun over her hands, whirled and caught the red, the gold from the fire. Then with a flash, what lay in Gwynn’s hands became a star and a moon, both clear as ice.
    â€œKeep them for her,” she said to Nara.
    The good queen closed her eyes and slipped away. The young queen wailed in the arms of a grieving soldier.

2
    S EASONS passed, and the world suffered under the harsh reign of King Lorcan. Small rebellions were crushed with a brutality that washed the land with blood and sent even the valiant into hiding. Faeries, witches, seers, and all who dwelt within the Realm of Magicks were outlawed and hunted like wild beasts by the mercenaries who came to be known as Lorcan’s dogs.
    Those who rose up against the usurper—and many who didn’t—were executed. The dungeon in the castle filled with the tortured and forgotten, the innocent and the damned.
    Lorcan grew rich, lining his coffers with taxes, increasing his holdings with land taken by force from those who had held it, worked it, honored it for generations. He dined off plates of gold and drank his wine from goblets of crystal while the people starved.
    Those who spoke against him during the dark times spoke in whispers, and in secret.
    Many of the displaced took to the high hills or the Lost Forest. There magic was practiced still, and the faithful searched the sky for portents of the True One who would vanquish the snake and bring light back to the world.
    There, among the farmers and merchants, the millers and artists who had become outlaws, among the faeries and elves and witches with bounties on their heads, the Travelers roamed.
    â€œAgain!” Aurora thrust with the sword and thrilled to the ring of steel against steel. She drove her opponent back, parried,