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March 11 - March 16, 2023
She carried herself with purpose and dignity, never rising to a taunt.
Still, she imagined the loss of a loved one would hurt like an arrowhead lodged in the body. Life would grow and twine around it, but it would remain, always hurting.
‘I don’t need anyone to save me. All I ever ask is that you not abandon me.’
‘A country that breaks the rudder of monarchy will swing wildly and crash into others, hurling all into disorder.’
The Carmenti must see that absolute monarchy remains the only true and righteous way to govern a country.
‘Be generous to yourself. If your gravest vice is to seek
comfort in cold places, the Saint will forgive you. As will the king.’
‘You say that, serving my father?’ She raised an eyebrow back. ‘I am the daughter of Bardholt Hraustr, who won his throne by blood and iron. I assure you, Master Glenn, I am no stranger to blades.’
Trying to love in those realms must be like planting a seed among thorns – thorns of rank, of marriage, of the need for heirs. How many great loves had been strangled before they could grow, or withered away at the first sign of hardship?
‘Virtudom.’ Esbar narrowed her eyes. ‘We are lawbreakers and heathens now, Tuva.’ ‘Then let us leave as soon as we can.’ Tunuva tightened her grip on the reins. ‘I have no wish to be in any place where the people worship the Deceiver.’
‘To the salt road, then. If I hear even one person insult the Mother, I will not be held responsible for my actions.’
‘The battle we have expected for five centuries may now be imminent.
For them, it was the first time a dragon had appeared for three hundred years, a wonder their ancestors had thought impossible.
Feast of Courage, which she loved – six days of jousts, boar hunts and wrestling
How much easier things would be, if she could want as others did.
Something had changed since the eruption of the Dreadmount.
‘Our estate is close to the haithwood. All through the spring and summer, our livestock has been disappearing – the lambs stolen as soon as they were born, others taken in the night.’
Glorian was wide awake now.
‘You always have – but I know whose bone and blood I am. I am the chosen of the Saint, the fruit of his unending vine, the iron
of the eversnow. I am the daughter of Sabran the Ambitious and the Hammer of the North, and I will rule this realm without fear. My reign will be remembered for centuries to come.’ She let the words soak through the silence, then said, ‘I am enough.’
Let him join the Chainmail of Virtudom. Let them all. I am the Hammer of the North, and you are Sabran the Ambitious. There is nothing we cannot do.’
They never cried for mercy. Nor did they try to fight or flee. Instead, with their last breaths of life, the king and queen reached for each other. Wulf saw Bardholt move in front of Sabran, as if he had even a faint hope of saving her – saw the stark flash of his face, her long hair streaming in the wind – before the fire devoured them both.
The Nameless One. He had returned at last, come to take his vengeance.
Death by fire or death by water. Twenty seemed too young to ask. He thought of staying on the deck, to feel his death to the last throe before he never felt again. Then he stood. Only witches died by fire. Let his last day, his last choice, be the truth.
