“Why are we going to the Desert Lands?”
“To face witches and possibly kill a treacherous Iron dragoness, unless this is all an elaborate trap and they kill us first, of course.”
Brannie let out a long sigh. “I kind of knew I’d regret drinking with my brothers last night—I just had no idea how much.”
First meal was a mostly silent affair, with everyone concerned about . . . well, about everything.
Even Dagmar, who tried not to worry about little things since Talaith and Morfyd were so good at that, was concerned. Concerned that Annwyl would be plunging them into a war with the Kyvich. Although now that she thought about it . . . that wasn’t really a little thing, was it?
Rhi charged down the stairs, dressed in a pretty gown, a fur cape around her shoulders and her bag with all her art supplies over her shoulder.
“Good morn, all!” She reached around her mother, taking a loaf of bread. She tore off a piece, shoved it in her mouth, and cheered, “I’m off to draw!”
“Stay near the castle grounds,” Briec ordered. “And away from the Kyvich.”
“I will, Daddy.” She kissed him on the forehead and walked out.
Waiting a few extra seconds, Dagmar nodded at one of the female guards and she followed Rhi out.
Unbeknownst to Rhi, Dagmar always had the girl followed once she was outside the castle gates. She’d tried to do the same with the twins, but the guards kept losing sight of them. Although it took some time for Dagmar to find out about that because the guards had always been afraid to tell her. So, instead, they’d finally told Annwyl and she told Dagmar. She tried not to think too much about the fact that the guards had been less worried about telling Annwyl the Bloody they’d lost track of her children than of telling Dagmar.
While the guard went out the door, Frederik was coming in. Only one of the double doors was open and Dagmar watched the poor boy try to move around the well-armed and well-armored woman. It was kind of like an awkward dance.
Letting out an annoyed sigh, the guard moved back and allowed Frederik through. He came in quickly, heading for the stairs.
“Have you eaten, Frederik?” Annwyl asked him, causing the boy to stumble over his own feet. But at least he managed not to fall on his face.
“Uh . . .”
“That sounds like a no.” She pointed to the table. “Food. You need to eat.”
He walked over to the table, then walked into it, stepped back, then sat down in a chair across from Dagmar.
“Good morn, Frederik.”
He nodded, but didn’t look at her. “Auntie Dagmar.”
Talaith got up from the table and proceeded to get him a bowl of hot porridge and some bread while Annwyl widened her eyes at Dagmar and motioned to Frederik with her head. Dagmar didn’t like to be ordered by anyone to apologize, but Annwyl was queen and since she didn’t stop nodding at the boy, Dagmar could only guess that the monarch was serious.
Letting out a little sigh, Dagmar began, “Frederik, about yesterday . . . about what I said—”
“Good morn, my wonderful family!” Keita announced as she walked into the Great Hall with Ragnar. “How is everyone this beautiful morning?”
“Why are you in such a good mood?” Briec’s eyes narrowed. “Who did you kill?”
Laughing, Ragnar walked around Keita and sat at the table, reaching for one of the platters of meat.
“How dare you?” Keita snapped at her brother. “To suggest that I—”
“Oh, aye,” Annwyl laughed. “Someone’s dead somewhere.”
Keita walked over to Frederik and placed her hands over his ears. The poor thing, he was beginning to look completely traumatized.
“Must you say such horrible things around the boy?”
Gwenvael chuckled. “I very much doubt the boy cares.” He focused on Frederik and yelled, “Do you, Frederik?”
Dagmar glared at her mate. “Why, by all reason, are you yelling?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Leave the boy alone.” Keita moved her hands from his head and leaned down, yelling at the boy, “Are you enjoying your time here, Frederik? Is there anything we can do for you?”
Dagmar slammed her hands on the table. “Why are you both yell—”
“That reminds me,” Ragnar cut in, his calm, reasonable voice snapping her back.
“Reminds you about what?”
He reached into his bag and pulled out a book and a small wood box. He walked around to Frederik, moved his porridge out of the way, and put an open book on the table in front of him. “Can you read that?”
“Ragnar?”
He held his hand up at Dagmar, silencing her.
“I can,” Frederik said low. “Just not very well.”
“Right.” Ragnar crouched down next to him and pulled a pair of spectacles out of the box he held. Taking his time, he placed them on Frederik, adjusting them behind the boy’s ears and around his nose. “Now look again.”
The boy shrugged, his gaze moving to the book in front of him. He stared. Blinked. Leaned in a bit. Blinked.
“I . . . I don’t understand.”
“It seems you have the opposite of what your Aunt Dagmar has. She has trouble seeing far distances. You have trouble seeing close up. That’s why you struggle with reading. It probably gave you headaches when you tried to read? Your eyes felt tired?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you teach yourself not to squint?”
Frederik looked over the glasses at Dagmar. “I used to squint. My father said it made me look weak. So . . . I stopped.”
Dagmar, shocked, focused on Ragnar. “How did you know?”
He shrugged. “It was a guess. And the more Keita and Gwenvael talked to the boy, the louder they became. Before Frederik arrived, they only seemed to do that with you.”
“But”—Keita covered the boy’s ears again, and whispered—“he still seems clumsy and awkward. You don’t want to convince him that these pieces of glass will cure all his problems.”
“You have a point.” Ragnar reached across the table, grabbing a piece of fruit from a bowl. He tossed it to Talaith. “Lady Talaith. If you please.”
Talaith shrugged and pitched the fruit at Frederik’s head. Dagmar cringed, afraid it would hit him directly in the face. But he caught the fruit in his hand. Without even looking.
“Oh.” Keita stepped back. “I see.”
“So do I.” Dagmar pushed her chair back and stood.
“Where are you going?” Gwenvael asked her.
“To write my father.” She walked toward the hallway that would lead to the small office she kept inside the castle, her two dogs slipping out from under the table and following her. “This level of deception and lies must be addressed immediately.”
“Aunt Dagmar—”
She stopped, faced the boy, raising a single finger. “No, Frederik. There’s nothing more to discuss.”
Frederik lowered his gaze. “I understand.”
Gwenvael rested his chin on his raised fist, smirked at Dagmar. “What are you going to do with him, my love?”
“What do you think?” Dagmar demanded. “Keep him! I’d never send a plotting little liar like this back to the dullards of my family. Oh, no. I will keep you, boy, and I will train you, and I will use you to the fullest extent of your twisted capabilities.” She clapped her hands together. “I’m so damn excited!”
She spun around and again headed to her office, but she heard Gwenvael say to the boy, “Welcome to the family, Frederik.”
They stopped for a brief meal break in the woods not far from the road they were traveling. Izzy sat down next to Brannie, offering her some dried beef and bread.
“Are you still not talking to me?” Izzy asked.
“I’m hungover. But you can’t just keep kidnapping me anytime you want to do something ridiculously dangerous.”
“But if I ask you when you’re sober, we spend hours arguing before you just finally agree. This cuts down on the arguing.”
Her cousin glowered at her. “You are a plotting little cow and some days I loathe you.”
Izzy put her arm around her cousin’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “But most days you love me because there’s nowhere else you can get this level and diversity of combat training.”
“Yes, I just need to survive long enough to enjoy the benefits.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be general before you know it.”
“Unlike you, that has not been my lifelong goal. I do have a question, though, cousin.”
“Hhhm?”
“Macsen seems to have taken a sudden and rather brutal dislike to Éibhear.”
“He never liked Éibhear.”
“But he seems to dislike him even more now.” She jerked her head toward the other end of the clearing and Izzy watched the big blue idiot trying to get her dog to release the dragon’s tight ass, which was currently caught between Macsen’s jaws.
“Perhaps he simply finds Éibhear irritating and confusing.”
“Macsen finds Éibhear irritating and confusing? Macsen? The dog?”
Taking one more bite of her bread, Izzy stood and walked over to pry her dog off Éibhear.
Brannie watched Izzy try to call off that dog of hers. Although if Brannie were to be honest, she’d have to admit that Izzy was not trying very hard. Not as hard as she would if this was one of her soldiers.
Aidan sat down where Izzy had been sitting.
“What?” Brannie asked him.
“My, we are awfully snarly. I think I saw fang.”
“What do you want, Mì-runach?”
“Just sitting here, being entertained by our friends.”
“Éibhear isn’t my friend. He’s kin. A blood relation.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“To a Cadwaladr, it means that if I have good cause, I could beat the scales off his back and get away with it.”
“Ah, yes. More confirmation I never want to meet the rest of your family. Although you’re so welcoming . . .”
Brannie went back to eating her bread and meat until Uther sat on the other side of her. She had to admit, being surrounded by Mì-runach was unsettling. Her mother had raised her with two beliefs about the Mì-runach: they were invaluable in battle, but you should never turn your back on one.
“But what about granddad?” Brannie had asked, holding on to her mother’s tail while the dragoness had walked through a forest near their home. “He was Mì-runach.”
“And the worst of the lot, my girl. The worst of the lot. Especially to his offspring. We never turned our backs on your grandfather. Addolgar did once . . . he still has that scar where his head got split open.”
So Brannie assumed if her own grandfather couldn’t have been trusted, then obviously three strange Mì-runach she didn’t even know could definitely not be trusted. Yet Brannie still felt the need to ask them a question.
“Perhaps it’s the leftover ale still rolling around my head, but . . .” She motioned to a bickering Izzy and Éibhear while the dog kept barking and trying to re-attach itself to Éibhear’s ass. “Has something changed between those two?”