Celyn shook his head and sat up. “You are such a ridiculous, vindictive bastard, you know that?”
“What?”
“Throwing me off the Queen’s Personal Guard because I did what I had to do. She was not in danger. You were. But if you want to send me to the bloody salt mines with that idiot brother of mine, fine. Do it. Stupid as I am, I would probably save your bastard ass again. Because you are—much to my great disappointment—still my uncle!”
“Are you done?”
“Aye. I’m done.”
“Good. You are no longer one of the Queen’s Personal Guard because you’ve been made sergeant major of the Queen’s Army. In that position, you’ll be working closely with me and your father to maintain alliances, send troops where needed, and battle these zealot fucks coming out of the Annaig Valley.”
“Wait . . . what?”
“I’m not repeating all that. You should have gotten it the first time.”
“I’m . . . I’m sergeant major? Me?”
“Sadly, yes. Since you’ll be forced to work closely with me. Your disappointing uncle.”
“I know I owe you an apology for that, but it will have to wait,” Celyn told him, pulling on a pair of brown leggings and boots.
“What are you doing?”
“We can talk later. There’s something I have to do first. Something much more important.”
“Tell your one-eyed female?”
“No. She probably couldn’t care less.”
Celyn opened the door and ran out into the hallway and to the stairs that led to the Great Hall. There he stopped and, grinning, he yelled out, “Oy! Brannie!”
Brannie, who was eating first meal with Izzy, Éibhear, Kachka, and now a blanket-covered Elina, looked up and smiled. “Congratulations, brother, on Claiming—”
“Guess who’s become sergeant major of the Queen’s Army?”
Brannie’s smile faded and she jumped up from the table. “Not you. It can’t be you.”
“Oh . . . it’s me. Me, me me!”
“You bastard! Mum!”
Celyn strutted back to his room, head held high, grin spread across his face. It was shameless, he knew. But he didn’t care.
Not even when his uncle shook his head sadly and asked, “Was that really necessary?”
“To tell my sister that I now outrank her? Yes, Uncle. Yes, it was.”Elina, now wearing leggings, a shirt, and boots provided by the servants, was the only one still sitting at the dining table when the queen entered the hall. She carried with her a wood box that she held in both hands. She placed it on the table and sat catty-corner from Elina.
“Do you like strategy games, Elina Shestakova?” Annwyl asked.
Elina replied with a chuckle.
“What?” the queen asked.
“That was something that bothered Glebovicha greatly. That I was so good at strategy games but had no love of raiding defenseless towns. I was a great disappointment to her.”
“A true leader finds what her people are good at and adjusts accordingly. One of the few things my bastard father ever taught me. He knew forcing people into uncomfortable roles would gain him absolutely nothing.”
Annwyl opened the box and took out a game board and began to fill it with pieces made of fine marble. “The stonemason gave this to me. I think he was afraid I would take his head.”
“Would you?”
“That’s what the world would like to think of me. That I go around, cutting off people’s heads for my amusement, but one really has to piss me off to get me to go that far.”
Annwyl put the box aside and pulled her chair closer to the table. She made the first move and while she waited for Elina, she said, “I heard you had Celyn burn your mother’s eyes to ash.”
“I did.”
“Sorry if I offended you, Elina.” And Elina could tell from her expression, the queen meant those words.
“You did not offend. Instead, you made me feel . . . like I had found home.” Elina gazed at Annwyl. “No one but my sister has ever done anything for me before. But then Celyn—”
“He loves you.”
“—and you—”
“I don’t know you well enough to love you, but I do like you.”
“—risk everything for me.”
“I sent you as an emissary and you came back missing an eye. It seemed wrong to do nothing about that.”
“Most leaders would have sent an assassin to deal with my mother.”
“I just wanted to take her eye. Brigida said she could put it in for you but that we were short on time. For me, it was just kind of a tit-for-tat thing. I thought I could challenge her in a fight, get the eye quick, and walk away while still making my point. But your mother wouldn’t stop hitting me.
“Then she said something about my children that just . . .” The queen’s face briefly contorted in rage, but it was gone just as quickly as it came. “. . . set me off.”
“Glebovicha always had way with words . . . and hatred.”
“I took her head,” Annwyl admitted, shrugging her shoulders like a small child. “But I didn’t feel right parading that in front of you. So I left it in the Outerplains, near some sparse-looking woods. By now I’m pretty sure the wolves have got it.”
“That’s probably for best.”
Annwyl nodded. “Probably.”