The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(14)

“It was my sister’s,” I said.

Charon’s eyes narrowed. “Your sister must be a fine warrior to handle a blade like this.”

“She’s dead.” The words sounded flat and ugly in my ears. “When I was young, she left one day to fight the Romans. She never came home. Now the sword is mine.”

I watched Charon’s jaw work as he chewed the inside of his cheek, lost in thought. Then he blinked rapidly and turned away, and it was as if a veil had fallen behind his eyes, his expression unreadable once more.

“It’s a fine blade,” he said, hefting the slender weapon and testing its balance. “I wonder that she didn’t take it with her into the field.”

“My sister could kill a man with a dull fish knife,” I said fiercely. “She was the weapon. The blade she used was of no consequence.”

It was true. Sorcha had owned many swords, many daggers—all of them marked with the same triple-raven knot—and yet this one was special. She’d said as much on the day we’d gone to the forge. It was a twin to the sword she carried, but this sword would be mine one day, she told me. And when that happened—when the day came that I was old enough and worthy enough and the sword passed into my hands—I was to guard it with my life. Because, Sorcha told me, it would mean my life. I hadn’t known exactly what she’d meant, but my sister had often said things like that. Sorcha, when she was alive, had made it a custom to spend long hours in close, secret conversation with Olun, my father’s chief druid. The druiddyn were the sages and mystics of our tribe. They dealt in portents and prophecies, and I’d often wondered if Sorcha had known something in the days before she left to fight Caesar’s men. Something she didn’t—wouldn’t—tell me.

I wondered if that was why she’d left the blade behind, as a legacy for her little sister. Maybe Sorcha had known she was going to die and leave me to grow up without her.

Even if she had, she still would have gone, I thought. Just like I would have. That is the warrior’s way.

“Such ferocity you have,” Charon said. “Following in your sister’s footsteps, perhaps?”

I felt a shiver across my shoulders at his words, like the brush of dark wings on my skin. Following in Sorcha’s footsteps was exactly what the druiddyn had foreseen as my destiny. The Morrigan, it seemed, had willed it otherwise. I could only hope that the path she’d set my feet upon would lead me to a fate as honorable as my sister’s.

“Can you fight?” he asked.

“I can fight,” I said, lifting my chin. “Better than you. Better than all of your men.”

Charon raised an eyebrow at me. “Really.”

“Give me back my sword and find out for yourself.”

“No . . .” He laughed and slid the blade back into its sheath. “No, I believe you. And so I’ll keep this out of your reach. For now.”

He stepped out through the tent flap, and I heard him speak to Hafgan. “Take her back down to the hold,” he said. “Let the rest of the men know that she is not to be mistreated.”

“You keeping her for yourself?” Hafgan leered.

I froze. It was something I hadn’t considered.

“Just do it,” Charon said. “Tell them I’ll chop off the hand of the first man who touches her and feed it to the fishes.”

I silently thanked the Morrigan as I descended back down into the darkness of the slave ship’s hold, grateful for the smallest of mercies. Still, I knew that the journey ahead of me would be long and terrible . . . and Charon’s continued kindness was the very last thing I could count on.





VI



SCALP TO SOLE, I was one long mile of misery. I had lost track of how many days it had been since the Lughnasa feast in my father’s great hall. How many nights would it have been since they’d laid Maelgwyn’s body on the funeral pyre? If I closed my eyes, I could imagine it. His swords crossed on his chest, the flames climbing upward to lick at his face, hungrily consuming him.

Did Aeddan run all the way home, I wondered, or did he skulk back to watch from a distance as the smoke and sparks rose into the sky to carry his brother’s spirit to the Otherworld? I swore to myself—every day of that whole horrible journey I swore—that I would find a way to return and make him pay for Mael’s death. They would have to remove my chains at some point—either to sell me or to put me to work after I’d been sold—and when they did, I would run. Hide. Make my way home and have my revenge. I swore it on my soul.

Mine and Maelgwyn’s. I owed him that.

But as the weeks wore on, my oaths began to sound hollow in my ears.

As it did every day on that infinite stretch since we’d landed on the northern shore of Gaul and began our trek overland, the caravan rumbled to a stop around midday, as the sun reached its apex. The air around the cage carts would grow hot, rank with the stench of unwashed bodies and sickness and fear, and full of dust and flies beneath a glaring sun. My once-pale, freckled skin was burnt and tender. My eyes and nostrils were full of road grit, and my throat was parched and raw. I’d lost count of the towns and villages we’d passed through, where the townsfolk stared and the children dared each other to throw rocks at the cages.

But that morning, instead of the usual midday break, our caravan joined up on the road with another wagon train coming from the east bearing more slaves and trade goods. The two groups blended together, and I was moved into a larger cage cart. This one was populated entirely with girls—an even dozen of us altogether—around my age.