The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(2)

I held my breath.

“A hit!”

Not perfect—the spear struck the target a handsbreadth to the left of where a flesh-and-blood man’s heart would have beat—but still, it was a good, clean blow. Mael’s elated shout confirmed that. I punched my fists skyward in victory before sweeping my arms out to either side, stretched wide as wings. I felt for that fleeting instant as if I really were the goddess Morrigan in flight, swooping low over a battlefield to collect the souls of the glorious dead.

Then, as Mael eased the chariot into the turn, one of the ponies stumbled.

The animal scrambled to regain its stride, and the yoke I was balancing on bobbled with it. My gesture of triumph turned into a frantic flailing as I lost my balance and grabbed at the air to try to right myself. I heard Mael’s jubilant shout distort into a cry of warning as I pitched sideways over the shoulder of the horse and cartwheeled helplessly through the air. My head hit something hard, and the world spiraled into darkness.

Dull silence muffled the first strains of a lark’s song.

? ? ?

“Fallon!”

The warmth on my cheek was either the kiss of the sun or the spill of my tears. Or was it blood? That was probably it, I thought dimly. I’d hit my head and split my skull open, and now I was going to die. On the morning of my seventeenth year.

“Fallon!” Mael cried again.

His voice sounded very near and very far away at the same time.

“I must be dead,” I murmured. “Or else I’m dreaming . . .”

If this was a dream, it was a vivid one. One as clear as the dream that often haunted my nights, when the Morrigan, goddess of death and battle, would appear, terrible and magnificent in a cloak of raven feathers. In a voice like smoke and ashes, she would call me “daughter.”

My eyes fluttered open, and I found myself staring up into Mael’s face, his nose only inches from mine. I realized that the warmth I’d felt on my cheek had been his breath.

“You’re not dreaming, Fallon,” Mael said, his eyes wide with worry.

I grinned up at him.

Who cares for merely dreaming about the Morrigan, I thought, when you can fly like her?

Like I just had. The thrill of that moment still tingled in my blood.

“Well, if I’m not dreaming,” I teased, “then I suppose I must be dead.”

The dread vanished from Mael’s face, chased away by a look of hot fury. “You’re not dead either,” he snapped, the anger in his voice barely leashed. “Though damned well not for lack of trying.”

“Why are you so angry?” I asked irritably, grunting with the effort of raising myself up on one elbow. In the near distance, I could see my spear where it still quivered in the practice dummy’s torso. “Look!” I pointed over his shoulder. “We did it—”

“You did it,” Mael said. “And then I almost killed you!”

“That wasn’t your faul—”

“It was!” He glared down at me fiercely. “And if you ever make me do something as stupid and reckless as that again, I just might kill you, and it won’t be by accident!”

“Mael—”

“Are you trying to fulfill Olun’s prophecy?” he asked. “Is that what you’re trying to do?”

I rolled my eyes. It was true my father’s chief druid, Olun, had divined that I would one day follow in my sister Sorcha’s footsteps. But she had been killed on the field of battle. The Forgotten Vale was nothing more than a placid meadow.

“I was a fool to let you talk me into this.” Mael shook his head. “You seem determined to test the will of the Morrigan.”

I opened my mouth, but for once no sharp-tongued retort was forthcoming. It wasn’t as if I weren’t used to him scolding me—we’d grown up together, since I was five and he was six, and we had spent most of those years enthusiastically arguing. Mael was the youngest son of Mannuetios, king of the Trinovantes to the north, and as young boys, he and his brother, Aeddan, had been sent to foster with our tribe—to grow to manhood as one of us, ensuring peace between the two kingdoms. One of the first things Mael had done upon meeting me was break my baby finger with a wooden practice sword in a play fight.

Ever since that moment, he’d harbored an annoying streak of overprotectiveness that was at constant odds with his natural inclination to fight with me at every opportunity. It drove me mad. The two of us together were like flint and iron, forever sparking off each other. Most of the time I was hard-pressed to decide if I couldn’t stand Mael . . . or if I’d be lost without him. But as I looked up at him, I saw genuine worry in his eyes. I realized he really had thought I was hurt.

“Mael,” I said, reaching up to brush back the strands of dark hair that fell in his face. “I’m sorry. I—”

His lips on mine silenced my apology, muffling my words with his sudden, hungry kiss. My eyes went wide . . . then drifted shut, plunging me into a red-lit darkness. My heart was a glowing ember bursting into flame, and all I could think was that this was what joy felt like. Fierce and demanding. My eyelids fluttered open again, and I gazed up at Mael, at the flecks of dark silver in his eyes. They glinted like the raw iron our blacksmith melted down to forge swords and daggers and all manner of dangerous and beautiful things. Suddenly, I knew the answer.