The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(99)

I wore my sister’s pearl-studded breastplate and had my twin swords sheathed at my sides. Elka gripped her spear tightly. And Ajani had her bow held in front of her, with a quiver stuffed full of arrows on her back—tied down and secured for flight. I glanced over at Kore and Thalassa on one side of me and Elka and Ajani on the other. All of us were coiled and ready, and grinning fiercely with anticipation . . . and just a little bit of terror.

“Let’s fly!” I called. And I gave Quint the signal to loose.

The force of the catapult’s propulsion was like nothing I’d ever felt before—a bone-jarring, sudden thrust upward—followed by the sheer exhilaration of flying through the air, borne aloft like a bird. I heard Thalassa utter a brief squeal and saw Elka’s mouth open in a silent cry.

I don’t know if I made any sound.

All I could hear close by was the wind rushing past my ears as I flew in the moments before we hit the roof with enough force that the thatch caught us, softened our landings, and then . . . collapsed inward. Suddenly the world all around me went from day-bright sky to peat-smoky darkness as the five of us descended into the middle of my father’s great feast hall.

Where he happened to be conducting a meeting of his war chiefs.

I landed at Virico’s feet in a pile of thatch with a thud that knocked the wind from my lungs and lay there, groaning for a moment in the stunned silence that descended on the hall. That silence was broken a moment later, as Elka yelped and rolled out of the edge of the fire that was crackling in the central hearth. By the time I lifted my head to look around, I saw Ajani was already up on her feet, crouched in a wary stance, folded protectively around her bow and surrounded by a circle of gape-mouthed Cantii warriors, all of them bristling with swords.

“Father!” I gasped, struggling to my feet and fumbling at the chinstrap of my helmet, clawing the thing off my head so he could see my face. “It’s me—Fallon!”

As I lurched to my feet, Kore and Thalassa were stamping the smoldering embers from Elka’s tunic hem and helping her to stand too. I turned and looked up to see my father rising slowly from his seat, his gaze fastened on my face, eyes wide and his expression one of naked disbelief. To him, I was a ghost.

“Father, it’s me—I’ve come home . . .” I said. Then I realized I was speaking Latin. I tried again, in the language of my tribe. “I’m here. Home. Father—”

That was as far as I got before he lunged for me.

He hauled me in to his chest, and his great long arms wrapped around me so tightly I couldn’t breathe as he lifted me off my feet in a crushing embrace. If I hadn’t been wearing Sorcha’s armor, I think he might have broken a rib or two. I’m fairly certain my friends thought I was being attacked, until the moment he uttered my name, muffled by the embrace and hindered by the emotions that choked his throat closed.

“Fallon . . .” He set me down, finally, on my feet and pushed me to arm’s length, peering into my face. “My girl . . . It’s really you . . .”

I nodded, my own throat squeezed tight, and looked up at him, tears blurring my vision. Virico’s great thick mane of auburn hair had gone iron gray in my absence. There was still a sprinkling of red in his beard, but that too was frosted a dark silver. His face, like Olun’s, was more lined than it had been. The planes of his cheeks and the angle of his forehead more pronounced. But he was still tall and unbowed and strong and my father. I’d feared he would be angry, unforgiving . . . but his eyes were full of love.

And, perhaps understandably, confusion.

“These are my friends,” I said, turning to gesture to my gladiatrix sisters. “Elka and Ajani, Kore and Thalassa . . .” The girls each nodded politely in turn. “I know I should have asked you first before inviting them in . . .”

Virico glanced upward to the holes our arrival had torn in his roof.

“Or perhaps used the door,” he said.

Then he turned to his chiefs and gestured for them to lower their weapons.

“How?” he asked, first, gesturing to the roof. My father had a pragmatic mind, and all of the other questions he had could wait their logical turn. First things first. How had his daughter and her companions come to be flying over—and crashing into—his house?

“There were catapults,” I said. “Siege engines in a field near the vale . . .”

He nodded. I could see that he knew of the catapults, and I suspected Quint and Cai had been right about Catuvellauni raids prompting higher walls.

“We loaded them with, um, well . . . with ourselves instead of stones. It’s . . . a thing we’ve been practicing . . . sort of.” I looked back and forth between the other girls. “It’s . . . Oh, Da . . . it’s such a long story. All of it.”

Virico smiled and turned to a woman standing off to one side. She was staring at me with a wide, incredulous grin on her face and tears in her eyes.

“Clota,” he said, “would you be so kind as to fetch five mugs? These girls look thirsty. And I think they have a tale to tell us.” Then he turned back to me, and I saw his gaze focus on the armor I wore. Sorcha’s armor. He reached out a hand as if he would touch it to make certain it was real. But stopped himself mid-gesture. “And I, for one, would open my ears to hear it.”



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