“There,” Cian said softly. “Dead east.”

“You see them?” Glenna strained forward. “You can see them?”

“Give it a minute, and so will you.”

The moment she did, her hand squeezed Moira’s. “Thank God. Oh, thank God.”

The dragon soared through the thick air, a glimmer of gold with riders on its back. Even as it touched down, Glenna was sprinting over the stones. When he dismounted, Hoyt’s arms opened to catch her.

“That’s lovely to see.” Moira spoke quietly as Hoyt and Glenna embraced. “So many said goodbye today, and will tomorrow. It’s lovely to see someone come home to waiting arms.”

“Before her, he’d most often prefer coming back to solitude. Women change things.”

She glanced up at him. “Only women?”

“People then. But women? They alter universes just by being women.”

“For better or worse?”

“Depends on the woman, doesn’t it?”

“And the prize, or the man, she’s set her sights on.” With this, she left his side to rush toward Larkin.

Despite the fact that he was dripping, she hugged him hard. “I have food, drink, hot water, all you could wish. I’m so glad to see you. All of you.” But when she would have turned from Larkin to welcome the others, he gripped her hard.

Moira felt her relief spin on its head to fear.

“What? What happened?”

“We should go in.” Hoyt’s voice was quiet, and tight. “We should go in out of the wet.”

“Tell me what happened.” Moira drew away from Larkin.

“Tynan’s troop was set upon, at the near halfway point.”

She felt everything inside her freeze. “Oran. Tynan.”

“Alive. Tynan was injured, but not seriously. Six others... ”

She took Larkin’s arm, digging her fingers in. “Dead or captured?”

“Five dead, one taken. Several others wounded, two badly. We did what we could for them.”

The cold remained, like ice over her heart. “You have the names? The dead, the wounded, and the other?”

“We have them, yes. Moira, it was young Sean taken. The smithy’s son.”

Her belly twisted with the knowledge that what the boy faced would be worse than death. “I’ll speak to their families. Say nothing to anyone until I’ve spoken to their families.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No. No, this is for me. You need to get dry and warm, and fed. It’s for me to do, Larkin. It’s my place.”

“We wrote down the names.” Blair took a scrap of paper out of her pocket. “I’m sorry, Moira.”

“We knew this would come.” She slipped the paper inside her cloak, out of the wet. “I’ll come to the parlor as soon as I’m able, so you can tell me the details of it. For now, the families need to hear this from me.”

“Lot of weight,” Blair declared when Moira walked away.

“She’ll bear it.” Cian looked after her. “It’s what queens do.”

S he thought it would crush her, but she did bear it. While mothers and wives wept in her arms, she took the weight. She knew nothing of the attack, but told each and every one their son or husband or brother had died bravely, died a hero.

It was what needed to be said.

It was worse with Sean’s parents, worse to see the hope in the blacksmith’s eyes, the tears of that hope blurring his wife’s. She couldn’t bring herself to snuff it out, so left them with it, with the prayers that their son would somehow escape and return home.

When it was done, she went to her rooms to put the names into a painted box she would keep now beside her bed. There would be other lists, she knew. This was only the first. And every name of every one who gave his or her life would be written down, and kept in that box.

With it, she put a sprig of rosemary for remembrance, and a coin for tribute.

After closing the box, she buried her need for solitude, for grieving, and went to the parlor to hear how it had been done.

Conversation stopped when she entered, and Larkin rose quickly.

“My father has just left us. I’ll go bring him back if you like.”

“No, no. Let him be with your mother, your sister.” Moira knew her pregnant cousin’s husband was to lead tomorrow’s troop.

“I’ll warm you some food. No, you will eat,” Glenna said even as Moira opened her mouth. “Consider it medicine, but you’ll eat.”

While Glenna put food on a plate, Cian poured a stiff dose of apple brandy into a cup. He took it to her. “Drink this first. You’re white as wax.”

“With this I’ll have color, and a swimming head.” But she shrugged, tossed it back like water.

“Have to admire a woman who can take a slug like that.” Impressed, he took the empty glass, then went back to sit.

“It was horrible. At least I can admit that here, to all of you. It was horrible.” Moira sat down at the table, then pressed her hands to her temples. “To look into their faces and see the change, and know they’ll forever be changed because of what you’ve brought to them. To what’s been taken from them.”

“You didn’t bring it.” Anger lashed in Glenna’s voice as she slapped a plate down in front of Moira. “You didn’t take it.”

“I didn’t mean the war, or the death. But the news of it. The hardest was the one who was taken prisoner. The smithy’s boy, Sean. His parents still have hope. How could I tell them he’s worse than dead? I couldn’t cut that last thread of hope, and wonder if it would be kinder if I had.”

She let out a breath, then straightened. Glenna was right, she would eat. “Tell me what you know.”

“They were in the ground,” Hoyt began, “as they were when they set upon Blair. Tynan said no more than fifty, but the men were taken by surprise. He told us it seemed they didn’t care if they were cut down, but charged and fought like mad animals. Two of our men fell in the first instant, and they gained three horses from us in the confusion of the battle.”

“Nearly a third of the horses that went with them.”

“Four, maybe five of them took the smithy’s son, alive from what those who tried to save him said. They took him off, heading east, while the rest held their line and battled back. They killed more than twenty, and the others scattered and ran as the tide turned.”