Only I wouldn’t fall to the thrust of a Roman sword.
The night Sorcha had ridden out in her chariot for the last time, I’d sat on the end of the bed watching her in the mirror as she buckled the straps of her breastplate and adjusted the hang of her sword on her hip. Angry at being left behind yet again, I complained loudly to Sorcha’s reflection about how I wanted to go out to fight Caesar’s legions with her.
She ignored me as long as she could.
“Enough!” Sorcha said finally, rounding on me. “Have you really thought about what it means to be a warrior, Fallon?”
I blinked at her, noticing for the first time the turbulence in her gaze.
“Have you?” She sighed. “Because I have. It means you kill. You kill men. You kill women. All while they are trying very hard to kill you. And if one of them is better at it than you, then you die. Are you so eager to dance with death, little sister?”
I was ten years old. I didn’t know what to say.
What I should have said was “Don’t go.”
But instead, I just pouted and stayed silent. Sorcha left our house and never returned to hear my answer to her question. That was the first night that the Morrigan visited me in my sleep and named me—me, not Sorcha—her daughter. It was a sacred thing, fearsome and awesome all at once, and I’d never told anyone. But I’d always kept the memory of her voice locked away in my heart.
I shook myself free from the clutches of those memories. Never mind that night. After this night, the Cantii would see me as the newest member of my father’s royal war band, not just as the legendary Sorcha’s little sister.
Facing the mirror, I picked up the carved bone comb that lay among a pile of bracelets and ear hoops on top of a wicker trunk. The occasion demanded that I should at least put a little effort into my appearance. Normally, I would have called for the bondswomen who attended me to deal with such things. But today seemed somehow as if it was meant to be mine alone, and I wanted to savor it—what had already happened and what was to come—without the drone of gossipy slaves in my ears. The merry chaos of this evening’s feast would come soon enough. Even with the distractions of choosing a tunic and shift, setting out jewelry, and taming my hair into submission—things I had little patience or skill with—all I could think of was what my father would say at the feast.
As the sun sank over the far purple hills, I imagined how he would welcome me into his war band with silver words praising my prowess with sword and spear. Indeed, the great hall would be crowded with Prydain royalty, including Aeddan, Mael’s older brother by two years. After the passing of their father, Mannuetios, he was now king of the Trinovantes.
The thought of seeing him made me smile. We’d all grown up together when Aeddan was still a fosterling in our tribe, but Mael and I hadn’t seen him in a good long while. Not since their father’s great betrayal. But after our morning spent in the vale, Mael had gotten word that Aeddan and his train of Trinovante chiefs had arrived in Durovernum. I had sent him off to greet his brother while I untangled the brambles from my hair.
Every two years on the Eve of Lughnasa—which also happened to be my birthday—the kings of the Four Tribes came together to feast and toast each other with wide smiles and enough thick, foamy beer to strengthen the bonds of friendship forged in the alliances of years past. This would be Aeddan’s first time there as king, newly returned from a long period of exile in Rome after his father was killed, executed for selling vital information to the Romans. Mael never spoke of his father’s betrayal, but he’d remained with the Cantii since that time, past the usual age of fostering, because of it.
As for his feelings toward his brother, Mael had always known that when he returned from Rome, Aeddan would be king, not him, and so he bore him no ill will. The three of us—four, if you counted the times Sorcha indulged in our mischief—had grown up together, and I’d feared that Mael might come to resent his brother. But he never did, which was a great relief to me. We were like family, and I would have hated for anything to come between us.
I finished dressing with care, adjusting the delicate silver torc around my neck with nervous fingers. I could hear laughter and shouting outside my door.