Queens of the Sea Read online

  About the author

  KIM WILKINS published her first novel, a supernatural thriller, in 1997. Since then she has successfully maintained a busy writing career, as well as earning a PhD and holding down a job as an associate professor in writing and publishing at the University of Queensland. Under her pseudonym, Kimberley Freeman, she has published seven novels of epic women’s fiction. She is published in twenty-one languages and has written for adults, young adults and children.

  She remains obsessed with misty English landscapes, Led Zeppelin, and chihuahuas.

  PRAISE FOR SISTERS OF THE FIRE

  “Five stubborn royal sisters continue to pursue their intersecting and often conflicting destinies in this follow-up to the Viking-inspired epic fantasy Daughters of the Storm … The story gathers more depth and originality in this solidly action-packed middle volume, with the promise of more plot development—and probably a hefty dose of tragedy—to come.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “The writing is elegant and lucid, and the story unspools swiftly and strongly. Filled with action, intrigue and a little bit of romance, this is one of the best fantasy series I’ve read in a long while.”

  Kate Forsyth

  PRAISE FOR DAUGHTERS OF THE STORM

  “A ruthlessly compelling tale of female ambition and rivalry, reminding me that the female of the species is, indeed, more deadly than the male.”

  Robin Hobb, author of Assassin’s Fate

  “Raw and powerful … A fierce tale of sisterhood, Daughters of the Storm shows how deeply family can love, and how sharply they can betray. Prepare to have your loyalties tested.”

  Stephanie Garber, author of Caraval

  “There’s a richness of invention here, with the feel that Wilkins knows far more about this world than she reveals … Oh, and it also has the delightful warrior princess Bluebell. You’re going to want to meet her.”

  Black Static

  “I didn’t read this book—I devoured it—greedily. In Daughters of the Storm, Kim Wilkins, a masterful storyteller, presents us with a rich and detailed historical fantasy … a vivid and diverse world where faith, magic and individuals collide.”

  Karen Brooks, author of The Chocolate Maker’s Wife

  “Kim Wilkins is one of my favorite Aussie authors, and Daughters of the Storm has only increased this conviction. It’s a strong story, beautifully written and full of surprises. I love the heart in it, and the deeply human quality to all the characters. Their loves and their flaws bring this story to life. Wilkins’ world-building is seamless, evocative and engaging. Brilliant fantasy. What’s not to love?”

  Kim Falconer, author of The Blood in the Beginning

  PRAISE FOR KIM WILKINS

  “Wilkins confirms her increasing maturity in creating believable mythological worlds.”

  Canberra Times

  “Kim Wilkins has a gift for creating narratives that swivel between the world of fantasy and reality. This is a tribute to the measured purposefulness of her prose … Inhabitants of the real world will be seduced by this fantasy.”

  Sydney Morning Herald

  “Rich with the dense texture of authoritative research.”

  The Age

  “Wilkins’s human characters are endearing and her mythic monsters spring into vibrant life.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “… superb world building … intriguing, genuine, rich.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  Queens of the Sea

  Kim Wilkins

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  For Rose Red, with love from Pink Blossom

  Contents

  About the Author

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  The queen is coming.

  Just this moment, something has been set in motion. A heart breaks. A father loses his temper. A girl flees. The island, lately bereaved, senses its opportunity and calls for its queen. What will follow cannot be told, but we shall be summoned to serve; of that there is no doubt.

  Life after earthly life the queen comes, over centuries as dense and high as mountains. Sometimes a smith’s daughter, sometimes a beggar, sometimes a whore. But this time, she is highborn and has four powerful sisters. Highborn women have allies and armies, enemies and encumbrances. She will bring all with her, whether she intends to or not. We shall not escape this. The sky will split and the mighty eoten will be thrust into the world of the Thyrslanders.

  Here, at the ragged edge of the world, the last six of us live, bonded in pairs. Day after quiet day, in cold sunshine and sea spray, we cleave to the gateway as the eoten always have. The death of one of us is the death of another. We have only three lives to give.

  Where I sit, on this high ridge near the seeing pool, I look out towards Thyrsland. I cannot see its green hills and deep coombs, I cannot see its ancient woodlands and soft meadows. But as the clouds fan apart and the rising sun sends bright rays across the grey water, staining it amber and gold, I feel familiarity, longing. Once my people lived there; our bones were the land’s bones. To return is impossible unless it is to return in sacrifice to these mennisc, with their tiny, fast-beating hearts and quick, light steps.

  We will do what we must. We always have.

  I had hoped for a softer end. But what are hopes, what is softness, when gods go to war?

  One

  The rider came in the long cold before dawn.

  Bluebell had retired to her gloomy bower after four hours on the keep’s ramparts. Harrow’s Fell, the stronghold on the northern border of Bradsey, was a wild and grim place where the weak flickering of the torches was the only light for miles. Autumn fog covered the stars and wound around the bare branches of ancient oaks. Bluebell hadn’t slept well these six weeks; she never slept well at Harrow’s Fell.

  She had only just plaited her long fair hair for sleep when there came a frantic knocking and shouting. Her dog, Hyld, lifted her ears and growled low.

  ‘My lord! My lord! A rider!’

  Bluebell wrenched open the door. In the narrow, wooden hallway were two half-blood soldiers. They bred them short and slight up here. Not enough sunlight. She towered over them. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s Sal.’

  ‘Just one rider?’

  ‘Just one.’

  Salgar, son of Dunstan. He had survived. But what of the other four warriors she sent with them? Six of her finest thanes. Kara was lately married; Lofric was about to be a father. Surely they could not all be lost?

  Bluebell hurried after the soldiers, Hyld close behind, her paws clattering on the rough wooden floorboards. The corridor opened into a common area made of stone and thatch, then through to the open ward of the stronghold. On the cold flagstones, in a blaze of torchlight, l
ay Sal. His tunic was stained with blood and his face and hair were caked with dirt and sweat. Soldiers and healers gathered around him in soft drizzle.

  ‘Sal!’ She pushed a healer out of the way and knelt next to him. ‘Are you going to live?’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ he managed. ‘Though I wish I had died with my companions.’

  Bluebell’s chest constricted, as though her ribs had frozen together. ‘They’re all dead then?’

  ‘All dead.’

  For four years, since she had become king, Bluebell had made the regular journey north to this stronghold. This time raiders had been moving south, over mountains and through frozen caves, to terrorise the rough little villages scattered along the northern border between Bradsey and the Ice-Heart. The raiders came with their religious banners and their cruel hearts and their hard steel. Determined to end it, Bluebell had sent half of her retinue into the Ice-Heart, to Marvik, where her sister Willow ruled as Crow Queen alongside Bluebell’s long-time enemy, Hakon. Her aim had been assassinating Hakon and bringing Willow back alive.

  After four years of reckless aggression from Hakon and his queen, Bluebell had come with such high hopes, not least for the thinnest possibility that she might be able to save Willow from the madness that gripped her. The dashing of those hopes was painful. Hard with guilt.

  ‘Please stand back, my lord,’ one of the healers said with a gentle push on Bluebell’s arm. ‘Let me clean and bandage his wounds and then you may speak with him at length.’

  Bluebell eyed the woman with irritation, then decided that getting in a fight with a healer for touching her arm was not the way to help Sal or anyone. Not least those five of her best thanes who were now dead.

  The soldiers lifted Sal into a hammock and carried him away, the healers following. Their white robes, customary dress for healers in the north, caught the colours of the fire. Bluebell found herself standing in the ward alone, while cold mist condensed around her.

  Hyld whined cautiously. Bluebell glanced down, realising they were both getting wet. ‘I’m sorry, girl,’ she said, leading the dog back towards the keep. This was Hyld’s first journey north with Bluebell. Her old dog, Thrymm, was safely retired back home in Blicstowe, having grown too arthritic for war. Bluebell didn’t love Hyld yet. She missed her old dog. She missed a lot about home. Six weeks in Harrow’s Fell always felt like six months.

  Bluebell abandoned all hope of sleeping. Instead, she stoked the fire in the common area and pulled up a bench next to it. Hyld settled at her feet and was soon whimpering in a dream somewhere, big paws twitching. Bluebell rested her head in her hands. In moments like this, her kingship weighed an ocean. She could wake Ash and tell her, or Sighere. She could wait and whisper it onto the pillow between her and her husband back in Blicstowe. She could close her eyes and tell her father, dead but not forgotten. But ultimately, the mission had been her choice, her burden.

  Half her hearthband. The strongest and fiercest sons and daughters of high families.

  The sound of footfalls. Bluebell looked up. Sal approached in a clean tunic and breeches.

  ‘No bandages?’

  ‘It was mostly other people’s blood,’ he said, sitting on the floor beside Hyld and reaching out to rub the dog’s ears.

  Bluebell noticed he trembled. She watched him a little while in the firelight. The sound of rain deepened overhead. ‘What happened?’ she asked at last.

  He sighed, shifted so his knees were pulled up under his chin. ‘We made it all the way to Marvik, of course. We knew a hidden passageway into Hakon’s hold. Everything went to plan, but then … she was there.’

  ‘She?’

  He averted his eyes, as though afraid he would offend. ‘Your sister, my lord. The Crow Queen. We were trapped in the chamber. She came in with twenty armed men and she knew who we were. She knew we were Bluebell’s thanes, and took pleasure as we were slaughtered in Marvik in the name of the trimartyr god. We finished off eight of them, but we were outnumbered. She wields a sword well, my lord.’

  ‘How did you escape?’

  He swallowed hard, and his body began to shake violently. ‘She let me go so I could tell you how they died. But I will not, my lord, for I would not have another soul know that horror.’

  Bluebell laid a hand on his shoulder to still him, took a light tone. ‘I am glad you are back, and your father will be glad too. I don’t know how I would ever face him if I’d lost you.’

  Sal reached up to grasp her hand and hold it tight, eyes fixed on her face. ‘My lord, she enjoyed it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Queen Willow. She enjoyed what they did to the others.’

  ‘You can’t know that.’

  ‘She smiled the whole time.’ He shook his head and sagged forward. ‘All that blood.’

  Bluebell stood. ‘Put it out of your mind now, Sal. We will return to Blicstowe in a few days. Rest, and be proud of what you did.’

  He offered her a pained smile that did not reach his eyes, but nonetheless stood and headed towards the sleeping quarters.

  Bluebell watched him go. She smiled the whole time.

  What kind of monster had her sister become?

  Dawn and dusk were when the spirits were most likely to come. Ahead of the day’s edge or just beyond it, they were on the move. Ash stood by the stream in the long shadows of twilight. She’d discarded her shoes because the rocks were mossy and she needed to grip them with her toes, but now her feet were chilled to numbness. The sunlight seemed never to have penetrated the dark, gnarled oaks. Creeping cold congealed in layers. The woods were still and silent.

  No words. Only thoughts. Grasp them with your mind and turn them to you.

  A flash, felt rather than seen. Ash reached for it, not too desperate. But it was gone in a half-moment.

  Again.

  Ash climbed down from the rocks and gratefully pulled on her shoes. In the six weeks she had spent in Harrow’s Fell, her power had waned dramatically. Once a robust and tensile thing, her ability to use magic means to control the world had thinned and hollowed. She had come to keep her sister Bluebell safe from supernatural trickery, but now was not sure if she could fulfil her duty. It was for the best that they would soon be returning home.

  She heard footfalls in the leaves and turned to see Sighere, Bluebell’s second-in-command, approaching. Ash gave a silent prayer of thanks that he had not travelled to Marvik with the other assassins.

  ‘It grows dark, Ash,’ he said.

  She smiled and ran to him, crashing into his embrace, her ear against his chest, listening to his great heart beating slow and steady. His big hands were in her hair. How she loved the size of him, the smell of him.

  He kissed the top of her head and she stood back, her hands sliding down to grasp his. In the low light, his dark eyes were almost black, his battle-scarred face almost grim. ‘My companions are dead, Ash. My heart is so heavy.’

  ‘They are in the Horse God’s train now. Their deeds will be told for years to come.’ She squeezed his hands.

  ‘Cold consolation for those who love them,’ he said. ‘I wish you would allow me to stay by you while you practise your magic. I have already lost enough of those I love.’

  ‘I need to be alone.’ She sighed. ‘Not that there is much magic to practise.’

  ‘Harrow’s Fell is not a safe place, unless you are inside the walls of the stronghold. And, as you say, your own … ability to protect yourself is failing. How would I explain to Bluebell …?’

  ‘If I was killed by raiders you wouldn’t have to explain anything,’ Ash said, laughing softly, reaching up to lift a strand of his dark hair and tuck it behind his ear. ‘We could take our little secret to our graves.’

  ‘That’s grim,’ he said, catching her hand and kissing her palm.

  ‘Well, we will have to tell her eventually.’

  ‘I have devoted my life to being loyal and true to your sister.’

  ‘As have I. She’s my sister.’ />
  ‘She will forgive you much faster than she will forgive me.’

  ‘Why do you think there is something to forgive?’

  ‘Because she asked me to protect you. Not to –’

  Ash stood on her toes and kissed him to silence him. They had covered this ground many times before in the weeks since he had declared his love for her, up on the foreboding battlements on the stronghold. She had known, of course. They had been sidestepping around the topic for over a year. Wherever Bluebell travelled, Ash and Sighere travelled with her. They had brushed against each other, sought out each other’s glances, made excuses to linger. Thoughts of Sighere had filled her imagination for months before they finally spoke of it. Even though Ash made light fun of Sighere’s reluctance to tell Bluebell, she was relieved her sister did not know yet. It wasn’t possible to love Bluebell and not fear her at least a little.

  Sighere broke the kiss and grasped her hand. ‘Come along. Back to the stronghold. We leave for Anad Scir in the morning. So few of us. What a horror this journey has been.’

  ‘When we are home, take some time off with me. I want to go to the sea. It’s where I am the strongest.’

  ‘I am at my lord Bluebell’s disposal,’ he replied. ‘I doubt there will be time away from my duties now her hearthband is so reduced.’

  They fell silent as they walked, and she didn’t say to him, ‘Then I shall go alone,’ because then he would worry. But she had to get to the sea, to try her magic again. Perhaps it was being at Harrow’s Fell that had muted her, or perhaps – the fear she hid from him – it was being in love. She had to know, so she could decide what to do next.

  Rain and mud plagued them on the narrow road from the border to Anad Scir, where Renward’s hill fort stood. Ash longed for a hot bath. She sat on a palfrey behind Bluebell, who had made her leave her usual mount back in Blicstowe. Behind them, between dripping branches, followed the much-reduced hearthband, stewards and pack horses. They ascended the steep fell in fog and thunder and crossed the flanking ditch as the rain eased. The gatehouse, hall, bowerhouses and granary were all built from the dark grey fell-hazel that was only found in the north-west corner of Bradsey. Night was closing in rapidly, but the torches had not yet been lit so the shadows ahead of them were deep. A huge old chestnut tree in the courtyard had shed most of its leaves, and they were slick and slippery on the muddy ground. Then a group of stewards and stablehands descended on them, and Bluebell dismounted and came to help Ash down.