Manon scanned the half-ruined camp, though.
The crone read her question in her eyes. “Our men dwell at our homes, where they are safe. This camp is an outpost while we conduct our business.” The Crochans had always given birth to more males than the Ironteeth, and had adopted the Fae habit of selecting mates—if not a true mating bond, then in spirit. She’d always thought it outlandish and strange. Unnecessary.
“After your mother never returned, your father was asked to couple with another young witch. He was the sole carrier of the Crochan bloodline, you see, and should your mother and you not have survived the birthing, it would end with him. He didn’t know what had happened to either of you. If you were alive, or dead. Didn’t even know where to look. So he agreed to do his duty, agreed to help his dying people.” Her great-grandmother smiled sadly. “All who met Tristan loved him.” Tristan. That had been his name. Had her grandmother even known it before she’d killed him? “A young witch was chosen for him especially. But he did not love her—not with your mother as his true mate, the song of his soul. Tristan made it work nonetheless. Rhiannon was the result of that.”
Manon tensed. If Rhiannon’s mother were here—
Again, the crone read the question on Manon’s face.
“She was slaughtered by a Yellowlegs sentinel in the river plains of Melisande. Years ago.”
A flicker of shame went through Manon at the relief that flooded her. To avoid that confrontation, to avoid begging for forgiveness, as she should have done.
Dorian set down his spoon. Such a graceful, casual gesture, considering how he’d felled that wyvern. “How is it that the Crochan line survived? Legend says they were wiped out.”
Another sad smile. “You can thank my mother for that. Rhiannon Crochan’s youngest daughter gave birth during the siege on the Witch-City. With our armies felled and only the city walls to hold back the Ironteeth legions, and with so many of her children and grandchildren slaughtered and her mate spiked to the city walls, Rhiannon had the heralds announce that it had been a stillbirth. So the Ironteeth would never know that one Crochan might yet live. That same night, just before Rhiannon began her three-day battle against the Ironteeth High Witches, my mother smuggled the baby princess out on her broom.” The crone’s throat bobbed. “Rhiannon was her dearest friend—a sister to her. My mother wanted to stay, to fight until the end, yet she was asked to do this for her people. Our people. Until the day of her death, my mother believed Rhiannon went to hold the gates against the High Witches as a distraction. To get that last Crochan scion out while the Ironteeth looked the other way.”
Manon didn’t entirely know what to say, how to voice what roiled within her.
“You will find,” Glennis went on, “that you have some cousins in this camp.”
Asterin stiffened at that, Edda and Briar also tensing where they lingered at the edge of the fire. Manon’s own kin, on the Blackbeak side of her heritage. Undoubtedly willing to fight to keep that distinction for themselves.
“Bronwen,” the crone said, gesturing toward the dark-haired coven leader with the gold-bound broom, now monitoring Manon and the Thirteen from the shadows beyond the fire, “is also my great-granddaughter. Your closest cousin.”
No kindness shone on Bronwen’s face, so Manon didn’t bother looking pleasant, either.
“She and Rhiannon were close as sisters,” Glennis murmured.
It took a considerable amount of effort not to touch the scrap of red cloak at the end of her braid.
Dorian, Darkness embrace his soul, cut in, “We found you for a reason.”
Glennis again warmed her hands. “I suppose it is to ask us to join in this war.”
Manon didn’t soften her stare. “It is. You, and all the Crochans scattered across the lands.”
One of the Crochans in the shadows let out a bark of laughter. “That’s rich.” Others chuckled with her.
Glennis’s blue eyes didn’t falter. “We have not rallied a host since before the fall of the Witch-City. You might find it a more difficult task than you anticipated.”
Dorian asked, “And if their queen summoned them to fight?”
Snow crunched under stomping steps, and then Bronwen was there, her brown eyes blazing. “Don’t answer, Glennis.”
Such disrespect, such informality to an elder—
Bronwen leveled her burning stare on Manon. “You are not our queen, despite what your blood might suggest. Despite this little skirmish. We do not, and will never, answer to you.”
“Morath found you just now,” Manon said coolly. She’d anticipated this reaction. “It will do so again. Whether it is in a few months, or a year, they will find you. And then there will be no hope of beating them.” She kept her hands at her sides, resisting the urge to unsheathe her iron claws. “A host of many kingdoms rallies in Terrasen. Join them.”
“Terrasen didn’t come to our aid five hundred years ago,” another voice said, coming closer. The pretty, brown-haired witch from earlier. Her broom, too, was bound in fine metal—silver to Bronwen’s gold. “I don’t see why we should bother helping them now.”
“I thought you lot were a bunch of self-righteous do-gooders,” Manon crooned. “Surely this would be your sort of thing.”
The young witch bristled, but Glennis held up a withered hand.
It wasn’t enough to stop Bronwen, though, as the witch looked Manon over and snarled, “You are not our queen. We will never fly with you.”
Bronwen and the younger witch stormed away, the gathered Crochan guards parting to let them pass.
Manon found Glennis wincing slightly. “Our family, you will find, has a hotheaded streak.”
Ruthless.
What Manon had done tonight, leading the Ironteeth to this camp … Dorian didn’t have a word for it other than ruthless.
He left Manon and her great-grandmother, the Thirteen looking on, and went in search of the spider.
He found Cyrene where he’d left her, crouched in the shadows of one of the farther tents.
She’d returned to her human form, her dark hair tangled, bundled in a Crochan cloak. As if one of them had taken pity on her. Not realizing the hunger in Cyrene’s eyes wasn’t for the goat stew.
“Where does the shifting come from?” Dorian asked as he paused before her, a hand on Damaris. “Inside you?”
The spider-shifter blinked up at him, then stood. Someone had given her a worn brown tunic, pants, and boots, too. “That was a great feat of magic you performed.” She smiled, revealing sharp little teeth. “What a king it might make you. Unchallenged, unrivaled.”
Dorian didn’t feel like saying he wasn’t entirely sure what manner of king he wished to be, should he live long enough to reclaim his throne. Anyone and anything but his father seemed like a good place to start.
Dorian kept his stance relaxed, even as he asked again, “Where does the shifting come from inside you?”
Cyrene angled her head as if listening to something. “It was strange, mortal king, to find that I had a new place within me with the return of magic. To find that something new had taken root.” Her small hand drifted to her middle, just above her navel. “A little seed of power. I will the shift, think of what I wish to be, and the change starts within here first. Always, the heat comes from here.” The spider settled her stare on him. “If you wish to be something, king-with-no-crown, then be it. That is the secret to the shifting. Be what you wish.”
