“That’ll take time. But I can show you how to compensate.”

“Compensate?”

“Make do with what you have.” He nodded toward the Great Hall doors. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

“Now?”

“I was just looking for a book to read while my sister naps. But I think I’d enjoy helping a fellow one-eyer.”

Elina glanced around, suddenly wondering if Celyn would have a problem with this. Then she wondered why she should care if Celyn had a problem with this. Then she wondered what the holy hells was wrong with her.

“Besides,” the man said softly, his gaze moving to one of Celyn’s royal cousins who was coming through the doors in the back of the hall, “you don’t want to stay around here right now.”

“I don’t?”

The female, Keita was her name, stopped and focused on Elina and the man. At the sight of them, she clasped her hands together and went up on her bare toes. “Oh! I have just the thing for both of you! Don’t go anywhere!”

Keita charged up the stairs, and Elina turned toward the man. “Let us go. Now. Her good cheer terrifies me.”

“As it should.”

They headed toward the Great Hall doors. “I am Gaius Lucius Domitus by the way.”

“And I am Elina Shestakova of the Black Bear Riders of the Midnight Mountains of Despair in the Far Reaches of the Steppes of the Outerplains. But you can call me Elina since these weak Southlanders cannot seem to handle much more than that.”

Gaius Lucius Domitus laughed. “No, they probably can’t.”

Celyn had taken his parents into the stables and filled them in on what had happened to Elina at her mother’s hands.

“That poor girl,” Bram said, shaking his head. “I had no idea we were putting her in such danger.”

“That’s because she didn’t tell us. I had no idea how bad it was until her mother literally kicked her out of her tent and then proceeded to slash at her like she was an attacking wild pig.”

“What did you do?” Ghleanna asked.

“What I had to. I had to protect her, Mum.”

“Yes,” his mother said on a strange sigh. “I’m sensing you did have to.”

Brannie snorted and their mother grabbed her daughter’s shoulders and turned her toward the exit. She shoved. “Go, brat! And stop taunting your brother.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You’ll need to handle Annwyl, Da,” Celyn told his father. “When she saw what happened to Elina—”

“Gods, is that what she was going on about?” Bram scratched his head. “I do adore her, but my gods, that woman is a lot of work.”

“And you thought Rhiannon was bad,” Ghleanna reminded him.

“Only when she’s around your brother. But Annwyl . . . it’s like trying to rein in an erupting volcano.”

“At least Fearghus is with her.”

Celyn and his parents headed toward the exit.

“Where is Dagmar?” Bram asked.

“Probably still in the war room. Oh—” He stopped, faced his parents. “There is one other thing.”

Ghleanna frowned. “What?”

“Remember Brigida the Foul?”

“Gods, who could forget her?” Now Bram frowned. “Wait . . . why do you ask about her?’

“Well . . . she’s not exactly what you’d call dead. But she is still pretty foul.”

Brigida moved around the queen’s castle unseen. Those with magickal skills often sensed she’d gone by—even if they didn’t know exactly what or whom had drifted so close. Especially the young White Dragonwitch. She bristled every time Brigida passed by her. That one must be Morfyd. Looked just like her mother, she did, especially with those crystal-clear blue eyes.

The girl had much power, but she was no match for Brigida. There were few who were.

The human witch, a Nolwenn by the looks of her, also had power, but unlike her daughter Rhianwen, she didn’t have enough to interest Brigida.

They’d all come out of one room and moved into the big hall, servants bringing them food. All a bunch of proper royals, they were. No real Cadwaladrs. Not like the ones Brigida remembered.

She blamed that fool Ailean the Wicked, the royals’ grandfather. He’d been born a Cadwaladr but the loss of his mother at an early age had turned him soft. He worried more about protecting the humans than anything else. Like that sorry lot of soft flesh needed protecting. Brigida had never known a more dangerous group of beings. What they lacked in scales and claws, they more than made up for in evil intent.

She stood in a doorway, leaning against the jamb, and watched the descendants of her people eat and chat and worry. About her.

Her return did nothing but upset them. Brigida liked that. She always had.

That Celyn brought his mother and father into the hall. Ghleanna was the same. Short hair and all. Bit more grey among all the black, but she was still powerfully built and had more weapons than seemed necessary on her person.

Bram also appeared the same. Still pretty for a male, still soft of heart, and still always wanting to keep the peace.

There was no sign of the two Riders, which allowed the others to talk freely about what had happened to the one who’d lost her eye. Such drama over such a little thing. Everyone so horrified that a mother would do this to her own child. Clearly they knew nothing of the Daughters of the Steppes. That lot always tried to weed out the weak girls. What was the point of having them around if they served no purpose? And because the sons and daughters lived so long, the women continued to have offspring well into their fifth or sixth hundredth year. Most of them had more than sixty, if they so desired. So weeding out one or two weak ones was not as big a deal as killing off the only offspring you’d ever have.