The wind blew loose strands of hair across Aisling’s pale cheek.
Blood, already drying, still ran faintly from a cut above her brow.
Everything blurred red for a moment, and the world spun.
The old stories always seemed to repeat themselves.
When a man asked a woman her name, and it was clearly more than simple politeness, it usually meant one thing.
He was interested in her.
And now, in the middle of all this blood and chaos, Ronan’s arm was still wrapped tightly around her waist, her face almost touching his chest.
They stood so close that she could feel the warmth of his body, and yet he was asking her name.
Her heart skipped.
Cold sweat soaked through her clothes, leaving her chilled everywhere except her waist, which felt strangely hot beneath his arm.
The contrast made her breathing quicken.
She looked away, lowering her eyes and staring past his arm at the distant lights flickering across the grounds.
“My name is Aisling.
My father is King Ruairí of Devlin, son of the late Crown Prince Tadhg.”
She said it all in one breath and waited for him to let her go.
He did not seem to notice, or perhaps simply did not care, how close they were standing.
He only looked at her as though he liked what he saw.
Aisling suddenly remembered the blood still clouding her vision.
She tried to wipe it away, but Ronan’s grip kept her arms from moving properly.
Bríd and Róisín were back on their feet by then.
They watched as Ronan finished off the last of the attackers, then simply continued holding their lady.
If anyone else had held Aisling like that, they would have stepped in immediately.
But this was the Prince of Dunmara.
They knew they were no match for him, and provoking him now could only make things worse for Aisling.
So they remained silent, watching anxiously and hoping she could talk her way out of the situation herself.
Unfortunately, she was about to discover that cleverness did not always help when dealing with someone who possessed that much power.
Aisling blinked the blood from her eyes and looked directly at him.
Her expression was calm and steady.
“I’m grateful to the Prince of Dunmara for saving my life.
I will find a way to repay that kindness.
But now that we’re safe, it isn’t right for us to stand like this.
Would you let me go?”
She knew Ronan would not understand hints, so she said it plainly.
Just as she had expected, left to himself, he probably would not have noticed at all.
He had caught her flinch earlier.
Now he noticed the calm, distant expression on her face.
He understood.
She was uncomfortable.
That made sense.
His mother had once told him how much southern women cared about manners.
If he ever fell for a southern woman, she had said, he should treat her gently.
He should not be rough or try to force things, or she would eventually come to hate him.
She had also told him that real love was rare.
If he ever found a woman worth loving, he should treat her well.
He should be honest with her, and she would be honest in return.
Ronan’s mother had been a southern woman taken north against her will.
She had never truly loved his father.
Her heart had remained with the man she had been promised to back home, a man who had been kind to her.
He had been gentle and steady, someone who knew when to press forward and when to hold back.
If circumstances had been different, she would have married him and lived a quiet, happy life.
Ronan did not want Aisling to hate him.
Remembering his mother’s words, he forced down the urge to hold her tighter and slowly loosened his arm.
His grip relaxed bit by bit.
Even after Aisling had stepped fully away, his fingers lingered for a moment.
Her waist had felt as slender as a young tree branch beneath his hand.
Seeing that her words had gotten through to him, Aisling breathed a little easier.
At least he was not completely unreasonable.
But when she tried to step back properly, her legs suddenly gave out.
Without Ronan’s support, she would have fallen.
He caught her again with ease.
There was something almost amused in his expression, and his green eyes seemed to brighten.
All the fear she had not had time to feel during the attack came rushing back now that the danger had passed.
Aisling lowered her eyes, embarrassed by her weakness, avoiding his teasing gaze.
She waited until her legs felt steady again before gently pushing his arm away. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Then she stepped backward several paces until she felt safely out of his reach.
She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped the blood from her face.
After tucking the loose strands of hair behind her ears, she folded her hands and bowed properly.
“Thank you again, Prince of Dunmara.”
Ronan did not seem bothered by the distance between them.
Aisling noticed that he was still watching her in exactly the same way.
It was as though he wanted to protect her and possess her at the same time.
The look made her uneasy.
Her unease proved justified when he finally spoke.
“Doesn’t make sense?
If it made sense, would you still say no?”
Aisling stared at him.
For a moment, she had no idea what he meant.
“My lady, what did the Prince of Dunmara mean by that?”
In a small side room at Ravenswood, Aisling sat with her two maids.
Róisín was the one who finally asked the question, her expression filled with worry.
An hour had passed since the attack.
There had not been many assassins.
They had slipped through some weakness in the guards, but once the soldiers arrived, the attackers were quickly surrounded and killed.
Some had been intended to be taken alive for questioning.
None of them allowed it.
Once they realized there was no way out, every assassin chose death rather than capture.
After their masks were removed, their identities became clear.
They were clansmen.
Their curved swords marked them as Skarrow.
The Skarrow controlled the entire northwest, with territory stretching from the Storr Peaks in the east to Alba in the west, and from Ardmore’s southern border all the way to the northern sea.
They were the strongest power in the region.
Ronan’s territory lay just east of the Storr Peaks, covering the Ashfall Peaks, the Embermoor, and the northeastern grasslands.
It was the only major power capable of challenging Skarrow dominance.
Between the two territories lay a smaller tribe known as the Fenn, caught directly between the competing powers.
The new alliance between Dunmara and Kilmore placed the Fenn in an increasingly difficult position.
The Skarrow had been the first to strike.
Their territory had once ended east of the Storr Peaks.
Four years earlier, they had attempted to exploit the death of the old clan king and the resulting struggle between his sons for the throne.
Their goal had been to push east and take control of Dunmara completely.
Instead, Ronan had appeared unexpectedly.
He killed the man attempting to seize power and claimed the throne himself within only two months.
He quickly united his people and drove the Skarrow back south of the Ashfall Peaks.
At the time, the Skarrow army was commanded by a prince named Bearach, already renowned as a fierce warrior.
He marched a hundred thousand riders toward the border.
When Bearach learned that his opponent was an unknown young man named Ronan, he reportedly laughed.
He called Ronan a child who had not even grown a beard and mocked Dunmara’s royal family for allowing someone so young to claim the crown.
Bearach expected to destroy Dunmara easily.
Instead, Ronan’s thirty thousand soldiers held back his hundred thousand.
Within weeks, Ronan launched his counterattack.
Ronan seemed almost made for war.
His army was a patchwork of men who barely trusted one another, many of whom looked down on him because of his mixed blood.
Yet he commanded them with increasing authority.
The longer he led them, the more their doubts seemed to disappear.
After three brutal months of fighting, Ronan drove Bearach beyond the Storr Peaks and reclaimed every territory the Skarrow had seized.
The battle did not cripple the Skarrow as a whole, but it made Ronan’s name known throughout the region.
News of the young ruler spread as far as the Western Marches and the High Passes.
A dangerous new power had risen from the grasslands.
Defeating the Skarrow proved Ronan’s military ability and secured his new throne.
For Bearach, however, the defeat brought humiliation.
He fell sharply out of favor with the High King.
The High King had placed great hopes in Bearach.
He was an experienced warrior with numerous victories and had been expected to return home and receive the title of Right Hand Prince, making him the closest thing the Skarrow had to a crown prince.
Instead, losing to an untested young ruler had cost the Skarrow heavily and damaged their reputation throughout the northwest.
Several smaller territories in the Western Marches even began considering whether to break away and ally themselves with Alba or Ardmore.
Furious, the High King stripped Bearach of his command and sent him away in disgrace.
From that day onward, Bearach hated Ronan.
He swore that one day he would take Ronan’s head and drink from his skull.
Over the following years, Bearach fought Ronan twice more. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
He lost both times.
Ronan became the one obstacle standing between Bearach and everything he desired.
It was not until three years later, when Ronan suddenly died, that the burden was finally lifted from Bearach’s shoulders.
He took advantage of the chaos that followed and attacked Dunmara.
With no one left to stop him in the north, he pushed south into Kilmore with a force the weakened kingdom could not withstand.
The kingdom was gradually reduced to ruin.
Ten years later, Bearach’s son finally broke through Southern Kilmore’s last defenses along the River Barrow.
From that point onward, the old southern ways were gradually erased.
Records disappeared.
Traditions were lost.
A long and terrible period settled over the land, remembered as the darkest age the realm had ever endured.
But all of that was still three years away.
For now, Bearach had managed to claw his way back from disgrace.
Several victories against neighboring tribes had restored the High King’s trust in him.
The higher Bearach climbed, the more fiercely he hated Ronan.
Hearing that Ronan had traveled south to secure an alliance with Kilmore had clearly angered him enough to send assassins.
If they succeeded in killing Ronan, so much the better.
If they failed, causing trouble was still satisfying enough.
With the Skarrow assassins dead, Ravenswood was safe again for the moment.
Traveling at night remained dangerous, however, and no one knew whether more assassins might be waiting outside the grounds.
Everyone therefore remained inside the royal hunting grounds under heavy guard.
King Cathal had already sent word to the city garrison, ordering additional soldiers to be dispatched.
Once reinforcements arrived, the royal party would return to Dunmore.
The attack had enraged the king.
His authority had been challenged directly beneath his own nose.
He had already ordered an investigation into how so many assassins had managed to pass through Dunmore’s defenses.
None of that mattered much to Aisling.
There was nothing she could do about it.
Once everyone had been moved to the side room, they were checked for injuries.
Róisín and Bríd were unharmed.
Gráinne had suffered the worst injuries.
She had taken a blow while trying to slow one of the attackers, been thrown to the ground, and ended up covered in bruises and scrapes.
One particularly bad bruise covered her chest.
Fortunately, nothing had been broken.
Aisling had brought medicine from home.
She treated Gráinne’s injuries, gave her something calming to help her sleep, and eventually returned to her own room.
They were safe for now.
But a new problem weighed heavily on Aisling’s mind.
Thinking back over Ronan’s strange words, all three women felt the same unease.
“Do you think the Prince of Dunmara wants to marry you?” Róisín asked again.
Aisling closed her eyes.
Ronan’s face appeared in her mind.
Those sharp green eyes gleaming through the darkness.
Eyes like a wolf’s.
“I don’t know,” she answered quietly.
The single lamp in the room cast a soft glow across her neck and the side of her face.
For the first time, Bríd and Róisín saw something they had rarely, if ever, seen in Aisling.
Fear.
And uncertainty.
By decree, in the spring of the fifteenth year, at the appointed hour, the Prince of Dunmara sent an envoy to Dunmore to formally request an alliance by marriage.
The decree proclaimed that there was a worthy young woman, the great granddaughter of King Diarmuid the Founder, granddaughter of the late Crown Prince Tadhg, and daughter of King Ruairí of Devlin.
She was dutiful, gentle, and graceful.
She was hereby granted the title Princess Eimear and betrothed to the Prince of Dunmara, sealing a lasting alliance between the two kingdoms.
“So it is decreed.”
Aisling knelt at the entrance of the main hall at Devlin House, her head bowed as the envoy finished reading from the gold threaded scroll.
When she finally lifted her head and looked toward the document, the highest honor Kilmore could bestow upon her, her gaze drifted beyond it.
Past the envoy.
Past the gathered nobles.
Toward the empty sky.
The sun burned overhead, indifferent to everything happening beneath it.
Aisling closed her eyes.
Round and round, the old story continued to turn.
And once again, she found herself caught inside it.