Stirling, S. M. - Emberverse - 15 - The Sky-Blue Wolves by Stirling S. M

Author:Stirling, S. M. [Stirling, S. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LOST LAKE

CROWN FOREST DEMESNE

(FORMERLY NORTH-CENTRAL OREGON)

HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

JUNE 20TH

CHANGE YEAR 47/2045 AD

(PLACES OUT OF SPACE, AND TIME)

“Are you absolutely sure, Mother?” Órlaith Arminger Mackenzie asked.

“My darling, when have you known me to be unsure about a decision of State after I’ve announced it? I won’t say I’m always right, but I don’t open my mouth about it at all unless I’m at least sure.”

It was the end of a clear warm day, the first day of summer, which meant it was still a bit chilly here in the forested uplands of the Low Cascades north of Mount Hood, chill, but not cold enough to make their breath smoke. The wind fluttered her shoulder-length hair beneath her Mackenzie bonnet, the bleaching of tropic suns fading to let the natural deep yellow with just a hint of fire show. It was much the same shade as red alder leaves turned in the fall, and there were plenty of those around now, still bright green against the darker shades of the Douglas fir and cedar, mountain hemlock and white pine.

To breathe that air was like drinking meltwater off a glacier, and it was full of the smells of pine and fir-sap, and the pungent beginnings of woodsmoke, but she was comfortable as it fluttered the edge of the plaid slung over her shoulder and the pleated knee-length kilt. It was all homelike, after Hawaiʻi and the southern oceans, and she’d be leaving soon.

Best to take a taste of home with me.

The sky was an aching blue, save for a band where the setting sun made crimson streaks westward across the little clearing and turned the great perfect cone of Mount Hood to gold and copper southward. A bald eagle went by in majesty not far overhead, and a pair of ravens larger than any she’d ever seen kept watch from a nearby branch.

And there were many other places in Montival as beautiful or perhaps even more so, according to an individual’s tastes.

What a land of glories this kingdom of ours is, a land fit for heroes and Gods and giants!

But this was as close as anyone who wasn’t of the line of the High Kings, or their handfasted mate, could come to Lost Lake now. Her father and mother had bound that place to themselves, to the blood they bore and mingled, to the land and the Powers that warded it, with the Sword of the Lady. Nobody had approached even this fringe of it since the Kingmaking, at the founding of Montival.

Guards weren’t necessary to enforce that. Something about this place turned the mind and eye and foot aside unless the time and the person was right; it wasn’t hostile, but these woods and waters were . . . other. You had to be some distance away before you could even find it on a map.

“For a war like this, far overseas, we need a High Queen regnant, the High King’s heir, one who’s sworn to the land,” soon-to-be Queen Mother Mathilda Arminger said and nodded crisply.

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