The cavernous room was heated by fires on either side and fronted by a wide platform, up two steps where a deep red carpet ran. On it stood a throne. An actual throne, Blair mused, in regal red and gold.
Riddock sat on it now, with Moira standing at his side.
To the other side sat a woman. Her blond hair was bound back in what Blair thought was called a snood. A younger woman, obviously pregnant, sat beside her. Two men stood at their backs.
The first family of Geall, Blair decided. Larkin’s family.
And at a glance from his father, he touched Blair’s arm, murmured: “It’ll be fine.” Then he left her to go up the steps and stand between his parents.
“Please.” Riddock gestured. “Take your ease.” He waited until they’d taken chairs at the base of the platform. “Moira and I have talked at length. At her request, I have spoken to the guards and many of the knights to tell them of the threat, and the coming war. It is Moira’s wish that you, and the other who came with you, be given the authority of command. To recruit, to train, to forge our army.”
He paused, studied them. “You are not Geallian.”
“Sir,” Larkin objected. “They are proven.”
“This war is brought to our soil, and it will be paid in our blood. I ask why those from outside should lead our people.”
“May I speak?” Hoyt got to his feet, waited until Riddock nodded. “Morrigan herself has sent us here, just as she sent two Geallians to Ireland, to us, so that we would gather into the first circle. We who have come here have left our worlds and our families, and have pledged our lives to fight this pestilence that comes to Geall.”
“This pestilence murdered our queen, my sister, before ever you came.” Riddock gestured toward them. “You are two women, a demon, and a man of magic. And you are strangers to me. I have seasoned men, who are proven to me. Men whose names I know, whose families I know. Men who know Geall and are unquestioned in loyalty. Men who I know will lead our people strong into battle.”
“Where they’ll be slaughtered like lambs.” Though Riddock’s stare at the interruption was frigid, Blair pushed to her feet. “Sorry, but that’s the way it is. We can dance around it, play protocol, waste time, but the fact is your seasoned warriors don’t know squat about fighting vampires.”
When Hoyt laid a hand on Blair’s arm, she shook it off. Testily. “And I didn’t come here to be shuffled aside because I wasn’t born here, or because I’m a woman. And I didn’t come here to fight for Geall. I came here to fight for it all.”
“Well said,” Glenna murmured. “And ditto. My husband is accustomed to matters of court and princes. We’re not. So you’ll have to forgive us mere women. Mere women of power.”
She held out a hand, and a ball of fire, then flicked the ball into the hearth on the side of the room. Testily.
“Mere women who have fought and bled, and watched friends die. And the demon you spoke of is my family. He’s also fought and bled and watched a friend die.”
“Warriors you may be,” Riddock acknowledged with what could only be termed a regal nod. “But to lead takes more than magic and courage.”
“It takes experience, a cool head. And cold blood.”
Riddock glanced back to Blair with a slight lift of eyebrows. “These, aye, and the trust of the people you would lead.”
“They have mine,” Larkin said. “They have Moira’s. Earned every hour of every day these past weeks. Sir, have I not earned yours?”
“You have.” He said nothing for a moment, then again gestured to Hoyt, Glenna and Blair. “I would ask that you instruct, and that you tak
e your commands from Lord Larkin and the Princess Moira.”
“We can start with that,” Blair decided. “Will you fight?” she asked Riddock.
Now the look in his eye had a kinship with a wolf. “To the last breath.”
“Then you’re going to need instruction, too, or that last breath’s going to come sooner than you think.”
Larkin cast his eyes heavenward, but laid a hand on his father’s shoulder and spoke lightly. “Blair has a warrior’s spirit.”
“And an unruly tongue. The gaming area then,” Riddock decided. “For our first instructions.”
“Your father doesn’t like me.”
“That’s not so.” Larkin gave Blair a friendly elbow nudge. “He’s merely working his way around to understanding you, and all of this.”
“Uh-huh.” She looked at Glenna as they walked outside. “Do you think we should tell Riddock how our people felt about kings?”