Valley of Silence (Circle Trilogy 3)

However light his words, she heard what was under them. “I’m grateful you’ve chosen this morning to take one.”

“Dawn’s broke,” Riddock said. “The people wait.”

She only nodded, then drew up her hood as was the custom before stepping out into the early light.

The air was cool and misty with barely a breeze to stir the fingers of vapor. Through the rising curta

in of it, Moira crossed the courtyard to the gates alone, while her party fell in behind her. In the muffled quiet, she heard the morning birds singing, and the faint whisper of the damp air.

She thought of her mother, who had once walked this way on a cool, misty morning. And all the others who’d walked before her out of the castle gates, across the brown road, over the green grass so thick with dew it was like wading through a river. She knew others trailed behind her, merchants and craftsmen, harpers and bards. Mothers and daughters, soldiers and sons.

The sky was streaked with pink in the east, and the ground fog sparkled silver.

She smelled the river and the earth, and continued up, over the gentle rise with the dew dampening the hem of her gown.

The place of the stone stood on a faerie hill where a little glade of trees offered shelter. Gorse and moss grew, pale yellow, quiet green, over the rocks near the holy well.

In the spring there would be the cheery orange of lilies, dancing heads of columbine, and later the sweet spires of foxglove, all growing where they would.

But for now, the flowers slept and the leaves of the trees had taken on that first blush of color that portended their death.

The sword stone itself was wide and white, altarlike on an ancient dolmen of flat gray.

Through the leaves and the mists, beams of sun lanced, crossing that white stone and glinting on the silver hilt of the sword buried in it.

Her hands felt cold, so very cold.

All of her life she had known the story. How the gods had forged the sword from lightning, from the sea, and the earth and the wind. How Morrigan had brought it and the altar stone herself to this place. And there she had buried it to the hilt, carved the words on the stone with her fiery finger.

SHEATHED BY THE HAND OF GODS

FREED BY THE HAND OF A MORTAL

AND SO WITH THIS SWORD

SHALL THAT HAND RULE GEALL

Moira paused at the base of the stones to read the words again. If the gods deemed it, that hand would be hers.

With her cloak sweeping over the dew-drenched grass, she walked through sun and mist to the top of the faerie hill. And took her place behind the stone.

For the first time she looked, and she saw. Hundreds of people, her people, with their eyes on hers spread over the field, down toward that brown ribbon of road. Every one of them, if the sword came to her, would be her responsibility. Her cold hands wanted to shake.

She calmed herself as she scanned the faces and waited for the trio of holy men to take their places behind her.

Some were still coming over that last rise, hurrying lest they miss the moment. She wanted her breath steady when she spoke, so waited a little longer and let herself meet the eyes of those she loved best.

“My lady,” one of the holy men murmured.

“Yes. A moment.”

Slowly, she unpinned the brooch, passed her cloak behind her. The wide sweep of her sleeves flowed back as she lifted her arms, but she didn’t feel the chill against her skin. She felt heat.

“I am a servant of Geall,” she called out. “I am a child of the gods. I come here to this place to bow to the will of both. By my blood, by my heart, by my spirit.”

She took the last step toward the stone.

There was no sound now. It seemed even the air held its breath. Moira reached out, curled her fingers around the silver hilt.