North Star Guide Me Home Read Online Free

contact, Isidro seized her wrist with his good hand. ‘Sirri, wait. Can he do it? Tell me honestly — can he really leave all that behind?’
    She bit her lip, looking away into the still, calm night. ‘Only time will tell.’

Chapter 2
    Rain pattered on the leather canopy, pooling around the tent. The morning’s scatter of snow lingered in clumps where there was shelter from the rain, but the brazier lit to burn the sacred incense was enough to keep the chill at bay.
    Queen Valeria knelt between a pair of guards. Through the proceedings, she never lifted her eyes from Mira’s face. When brought out to face the priest who would hear the charges against her, and the man in the black leather mask who would carry out the sentence, she’d lunged at Mira with her bare hands and in the struggle her gleaming yellow hair had come loose from its coif. Her hands were now bound behind her back, as Valeria stared with undisguised disgust at Mira’s swollen belly.
    ‘Honoured priest,’ Mira said, bowing her head to the red-robed man beside the brazier. ‘You have heard the accusations. What is the will of the Gods?’
    ‘Oh, move it along, girl,’ Valeria hissed. ‘You’re wasting time. If you were in my place I’d have that mongrel whelp out of your belly and crushed under a boot by now.’
    ‘Be silent, Mistress Angessovar, or —’
    ‘Or what? You’ll have me gagged, and deny a dying woman her last words? You may think you’ve won, girl, but nothing good will come of a babe born of my son’s rotten seed —’
    ‘My lady,’ the priest said, ‘there is no need to drag this out. The woman has done all you say and more. She usurped the throne after Queen Leandra’s death, and committed treason against the rightful heir. She has harboured a sorcerer —’
    ‘Not a sorcerer,’ Mira said. ‘A Blood-Mage, who tortured and killed thousands to secure her stolen throne.’ She’d spent far too long explaining this point already. The priest saw no difference, but Mira insisted her accusations be recorded exactly as she stated.
    The priest shrugged. ‘As you say, my lady. The Gods are satisfied — her guilt is clear, and the law of the land states that she must die.’ He turned to the bound woman. ‘Mistress Angessovar, you may have a few moments to make your peace with your gods —’
    ‘If you’re waiting for me to weep and plead, I’ll die of old age first,’ Valeria spat.
    Mira caught the executioner’s eye and he drew his sword with a whisper from the wool-lined sheath.
    It was over quickly, but Valeria held Mira’s gaze until the last. Then, as blood filled the air with the scent of butchery, Mira knelt before the altar with its sacred tiger skin while the priest called upon the gods to witness justice done.
    While the guards cleared the body away, Mira returned to her tent with shaking hands. She settled into a fur-draped chair as Ardamon strode in, stripping off the leather hood to reveal hair streaked with sweat. Anoa fetched two bowls from the low table behind the stove, but the one she handed him was full of stronger stuff than the tea Mira sipped.
    ‘Thanks, my love,’ he said, and drained half of it in a gulp. ‘That cursed mask stinks of sweat. I felt like I was suffocating.’
    ‘Well,’ Mira said, passing a hand across her face, ‘it’s done, at last.’
    ‘Surely you’re not sad to see her end?’ Anoa said, hooking her thumbs into her belt, a gesture Mira had seen Cam make so often that she wanted to weep. ‘Not after everything the old bitch has done?’
    ‘I’m not sad at all,’ Mira said, laying her palms on her swelling belly. ‘Valeria would have stopped at nothing to kill this babe, and I know Cam won’t mourn her. But with her gone, the Akharians can turn their attention to hunting us.’
    This had been brewing since the spring, when the Wolf Clan made its truce with the Akharian invaders and promised Mira to a man of their choosing to secure the deal. Mira had been