A Little Fate Read Online Free PDF

rusted, of their sons and daughters who would follow the True One. Find farmers willing to set aside their plows, and craftsmen willing to forge weapons for them. They must be trained, they must be forged, even as the weapons are forged, into an army. In secret, in haste.”
    She looked into the forest, into the deep green of summer. “I swear to you, before the first frost bites the air we will take the city, we will take the world, and I will have the head of the snake in my hand.”
    She looked down at Gwayne. “Will you raise my army?”
    His soldier’s heart thrilled. “I will, my lady.”
    â€œWhen it’s time to strike, I’ll send you a sign. You’ll know it. Rohan, I need your maps, and your logic.”
    â€œYou’ll have them.”
    â€œRhiann.” Aurora spread her arms. “I need a gown.”
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    S HE was groomed and tutored, gowned and schooled. Even as Rhiann and those she deemed could run a passable seam worked on silks and velvets, Aurora practiced with sword and arrow.
    She gritted her teeth as lotions were rubbed into her skin, as Cyra practiced dressing her hair. And she planned her strategy over bowls of mead, read dispatches from Gwayne, and sent them.
    It was the far edge of summer when she set out, garbed in a traveling cloak of dark blue, with Cyra and Rhiann as her handmaidens and Rohan, young Rhys, and three other men as her escorts.
    She would play her part, Aurora promised herself. Thegods knew she looked the pampered lady. She would charm and beguile, seduce if need be. And she would take the castle from the inside, while the army Gwayne was training came over the city walls.
    It was a long journey, but she was grateful for the time. She used it to hone her vision, gather her courage, strengthen her purpose.
    The fields were still green, she noted, whoever ruled. But she’d seen the fear, the distrust, and the anger in the eyes of men they passed on the road. She’d seen the crows picking at the bones of those who had been unlucky enough to be set upon by thieves, or Lorcan’s dogs.
    Children, their faces pinched with hunger, begged for food or coin. She saw what was left of homes that had been burned to the ground, and the desperate eyes of women with no man left to protect them.
    Had she not looked so closely before? Aurora wondered. Had she been so content to run through the forest, to sing in the hills, that she hadn’t seen the utter despair of her people, the waste of her land?
    She would give her life to put it right again.
    â€œIt seems so strange to see Grandfather garbed so richly,” Cyra said.
    â€œYou must not call him Grandfather.”
    â€œNo, I’ll remember. Are you afraid, Aurora?”
    â€œI am. But it’s a good fear. The kind that tells me something will happen.”
    â€œYou look beautiful.”
    Aurora smiled, and struggled not to tug at the confining gown. “It’s only another weapon, and one I find I don’t mind wielding. A sprinkle of witchcraft and . . . he’ll look on me, won’t he, this son of a demon? He’ll look on me and want?”
    â€œAny man would.”
    Satisfied, Aurora nodded. While he looked, and wanted, she would seek another. She would seek her wolf.
    He was there. Waiting. She felt him in her blood, and with every league they traveled, that blood warmed.
    She would find her love, at last, in the City of Stars.
    And her destiny.
    â€œOh, look!” Cyra bounced in her seat. “The city. See how the towers shine.”
    Aurora saw it, in the distance, the silver and gilt that spread up into the sky. The grand towers of the castle gleamed, and on the topmost, the black flag with its coiled red snake flew.
    She would burn it, she vowed. Burn it to ash and hoist her family crest in its place. The gold dragon on its white field would fly again.
    â€œTwenty men on the castle walls,” Rohan said quietly as he rode his