PROLOGUE
THE THIRD AGE, YEAR 2995.
DEEP IN THE EASTFOLD, ROHAN.
Motherhood has taught Briana to perfectly balance a chubby child on one hip and a coarsely woven basket – one of her first, crude in its shape, but perfectly functional, and Rohirric custom prescribes waste not, want not – on the other. She stands bare-footed in the grass, tall enough that the child on her hip – freckled, dark-skinned like her mother, with a tuft of shocking red hair like her father – reaches to play with each blade of bouteloua that her chubby fingers can grip. From the way her body faces the rising sun, just now reaching with pale yellow fingers over the plains of Anorien, you can tell she's waiting.
The horse-lords of Rohan hadn't welcomed Briana kindly at first. That had been seven years ago. She was twenty-seven then, and now she stands here as one of the village matrons. Seven years ago she had been taken into a saddle and ridden west. She'd beheld battlefields that reaped soldiers, and she still had nightmares from it. The memories haunted most of those that survived, and battlefields didn't stop at fields of blood and steel. How many times had she awoken in a cold sweat, her breath shuddering in her chest? How many times had she comforted others from the same waking nightmare?
It had come at a cost no person should bear, but she'd won respect after her healing hands saved the newly crowned King of Rohan. Now here she stands, clothed in their clothes, laundry in the basket on her hip, waiting for the return of the Rohirrim.
Respect hadn't been the only thing she'd won after the Dunland battles. Her prize came in the form of Arthfael. Six years of marriage hasn't dimmed her love of him. The birth of three children and loss of one only deepens it. Aeron is six – tall for his age, intelligent, and currently with his father on his first ride with the Rohirrim. As much as Briana hates it, you can't keep a kid away from a horse in Rohan. Or a sword.
Destiny is a word that leaves a bad taste on her tongue, but she can already see Aeron's, clear as glass in her mind: to rise as a warrior, become captain, maybe even general. This baby on her hip, though… Briana won't kid herself. There are some in Middle Earth with the gift of pure foresight, whether by sorcery, some kind of blessing, or holding one of the fabled seeing stones. Years ago, she would've claimed that such magic didn't exist. But things are much different here. Even the way the wind moves through the grass carries with it whispers of old gods.
She'd dreamed of Aeron's destiny when he was in the cradle, and it had come early – he'd been on horseback since he could walk – but those dreams had stopped after the death of Aeslin. For a long time, everything in Briana's head was a jumbled mess. She wasn't going to rely on superstition and guesswork. She'd have to wait and see what her daughter would become. Shieldmaiden, maybe? Scholar? Or the fate of too many Rohirric women to count - a housewife, one whose battles weren't fought on a horse but rather in the childbed.
Oh, both of them would have their struggles. She'd be damned if her children received the same looks as she had when she'd first arrived… fallen, whatever you'd call it… into Rohan. She didn't speak a word of their language, and she certainly didn't have the features that went with it. But they hadn't shunned her necessarily. A superstitious people wary of outsiders, not because of the color of her skin, but because she'd been found in the middle of the grasslands, dehydrated and picking fights with the Rohirrim in a language nobody understood.
That was behind her now. She wasn't one of them, would never be; not fully. Her children were. But they were the only link Briana had to her home and heritage, and she won't easily let them forget their background. Their culture. Half Rohirrim, yes. Half Black, too. It won't be easy for them, wherever they go. She doesn't have her mom to help her braid her children's thick hair, or tell them stories, or keep Briana's culture alive around her. There's a deep pain in it – being separated from people that look like her, talk like her, understand her.
But if there's a way to go back, she hasn't found it yet.
Nor is she entirely sure she could.
Briana's dark brown eyes turn to look at her daughter, pressing a kiss onto the soft auburn hair on the baby's round head. "Look, baby girl." She sets down the basket, shifting the child in her arms to focus her attention on her. "Daddy and Aeron are almost home. You see that? That's daddy's horse. Been awhile, hm? You remember daddy?"
The old destrier that carries her husband is barely more than a dust cloud against the slopes of the White Mountains at this point, but rapidly approaching. Briana has time to finish the laundry, but she stands with her feet planted in the grass, watching.
Well, just a few more moments. Then she lifts a tunic from the basket and hangs it on the line. A row of clothes hang streaming like flags to welcome her husband and son home.
It's not long before the thunder of hooves against hard-beaten earth fill her ears, and just minutes after that, shifting leather as Fael jumps down from his massive, scarred mare and lifts Aeron down from the shaggy pony next to him. "Mama!" Aeron's all smiles, showing off his missing top teeth, and clings to Briana, speaking so quickly that his Rohirric speech seems jumbled. She laughs, tells him to slow down, shifts her fingers through his thick hair. It's braided close to his scalp, to keep the hair from breaking as well as keeping it secure while riding. Trademarks of Rohan decorate the ends of the braids – bronze caps and bands, a pewter bead in the shape of a horse head.
This is his world. She couldn't leave Aeron, nor could she take him back with her. This is where he belongs, and she'll stay here. She, Fael, Aeron, and Leoma.
Fael's calloused hand cups the back of their daughter's head and kisses her, his beard almost obscuring the baby's face as she babbles in happiness, small chubby fingers grasping at his facial hair.. "And now for you," his rough voice grumbles, his thorough kiss saying more than he can in words: I hope you're well. I missed you. I love you. I worship you.
That's why Briana can't go. She never thought she'd marry a white man, but… did she ever think her life would end up like this? Looking at Fael, she can't imagine anyone else. Nobody else could give her the gifts that are Aeron and Leoma. Nobody.
"Aeron, slow down. You can tell me about your training after you get cleaned up, okay?" She softly reminds her son - no doubt he's covered in a weeks' worth of sweat and grime - and leans into Fael's side. The young boy is already being teasingly, lovingly, chided by his father for not caring for his pony properly.
It wouldn't be long before Aeron would be holding a real sword instead of the wooden one strapped at his waist. He'll leave their little village, go to Edoras. She sees it all so clearly.
Leoma burbles, and Briana leans over to wipe some drool from the corner of her mouth.
It only just now strikes her how strange it is, really, that she can't see much for Leoma. Like a twisted ball of yarn.
She really did never claim to have the gift of foresight, but many women of the Riddermark do. It was normal for mothers to have such dreams about their children, dreams that sometimes come true - a future that could be and nothing more. A bit of magic so common that most don't even pay attention to it. The dreams she'd had of Aeron in the cradle were well on their way to coming true. And it was, after all, no unfamiliar thing for boys of his age to play at battle.
Leoma's eyes are bright. They're the same color as Fael's - hazel-green, and sparkling with laughter. When she smiles, it shows that her teeth are just beginning to grow in. Her hands, small as they are, are strong enough to make Fael wince and groan when she tugs on his beard.
Briana can't handle more heartbreak. Good things will come to her, she tells herself. Her daughter will keep that smile. Hopefully with more teeth, because gods forbid Briana will let them rot right out of Leoma's mouth.
But the future's a long way away. Right now, she focuses on her family. Aeron, small but mighty, and Fael, carrying the little Rohirrim on his shoulders, and the tiny girl of two balanced on her hip. Stew is waiting inside, and no doubt her warriors are hungry.