Dawnflight by Kim Headlee
Gyanhumara “Gyan” nic Hymar is a Caledonian chieftainess by birth, a warrior and leader of warriors by training, and she is betrothed to Urien map Dumarec, a son of her clan’s deadliest enemy, by right of Arthur the Pendragon’s conquest of her people. For the sake of peace, Gyan is willing to sacrifice everything…perhaps even her very life, if her foreboding about Urien proves true.
Arthur map Uther is the bastard son of two worlds, Roman by his father and Brytoni by his mother. Denied hereditary rulership by the elders of Chieftainess Ygraine’s clan, Arthur has followed Uther’s path to become Dux Britanniarum, the Pendragon: supreme commander of the northern Brytoni army. The Caledonians, Scots, Saxons, and Angles keep him too busy to dwell upon his loneliness…most of the time.
When Gyan and Arthur meet, each recognize within the other their soul’s mate. The treaty has preserved Gyan’s ancient right to marry any man, providing he is a Brytoni nobleman—but Arthur does not qualify. And the ambitious Urien, Arthur’s greatest political rival, shall not be so easily denied. If Gyan and Arthur cannot prevent Urien from plunging the Caledonians and Brytons back into war, their love will be doomed to remain unfulfilled forever.
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“A marvelous display, Chieftainess.” He offered his sword hand. As she gripped his forearm, a tingle rushed from her arm beneath his fingertips, straight to her heart. He let go to point at the section of fence bearing the scars of her practice session. Some of them, she realized with a flush of embarrassment, were quite deep. He arched an eyebrow. “But if you insist on chopping down one of my fences, I think you’ll have better luck if you use an ax next time.” As their laughter faded, his gaze intensified. “Joking aside, Chieftainess, I would like to know: was that drill something you developed yourself? Is it the same each time you practice it, or do you change it? Do all warriors of your clan use some variant—”
Grinning, she held up both hands in mock surrender. “To answer your first question, no. It’s a drill my father taught me, that he learned from his mother, and so on. Originally, there was only one form of the routine, but over time most clans have developed variants to incorporate moves to symbolize the clan’s creature.” She chewed her lip as she cast about for an appropriate example. “Clan Alban’s routine, for instance, contains a stylized leap, to represent their lion.”
“And Argyll’s variant?”
“None, actually. But since our symbol is the dove, we strive to perfect the grace and speed of the moves.”
“I could tell.” His smile was but an echo of what he had displayed the night before. By the time he donned his helmet and drew his sword, the smile was gone. She wondered if she’d seen it at all. “Ready?”
Her brow creased. “Don’t you need to prepare first?” Arthur had seen at least part of her exercise and doubtless had noted some of her strengths and weaknesses. She was glad she hadn’t made any mistakes in the routine this morning, but she had hoped to have a similar opportunity to observe him.
Shaking his head, he raised the flat of the blade before his face in salute.
So be it. She imitated his gesture. Swords at the ready, they began stalking each other. Gyan had lost count of how often Ogryvan had preached what to do at this point in the fight: evaluate the adversary. And that is exactly what Arthur became to her, not a potential consort but a potentially dangerous adversary, as the litany of her father’s lessons marched through her mind.
About the Author
Kim Headlee lives on a farm in southwestern Virginia with her family, cats, goats, and assorted wildlife. People & creatures come and go, but the cave and the 250-year-old house ruins — the latter having been occupied as recently as the mid-20th century — seem to be sticking around for a while yet.
Kim is a Seattle native (when she used to live in the Metro DC area, she loved telling people she was from “the other Washington”) and a direct descendent of 20th century Russian nobility. Her grandmother was a childhood friend of the doomed Grand Duchess Anastasia, and the romantic yet tragic story of how Lydia escaped Communist Russia with the aid of her American husband will most certainly one day fuel one of Kim’s novels. Another novel in the queue will involve her husband’s ancestor, the 7th-century proto-Viking king of the Swedish colony in Russia.
For the time being, however, Kim has plenty of work to do in creating her projected 8-book Arthurian series, The Dragon’s Dove Chronicles. She also writes other romantic historical fiction under the pseudonym “Kimberly Iverson.”
Follow Kim: Goodreads / Amazon Author Page / Website / Book Website / Facebook
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