This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

DESIRE LINES

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First edition. March 21, 2019.

Copyright © 2019 Elizabeth Kingston.

Cover by The Killion Group, Inc.

Table of Contents

Character List & Other Notes

Aderinyth

Chapter One

1277

Chapter Two

1277

Chapter Three

1280

Chapter Four

1281

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

1282

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

1283

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

For Taffy

If they don’t give you a way, love, then make one.

Character List & Other Notes

WELSH BLADES CHARACTERS

Lady Eluned - Lady of Darian, Gwenllian’s mother

Lord Robert (de Lascaux) - Lord of Darian

William (Will) - Lord of Ruardean, Eluned’s son

Robin Manton - son of Lord Robert’s best friend

Gwenllian - Lady of Morency

Ranulf - Lord of Morency

Sir Gerald - a knight of Morency

HISTORICAL FIGURES

Edward I, King of England

Llewellyn, last Prince of Wales

Dafydd, Llewellyn’s brother

FICTIONAL PLACES

Darian: Lord Robert’s lands in Wales

Dinwen: Eluned’s childhood home, now part of Darian

Morency: Ranulf’s lands in Suffolk

Ruardean: Will’s lands in the Welsh Marches

PRONUNCIATIONS (simplified)

Eluned: Ell-in-id

Gruffydd: Griffith

Gwenllian: Gwen-lee-an

Iorwerth: Yor-worth

Rhodri: Rod-ree

Rhys: Reese

Desire lines (or desire paths): a planning term referring to the paths created by pedestrians or cyclists when a constructed route is unsatisfactory or nonexistent

Aderinyth

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Philip Walch was his favorite, because he only cared about the birds. Not who was in command, or how high or low anyone’s birth, or if you were English or Welsh or Norman. All that mattered were the birds and how you treated them.

“Do we have to sew his eyes shut?”

“They are not like men,” answered Phillip. “A falcon is calmed by the dark. Her fears do not live in the night.”

Her. Gryff looked down at the covered basket he’d insisted on carrying once they’d caught the falcon not far from its nest. He would have looked under the cloth to see it again, if Philip hadn’t warned him they must wait until they were back in the mews. Females were the fiercer hunters, everyone knew that.

“Where do her fears live, then, if not in the dark?”