Chapter 1 #3
“That doesn’t mean it’s how it always should be.
” But Mamma’s tone was sad, resigned. She knew even as she said the words that they were useless.
No more effective than Kyrja’s crystalized artwork.
“I fear for you, Your Highness. I fear that when you inherit your father’s crown, long after I’m dead and gone, you’ll be inheriting a Fjordlandi too fractured to survive.
A kingdom built on the backs of its people is a kingdom destined to break when they do. ”
“You underestimate the strength of the thanes’ backs.” Einar said it like it was a joke.
Mamma didn’t laugh. Just sent him a sorrowful gaze. “No. I don’t. But your father underestimates the strength of their spirits. Don’t make the same mistake, when it’s your turn.”
They reached the end of the rink, of the stands.
Mamma stepped down from the seating level while Kyrja and Einar moved off the ice.
She could feel the frustration in her brother’s mask of dispassion.
“My turn is likely a century or more in the future. And you would do well to keep such thoughts to yourself, Modur.”
Around Fodur, she always did. For that matter, Kyrja could recall only a handful of times she’d said such things even out of his hearing.
And at her mother’s soft, humorless laugh, her spine snapped straight in dread.
“Einar, I have at best a few more years in these creaking bones. What exactly do you think I have to lose by speaking my mind?”
They paused at the door, the air between them cracking like ice gone thin from heat. Partly at the name she’d dared to use. Partly at the thoughts she’d dared to think.
Einar looked at Kyrja, as if she were the answer to the question, then back to Mamma.
He tilted his head. “Perhaps you’re right.
Even so, I would beg you—don’t say such things in Fodur’s hearing.
” Not waiting for a reply, he gave another brief bow of farewell to Mamma and a less formal nod to Kyrja. “See you tonight, both of you.”
Mamma let out a long breath as he left. They followed him out into the snow drifting lazily down, though at a slower pace.
To Kyrja’s eye, the smile her mother fastened on was about as natural as the domes.
Necessary, perhaps, but completely fabricated.
“Try not to be late tonight, Kyrja. We still have some details to discuss about your Blessing Day celebration.”
Her own smile mirrored her mother’s. By rights, the ball next month to celebrate not only her thirty-fifth birthday but the thirtieth anniversary of her magical Blessing ought to be the biggest event of her life.
The signal that she had come fully into her power, the end of her training, and was ready to take on whatever responsibilities King Isidor and his High Council deemed her suited for.
In reality, it would be nothing but a chance for the more powerful Blessed to mock her with their snide smiles and too-loud whispers. Princess Valkyrja, the weakling of the family. Princess Valkyrja, nothing but her mother’s pet. Princess Valkyrja, more a thane at heart than a proper royal.
All true. And so, she brightened her smile and leaned over to prove it with a kiss to Mamma’s paper-soft cheek. “I won’t be late. Love you, Mamma.”
Mamma chuckled and tapped a covered finger to the tip of her nose. “Love you, snowflake. Now off with you.”
With one more nod to the two Vektor Guards who flanked Mamma to see her safely back to the palace, Kyrja took off at a near-run through the streets of Reykstoll.
Heading as she was to the poorer side of the city, where thanes had moved from the domes over the centuries and taken up residence, she should have brought guards of her own, but…
well, she never bothered, and Fodur never insisted.
Say what they would about her weak, untethered magic, but one thing she was good at was this. Charging through the streets of her city, giving smiles to everyone she passed by. Greeting by name many of the shopkeepers and vendors, the faces she saw on every such trip, every week.
By the time she hurried into the clinic her best friend ran, her smile was genuine again, and she’d shaken off the fizzled training session, Fodur’s decree that her training stop, even Mamma’s concern about the thanes.
Here were plenty of them, and the commoners didn’t look so unhappy. They were warm in their woolen sweaters and coats, cheeks pink and eyes gleaming. Little girls bounced up and down when they spotted her, little boys pointed and gasped.
She winked at the whole waiting room and sidestepped the receptionist’s desk with a wave. Inoculations were always done in room four, so there was no need to ask where Dania needed her today.
The door was just opening as she approached, a mother and three children scooting out. Recognizing them from last year, Kyrja said hello and commented on how much the little ones had grown, then slipped inside once the blushing mother urged her brood back out.
“There you are.” Dania looked up with a grin and shoved a handful of silver-and-gold curls away from her face. To look at her, one would think she’d already been at it for three days straight. “I thought you’d never get here.”
Kyrja chuckled and moved to her usual place beside the patient’s chair. “I’m early, you’ll note.”
Dania checked her clock. And frowned. “Why are you early?” Of course, even as she asked, she let out a long sigh, expression going even tighter. “I take it your penultimate showcase for your father didn’t go well?”
To distract herself from the sting, Kyrja tugged the sheer sleeves of today’s gown down. “Turns out it was my last one. He deemed them pointless and cut off the last of my training, saying Einar is needed at the palace.”
“Oh, Kyrja.” Dania moved to her side and settled a hand on Kyrja’s wrist. She was a Fjorder, one of the aristocracy, without magic but born to wealth and privilege—and yet she’d chosen this, serving the poorest of Reykstoll, as her life’s work.
Though more immune to the cold than her patients, she felt more than most Fjorders Kyrja had met.
It was, perhaps, what had made them such fast friends when they met in school. Neither of them were quite what the elite of Fjordlandi were supposed to be.
Kyrja summoned up a smile now for her friend. “It’s all right. He didn’t mean it as an insult, it’s…it’s just fact. There’s no reason to get upset about facts.”
The breath Dania blew out said she was none too sure about that. But she let it go. For now. “Well. I know how to distract you from it all. Sven is dining with us tomorrow night—you should come. Bring your mother.”
Kyrja chuckled at the thought of another evening of food and conversation with Dania’s brother—a professor at Reykstoll’s university.
He certainly always gave her something to think about…
though in this case, his “thought experiments” hit a bit too close to home, given the meeting her father and Einar would be having with the leader of the rebel thanes this afternoon.
None of which she said. The nurse showed a new patient in, and the little one looked none too happy to be here. He clung to his mother’s skirts, eyes wide with fear.
Time for Kyrja to do what she came to do. Grinning, she leaned down to catch the little fellow’s eye. “Hello there. I’m guessing you’re not looking forward to the shot, are you?”
The boy shook his head and tried to back out of the room. His mother shut the door to keep him in.
Kyrja kept her smile bright. “Understandable. Did it hurt last time?” At the boy’s lip-quivering nod, she gave a solemn one of her own. “I thought so. But that’s because I wasn’t here. Come and sit here beside me, and I’ll stop it from hurting.”
He edged closer, though warily. “How?”
“May I see your hand?” Her usual introduction. The boy held it out, and she took it gently between her own. Wiggling her pointer finger in illustration, she touched it to the top of his hand, watching as his eyes went wide.
“It’s getting cold!”
She chuckled. “Exactly so. And when I do this to your arm, it will get cold enough in that one spot that you won’t feel a thing when the needle goes in—and it will stay cold for a few hours afterward, which will even keep it from aching later.
Plus”—she leaned close, cast her voice into a whisper—“while the doctor is giving you the medicine, I can draw you an icograph on your shirt. Anything you like.”
The boy’s eyes went wider still. “A polar bear?”
Kyrja grinned and lifted her finger from his hand. “Polar bear it is. Let’s get started.”