Chapter 9
Had Kyrja ever been out like this, in the city at night?
Certainly not without a contingent of guards and for some purpose that had her family around her too.
She’d never before had cause to slink through shadows or try to mask her identity, and she couldn’t decide if it was excitement at the forbidden or anxiety over the possible danger that had her blood charging through her veins.
“Over here.” Dania’s familiar whisper sounded from the shadows at which Kyrja had been aiming, and she found her best friend in clothes most definitely not her own, a duffle on her shoulder and indicating one for Kyrja as well.
“Put these on. And for Himmel’s sake, tell me you didn’t wear your crown. ”
Kyrja smiled and touched a hand to her bare head. “I’m not a complete idiot.”
“Says the princess sneaking through alleyways to find the friend of a prisoner.” But Dania unclasped the bag, shook out a thick sweater, and handed it over. “This first.”
Kyrja pulled the wool over her own blouse, the warmth of it first a comfort and then, within seconds, almost suffocating.
As Dania had instructed, she’d worn one of her few pairs of trousers, normally donned only on an expedition through the tundra, along with a pair of knee-high leather boots similar to the ones she’d given Krystiana for Yule.
Tears burned the back of her eyes. She hadn’t even liked her sister. So why did she miss her so acutely, why did it keep hitting in odd moments?
“Next.” Dania held out a heavy coat. “Hood up, mittens on.”
“Seriously? More layers?” She took the outerwear, but she was already sweating.
“We need to pass for thanes. Fjorders would never be seen in the Gala Inn.” Her friend offered a cheeky smile. “Try not to look like you’re about to die of heatstroke.”
“I’m not so sure I won’t.” She slipped her arms into the coat and had the urge to pant. “Where did you get all of this?”
“Friends.” Dania, at the arched-brows Kyrja sent her, tilted her head. “Patients.”
All Fjorders interacted with thanes regularly—it was impossible not to. The thanes were the ones cleaning their houses, cooking their food, keeping their cities running. But to most of the aristocracy, they were invisible. To be ignored. Never befriended.
Dania had always been different, long before she chose to open a free clinic rather than cater to the elite like most doctors did.
Oh, all physicians had to do their rotations in the domes, administering the inoculations that kept the population healthy enough to work.
But for most, the goal was to end up in the Labs, where they could work on the sort of medicine that had a hope of advancing Fjordlandi in the eyes of the world.
The sort that had led to the Test. Definitely not spending each day in the slums by choice.
Kyrja pulled the hood up, slid her hands into the gloves, and huffed as she slid the bag onto her shoulder. “All right. Let’s make this quick, before I pass out.” Already she had to squelch the need to fan herself.
A little warmth, she’d always loved. Leaning into Mamma, snuggling in. But this much? Far too many layers.
“It’s close. You’ll be fine for a few minutes.” Dania led the way out of the alley and onto Fyrst street.
Kyrja followed close behind, tilting her head up for the cooling kiss of the snow…
which, yes, she called down on them a bit more exuberantly for the purpose.
Being covered in snow would lend an excuse for why she kept her hood up inside.
A thane would need more than a few minutes to warm up after getting caught in a squall.
The warm glow of lights spilled from the ground floor windows of the inn, making it look cheerful despite the peeling paint that even darkness couldn’t hide.
“Remember to talk like a thane,” Dania whispered, moments before she reached for the knob and pulled the door open.
Right. Mamma had lost her Harroby accent after all her years in the capital, and Kyrja hadn’t really spoken with Raf and Nik enough to imitate theirs…
but she could put on the patterns of the Reykstoll thanes easily enough, after volunteering so often in the clinic.
She summoned it now, stamping the new-fallen snow from her boots and rubbing her hands together as if they were cold as she approached the decrepit front desk.
“Good even,” she said to the man behind it.
He glanced up, smile bright but eyes vague. No recognition in them—good. So far, anyway. “Good even, ladies. Need a room?”
“Yes, please.” They’d already discussed this and decided it was their best hope of getting information from the innkeeper. Kyrja had silver in her trouser pockets to pay for it. “Two nights, if possible.”
“Of course.” The man pulled a book forward, along with a pen. No data crystals here, it seemed. “One room or two?”
Kyrja stole a glance at Dania, who not only had all her fair Fjorder skin covered on her arms and hands but had averted her face.
“Two. And we’re hoping to meet up with friends of ours who said they’d be here.
Rafnar Svensson and Nikanor Tristansson.
They haven’t checked out yet, have they? We were a bit delayed.”
The man pursed his lips. “I…I don’t know. I’m not at liberty to divulge the comings and goings of our guests.”
Which surely meant Raf was there. If he’d left, the man would have just said so and offered apologies, right?
Kyrja smiled. “I understand. If they are here, you could just give them a message, yes? Ask them to knock on my door? Tell them I can’t wait to see Nik tomorrow, and that I have the icograph Raf asked me to get. ”
The man darted a glance up at her face, narrowed his eyes. “Have you stayed with us before, my friend?”
Frost and snow, she no doubt looked familiar, and he was trying to place her.
“Perhaps? My parents usually take care of our travel arrangements, and I haven’t paid all that much attention.
” She went for a grin that Princess Valkyrja would never use in public—too friendly, too young, too informal.
“This is my first trip without them.” All true, so it should ring so.
“Ah. Well, just fill out your name and address here, if you would.” He slid the book over to her. “And that will be twenty riks.”
That was all? She’d brought far too much.
She pulled off her right glove—glad to see that her skin was nicely flushed.
The fact that her nails were still low and uneven from her escapade would help her look like a thane too.
Her cuts had all healed by the time she’d woken up the morning after the bombing, of course.
She reached a hand into her pocket and pulled out a single coin, handed it over, and picked up the pen.
Dania coughed—a warning. She needed to write like a thane too, and they certainly weren’t given the education in calligraphy that she’d had.
Mimicking Dania’s hurried script, she wrote the name she’d decided on.
Mamma’s given name, with another family name as a surname.
Andresa Olafdottir. And then the address of Dania’s sister, who lived in the second-largest city in Fjordlandi, well over a hundred miles from here.
Kyrja hadn’t seen her in years, though she frequently rubbed elbows with Dania’s brother, Sven.
She’d always loved listening to him muse and converse on what Fjordlandi might look like if they had laws like the other kingdoms, granting equal rights to all subjects.
Just a thought experiment, he’d always said, sending her a wink. Because to be anything else would mean earning the censure of the Crown and finding himself without a position.
But he knew she’d never breathe a word of his thoughts to her family. He’d only started speaking of such things after she’d brought Mamma along on one of her visits.
The innkeeper handed over two metal keys. “Rooms twenty-one and twenty-two, on the second floor. And if those gentlemen are in residence, I’ll see a message is delivered. If not, I’ll let you know in the morning.”
“Thank you.” Handing one of the keys to Dania, they hustled toward and then up the rickety stairs, which creaked with every step, frost it. That would make sneaking down after they’d spoken to Raf difficult. Perhaps there were other stairs.
They found their rooms and opened the first, tossing their nearly-empty bags onto the bed and switching on the lights.
The whole thing was smaller than her dressing chamber had been, with no private washroom.
The fact that the attendant hadn’t even mentioned that made her think hotels like this never had such luxuries.
Kyrja wasted no time in swiping off the hood, then shrugging out of the coat.
“Leave the sweater on,” Dania cautioned as she took her own coat off. “If someone other than this Rafnar fellow comes to the door, you still need to look the part.”
“Granted.” But she shoved up the sleeves, anyway, grateful that the radiator in the corner of the room was barely spurting out any heat. No doubt guests were expected to open it more when they checked in, but she was happy to leave it closed.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her friend settling beside her with a sigh. Dania leaned against her. “How are you holding up?”
The simple question shouldn’t have threatened the dike on her emotions again.
But after forcing her eyes to stay dry through yesterday’s funerals, the tears had been threatening ever since.
She hadn’t dared to release them there, not with Fodur at her side, not with every Blessed in Fjordlandi watching, with the Two Councils all in attendance and ready to judge.
She’d kept everything bottled up tight and had prayed that the Giver wouldn’t repeat the sign in the crystal columns that he’d given her two days earlier.
They’d remained silent. She’d thanked him, then. Now, it pinged around her heart like a doubt.