Chapter 6
6
FRIDA
A tense silence saturated the air between us as we walked from Rune’s property to the home of the dwarves. On our way out the door, I’d thrown my cloak around my shoulders to drown my face in the shadows of the hood. I knew it would make little difference, though. When we met the dwarves, I couldn’t lurk behind Rune, refusing to reveal myself. Doing so would bring far more attention to me than if I acted like a normal person with nothing to hide.
As twigs crunched underfoot, I tossed back the hood. Sweat claimed strands of my hair, plastering them to my forehead. Even with the dense canopy overhead, the sun cast an insistent heat upon us. In the distance, the soft rush of waves pushed through the trees, tempting me to abandon this ridiculous plan and dive into the cooling sea instead.
But I’d committed. There really was no turning back now.
As soon as we stepped off the path, an entire estate sprawled across a verdant field cut into the heart of the forest. A handful of buildings were scattered throughout the clearing, along with the home I’d stumbled upon last night. Several resembled the outbuilding I’d seen back at Rune’s, but a stable, a granary, and a cattle barn added to the collection. Several horses, their manes slick and gleaming black, swivelled their heads our way and nickered, toeing the ground. At the sight of them, my heart ached. I wished Stella was here.
A dwarf bustled out from the granary’s open doors, a shovel hanging from his hand. His long ginger hair flowed around his broad shoulders, and bells jingled where they were woven through his curly beard. Damp dirt stained the knees of his coveralls, and his boots were caked in mud, grains, and hay.
He smiled as he bustled over to us, though it came across as more of a grimace than a grin. In fact, as he drew closer, I noticed the purple bags that clung to the bottom of his eyes, too. “Rune! Fate, I’m glad to see you.”
I looked up to see Rune frown. “What’s the matter, Arvid? You look like shit.”
“Tactful as always, thank you.” Arvid’s smile lightened a bit for the smallest of moments, but then vanished when he reached us. He drove the shovel into the ground, leaned one arm on top of the handle, and sighed heavily. “We nearly lost Bertha.”
Rune’s body seemed to expand . He straightened, his eyes alert as he cast his gaze around the farm, clearly searching for whoever this Bertha was. “What do you mean?”
Arvid tightened his grip on the shovel. “I mean exactly what I said. Mellor and I left her out grazing yesterday morning while we were tending to the horses. I only had my back turned to her for a half hour at most. I think that’s the only reason we managed to find her—she wasn’t gone too long. She ended up on the bloody beach for some fate-damned reason.”
“Well, I know you must have been worried sick, but it sounds like it all worked out,” Rune said. “Why’d you call me over?”
“We need a fence, Rune. We’ve already lost two cows. Can’t afford to lose any more. Or any of the chickens and horses and sheep.” Arvid looked grim. “We should have put up a fence ages ago, and it can’t wait any longer now.”
“A fence.” Rune scratched the base of one of his tusks, nodded, and looked around. “It’s doable, but it’s going to take some time, what with the house build going on right now. We’ll have to split our time between here and there. Think you can hold down the fort for a couple of weeks while we work on it?”
“ We ?” Arvid arched a brow, then glanced at me. A startled look crossed his face, like he’d only just now noticed me here. “Who’s this, then?”
“This is my new assistant,” Rune said gruffly. “Her name is…”
“Frida,” I supplied.
“Well, it’s about damn time,” Arvid said with an approving nod. He relinquished his tight hold on the shovel and padded around Rune’s side to peer at me. “Well, don’t be shy. Come closer. Let’s have a look at ya.”
I stepped out of Rune’s shadow and into the sun. Arvid beamed up at me. “Well, aren’t you a pretty elven lass? I was going to ask how you convinced old grump here to give you a job, but now I see.”
My cheeks heated. “No, it’s not like that. He’s just…being kind, that’s all.”
That or he was trying to trick me into revealing who I was. Most likely, it was the latter. He suspected me, that much was clear.
“Hmm,” Arvid said with a little laugh, then turned his attention back to Rune. “We can manage for two weeks. What’ll it cost us?”
“Frida?” Rune asked, looking expectantly at me.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, thinking I’d missed a sentence or two.
“Arvid asked the price of the fence.”
“Right…” I lifted the parchment he’d handed me, but there was nothing written on it. He’d only given it to me for taking notes, he’d said. So why was he asking me a question? “I’m sorry, did you mention pricing before we came here?”
“I’m letting you take the reins on the fence, so you get to decide the pricing,” he said.
I understood what he was doing. Did he think I’d been born yesterday? Never in a million years would he have handed an entire build over to a new apprentice on her first day. Not unless he had ulterior motives.
Rune wanted to keep me distracted. If I was swamped with work, building this fence, I wouldn’t have time to hunt down his dragon.
He was clever, I’d give him that. Just not clever enough to trick me.
“I couldn’t possibly,” I said, casting my eyes to the ground as if in supplication. “Not on my first day. I’m nowhere near ready.”
“Oh, don’t sell yourself short. I know how eager you must be to really dig into something,” Rune said. “Consider it your ‘induction' task.”
I tensed, my eyes flying up to his face. His expression betrayed nothing, but there’d been a bite to his words—a knowing . It was almost like he wanted me to know that he knew, or at least make me worry that he knew. And if I insisted on turning down this offer, it would be like admitting my guilt.
With a tight smile, I said, “How could I say no to that?”
“Good. So the price?” Rune prodded.
My gaze was once again drawn to Arvid, and there was hope gleaming in his eyes.
“Five wheels of your best cheese,” I said.
His eyes brightened, and a full smile spread across his face. Something akin to fondness stirred in my chest, even though I’d just met the man. “You’d build an entire fence around my farm for five wheels of cheese?”
“For your cheese, I’d do nearly anything,” I said with a smile. “It’s probably the best I’ve ever tried.”
“Ha!” He stuck out a calloused hand. “It’s a deal, then.”
We shook on the offer, then he showed me around his farm so I could get a better sense of how much material we needed. I made some notes and asked how tall he wanted it. All the while, Rune trailed behind us, listening to our conversation like the mentor he was pretending to be.
When I’d gotten what I felt like was enough information, Rune and I said our goodbyes and returned to his cottage with three wheels of cheese as a down-payment tucked into my cloak, which I’d turned into a makeshift sack that I’d tossed over my shoulder.
I had so many questions I wanted to ask Rune, but not a single one of them felt safe. But I refused to spend the return walk in utter silence again, so I settled on the only question I could think of that didn’t feel like an invitation for accusations.
“He mentioned a couple of other cows. What happened to them?” I asked.
Rune frowned. “We’re not quite sure. I helped Arvid search the woods after they went missing, but we never saw hide nor hair of them.”
“How long ago was it?”
“Two weeks. Maybe three.”
“Well, surely cows can’t just up and disappear. They must be out there still.”
He nodded. “That’s what I thought, too. But I helped them scour these woods for days. ‘Course you’re welcome to try yourself if you think you can do better.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I tried to examine his face. He was nearly unreadable, though. The muscles around his jaw were tight, but they always seemed to be. Grouchiness, I was quickly learning, was his default. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if the tension was at least partially due to something else.
Something like…he knew where the cows went. Straight into the mouth of his dragon.
“Arvid and his family,” I said after a moment. “Are they close friends of yours?”
“I can’t say I have any close friends,” came his—unsurprisingly—gruff answer. But after a brief moment, he added, “They’re good folk. I suppose out of everyone on this island, I’m closest to them.” He grunted a chuckle. “Sounds a bit sad when you put it like that.”
“Well, I know how you feel,” I found myself saying. “Back home, my closest neighbors lived well over a mile away, so I spent most days never seeing another friendly face. Not unless you count my horse, which I very much do. Her name is Stella.”
“Back home? And where is that exactly? You never said.”
I pursed my lips, considering the many lies I could choose. But then I figured I ought to go with the truth—or as close to the truth as I could get. He could clearly see I was elven. He could likely hear it in my accent, too. “The Kingdom of Edda. I lived in the forest just north of the city of Vilmar.”
“Hmm. All by yourself?”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “All by myself.”
A look of suspicion crossed his face, quick as lightning. That told me two things. One, he didn’t believe a damn word I said. Two, he knew how the guild operated. He knew we didn’t live alone in forest cottages, surrounded by the scent of fresh wildflowers and the orchestra of morning birdsong. The number of people who knew our lodging situation could be contained on a single sheet of parchment. Ordinary folk—those outside of the guild—weren’t privy to that kind of information. I hadn’t even known my family had moved into the guild-hall—or that a guild-hall even existed—until I’d told my brother I’d join.
I’d then had to swear a vow to the Old Gods that I would abstain from all manner of enjoyable activities. Only then could I know the guild's secrets.
For a very long time, I’d had no idea where my family was. Just that they lived inside the city.
“Why’d you leave it?” Rune asked when we reached his cottage.
I stared at the cat perched in the window, basking in the midday sun. It was such a sweet sight it made my heart ache. “I suppose I was lonely.”
An honest answer—perhaps more honest than I’d intended to be with Rune. Because while I wanted to rip down his walls so I could reveal his every secret, I didn’t want him to tear down mine.
Rune searched my face with eyes less angry than they’d been a moment before. “Why not just go to the city?”
“Not enough plants for my liking,” I said, then cleared my throat. Time to steer this conversation in a different direction. “So, if I build the entire fence myself, do I get to eat all this cheese? Because otherwise, I probably should have asked for more of it.”
Rune actually cracked a smile.