Chapter 18
18
FRIDA
T he island was much larger than I’d been made to believe. Either the guild had lied to me (again) or they had insufficient information. Most likely, it was the latter. Before we’d left Rune’s cottage, we’d packed a satchel full of snacks and filled up our waterskins. Two hours later, with my forehead coated in sweat, I understood why Rune had been so insistent on making preparations for the hike.
North of the dense forest, several craggy mountains reached for the late afternoon sky like gnarled fingers. Tall, swaying grass rippled across the knot of foothills beneath them, scented with the aroma of milkweed and…was that sulfur?
Rune slowed when he’d noticed I’d halted on the dirt path that cut across the foothills. My gaze had locked on the nearest mountain and the slant of a cave opening cut into the side of it. From within, an orange light pulsed.
“Are you afraid?” Rune asked.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “Should I be?”
“As far as I know, Eldi has never harmed anyone. He likes to be left alone and might refuse to engage with us. But he’s never roasted a visitor.”
I cut my eyes toward Rune. “Kind of like you, then.”
“You’re right. And maybe that’s my mistake. It’d certainly make folk leave me alone.”
I smiled at him.
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“I think you secretly like having visitors. You just refuse to admit it to anyone, even to yourself.”
He shook his head. “The words ‘delusional’ and ‘assassin’ are never a good combination.”
A pang went through my heart, and after sucking in a deep breath, I started down the path again. Rune erased the distance between us in one stride and fell into step beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him looking at me, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back.
“Which part annoyed you?” he asked. “Delusional or assassin?”
“Does it matter?”
“It really does.” A beat passed. “If Erik accepts your story, aren’t you hoping he’ll let you become a full member of the guild so you can be with your family?”
“That’s the long and short of it, yes.”
“Then you’ll be an assassin, Frida, whether you want to think of yourself as one or not,” he said softly.
I clenched my jaw. His words cut through me, mostly because he was right. The entire reason we were on this path was so that I could return to the guild without consequences. He was helping me become the very thing I wanted to pretend I wasn’t.
“Maybe I plan to ask for thieving assignments,” I said, nodding to myself. I’d never heard of Erik allowing members to dictate the type of assignments they took on, but maybe I could convince him. A dragon was an incredible prize, after all.
“I don’t think you need me to explain how unlikely that is,” Rune said. “It’s time for you to deal with the fact you’ll have to assassinate.”
I came to a sudden stop again and whirled to face him. “I thought you wanted to help me with this.”
A long stretch of silence followed, Rune’s chestnut gaze searching my face. “I do want to help you, Frida. But when I look at you, I don’t see one of them. I see a girl who’d be far better off staying on this island and starting a life she would love. I think if you go back to the guild, you’ll be miserable. And beyond that, it’ll change you.”
“You don’t know me, Rune,” I whispered up at him, my heart pounding against my ribs. “This is what I want.”
Sighing, he stepped back and motioned down the path. “After you, then. The dragon’s cave is just up ahead.”
I nodded tersely and moved past him. Rune didn’t understand— he couldn’t . As much as I liked to tease him about his solitude, he truly did enjoy his time alone. To him, my desperate need to feel a part of something probably seemed nonsensical.
It didn’t help that Arvid’s request had brought back a flood of memories. My mother had shown me how to shoot an arrow. I remembered the way she’d praised me during our sessions, loving me fiercely until the day I’d run away. And then her illness had killed her. I hadn’t even been there to hold her hand at the end of it. Even now, I still grieved for those final months I’d lost with her, just because I hadn’t been able to deal with the truth of who I was.
The path wound up the hill, leading to a rockier stretch that curled up the side of the mountain. About a quarter of the way up, a large cavern mouth yawned to our right. The dragon sat just inside the entrance, perched on his haunches. His spiked tail curled around enormous paws tipped in talons.
My breath fled from my lungs. Sunlight slanted into the cave, illuminating his glittering black scales. His head swooped to the side as he snuffed at the air, his muscular body so broad and tall that I suddenly felt inexplicably small. I had never seen anything like him, and my knees weakened at the sight. A low grumble spilled from his spiked mouth.
“Whoa, Eldi.” Rune inched in front of me, his hands outstretched. He gazed up at the dragon with an ease that suggested he’d come here a time or two before. “It’s Rune, remember? And this is Frida. She’s an elven lass from the mainland, and she’s come here to ask you for help.”
Eldi snuffed again, then turned his head away.
“Can he understand you?” I whispered.
“He’s a dragon. Of course he can understand me.”
Eldi shifted further to the side, fully turning his back on us. His tail sliced across the ground and plumes of dust filled the air. Rune edged back a few steps, his body still a shield against the dragon. And then a moment later, the dragon was gone, vanishing into the depths of the cave.
“Hmm,” I said. “It doesn’t seem like he could understand you.”
“He understood me just fine. The problem is, he doesn’t want to help you,” Rune said.
I frowned. “What, he decided, just like that?”
“I warned you it might be difficult.”
“But he didn’t even give me a chance to ask him.” I squared my shoulders, calling upon my hopeful determination that had gotten me this far. “I’ll just have to follow him and try again.”
I started toward the cave, but Rune grabbed my arm and hauled me back behind him. “Don’t do that. This is his home, and he’s basically slammed the front door in our faces. You can’t force your way inside and expect him to change his mind. You’ll have to come back tomorrow and hope he’ll consider listening then.”
“But—”
“I told you it’d be hard and that it might take time.” His eyes softened as he caught the look of despair I knew I wore. “If you keep trying, I’m sure you can win him over. You won me over, didn’t you?”
A fluttering went through my stomach. “Did I?”
He chuckled. “Well, for the most part. I still don’t think you could draw a fence if your life depended on it.”
A heady warmth curled through my belly. And that was when I realized one of us had stepped toward the other—or maybe we both had. Only a slip of air filled the space between us, and his full lips and gleaming tusks were only inches away from my mouth. A wild thought flashed through my mind: an image of Rune pressing his body against mine, gently caressing my neck with his lips.
A delicious tremor went through me, heating me up in places where I’d not felt warmth in far too long.
Fuck.
Swallowing, I dragged my gaze away from him. I couldn’t think these kinds of thoughts. Not about Rune. Not about anyone ever again. It was one thing to ignore the guild’s rules and read a novel, drink some ale, or dance to a lovely bard’s tune. It was quite another to climb into bed with the orc they’d sent me here to hunt.
I shook away those thoughts.
“I suppose we should head back,” I said, my voice more strained than it had any right to be. “I just need to do something first.”
I shrugged the satchel off my shoulder and pulled out the cheese I’d packed inside. Then, without daring to glance at Rune, I placed it on the ground just inside the cave’s entrance. The dragon might not think much of me now, but if there was one thing I knew, it was that Arvid’s cheese could please anyone.
I t was my night to cook. After every gruesome detail about my truth had come out, I’d insisted that Rune let me do a bit more around the cottage to earn my keep. So we took turns preparing dinner now. The night before, he’d rustled up roasted pork, along with some fresh bread and greens dripping in butter. And when I’d asked him if there was anything in particular he wanted tonight, he’d vanished out the door without comment.
An hour had passed since he’d left, so I’d gotten started on stewing some barley I’d found stashed in his cupboard. Other than a sack of potatoes, there wasn’t much else by way of food, at least that I could find. By the time I’d begun to consider leaving the pot over the hearth-fire to go in search of some mushrooms, Rune threw open the door and strode in with a line of fresh cod tossed over his shoulder.
“You all right making this?” he asked without preamble, tossing the fish onto the table.
I eyed him, still stirring the barley. “Did you just go catch some fish?”
“Of course. Where did you think I went?”
“Since you left without a word, I thought you might have decided the dragon had the right idea. Maybe you went in search of your own cave to hide away in.”
“Tempting,” he said. “I think I’ll wait until after you cook me that fish, though.”
“Keep talking like that, and I’ll throw this barley into a bowl and call it a day.”
“Go ahead.” His lips curled in the corners. “I know where you hid the rest of the cheese. Keep me hungry, and I’ll gladly eat the whole damn lot of it.”
I shot him a mock pout. “I didn’t hide the cheese.”
“You moved it from my food cupboard.”
“I just thought it’d be better off in my room. You know, so that I don’t disturb you again when I need a midnight snack.”
Rune crossed the room, bringing with him the scent of salt and brine. As he drew closer, I noticed the droplets of water curling down his skin. His tunic was damp, the material clinging to his torso and defining every ridge of his chest. The pulse in my neck thrummed.
“Why do you insist on getting wet all the time when all it does is hurt you?” Sighing, I released the wooden spoon. “At this rate, you’ll run out of salve soon.”
“I went fishing in the sea, Frida. The salt water doesn’t harm me,” he said.
“Oh, right.” My eyes skated across his wet clothes, heat curling through my stomach. In the days since it had last rained, his welts had mostly healed. And looking at him now, my fingers tensed, as if recalling the hard planes of his body when I’d applied the salve.
I cleared my throat, and Rune’s eyes searched mine, like he could read the errant thoughts in my head.
“Are you sure you want to go back to that place?” he asked. Again.
“Yes, Rune. I’m sure.” I turned back to the barley. It had congealed into a sticky mess that looked about as appealing as a bowl of mud. It was a good thing Rune had gone fishing, or we really would be dining on my last wheel of cheese tonight.
“All right, Frida.” He sighed. “In that case, I’ve got something to show you after dinner. It’ll help with Eldi.” A pause. “But I need you to make a promise. No one can know about this, least of all Erik or anyone else who’s a part of the guild. Not even your brother.”
Curiosity prickled the back of my neck, and I turned to him with a raised brow. “Consider me intrigued.”
Rune pointed at the fish. “Food first. Gift second. If I’m going to share my secrets, I’d like to eat something that doesn’t look like mud soup.”
I grinned. “Fair enough.”
A fter dinner, Rune and I sat beside the fire with Moira stretched across the floor by our feet. While I’d cleaned up, he’d disappeared into his room and returned with a small burlap sack. He dropped it on the table between us and steepled his hands beneath his chin, an expectant expression on his face.
“Any idea what that is?” he asked.
“I assume it’s Galdur sand of some variety.” I eyed him. “Fildur sand, for fire?”
“And what would make you think that?”
“Dragons have an affinity for fire. So do orcs. It’s why you’re able to bond with them without their magic consuming you.”
“It’s a good guess,” he said with a nod. “But this is not any of the four elemental sands that most folk are aware of. In fact, scholars have fought hard to keep this one’s existence a secret.”
I sat up a little straighter. “You’re saying there’s a fifth sand?”
“I’m saying there are several sands that aren’t common knowledge. There’s probably even more that scholars have yet to discover.” He pointed at the little bag. “This one is called Hugur sand. It gives power over the mind. As I’m sure you can imagine, it would be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands.”
My gut churned as the implication of his words sank in. “You’re saying there’s a sand that can control people’s thoughts?”
“That is one use for it, yes.”
“You have an entire bag of it,” I whispered.
“Trust me, Frida. I have never used this sand against anyone. I gathered it years ago and have kept it safe ever since,” he said.
My heart pounded as I looked at the burlap sack. “Surely you don’t intend for me to use it against a dragon. To control his thoughts so he’ll help me?”
“Absolutely not,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “And if I thought you’d commit that kind of atrocity, I’d never have shown this to you. It’s to communicate with him and understand his wishes. That’s all.”
“Oh.” I sat back in the chair, and it rocked beneath me. “So I could use it to read his thoughts?”
“Hmm, not exactly. You’d speak to him, and he’d speak back to you in your mind. It would help you learn if there was something you could offer him in exchange for his help.”
I nodded. It made sense. “This is an incredible bit of magic you’ve discovered, Rune. The ability to communicate with animals…well, that could be life-changing. You could do so much for this island if you used it more.”
He shook his head, sighing. “I’m hesitant to use it, especially knowing Erik is still looking for me after all these years. I’d never want him to get his hands on it.”
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him, the crackle of the hearth the only sound. And then I cleared my throat, unsure if I should speak my thoughts aloud and risk him changing his mind about sharing this magic with me.
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this. I’m part of the guild. Aren’t I exactly the kind of person you want to hide this magic from?”
Rune folded his arms, leaned back in his chair, and gave me a long-considering look. “I see you, Frida, whether or not you see yourself yet.”
I flushed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He looked at me, and I looked at him, and an inscrutable expression crossed his face. Sighing, he ran a hand along the strong curves of his jaw.
“Maybe one day you’ll understand.” Rune rose, pushing up from his chair. “For now, take that sand. You can visit Eldi as often as you like, just so long as you make good progress on the fence every day.”
“Wait, you’re not going with me next time?”
He shook his head. “There’s too much work to do on Helga’s house for me to hike to the cave and back every day. The Elding has moved on now, so it’s safe. Just make sure you tell me when you go so I can come for you if need be.”
“But Rune—”
“Good night, Frida.” He knelt and gathered his cat into his arms, then vanished through his bedroom door. Swallowing, I stared after him, my heartbeat thundering through me. He was right to be so dismissive. Already, he’d done so much. Still, it stung.
He wanted to keep his distance from me, that much was clear. And it was probably for the best. Because after I tamed this dragon, I’d leave the Floating Forest and never look back. Saying goodbye would be hard enough as it was. Deepening our strained alliance into friendship would only make it harder.