Chapter 49 Solveig
Despite the outcry and barrage of questions hurled at her, Solveig didn’t linger after her pronouncement.
She ignored them all, calmly striding out of the tent.
In any other circumstance, it would’ve been amusing how every face transformed from anxious to shocked in a split second, too stunned to say anything at first. Solveig felt one set of eyes in particular drilling a hole in her back, but she didn’t meet the prince’s stare.
When she exited the tent, she breathed in the morning air.
The storm from the previous night had cleared and the dawn brought a new beginning.
Commotion in the council tent reached her even as her steps took her farther from it. Gravel crumbled beneath her feet with each deliberate step she took away from who she used to be.
Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing.
She absentmindedly traced a finger down the scar on her face, the wind catching strands of hair that loosened from her braids.
The camp was waking and soon would know what she had done. She hoped her people would give her the benefit of the doubt—that they knew her well enough to know she had a good reason, even if she did not speak it.
Gerrie’s quiet steps approached behind her. “Want to tell me what that was all about?” her friend asked, completely unfazed by Solveig’s surprising change of heart.
Solveig had a plan walking into that meeting prepared to lay out the whole truth of her capture, every gritty detail if need be. She could describe each day, each hour, proving to them that she was willing to suffer for their secrets.
If Latham would stoop so low as to accuse her of treason, then she would use every remaining piece of her broken soul to defend herself.
But when she had seen Sten hovering in the shadows of the tent, a pit of dread opened up in her stomach.
Both times he’d made his appearance known with that wide-eyed, frightened look, something bad had happened to her.
First her capture, then the appearance of the prince.
She would not ignore a third warning from him.
She replayed their conversation in her mind, mulling over each word spoken as if to find more meaning.
“Sten, what’s wrong?” she’d asked him. His eyes darted around the room, widening as he took in the scene.
“I don’t . . . I don’t know. About half an hour ago I woke with this feeling that you had made a big decision.” Solveig swallowed the rising lump in her throat.
That had been about the time she’d made up her mind to spill all her secrets. “Okay, so what do I do?” she asked him softly, not wanting to scare him. She rested her hands on his trembling shoulders. Gods, he was so young.
“I don’t know. Forgive me, General Tordottir, I . . .” Sten’s face paled and went blank, the colour leaching from his eyes. He grabbed her arms, bringing her close to him, his voice a whisper so soft she had to lean in to hear the words. She embraced him as his body began to shake violently.
“If in doubt, look to the past
The die is yours, set to recast.
One path to power, the other despair
The promise of a soul, deep in your nightmare.
Do not be reduced by events gone
Prayers once unheard shall bring the dawn.
Choose your heart over your mind
History is yet revealed, shadows must unbind.”
Sten’s body quivered uncontrollably as he came back to himself. Solveig held him through the last shudder as the burst of magic left his body. He tried to speak, but Solveig shushed him.
“Tell no one of this,” Solveig said firmly. “You will be in great danger if anyone learns that you just accessed your magic.” He nodded against her. “Leave now, quickly.”
She let him go, giving him a fond smile so those around her would assume the hug had been an embrace between friends. Sten stumbled slightly as he left, and it took every ounce of strength she had not to follow him. She needed answers.
The prophecy was fragmented and simple—not as beautifully crafted as she remembered them to be. But fuck, a prophecy.
A prophecy of such importance that it had broken through the bounds of the Block.
She went over the words in her head a hundred times until it was committed to memory, before reciting it to Gerrie on the way back to their tent.
They discussed the possibilities as Gerrie tried yet again to convince Solveig to come with her to Asgard.
She was set to leave that morning, earlier than expected since Latham had moved up the vote.
Though tempted after the events of the morning, Solveig’s instincts told her she had to stay here for now. Her path would lead her to Asgard soon, but not yet.
Not yet.
They packed in silence and walked to the stables to gather with the rest of the party leaving for Asgard. Gerrie pulled Solveig into a hug.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”
“I’m sure.”
“Because it’s not too late.”
Solveig smiled at her friend. “Thank you for being there for me. I wouldn’t have been able to survive these last few months without you.” Her trepidation must have shown on her face, because Gerrie gripped her arms.
“You are strong, Solveig. The nightmares are not real. You got out.”
“It feels real.” She had meant it as a joke, but even to her own ears, she sounded scared.
“You could always ask someone else to keep you company. I’m sure there are larger, more muscular bodies than mine that you’d rather have comfort you.”
Solveig chuckled but stopped immediately when the prince’s face appeared at the forefront of her mind.
“Those males have nothing on you, Gerrie.”
“Well, that’s just not true. They have one appendage I lack.” She winked at Solveig who laughed for real this time.
“If you were a male we wouldn’t have spent so much time sleeping. It would’ve been so much more fun.”
“I could say the same thing about you.” Gerrie shook her head in disappointment.
“Damn the gods for not giving one of us a penis!” Solveig joked, raising her fist to the sky.
“If only you liked females,” Gerrie sighed.
“If only you liked females,” Solveig retorted. Gerrie grinned at her.
“Damn the gods for that too!” she said, both friends laughing in earnest, delaying their farewell. Gerrie grasped her arm again. “I know you won’t let anyone else that close to you, and I know you don’t want anyone to hear you screaming, so I . . .”
“Gerrie, that’s alright. I don’t want you to feel bad. I’m sure everyone in the vicinity has heard me screaming since I got back,” she said solemnly, hating the feeling of being so vulnerable, so out of control.
“See, that’s not exactly true. The first few nights, yes, they did.
But everyone was understanding of the ordeal you went through.
Well, most people were.” She rolled her eyes.
“I assumed the night terrors weren’t going away and you probably didn’t want everyone hearing you, so I sourced a Sound Stone. ”
Solveig’s jaw dropped open. “You what?”
“It’s been sitting in the tent since the first week,” she said sheepishly. “I buried it in the row of rocks that surround the tent so that no one would find it.” Gerrie shrugged.
“How in the world did you get your hands on a Sound Stone?”
Magical items were so rare they were practically non-existent. There was no way Gerrie could have procured something as powerful as a Sound Stone in less than a week.
Even when the land was brimming with magic, they’d been hard to come by and usually only used by monarchs and high-ranking war officials to silence meetings, create diversions, or conjure sound barriers on missions. Solveig’d had one once, but it had been destroyed in the war.
“When I say sourced one, I mean that kind of liberally.” Gerrie hesitated before continuing, that sheepish smile pulling into a wider grin. “I’ve sort of always had it.”
Solveig stared blankly at her. “Excuse me?”
“Your stone was lost, and I let you believe the same thing had happened to mine. You never really asked me outright where mine was.” She shrugged again.
“And just what have you been using a Sound Stone for all these years?” Solveig raised an eyebrow.
“You know—this and that.”
“Oh no, you don’t get away with this that easily.”
Gerrie laughed. “Alright, alright, don’t get your undergarments in a wad.”
She looked at the fierce warrior expectantly and Gerrie gave a dramatic sigh.
“Remember when we shared that house?”
“Yes . . .”
“The walls were thin, and whenever I brought a male or two home you could hear . . .”
“Gerrie!” Solveig started laughing.
“Hey, I decided to do the neighbourly thing and get myself a Sound Stone so I wouldn’t keep you up! And since tent walls are a lot thinner than house walls, I was glad I had it.”
Solveig was doubled over in laughter now. “You mean to tell me that you’ve been using a Sound Stone so you could be loud during sex?” Solveig cried, trying to contain her laughter.
“Yup,” Gerrie said proudly, joining in. The mortals were prudes when it came to their bodies, but the Trifold had no such qualms. If it wasn’t raining, you could hear all sorts of lovely sounds coming from tents all around camp, no matter the time of day.
“Why would you care?” Solveig asked.
Gerrie shrugged again. “Keeps the mystery alive.”
Solveig laughed again. “Oh, Gerrie. I love you.”
“Love you too, Sol. Enough to gift you my sex Silencing Stone.” Gerrie grinned, but the humour quickly faded. Solveig took a big breath and let it out slowly. A long silence stretched out as they finished loading Gerrie’s things.
“Thank you,” Solveig whispered to break the silence.
“Be careful, Solveig.”
“You too.”
The females held each other tightly, and then Gerrie was off.