Chapter Ten
FERN WOKE IN the early hours of the morning, and it took her some time to remember what had happened the night before. She had slept with Ragnar.
That was when she became aware of her body. Of her surroundings. She ached in interesting places. And she was lying in a bed different than her own. But she was alone.
She frowned, she looked around and then sat up. Then she peered down over the edge of the mattress and saw that he was there. On the floor, on that awful bedroll.
Her chest tightened.
It wasn’t as simple for him as leaving that life behind. It had left an indelible mark on him. He couldn’t even fully enjoy comfortable things.
She wanted to tear down the walls of the castle, to unmake the world and remake it for him. If only she were a goddess. If only she had that kind of power. If only things were different.
She had said to him that if she had seen him at a ball, and she had been free to approach him, and he had been free to approach her, then they would’ve ended up together. They would have too.
But they didn’t have the option of finding each other in that ideal space. They didn’t have the option for being those people. They were Ragnar and Fern. And they were shaped by the things that had happened to them. Deeply. In ways that were not quite so simple to fix.
If they were, this man wouldn’t be sleeping on the floor when he lived in a whole palace.
She couldn’t make that pain go away for him. But she could join him where he was.
She climbed out of bed, and lowered herself down onto the floor, taking the blanket with her as she lay alongside of him, only able to claim just a small sliver of the bedroll. He startled, sitting up like he was ready for battle. And then he looked down at her.
“What are you doing?”
“I wasn’t going to leave you down here to sleep by yourself.”
“You don’t need to sleep on the floor with me.”
“Then why are you sleeping on the floor?”
“It is none of your concern.”
“It is my concern, though. You are my concern.”
“And why is that? Because you’re going to leave this place. You’re going to leave me.”
That life, the one that she had envisioned for herself after this, felt different now. It didn’t seem as clear. It didn’t seem as sharp.
“But two years are not nothing,” she said. “Think of the three years you’ve been back here. Think of all that has changed. Think of all the more that will be changed by the time our agreement comes to an end. Maybe you’ll be sleeping in a bed.”
He sat up. “Maybe.”
She sat up with him, grabbing hold of his bicep. He had gotten dressed, which she didn’t like. “I’m all into this. For the time that we have.”
“You do not have to sleep on the floor.”
“You could sleep in the bed.”
“I don’t like to sleep too deeply. In case something happens.”
Her heart hurt. “Were you potentially under attack when you were waiting to take the country back?”
“No. Earlier. That was when things were truly dangerous.”
“You talked about it before. It was your nanny that helped you escape?”
“That’s my understanding. Because I don’t remember. But I was told later by the family that cared for me.”
“Your nanny didn’t continue to take care of you?”
“No. She was afraid that she would be too easy to track down. She left me with some distant relatives.”
“And they knew that you were the heir to the throne but they treated you like a servant?”
“They always told me it was for my own good. As I said, my identity was never hidden from me. And I knew. I knew my name. I knew that I was the king. With both of my parents dead, I knew. But it meant nothing to me. So it seemed perfectly reasonable that they had me sleep in the barn. I used to guard the animals.”
“Oh God, you’ve been without a bed for all this time?”
“Yes. It became something of a habit.”
He sounded completely remote. Emotionless.
“Doesn’t it make you angry? Shouldn’t someone have taken you and treated you like family?”
He shook his head. “I already told you. Family doesn’t mean anything to me because I don’t remember mine.
How can I miss what I don’t understand? And it was what I needed to make change.
I left that situation when I was fifteen.
I got work washing dishes in a restaurant.
That was when I first heard rumblings of desires for revolution.
Those people didn’t know who I was, but I paid attention to every word.
Gradually, I realized that the national mood was for a change in leadership.
And I realized that I was the person who could bring about change.
But I had to. Because a new leader would have to prove himself.
It wouldn’t be so simple as taking things over. But for me it would be.”
“It took you seventeen years from that point?”
“Yes. Because you can’t go around announcing that you are the long-lost heir.”
“I don’t suppose you can.”
“No. You have to be very careful about who you talk to. About who you reveal your plans to. I started with the other man I washed dishes with. Soren.”
“And he’s your right-hand man now.”
“Yes. We began to build an army. Using a whisper network. We were like Robin Hood’s band of thieves.
Or like Vikings of old. We had a few bases of operation.
One deep in the woods, which you have no doubt picked up on.
And another in the city. In the capital.
Very close to the palace. That was how we began to infiltrate the military.
And all during that time I educated myself.
On government, on the economy. On leadership.
I read about the way that my father ran the country.
And I tried to figure out the mistakes that I thought he had made.
How he had gone wrong. Because something must’ve been wrong, or those people would not have happily supported a coup.
” He lowered his head slightly. “Even then I could not remember him. He was words on the page to me, nothing more.”
She nodded slowly. “So most of your life you’ve devoted to this.”
“Yes. It was much better than being a servant boy with no family and no future.”
“Still. It sounds like a very hard existence.”
“The only kind of existence available to anyone in Asland for the last twenty-five years has been a hard existence. Mine is not unique. That’s why when I meet my people I tell them not to give me deference of any kind. I’m not unique. We have all suffered. And we must all move forward together.”
“But can you heal?”
Her heart was pounding heavily, painfully.
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“Can you sleep in a bed. Can you enjoy cake? Can you let yourself rest? Sleep? You’re in a castle surrounded by guards.”
“This is the same palace that my parents were killed in, Fern. I can no more sleep deeply here than I can anywhere.”
The horror of that truth washed over her.
Of course he didn’t feel safe here. It had proven to be unsafe.
It was the same palace where his family had been killed, but it was also the same palace he had reclaimed all those years later.
He knew every weakness. He had exploited those weaknesses.
And he had been the victim of those weaknesses. Why would he ever feel safe?
She hated it. That life had been so appalling to him.
“It is so important to you,” he said softly. “To try to make everything okay. You wish to erase the bad things in your own life as well—that is what you see ahead of you when you think about a life filled with choices, is it not?”
“I guess so.”
“But they have happened. These bad things. We cannot make ourselves unchanged by them.”
It was so like what she had been thinking when she had first seen him down there on the floor. That it didn’t matter if they would have found each other without all the trauma. Because the trauma was real. Because it had shaped them into who they were.
But it was just hard to accept that they might need it. She was sure that wasn’t true. Nobody deserved to be treated the way that he had. And she felt certain that she didn’t deserve what had happened to her—even though in the end she had been safe.
“You’re a warrior,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“You are like me, Fernanda. You are a warrior. A great strategist. I’ve seen it.”
“You said that I was manipulative.”
“I take it back. Because I see you differently now. You had to be strong and smart, you had to learn how to operate in a way that keeps you safe, but also advances your cause. You are a warrior like me. A true warrior does not fear battle scars. A warrior understands that it is part of battle.”
“I never wanted to be in battle.”
“It doesn’t matter sometimes. In fact, it doesn’t matter most of the time. We are not asked what life we would like to live. We are given this life. We are given our fate. But we have to decide what to do with it. But we do not run from it.”
“And where do we start making choices?”
“We are making them. Now. Do you think you really have not been making choices all this time? You have been. The way that you learned to be, and the way that you acted, that was a choice. What you did with your time at the convent, that was a choice. The way that you used all that you had learned from your father to get me to grant you your eventual freedom. That was a choice. What we did last night. And what we are doing now.”
She looked down at her hands.
“We are stronger for what we’ve been through. Stronger for the battles that we have fought. Don’t you see?”
She took a shuddering breath. “Yes.”
“Now. Today, I think we should go out into the country.”
“The country?”
“Not just the country. Our country. I wish to speak to the people.”
“Okay. Then that’s what we’ll do.”
And as she got herself ready, she could only think about what he had said. When they were in the car that was carrying them toward the town square, she was still pondering it.
“Yes?”