42. Maddy
Chapter 42
Maddy
I stare at Erik, Inga, her flaming bear, my mother, and Freydis.
My heart is pounding, and my head is spinning, but I have to focus.
I have to understand what's happening.
I force myself not to look at Freydis because that's the most likely thing to make me lose control. She's rigid beside my mother, and my heart is breaking, even as the fire leaps and roars inside me.
My own family are in league with the Frost Giants. With the Valkyrie attacking Featherblade from the inside. How can this be happening?
"Where is my husband?" my mother asks.
Is that what this is about?
"I don't understand what's happening," I say, the words falling from my lips in a confused mess.
"That's because you are stupid," she says.
I swallow. My parents have always been polite to me. Dismissive but polite.
Now, between my recent interaction with my father and this, I realize how fake it all was.
My mother lets out a long sigh. She's wearing an absolutely beautiful gown that glistens in the icy light, and she sweeps forward and settles herself into a chair that I now notice has slightly more adornments than the others. A makeshift throne. "Stupid, but apparently more magical than I gave you credit for." She looks over my shoulder pointedly at Thyrvi, then glances at Erik. "You're absolutely certain we can't negate her magic?"
"I've tried the usual tricks," he says quietly. "This is a brand-new kind of Valkyrie magic, and we weren't expecting it. It's not just her—it's all the rooks at Featherblade. They all have these new types of val-tivar ."
The fire in my gut roars higher. The pain in my cheek has subsided now, and I almost wish it hadn't so that I could draw even more anger into the pit of my stomach.
I think about Kain and the way he keeps that boiling rage just simmering under the surface. Enough to frighten people but not enough to lose control. That's where I need to be. I have to contain this. I have to keep control.
"Where is your father?" my mother says again.
"I won't tell you until you tell me what you want from me."
"You've always been an insolent child," she says, but then she shrugs. "I want the tiara."
"The tiara?" I repeat.
"Yes, fates above, are you simple? The ti-ar-a ." She says it slowly, like I really am too stupid to understand her, and right now I feel it.
Does she mean the tiara of Skadi? The one my sister and I have been trying to fix forever?
I can't help throwing a glance at Freydis, but she's resolutely not looking at me. My mother sees the look and slaps her hands down on the arms of the chair.
"Madivia, end this. Freydis has already told us that you took it with you when you went to Featherblade."
I open my mouth to protest, but something stops me.
I look back at Freydis. I took nothing with me from Featherblade, and I suppose my parents wouldn't have known that—I might have had a pouch or something else within my clothing—but Freydis definitely knew.
Why would she lie to my mother? The tiara was left in our rooms. What possible reason could she have to tell my parents that I took the tiara to Featherblade with me?
I'm trying to work it out when Freydis speaks.
"I already told them, Madivia. I told them that we agreed you would keep it when I left for Featherblade, and that's why you had it on you." She's still not looking at me as she speaks.
I don't know why she's lying, and I don't know what to say.
In a bid to buy myself more time to try to think, I change the subject.
"Where are we?" I demand.
"We're in the realm of the Frost Giants," my mother says impatiently. "Now give me the infernal tiara. Where have you hidden it? It wasn't in the bag you had with you."
"I don't have it," I say.
Ishild emerges from the tunnel. "You made a deal, ice queen," she says. "All this time we've been working for this—she'd better have the tiara."
My mother shoots a furious look at Erik. "The deal was off as soon he let the wrong fucking daughter into Featherblade."
Erik shrugs mildly. "She's more powerful than any of the others, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's more powerful than her sister. She was absolutely meant to be at Featherblade," he says.
"But she's not Freydis," my mother hisses through clenched teeth.
"Does it matter? You just needed one sister at Featherblade for this to work."
They glare at each other, and though their conversation is making my mind spin, it's giving me time to make a decision.
I have to either back Freydis' lie or out her.
Freydis has told them I have the tiara when I know she has the tiara. There must be a reason she's lied. Is she in danger? Is she doing this to save herself from something?
Or is she just trying to get these fae to hurt me?
I look at my sister, her staff at her side, and recall all the times she's used magic around me. I am far, far stronger now than she is, I realize. If she's doing this to save herself, then I have a better chance of defending myself than she does.
The memory of the vision inside the wolf statue, of the knife being plunged into her heart, is enough for me to make the decision.
If she needs me to say I have the tiara, I'll do it. I'll keep her secret.
I'll do it because whatever she's done now, for more than twenty years before that, she has taken care of me.
She gave me hints at a life I thought I could never have, all those times she snuck me out of the palace. She calmed me every time the panic took control; she taught me how to keep boredom at bay. She loved me, once.
And I still love her.
I can defend myself, and I will take whatever it is she's passing over to me.
"Where is the tiara?" my mother barks, breaking her battle of wills with Erik and looking back at me.
"I hid it," I say. I flick my eyes to Freydis and see a slight widening of hers.
"You hid it where?"
"Somewhere you'll never find it."
My mother stands up, the chair tipping backward as she does. "You will tell me where both my husband and the tiara are, right now!"
I stand my ground as the fire inside me crackles.
This fae has used, manipulated, and neglected me my whole life. She will not make me cower now.
"I'll tell you, if you fix my friend," I say, moving my gaze to Erik.
He gives a snort. "A human girl infected with toxic magic?" he scoffs.
"Yes. Fix her. I'll give you the tiara and tell you where my father is."
Erik shakes his head. "That means going back to Featherblade. I can't do that."
"Why not?" He glances at Orgid and then at my mother, and I realize why immediately. "You don't know if anybody saw Orgid kill Brynhild, do you?"
My mother snaps her gaze to Erik. "Brynhild is dead?" she says slowly.
He nods. "I told you there was no coming back from this."
She lets out a bark of annoyance and turns back to me. "He's not getting your friend."
I shake my head. "Get Sarra and heal her, or I'm not telling you where the tiara is."
A cruel smile takes my mother's face, and she advances on me slowly. "There are other ways of making people tell us things, dear girl," she says in an eerily singsong voice.
I'm aware of what my family does to people to get their secrets. I'm usually the one who has to hear when they give them up.
"You're going to torture me?" I swear I see Freydis flinch behind her.
"I'm going to make you tell me absolutely everything I need to know," my mother says, and a frisson of fear moves through me.
I step back into Thyrvi's huge chest. Snow flurries over me and ice shards whirl around my hands.
"I'm not the little girl who left for Featherblade, Mother. She's gone, and I fight back."
Ice whirls around her hands too, and Erik and Inga step forward, followed by the thumping steps of Ishild.
"I think, little girl, no matter how strong you are, you're rather outnumbered."
The problem is, she's right.