10. Same Old Tricks
Chapter ten
Same Old Tricks
S olveig woke in a plush bed with fur-lined sheets, dressed in a simple white cotton slip. The air was different. Instead of the scent of damp, there was salt. A warm breeze, not chilled, drifted through a solitary window. She winced against the bright light of a cloudless sky that illuminated the small room.
She was in Farrenhold; it hadn’t been a dream. They’d made it.
“You’ve been out for five days.” A gravelly voice came from her left. “How you didn’t die from the blood loss, the gods only know. Still, the healers drew the infection from that wound you allowed to fester, but there was nothing to be done for the scarring.” Solveig met the impassive silver eyes of Jasper Etana, who leaned against the closed door to the room. “You know yourself there’s only so much hydromancy can do and creating fresh skin to prevent the need for stitches is not one of them.”
She tried to sit up, but couldn’t move even an inch, as heavy air pushed back against her. “Jasper. If I wanted to hurt you or your family, I could’ve killed Malik and sent his body back in pieces.” She tried in vain to push against the unnaturally dense air.
“Why did you do it?”
“Does it matter at this point?”
“You know it does.” The message was clear, it mattered to Adira.
“I owed a debt. Setting Malik free was my penance.”
Suddenly there was a commotion of scuffles and shouts beyond the closed door, before a lone authoritative voice called, “Commander, tell your guards to stand down or so help me. The second I officially relieve our father of his sovereignty. I’ll have you demoted to stable boy.”
Jasper chuckled softly to himself. “I’m merely trying to stop you from murdering the woman before we get some answers out of her.”
“You can do that with me in there.”
Jasper stood silent for a moment, studying Solveig, whilst she remained silent. This was his call.
“Guards. Stand down. Let the future sovereign pass.” Jasper moved from his position as the door flew open and Adira strode in. They carried all the ferocious grace of a future ruler, dressed much as they had been the night she and Malik had arrived.
“Did I not warn you the night you stole our brother, that if you set foot on Farrenhold soil again, I would have you incapacitated on sight?” Adira placed a hand against the wall, leaning down into Solveig’s face. “The only reason I didn’t hold true to my word was thanks to the spectacular job you did of fulfilling my promise yourself.”
“Believe me.” Solveig whispered, “it was not a decision I made lightly. I ordered Malik to leave, but he wouldn’t.”
“How noble,” Adira hissed. “Do you want a thank you for not killing him? After you left him to rot in that prison? Whilst you killed countless others?”
“Fifty.”
“What?”
“I counted every single one, Adira,” Solveig muttered, her face impassive. “All fifty of them. I won’t apologise, nor am I asking for forgiveness. I did what I judged to be right, and I hold to that.”
“Did you ever stop to think that some of those people you executed could be innocent?” Adira countered, rubbing circles into their temples to chase away the phantom pain of a headache. “If Malik’s name had never come up on the docket, you’d still be murdering on the whim of your family,” they scoffed. “Your family, who hold themselves to such grandeur. Casting judgement on the rest of us from that towering, rotten keep.” Adira’s eyes raked over Solveig’s stark appearance, pallid white skin, and raven black hair. “The golden family indeed until you came along. The shadow to their light.”
“No.”
“No?” Adira asked, their voice echoing round the room. “If you wanted me to believe that the killings would have stopped long ago.”
“I won’t insult you by claiming I always intended to save Malik because I didn’t.” Solveig bit out, “When I lost Aldrik, I was in free fall. Then, to find out Malik had attempted to steal from Leader Ezekiel that same night.” Solveig shook her head, eyes low. “I followed the law. I obeyed my family. They were all I had left. What would you have done in my place?”
“The girl I knew at Erynmar Academy,” Adira began, “the girl Aldrik loved, the same girl who spent holidays with my family in Farrowvale.” They shook their head, mouth in a thin line. “I cannot reconcile her with the version of you that lies before me now.”
“I don’t expect you to,”—Solveig shrugged—“because I’m not her. I have no fight with your country or your people. I had orders, I obeyed them, until—”
“Until Malik.” Adira finished, and Solveig nodded.
“I know what his death would initiate. I refuse to wear the responsibility for that. If it’s war they want, they can trigger it themselves.”
Adira nodded, glancing at Jasper, who remained silent at the foot of the bed. “Free her.”
“You sure?”
Adira beheld Solveig once more. “She poses no immediate threat to Farrenhold.”
Solveig exhaled as the heavy air around her lifted. She made to stand, to walk toward Adira, but they took an immediate step back.
“We are grateful to you for returning Malik, and you can stay here in North Watch as long as you need, but make no mistake. This is not me forgiving you. We are a long way from that, but for the sake of our two countries, and what I hope they may one day become.” Adira paused, glancing back at Jasper once more, their jaw clenched, “I want to work toward trusting you again.”
“Understood.”
“Malik has asked that you join us for dinner this evening. Eleric has travelled up from Evrosei to see him.”
“I would be honoured.”
“Very well.” They nodded. “The day is yours to do with as you please. I’ll have healers come up to check on those wounds,” Adira muttered as they exited the room without glancing back.
With her wounds cleaned and bandages changed, Solveig dressed in a flowing white shirt and brown cotton pants. Wincing slightly as she bent to lace up a pair of leather boots; her stitches pulling with the movement.
Tentatively, she left the chambers to explore the grounds of North Watch, desperate for fresh air and a walk. She passed the growing fields and cattle stalls, walked across to the armoury and barracks. Everywhere she went, she sensed eyes on her, curious, angry, and suspicious.
Still, Solveig felt as though she could breathe properly for the first time in years. Dust kicked up around her feet as she walked back across the main courtyard. To her right, a group of guards practiced their sword skills. Clashing steel echoed through the air like a sweet song, but a mouth-watering collection of fragrances drifting from the keep soon distracted her.
The scent of toasted bread, topped with ripe tomatoes, cheese and garlic oil dressing, danced toward her. Stomach groaning, she headed in search of the food, hunger suddenly at the forefront of her mind. She would need to keep up her strength now more than ever. Food first, then maybe she could convince those guards to go toe to toe with her for a time, to reshape any lost muscle from her brush with death.
Sweat ran in rivulets down Solveig’s flushed skin, soaking the edge of her shirt collar. She heaved another deep breath. Eyes focused on her opponent. The blunt sword she held growing steadily heavier as she tried to ignore the churning in her stomach. Everything about being back in the salt-soaked air of Farrenhold made her feel lighter, even as a dull ache still snagged at her wounds.
“You’re turning rather green, ready to give up?” her partner asked, quirking a brow.
“Not likely.” Solveig smirked, adjusting her stance to parry another blow. She ducked and twisted at high speed. Expertly dodging his next two strikes as they spun to face each other again, swords locked in a stalemate.
“We agreed best of three. I won’t be forfeiting now, but please, don’t let me stop you,” she teased.
Her partner was a member of Adira’s guard. A visitor to North Watch, same as she, and it did not escape her notice that he had been the first to step up to her challenge. A silent show of respect to his future sovereign, that anyone, no matter their gender, could hold their own in a fight.
With her thoughts distracted, the guard moved to land another stinging blow against the leather vambraces covering her arms. But another sword entered the fray, blocking the move. This one gleaming under the light of the sun.
“And here I thought you knew better than to get lost in your head during a fight,” Adira muttered with a cunning smile.
Solveig grimaced, pivoting on one foot, but Adira read the movement as though they’d already seen it happen. Stepping into Solveig’s path, they swept her standing leg out from under her, leaving sprawled on her back in the dirt.
Adira held the sharp point of their sword at Solveig’s heart, the tip dangerously close with every rise of her chest. “Same moves as four years ago. Someone ought to teach you some new tricks.”
Solveig laughed, slipping her hands beneath her lower back to where she had stowed twin daggers. In swift movements, she used one to brush Adira’s sword aside, and the other stabbed into the dirt, giving her leverage to push to her feet.
“Not all my tricks are old,” she stated, pulling her dagger free of the ground, facing Adira head on.
“Not all, but enough that I could have you on your back again easily.” Adira shrugged. “You should be more careful. That you managed to not vomit your lunch all over the courtyard is one thing. But your wounds are still healing. You should be resting.”
“And you,”—Adira spun to face the guard—“shouldn’t have agreed to the match.”
A smirk broke across his face. “I wanted to see if the Dark Princess would live up to her fearsome myth.”
Solveig’s gaze hardened on the guard as she slipped her daggers back into the waistband of her trousers. “And?” she bit out. “What’s the verdict?”
The guard only chuckled. “Does it matter what I think? I merely wanted to sate my curiosity.”
“Your name?”
“Unnecessary information, I would think, Your Highness?”
“Call it sating my curiosity,” she parroted back on a smirk.
“His name is Elias.” Adira sighed, rolling their eyes. “And he should be running drills with his unit right now.” Their eyes flicked to the barracks in the distance, dismissing him.
Elias’s whole demeanour changed at the order. He bowed stiffly to his commander before collecting the training swords and stalking off toward the barracks.
“When I said the day was yours to do with as you pleased, that was not me giving you the freedom to sharpen your skills.” Adira said. “You want to earn my trust? Then you ask my permission to train with my guards.”
“Understood.” Solveig nodded, reluctant to push the subject further.
“Now, if you’re quite finished with your little game, follow me this way,” Adira ordered again, spinning on their heal toward the Elysian Bridge.