Chapter Seventeen
Aweek had passed since the assassination attempt, and Freya was no closer to finding the culprit.
When she’d served under human warlords, Freya had detected spies within hours of their appearance. Under Ulfur, she’d worked even harder to prove her place. Never in her career had she taken this long to detect and eradicate an intruder.
Here, when it mattered most, she was failing.
The queen’s fake sickness could only last so long. Soon, even the most loyal staff would suspect Astrid of either hiding or dying.
All of Freya’s initial suspicions were correct: An arrow shot via crossbow from the ground by someone who knew the layout of the castle.
This barely narrowed down her suspect list. Many people down to the bakers in the kitchens liked to practice archery.
The idea that someone in the castle was capable of hurting the queen raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
“She’s safe,” Brenn assured Freya for the millionth time.
Freya had taken to having Brenn around in case Brenn was struck by the odd vision from the goddess. Some guidance on where to go from here would be much appreciated from the heavens, no matter how little deference Freya displayed.
The problem was not just that it was rare for Brenn to be overcome with a prophetic vision.
Within the castle close, Brenn’s magic was intermingled with those around her.
She could perform her usual seer ceremony, but everyone’s wyrd would intermingle, confusing her and clouding her visions.
It was part of the reason she lived isolated from society.
As far as Freya knew, this feature was unique to Brenn.
Brenn had never meshed well with the priestesses in Vakker’s temple.
The orcish magic was too dissimilar from what Brenn had been taught.
It did not sit well with the orc priestesses that Brenn’s magic still worked despite its vast differences.
Brenn had not been struck by any visions, mixed wyrd or not, but Freya had to admit she still appreciated the company. Freya was a gale, sweeping through the castle; Brenn was a cool breeze, calm and steady.
Freya stood at the balcony of a previous Mara rendezvous site, watching her breath puff out into the chill air of the night.
Answers would not come to her from the skies.
She had exhausted every option she could think of, short of sending everyone away from Astrid or relocating Astrid to an abandoned island.
Brenn cleared her throat, and Freya’s thoughts scattered.
“I have a hunch,” Brenn said. “Something has happened outside of the castle.”
Freya stiffened. “What kind of something?”
“Something you’ll want to investigate.”
Brenn’s eyes were sad in the dim light of the moon. Freya could ascertain why: Brenn had warned Freya against her feelings for the queen, and she knew Freya had acted on them.
But she hadn’t acted on them since. Not unless holding the queen at night counted. Freya suspected that Brenn would, indeed, count this.
Freya huffed in one last frigid breath of air and turned on her heel.
When Freya and Brenn reached the castle’s outer wall, Freya wanted nothing more than to turn around. Sitting in the grass just beyond the gates were Guthmar and his husband. Guthmar swayed as if pushed by the wind.
“Shadow!” he slurred when he caught sight of Freya.
Brenn’s hand brushed the bare skin above Freya’s wrist, and Freya forced herself to focus. This was what Brenn wanted her to investigate? She would have been better off moping on the balcony.
“Sorry,” Tassi said. There was a clarity to his expression Freya had never seen on Guthmar—something akin to guilt. “He’s bored.”
“Did you know a shadow can exist without the object which casts it?” said Guthmar.
“What is he babbling about?” Freya’s gloved fist tightened. She forced her fingers to relax.
“It’s nothing,” Tassi said. “He has had some mead.”
“So I see.”
“Queen’s shadow. The shadow’s queen,” Guthmar went on. “The queen without her shadow.”
Brenn stepped forward and reached for Guthmar’s hand, where he’d been guzzling from a great drinking horn. Freya recognized it as one of the ornamental ones from the meadery—stolen.
Sheepishly, Guthmar surrendered it to Brenn. With more grace than the gesture deserved, Brenn poured the mead out onto the dead grass.
Guthmar blinked at Brenn, then hung his head. “I am homesick.”
“How long must you stay?” said Freya.
The ambassador looked to his husband, who shook his head. “Indefinitely.”
“Surely the king doesn’t mean to keep his important cousin away from home forever?” Brenn asked.
Guthmar began to sob.
Tassi wrapped an arm around Guthmar. “Would you mind giving us some privacy?”
“No,” said Guthmar. “Please, sit with us. I could use the company of friends.”
There were a hundred things Freya would rather do than sit on the icy cold ground with the Sydlig ambassador, several of which involved sticking her hands in boiling water.
Brenn sat down across from Guthmar with a warm smile.
“I never wanted to come here,” he said.
Pathetic. The display put a bad taste in Freya’s mouth. She had never seen a leader so un-leader-like.
“The king did not like his report,” said Tassi.
“Was there something unpleasant to put in the report?” Freya said, so sharply Brenn put a hand over her knee to admonish her. Huffing, Freya joined them all on the ground. The cold soaked through her leather trousers.
Guthmar wiped his nose on his sleeve, leaving behind a shiny smear.
“Of course not. It’s so pleasant here, and you’ve treated me well.
I just… My letters get all jumbled, you see.
I have never been much for reading or writing.
He said it was”—Guthmar hiccupped—“like a child had written it. Uninformative and riddled with errors.”
In spite of herself, Freya felt angry toward the Sydlig king.
Why had he sent someone who he knew struggled with writing and reading to correspond about Torden?
Not for the first time, she was struck by how little sense it made for Guthmar to be here at all.
It was as if he’d been set up for failure.
“Perhaps there is someone else the king could send?” Brenn said. “You could switch places with a courtier whose skills more closely align with King Skarde’s goals.”
Freya wasn’t sure if she would prefer Guthmar’s kind inquisitiveness over someone who was trained to do an ambassador’s job. As it was, Guthmar had proven himself to be observant enough.
“There is no one,” Guthmar said. He put his chin in his hands and sighed. “Do you suppose the consuls in the other cities are as miserable as I am?”
This question was aimed at Tassi, who shrugged. “They have similar responsibilities, I suppose.”
“Stupid Elgir had to go and get himself sick,” Guthmar muttered.
This was a waste of Freya’s time. She began to stand and was overwhelmed by something like intuition. Her eyes snapped to Brenn’s, whose mouth had fallen open in surprise.
It took Freya a moment to understand why Brenn would respond that way. When she did, a chill took over her body.
“He was sick?” asked Freya.
“Oh, yes,” Guthmar said, at the same time Tassi said, “No.”
“That’s not what you told us when you came here. You said the king had had an argument with him.” Freya paid closer attention to Tassi, who grew pale. He was the one with the answers. “Was that untrue?”
“He fell ill,” Guthmar said. “What? It’s the truth, is it not? I never saw the point in pretending. He fell ill, and he is likely ill still. Or dead. A sickly rash all down his torso, pustules around his eyes. Vomiting. So much vomiting. They had to quarantine him.”
“Guthie,” warned Tassi.
“Why would you lie?” Brenn asked. “An illness sounds better than an argument from our end of things. An argument is volatile, a sign of trouble. An illness is a good excuse not to embark on a hard month of travel.”
“We cannot presume to know the minds of royals,” Guthmar said. There was a cheekiness to him, a glint in his eye. “Elgir is sick, but your queen is not.”
Blood roared in Freya’s ears. “Pardon me?”
“I saw her,” he said.
Guthmar was always wandering the castle. Perhaps he spotted the decoy from Astrid’s old balcony and recognized the fraud.
“He did not see her,” Tassi said, wrapping his hand around Guthmar’s elbow. “He has had too much to drink.”
“She was with the burly orc,” Guthmar insisted. He shook Tassi off his arm and glared at him, then tapped his nose. “The one with the scar.”
“Hedda?” Brenn asked.
“You saw Hedda?” Freya said, still not processing.
Tassi looked as though he wished to cover Guthmar’s mouth. “He saw two of the félag leaving the castle. But it does not mean anything. Right, Guthie? Tell them that’s all you saw.”
No one from the félag should have left the castle. They were all working double shifts, covering Astrid’s old rooms and her new ones. Heat licked up Freya’s spine. The first sign of alarm—delayed, like all her other instincts had been delayed.
“You saw Hedda leave the castle?” she said.
“Freya, let’s listen to him,” Brenn whispered.
“Where did she go?”
Guthmar pointed. “She was with the queen. I told you. The queen was dressed like…” He stopped, hiccupped, visibly lost his thought trail, blinked twice.
“Dressed like?” Freya said. She had jumped to her feet, though she did not remember doing so, and she had the neck of Guthmar’s doublet gathered in her fists. Tassi stepped forward as if to intervene, then he let his hands fall to his sides.
“Dressed like a soldier,” Guthmar finished weakly. He did not resist Freya’s anger, but leaned into it, gazing into her eyes like he was really seeing her for the first time. “The queen without her shadow,” he concluded.
The first thing he’d said when he’d seen her. He told her right away, and she had missed it.
Freya released Guthmar with such force, he fell back and Tassi had to catch him. She stormed away, feet pounding the dirt.