Chapter Seventeen #2
The guards at the castle gates greeted her and faltered when they saw the thunderous look on Freya’s face. Brenn followed quietly, making pleas Freya could not hear through her fury.
This was all Hedda. It had to be. She had unrestricted access to the queen, and she had kidnapped Astrid for how she’d been treated.
So stupid on Freya’s part to not talk it over with Hedda first before making the marriage arrangement which ended Hedda and Ruga’s relationship; stupid, also, to not have known the resentment building up behind Hedda’s stony exterior; and stupider yet to not understand how such resentment would manifest even more harshly once punished.
People were so unknowable. Every time Freya thought she had them figured out, she was taken aback by something new. Nobody was like her.
The félag guarding the queen’s new rooms parted for Freya with practiced precision, as though she wasn’t about to barrel them down if they didn’t move. She flung open the door to the antechamber.
“Freya, really,” Brenn said from down the hallway, out of breath.
The antechamber was empty. Unguarded. Where in the goddess’s name was Hrothgar? Of all people, she had trusted them to protect their queen.
The door to the inner chamber opened before Freya reached it.
Astrid was on the other side. Freya’s heart began to calm, taking in the crown and the familiar fabric of her cloak.
No, not Astrid: An impostor in Astrid’s clothes. Freya’s hand was empty one second and armed the next. She shoved the blade of her knife up at Hrothgar and they leaped back to avoid the blow.
“How long have you been planning to betray us?” she shouted, swinging at them. She wished she had her dagger. “Where is Hedda? Where the fuck is the queen?”
A hand closed firmly around Freya’s wrist, and she lashed out with her elbow, which Brenn caught in her other hand. Brenn looked into her eyes, calmly, and waited. Freya loosened her grip on the knife. It fell to the plush red carpet with an unsatisfying noise next to the cat.
Calmly, Fenrir lifted a leg and began to lick himself.
“Please be gentle with Hrothgar,” Brenn urged.
Freya was not feeling particularly gentle. She was like the blades of her knives, sharp as steel.
“I don’t know where she’s gone,” Hrothgar said from a safe distance. They removed the crown as gently as one would handle a newborn and set it on the side table. “I cannot disobey a direct order from my queen.”
It came to Freya all at once. Her brain had jumped to the worst possible scenario—betrayal within the court, Astrid gone forever at the hands of those she trusted the most.
But Astrid had left on her own. And Freya had pushed her there.
Freya slumped onto the bed. Hrothgar took several sizable steps backward.
Was there a way Freya could have prevented this? She’d known Astrid felt trapped in here, and she had thought Astrid would be willing to put up with it. Was it her own fault for taking away the queen’s agency? Freya couldn’t shake the feeling she had finally gone one step too far.
Maybe it was not being trapped that bothered Astrid the most. Maybe it was Freya herself and the intimacy they’d shared. At the time, Astrid had assured Freya it was something they both wanted. But being something they both wanted didn’t mean it was immune to regret.
Freya was not prone to crying, but an itch built behind her eyes.
“Brenn.” Her voice cracked; she tried again. “Brenn. Can you do something to make sure she is safe?”
“Of course.” Brenn stepped lightly to the nightstand, still winded from the mad dash upstairs. She set the staff against the wall and lifted the crown.
“You’ll want to close your eyes,” she warned.
A strong breeze swept through the room. Freya’s hair whipped around her ears, the unseasonable smell of summer grass filling her nose.
A light, brighter than anything she could properly shield herself from with merely her closed eyelids.
A sound like back in Brenn’s house—the clanking of keys, the cawing of a raven, the yowl of Fenrir.
And then the light disappeared, the breeze went away, and it was like the room was completely devoid of air, stale as it had ever been, and Freya could not entirely blame Astrid for leaving.
“She is safe,” Brenn said. “With Hedda. She’s still disguised as Hrothgar.”
“Where is she?” asked Freya.
She sensed Brenn’s response before the priestess could speak, how Brenn tamped down the instinct to deter Freya. “I saw docks and the sea.”
“She’s been gone for several hours,” Hrothgar added, a bit guiltily.
“I know where she is,” Freya said. “Will you join me?”
This was Freya’s fault. She’d locked Astrid away without thorough consideration for her feelings.
She hadn’t properly conveyed to Astrid what she meant to Freya, or perhaps she had told her too much.
She hoped the queen would give her the chance to apologize—and that Astrid would still want her around, in one capacity or another.
Whichever way she would allow Freya to serve her.
Brenn was fast on Freya’s heels when Freya arrived at the stables and demanded a horse. A startled stable boy, half-asleep, jumped up at once and brought her two.
As Freya mounted the horse, her muscles moved, but her mind had stilled. Above, her falcon cawed.