Chapter Twenty-Five
Freya awoke on a cold stone floor to the coppery smell of blood.
She lifted her head and blinked at her surroundings. She recognized this place, though she had only been here once, well over a decade ago. The crumbling stone walls. Blood smeared on every surface, handprints and splatter from the slaughter that took place here.
This was the temple where she’d found Brenn.
Brenn had been one of two survivors, and the warlord Freya served at the time had taken both priestesses into his warband.
Priestesses were a valuable resource in war.
They could make you hallucinate your commander telling you to turn on your own, or convince you your loved ones are in peril, drawing you into danger. Visions so real you could smell them.
Freya touched her scalp. Her hair was short, and she was wearing the leathers she preferred in Torden. Her senses were too vivid. Not one of her sick dreams in which she had to repeat the past, then.
“Brenn?” she called.
As if summoned, Brenn appeared in the middle of the room in a raised chair. This place was transient, everything and nothing at once. Freya would have sworn Brenn had not been there a moment ago, but the other part of her brain warred with her, telling her Brenn had been watching since she arrived.
The vision could come from any priestess, not necessarily Brenn. A tactic used against other warbands who also had magic on their side.
“Where are the bodies?” Freya asked.
Brenn touched a hand to her throat. In the wake of the massacre of Brenn’s temple, bodies had been strewn everywhere. The blood was here, and so was the stench of death, but the bodies were now gone.
“I could not bear to see them,” Brenn said.
Freya approached the raised chair. “Do you remember the name of the warlord we served?” she asked.
“The one who did this?” Freya had served so many warlords, she’d lost count.
She couldn’t recall their faces now, the people she had murdered for over and over again, until someone usurped the leader and the cycle began anew.
“Of course I remember,” said Brenn. “He ruined my life.”
“He’s gone now,” Freya said, thinking it must be true.
“Yes,” Brenn agreed.
“Why are we here?” Freya asked. Something faint came to her as if through a tunnel—she’d been wounded. An arrow, she remembered. An arrow had run her right through. “Am I dying?”
Brenn’s eyes filled with tears. “I hope not.”
“Have they found the archer?” Freya asked.
“We know very little. I don’t know how we would identify him.”
“It was a woman,” said Freya.
“A woman?” repeated Brenn.
Another memory came to Freya—a glimpse of the archer in a window. Freya hallucinated her now in a shattered window of the temple. A flash, and then gone. “Just a feeling I have,” she said, but she could not specify how she knew.
“Sometimes the goddess gives us answers when we need them,” Brenn said.
Freya scoffed. “The goddess hasn’t given me shit.” Everything she’d earned had been on her own. All the goddess was good for, to Freya, were vague omens about bad things happening, or else no news at all. What use was that to Freya, who needed to know everything to feel safe?
“It is a little ironic, don’t you think? That you are named for her, but you do not trust her power.”
The only explanation Freya could come up with was that her mother had had a wicked sense of humor, or, perhaps, she, too, had had some unrefined foresight into the trajectory of Freya’s life.
Freya Wedd had been named for the goddess, but destined for the shadows. Ironic indeed.
“She has not seen fit to show you if I will die?” Freya asked.
“You will die,” Brenn said. “I know that to be true. But I do not know when.”
“It will happen violently? A murder?” Freya asked. It was only fair, she supposed. She had taken her share of lives.
“I don’t know, Freya. I’m sorry.” Brenn placed her head in her hand. “I do not think your time has come yet.”
“This was the queen’s loss you mentioned,” Freya said, and she was suddenly sure. She had been worried about other factors, like Astrid losing her own life or her reign or their love for one another, but she had not considered that the prophecy referred to herself.
“Yes, this could be a loss,” said Brenn. “But I was mistaken to tell you so soon. It feels far away. Very far.”
“So I won’t die,” Freya said, feeling frustration creep over her. “This is why I don’t trust the goddess. It would be nice if, for once, she could give you a clear signal.”
“Like the assassin’s gender?” Brenn asked.
Freya reached for her weapons out of instinct, like she could take on the goddess with just her dagger and her audacity, but it was missing from the belt at her hip. She had, after all, gifted it to someone else.
“Is she all right?” Freya asked. She did not have to specify who.
“She is uninjured,” said Brenn. “And quite worried about you.”
“You have to heal me,” Freya said, “or figure out a way to keep me around longer. She needs me.”
“Yes,” Brenn agreed. “But Freya, you will need time to heal properly. Months or years. You’ve been badly poisoned. You may not regain your full strength for some time.”
She’d been unconscious, she realized. Of course. It was hard to remember reality in this strange place. “How long have I been gone? Is she protected? Is there anything I can—”
Brenn held up a hand to silence her. “You have been asleep for two weeks. We have the Vakker priestesses healing you in addition to my own talents. I suggested I could reach out to you in a vision to see if that would help. Sometimes waking the mind awakens the body.”
“Stars,” Freya said. It was no good if Brenn had called on the Vakker priestesses. They had made their contempt for the way the temples in the human territories conducted their magic clear from the day Brenn arrived in Vakker.
Being out for two weeks was even worse news. The archer would have had time to leave Torden or else, if they were determined enough, make a new plan of attack.
Freya could not stop letting everyone down.
Brenn shifted her staff to her other hand. “Keep healing, Freya. You are right. She does need you. I think the goddess smiles on you, however much you reject her. You will make it through this.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “You are too stubborn not to.”
“Can I see her?” Freya asked suddenly. “Can I see Astrid here?”
“She wouldn’t be real,” Brenn said. “You’ll have to wake up.”
“Stars, are you serious? If I could, I would.”
Wake up, Freya.
The voice surrounded them. Brenn’s lips moved, but the voice was too powerful to be hers. The walls of the temple shook. Stone cracked and crumbled. Freya slipped and landed on her face. She was aware of the temple falling around them, giant chunks of stone blocking her view of Brenn.
Wake up, Freya!