Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SIGRID
“Do you ever simply sit still?”
The disdainful comment, delivered with the uniquely crisp Saxon sneer, came from behind me.
I turned to find Eleanor still sewing, perched with perfect posture in her light-purple gown. I’d been convinced she was only pretending to sew, but a look over her shoulder earlier in the morning had revealed an elaborate floral design with hundreds of precise ladylike stitches.
But the way she poked the needle through the cloth was completely unladylike.
Rage embroidery was what she was doing, sewing tiny bright flowers that would forever be imbued with her annoyance.
It was actually unlike me to fidget and pace like this, but I couldn’t shake a sense of dread.
Something is wrong.
It was a ludicrous thought, since in that moment more things were wrong than right, but my instincts were screaming. The feeling had sent my berserker into a frenzy, and I couldn’t let her get as bad as she had the day before. I worried what would happen in a real fight.
I found myself pacing at the window again, watching the Saxon soldiers training out on the field below. Out training, and I was trapped in here with an angry seamstress and an anxious berserker.
From up here, I could survey more of the Saxon grounds, seeing what I’d been unable to see from the training grounds the day before.
The training grounds lay just outside the inner castle wall on a huge flat area.
But from there, the ground sloped gently up a hill to an area designed for recreation.
Lush gardens filled with fountains and paths fanned out on one side, and a hedge maze lay on the other side.
Defensively, it was a nightmare. Had I known that’s what it looked like within the walls, I would’ve pushed to take the castle from there during the war.
It gave an attacker who breached the outer wall the high ground, though I supposed that might backfire if they ended up trapped between the bottom of the hill and the inner wall.
If they laid a trench there, it would make the perfect trap.
Only a few days spent here and yet I was thinking about how to defend rather than attack the Saxon castle?
I paced some more, trying to calm my berserker with thoughts of strategy rather than thoughts of violence.
We’d returned from the meal with the king without being harassed by any guards, but the king was surely off somewhere, plotting his revenge.
That or studying a knife he thought was a magical relic when it was really just an heirloom my grandmother had gifted to a previous Saxon king because she’d never particularly cared for it.
“I wouldn’t have to sit still if I hadn’t been forced to stay and babysit you.”
She laughed delicately. “You don’t really believe that’s why the prince asked you to stay? You’re an embarrassment to him, bringing nothing but trouble.”
I didn’t deign to turn around and look at her. “Right now, I’m the only thing standing between you and a marriage you don’t want. I suggest you stop trying to play mind games with me.”
She was quiet for so long, I thought she’d just gone back to stabbing her little cloth, but she eventually cleared her throat. “Agree to leave Bastian unharmed when you escape, and I’ll give you a piece of information you want.”
Out in the training yard, Bastian had just peeled his sweaty shirt off.
Even from this distance, I could make out the vee of muscle that angled down the sides of his stomach into his trousers.
I was staring in order to assess the Saxon forces from this angle, absolutely not so that I could ogle my husband.
I glanced over my shoulder to find Eleanor glaring at me with practiced coolness.
“What could you possibly know about what I want?”
She pursed her lips. “Something important about the king’s leash on your berserker.”
Now that was information I wanted. I looked back out the window. “You make quite the habit of snooping, don’t you?”
She hesitated for a second. “I don’t always have to snoop. They forget I’m a person, so occasionally they speak more freely in front of me than they should. I know more than any of them realize.”
I turned to face her again, studying her with a new perspective. Who would she be if she were allowed to take up space? “If I leave Bastian here, we’ll still be married. I can’t allow that to stand.”
She narrowed her eyes with determination. “You’re not married. From what I overheard, you didn’t consummate it yet. You both can attest to that, and it’ll be declared invalid. You have no need to kill him if he was never even your husband.”
My berserker reacted like Eleanor had charged at me with an axe. The surge of violence reverberated within me, but with no outlet, it yielded only pressure that turned into pain.
As though the king of either kingdom would simply allow us to say we’d never consummated it and move on with our lives.
As though I could simply walk away from Bastian now.
I could lie and say it was because he knew too much or because I’d vowed to kill him.
But the truth was more complicated. No one had ever looked at me the way he had the night before, with trust and adoration all mixed in a fearless frenzy for more of whatever I was willing to give him.
He didn’t fear me, nor did he want a gentler version of me.
He seemed to want more than I’d even given him yet, like he was just there waiting for my every desire to be expressed.
I serve at the pleasure of my queen.
But I needed whatever information Eleanor had. I’d been operating under the assumption that when I took the king’s head, I’d be released from his spell, but magic wasn’t always that simple.
“I can’t promise to annul our marriage, but I can vow not to kill him.”
She didn’t like that answer, but she accepted it with a nod. “Good enough for now.”
Then Eleanor said, “I overheard the king telling Elric that you can’t kill him without killing your own berserker.”
The pressure in my head intensified shockingly, and it was difficult to focus. “Only if I kill him? Or if anyone kills him?”
She took a step back like she thought I might be about to get violent. “He dies, you die. That’s what he said.”
Now that was a complication.
The king had to die. There was no other option. He’d been behind the attack that led to Axel’s death. Was responsible for Axel having been drugged that night. Even if I spared the rest of the Saxons, the gods would never be satisfied while that man lived.
It was more important than ever that I find a way to release my berserker. If there even was a way to release her.
“Was everything you told Bastian last night the truth?” Eleanor spoke so softly, it was barely more than a whisper.
I was too angry to deal with this. “You’d do better not to remind me of what you heard.”
She took a deep breath and raised her chin, steeling herself. “All the same. If it was true, I may have…misjudged you. It seems your choices were…complicated. And not always your own.”
I blinked in surprise, completely at a loss for words. “Trust me, you didn’t.”
She sniffed, fighting the tears that were about to pour from her eyes. “I just…miss my brother.”
Oh gods, she was spilling her feelings everywhere! I didn’t have the wherewithal to appropriately manage this.
I patted her on the head gently. “I miss mine too. I share your loss, and I’m sorry for my part in it.”
Now it was her turn to blink in surprise like she’d never expected an apology. I’d never expected to offer her one, but I felt…kinship with this woman that came with an unfamiliar desire to trust her.
Layla was my only real friend besides my brothers, but it was too weird being friends with my brother’s mate sometimes. I’d never missed having friends, but in this lonely place, I was less inclined to push Eleanor away.
The feeling of wrongness struck again, and I wanted nothing more than to talk to my brothers. Were they okay? Was this feeling somehow related to Thorin’s attempts to retrieve Layla?
Or was the threat here?
I needed to properly find out what my physical limitations were when the stakes were low rather than wait for a fight that mattered.
I’d been so slow, I hadn’t caught the arrow before it pierced my chest. Fighting Bastian had released some tension, but at no point in that match had I believed he was trying to kill me.
The idea of sparring with him again shouldn’t have made my thighs clench with want, but I found myself picturing things that would horrify the proper lady behind me. Hel, they might horrify Bastian, but that didn’t stop me from wanting them.
“Bastian and I were betrothed…” Eleanor said softly. “Promised to each other as children.”
“Then I did you a favor by coming here and freeing you from that obligation. You shouldn’t have to marry someone your father chose for you as a child. Someone who left you here and only came back under duress.”
“He had every reason to leave, but I waited for him, praying for another chance.”
Her voice broke on the last word, and I looked back out the window before I had to witness her eyes fill with tears. Whatever she felt for him wasn’t my concern.
Out in the sparring ring, Bastian fought Arnulf.
It wasn’t obvious he was holding back, but I’d fought him, and this wasn’t what he was capable of.
He was going easy so he didn’t humiliate Arnulf, and his fucking softness would get the young soldier killed.
Enemies wouldn’t hold back like that, and Arnulf would learn only by being shown how much better his opponents could be.
Nothing made you train harder like getting your ass handed to you in the ring.
When Arnulf dropped his guard and Bastian didn’t lunge, I snorted in irritation.
“Something bothering you, Highness?” She’d managed to compose herself again.
A sudden flash from the maze just up the hill from the training ground caught my eye, like sunlight had reflected off polished metal.
I hadn’t seen anyone in the vicinity of it the whole time I’d been looking out the window, but now, as I watched, I caught the briefest glimpse of a Viking head between two rows of hedges before he vanished again, only to reemerge above one of the hedges.
A man with a dark Viking braid and the sides of his head shaved waved at me twice, then dropped again.
Talon.
Thorin would still be hunting Layla, and if it were him, he could’ve used his berserker powers to speak into my mind and alert me of his presence.
Talon didn’t have that power, but he might be here to give me news or out of some misguided desire to render aid.
I could dismantle the Saxon kingdom without his help, and I was going to flay him alive if he’d left Ocracoke undefended simply to help me.
He better have a good reason for being in that maze.
Could I go in there without drawing the attention of every man training?
The entrance to the maze faced the training grounds, and if I scaled inside from another angle, someone in the castle would see me.
If I simply wandered in alone, they’d send someone to see what I was doing. Saxon women never seemed to be alone.
I also couldn’t leave Eleanor by herself again now that we didn’t know what the king was doing.
“Walk with me,” I said to Eleanor. I’d meant for it to come out as a polite question in their delicate-lady voice, but I had instead barked it at her like a seasoned commander rallying virgin troops in their first battle.
She flinched and cowered away from me.
“I have to go to the maze for something Bastian and I discussed. If you’d rather stay here alone, by all means. But the maids know you’re in here, so you’ll be an unprotected sitting duck.” I could lose her somewhere in the maze and talk to Talon, then retrieve her again.
She narrowed her eyes. “Bastian didn’t mention going to the maze.”
I tossed her sewing onto the nearest table and tugged her to her feet. The longer we stood here talking, the more likely someone was to find Talon out there.
“Are you staying here or coming with me?”
She studied me a final time, then sighed with resignation. “I’ll come with you.”