38. A Choice
A Choice
Larissa
D arien has his father’s eye s, Lovisa whispered in Larissa’s mind.
Larissa ignored it. She couldn’t worry about the past, not with Halla’s life dependent on her next actions. She would do whatever it took to find her. Be whoever she needed to be.
“It appears you have quite the story to tell,” Torsten said, “and I must hear it, all of it. But there is someone else who should hear it as well.” King Torsten turned to the twin who still bore the crest of the Empress.
“Haki, send a guard to find the Speaker. She must join us. Then you may return to the barracks. Eat, rest, but speak of this to no one.”
Haki nodded, but as he left, Larissa found herself oddly disappointed by his absence. King Torsten gestured to a table, pulling out a chair.
“We should sit.”
Larissa chewed her tongue. She didn’t have time for the manners and niceties of the King. She wanted to start planning how they were going to rescue Halla. A light grasp on her arm stopped her from speaking.
Patience , Anara’s fingers urged.
Larissa released her breath, accepting the chair the King pulled out for her.
Darien pulled out a chair for Anara, who wore a strange smirk around her lips that evolved into a painful grimace as she sat.
Darien took the seat to his father’s left.
Was that habit from when Aeron always took the right?
Halvor sat on the King’s right, leaving an empty seat between them.
Like a thorn, its emptiness stabbed at Larissa’s consciousness.
Someone would have to tell Torsten about Aeron.
“Your Majesty,” Larissa started.
The doors opened. All around her, those at the table rose to their feet. Larissa was the last to follow suit, not out of disrespect, but because her mind blanked at the new arrival.
This woman was beautiful, but in such a way that it hurt Larissa’s brain to stare at her.
No one could be that perfect, but somehow this woman was.
Her skin was dark, the darkest Larissa had ever seen, yet it radiated light.
Her close-cut hair curled around a perfectly shaped head.
Even the harsh electric light shimmered on her cheekbones.
As she strode toward them, she towered over the men in the room.
She was taller than even Haki, yet she walked with grace contradictory to her height.
The woman’s amber eyes rested on the table but gave nothing away. They bore neither curiosity nor surprise, but an empty serenity.
King Torsten pulled out the empty seat beside him. “Welcome, Speaker.”
“I wondered about the commotion I’ve been feeling.” Her gaze floated toward Larissa. “Your lost Princess has returned.”
Her voice was like velvet in Larissa’s ears, but the recognition struck her to the core. She knew she should wait to speak, but any thought of formalities was pushed aside. “How do you know who I am?”
“I knew your mother,” the woman said. “A long time ago by your standards. Where have you been?”
Dumbstruck. There was no other word to describe the muteness that kept Larissa from speaking. Taking advantage of Larissa’s silence, King Torsten said, “I’m surprised Haki found you so quickly.”
The woman waved a manicured hand. “I was already on my way. I could sense them coming. Couldn’t you?”
Torsten raised an eyebrow at the taunt. “We have much to discuss. I haven’t yet heard the story myself.”
Over tight dark pants, a long ivory coat fluttered behind the Speaker as she lowered herself at the King’s side. She faced Anara, and bemusement colored the Speaker’s expression. “You’re a Shifter.”
Anara stiffened. “I am.”
“At least some of your kind remain with their souls intact.”
From the look on his face, Darien felt just as baffled as Larissa.
King Torsten cleared his throat. “This is Speaker Skaei of the Jotnar people.”
“Skaei?” Darien asked. “As in the daughter of the giant Thjazi?”
Larissa resisted the urge to sink in her chair. Darien must have been awake when Larissa had told that story to Halla after all. Did he remember that he’d told her that same story by the same river a lifetime ago? Larissa pushed away the thoughts; she had to focus.
“No known relation,” Skaei answered, unperturbed by Darien’s interruption. “I took on her name when I became Speaker of my people in the hopes that I would lead them with the same loyalty that the original Skaei showed her father.”
“But you are really a Jotunn ?” Anara asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re not quite what I expected.”
Skaei pursed her lips. “Ah, the giant thing.”
“She is the reason the Vienám has survived as long as it has,” King Torsten interjected.
“She offered us sanctuary when we had nowhere else to go. Speaker Skaei, this is Princess Anara of Rubin, my son, Prince Darien of Safír, and as you already mentioned, Princess Lovisa of Perle. But enough of these introductions. Anara, you left us twenty-eight years ago. What has happened since?”
“Has it really been twenty-eight years?” Anara asked, directing the question at herself. “I’ll spare you the details and skip to what you want to know. You may remember, when I left, it was because of your decision, Torsten. You called off the search for Darien and Lovisa.”
Torsten’s brows tightened, his eyes darting to his son before turning his glare on Anara. “Our people were dying. We didn’t have the resources.”
“When I left,” Anara continued, “my search wasn’t easy.
I could find no sign of them, not even a whisper.
About a month ago, I was sheltering with a wolf pack when the Norn sent me a vision.
In my dream, I stood before Yggdrasil , its branches blocking out the sky.
On the well before the tree, a child with flaming hair etched runes into the stone. She called herself Vereandi.”
“You dreamed of the Norn?” Speaker Skaei asked.
“She was as real to me then as you are to me now.” Anara leaned back in her seat. “She took my hand, and her touch paralyzed me, but in that moment I saw Darien and Larissa lying in the grass. I ran to them, but they disappeared. The girl told me to follow the salt and sea if I wanted to wake them.
“I traveled south toward Safír the next day. I’d searched the commonwealth before, but when I arrived, I sensed volumes of galdr that told me I was on the right trail.
It was Produce Day, and I followed a scent toward the Wall, but the sheer number of bodies mixed up the scent of galdr .
By the time I picked up the scent again, it had passed out of the city.
I followed it and found Darien. When I revealed myself, I never imagined he wouldn’t remember who I was or who he was. ”
King Torsten leaned forward, glancing toward his son. “What do you mean, he didn’t remember?”
“Look at them, Torsten.” A challenge entered Anara’s voice. “They look the exact same as they did fifty years ago. They haven’t been in hiding, they’ve been stuck in time, shielded by galdr we can’t comprehend. Something or someone buried their true memories and planted false ones to protect them.”
“She actually did it,” Skaei murmured, a look of incredulity in her widening eyes.
“Who did what?” Irritation seeped through Torsten’s voice.
“One story at a time. Princess Anara, please continue.”
“Anara is fine. When I realized that Darien didn’t know me, I remembered how the girl in my dream held my face to show me Darien and Lovisa.
I tried to do the same with Darien. A shock ran through my body and into his.
I’d never felt this galdr before. The gods were working through me.
Then Darien fled. After all those years, I found him only to lose him again. ”
“You didn’t, though,” Darien interjected. Words flowed from his mouth as he picked up the story, filling in the details from his own perspective. When he shared Aagen’s story of the woman who brought Darien to Aagen’s home a year ago, Halvor scratched his beard.
“Your description sounds like Queen Stjarna,” he said.
“It’s not possible,” Torsten interjected. “She died the same night you both disappeared.”
He looked briefly at Larissa as though apologetic for his words, but she felt only a dull ache. How could she grieve someone she hardly remembered?
“Aagen?” Halvor asked, still scratching. “The name is familiar, but I can’t place it.”
“He’s a good man. A good father.” Darien murmured. An uncomfortable silence spanned the space between father and son.
Anara shifted in her seat. “Darien wasn’t the only one at the Wall that day.
After he fled, I picked up Lovisa’s scent.
It took me to the outskirts of the Safirian farmlands, where I found a young girl.
Lovisa’s smell was on her, but she looked nothing like Lovisa.
Only her eyes reminded me of Stjarna. I wondered if whoever had hidden Lovisa and Darien had changed Lovisa’s appearance too, but when I tried to wake her, there was no shock.
No recognition. I returned to Darien, convinced he could help me find Lovisa.
By the time we’d returned, we were too late. ”
Anara’s voice grew detached as she ran through the draugr ‘s attack, but Larissa’s skin turned cold.
She could hear the monster’s screech in her ears, feel the heat of the fire burning her skin, and see Halla’s freckles smeared with ash and blood.
Larissa curled her fingers, allowing her nails to dig into the skin.
Get it together, Larissa ordered herself.
King Torsten’s skeptical voice broke through her panic. His hard eyes questioned her. “ You killed the draugr ?”
Larissa fought the urge to cross her arms, thinking of how Halla would tell her it wasn’t the princess-thing to do. “I had help.”
Torsten slid his gaze to Halvor. “I can’t imagine Princess Lovisa killing off a draugr .”
Larissa swallowed. “You’ll find, your majesty, I’m not the Princess you think I am. I go by Larissa now.”