Chapter 31 – Neve
NEVE
Three days had passed since Thyra and I made oaths with the vampires, and yet, as we rode west for Vitvik, I still felt the band of the magic simmering beneath my skin.
It mixed with my own powers, now freed since we were about to undergo heists.
The sensation was not unpleasant, just odd. A constant reminder of what we’d said.
“Are you well?” Vale asked, his horse coming up alongside mine.
“Fine. Preoccupied by the oath.”
“Had you performed it yourself, you’d hardly sense it at all. That’s why most people perform eiera that way.”
“I had no idea. When I made a pact with Roar, it was in writing.”
Vale’s jaw tightened. “I assume he did not want to form an eiera to save his own hide because he knew he might have to break the pact.”
Which was exactly what he’d done. Then Roar had sidestepped further ramifications of his deception by destroying the blood vials we’d been supposed to drink.
Fates, I hated thinking about that snake.
Willing him from my mind, my gaze drifted to Thyra, riding near the head of the column, her black cloak fluttering behind her in the faint wind.
In the time between forming oaths with the vampires and setting out for Vitvik, we’d spent hours training and studying old maps of the cities we’d be entering.
We’d also met the rebels who would accompany us on our heists.
All that time, all those opportunities to find common ground, and yet, I had not made any headway with my sister.
Nor had Thantrel, whom my twin avoided more than she avoided me. Thyra would not look at her rejected mate. Would not speak to him. If she could, I suspected she would avoid breathing the same air as Thantrel.
However, as Vale had insisted Thantrel was too good a fighter to leave behind, Thyra allowed him to join us on the heist. Presently, he rode at the back of the column with the vampires.
As for the rest of the rebels, their slight acceptance of us had backslid somewhat when Thyra introduced the vampire sisters. The only one whose opinion remained unchanged was Brynhild, and she was not joining either heists.
“I hope Clem, Anna, and Rynni will be well back at the castle,” I said.
“Anna is human,” Vale reasoned. “They don’t seem to lump her in with us. Clemencia is sweet and has won many of the rebels over, and Rynni might be as sour as the ale they serve, but they respect her healing skills.”
It was true. Rynni had been quite busy these past days. Anna too. Once it came to light that many rebels needed their clothing mended, she’d volunteered to do the work. I’d almost done the same, only to have Clemencia stop me.
“It won’t do for a queen to mend the clothes of her subjects,” Clem had cautioned.
Of course, she was right. Clem always was. Still, for a moment, I’d hoped it would endear the people to me. In that regard, I needed all the help I could get.
Perhaps finding the Fr?r Crown will do it?
“Darkness is setting. I expect that we’ll be stopping for the night soon,” Vale mustered.
Vitvik was only a day and some few hours from the rebel camp, but we wished to time our travels so that tomorrow, we could arrive close to when the coinaries closed.
That meant sleeping in the forest. “Perhaps tonight is a good time for you to speak with Thyra?”
“And you Bac?”
Vale had strong ties to House Balik and, bastard or not, Bac could be an excellent ally. If he warmed up.
“Exactly what I was thinking.”
We continued to ride for another half an hour or so before Bac veered his horse off the trail, cutting through the woods.
Vale leaned closer to me, the space between our horses filling with his tempting scent. “If I were you, I’d catch your sister before she becomes too busy.”
“Good idea.” Thyra had an odd habit of being busy for someone who was traveling through the woods and really should not have much to do at all.
I rode forward, passing Luccan, Arie, and Duran on the way. Caelo was with us too, though he rode at the back to help keep up Thantrel’s spirits. Otherwise, the youngest Riis brother became despondent.
“Going somewhere?” Luccan asked.
“More like trying to corner someone.”
“Good luck.”
His luck, it seemed, was on my side. By the time I reached the front of the column of riders, Bac had come to a stop in front of a home with no door, and Thyra was standing there, right behind him.
Got you!
“This is where we’re sleeping?” I asked, capturing her attention.
“No, Bac brought us off the trail and to a house that looks like it might fall down for no reason at all.” Thyra rolled her eyes as she dismounted.
I sucked in a breath, but didn’t fire back. It had been an obvious answer, but sometimes my twin made me nervous. She was so cold and unknowable.
“Right.” I dismounted and reached for a topic that wouldn’t earn me her ire. “Should we be worried about monsters like the Dream Eater?”
“We know where to stay to keep safe.” She handed her reins off to Sigri, a dwarf rebel, who then turned to take mine.
The rebels might not like me much, but they respected that I was Thyra’s sister. Unlike my friends, I had not needed to take care of my horse when we stopped for a rest.
“Thank you.” I rushed off behind Thyra and caught up quickly. “Thyra, I was hoping we could talk a bit?”
“About anything in particular? Or are you hoping that I’ll sit and braid your hair like your pampered noble friends at court did?”
I winced at the near truth. Clem had usually done my hair, but Saga had tweaked it when she gave me a hair pin from my mother—the queen who Thyra resembled more than I.
My heart stopped. That’s an opening.
“Actually, one did my hair once. She gave me our mother’s pin. I don’t have it on me, but I have some of our mother’s jewels. Would you like to see?”
Thyra stopped, turned. “You’re walking around with royal jewels? How? And why did we not take them from you?”
“You did, but then one of the rebels returned them.” For the sake of trying to bond, I refrained from adding ‘unlike my sword’. “Probably because I never said outright that they were from our family.”
“How did you get them?”
“I took them from the castle when I thought I’d need them for payment south. I no longer need them for that, but they could be useful.”
“You’d sell them?” she hissed.
“If necessary.” I did not wish to, and Vale assured me we’d use all his coin before it came to that, but I was a realist. Where I came from, you did what you had to do to survive.
Thyra glared at me. “Do you have no pride! Those are what’s left of our history.”
I stared at her, shaking my head. “I don’t understand you at all.”
She laughed dryly. “The feeling is mutual.”
“Allow me to elaborate on whatever question you have.”
“Why do you go by Neve and not your true name? I can understand when you remained in the dark, but you still use the name a slaver gave you.”
I swallowed. “I—I wasn’t ready to change yet. But I plan to take it. And soon.”
“Soon. How encouraging.”
I pulled the pouch of jewels from the pockets of my cloak and thrust the bag between our faces.
“This might be our history, but I’m your blood, Thyra.
You’ve shown more interest in baubles than your twin!
” I didn’t mean for my voice to lift as I spoke, but it did, and by the time I finished, more people than I’d have liked had overheard.
My twin came closer, jaw tight. “You’re right.
As it stands, I care more about those baubles than you because I know of their past. Know that they will not hurt me or disappoint me.
They’re things! You’re a fae with ambitions, and you may be working to undermine all that I’ve striven to achieve for our family. ”
“We want the same thing. King Magnus off the throne. Revenge for our family.”
“And to sit on the throne yourself?” Thyra asked.
I wanted to sigh, to say ‘not this again’, but Thyra didn’t give me the chance.
“You are, after all, already wed to a prince,” she plowed onwards. “A respected one—for all his faults. But you haven’t spent your life here, Neve. You know so little of the people of Winter’s Realm. How can I trust you will care for them as well as I?”
“I want to help them too.”
“I noted, however, that you didn’t state that at first. Revenge on Magnus is a motivator for you. For me as well, but I will always think of the people first, for I have seen many starve. Die. I’ve watched Winter take them, and if I can change that, I will.”
I wanted to say that I’d seen pain too. Here, and in the Vampire Kingdom, but those words lodged in my throat.
She was right. I wished to save people too, but I couldn’t help the fact that I had a personal vendetta against King Magnus.
I’d spoken of revenge because that seemed to be what she wanted most, but Thyra was motivated by so much more.
“In time, we’ll see who is worthy of the throne,” Thyra said. “But until I know who you are and that you won’t betray me, I’ll keep my guard up. As our parents should have done with those around them.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, but she was already turning away, preparing to bolt.
Unfortunately for Thyra, someone had snuck up on her: Thantrel.
His olive eyes locked on her, and the hope there made my heart break.
“I told you to stay away from me,” Thyra growled.
“And I have. For days.” Thantrel’s voice sounded strained, as if he’d been planning this approach for some time and could barely contain himself.
“I understand your shock,” Thantrel added. “I was surprised to find you as well. To recognize you as my mate. Although my appearance is clearly not to your taste, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want our bond to snap into place. Doesn’t it hurt you to feel it and deny it?”
Her back was turned to me, but for the briefest moment, Thyra’s shoulders softened.
“I never said you weren’t to my taste,” she muttered. “Just that your eyeliner and hair are distracting.”
Thantrel’s lips curled into a flirty smile that I’d seen before, and my heart clenched. She gave him one small consolation, and he was about to run with it.
“I promise if you give me a chance, you’ll come to like me,” he said. “I’ve rarely had complaints from females—and you, well, you’re not just a female I fancy. You’re the one my soul longs for. Wants to protect. To love.”
I pressed my lips together, shocked by his openness at what he wanted, thinking that it would have worked on many. Including me, if I was not already mated. Thyra, as always, was of another mind. She shook her head and became all tension and anger again.
“What hurts me is knowing that you have a lot of power to distract me from what I’ve worked for all my life.” Her finger pressed into Thantrel’s chest.
Though I was sure she was not being gentle, the touch made Thantrel’s eyes light up.
“And if I were to accept a mating bond, it would not be with a lordling whose family was raised by the male I despise. A new noble family who sits in my mother’s ancestral home!
The home her family occupied for millennia, but now they cannot because they are all dead!
What did your father do to gain a seat at the table of the Sacred Eight, Thantrel? ”
I blinked. Thyra raised a question I’d not much considered. Lord Riis had always been kind and helped Vale and me out quite a bit. What had the spymaster done to be raised in society?
At her question, Thantrel licked his lips, uneasy. “I can’t say. I wasn’t born until the end of the White Bear’s Rebellion.”
“You never asked? Never wondered how a merchant rose so high? How he leaped over jarls who had been faithful bannerfae to the House of Aaberg for as long as that ancient house existed?”
“I did not.”
Thyra scoffed. “Then I’m right to reject you.
No mate of mine will be so dimwitted, and a pretty face cannot make up for those failings.
” She stepped back and away, leaving me facing Thantrel.
“Leave me alone. I’m about to undertake a mission to change the fate of the rebellion.
Of those of Winter’s Realm. I require no distractions. ”
She marched off, snow crunching under her boots.
Thantrel watched her go, longing in his eyes, and misery written all over his lovely face.