Chapter 29 Astrid
There’s no sign of Fionn or any other Ulven when she returns to her bedroom’s wing.
It’s well after midnight, so perhaps they’ve gone to bed, though they’ve never left her door unguarded before.
She tiptoes along the corridor like some comic villain, unease growing the closer she gets to her room.
It’s too dark, too quiet. She unsheathes a claw from her wrist when she reaches her door; it’s ajar.
She locked it before she left, leaving Bastet inside. Alone. Defenseless.
She bursts through, claw in one hand, a vial in the other, then freezes.
Jessa is leaning against her desk—legs crossed, arms crossed, face very cross.
“Jess! What are you doing in here?” She quickly puts her weapons away and then pushes the door closed behind her and locks it.
“I think the better question is why the fuck weren’t you in here?”
Astrid glances at Bastet on the bed, but he averts his gaze. The little traitor.
“Don’t look at him; he didn’t say anything.” Jessa pulls the twin to Astrid’s pendant from inside her white shirt and swings it back and forth. “Did you forget about this?”
Astrid reaches for her own. Yes, she kind of did forget about it.
“I’m sorry, it was just this once—”
Jessa lunges from the desk pointing an accusing finger at her.
“You bloody liar, Astrid! I know it’s not just this once because I know you’ve been sneaking around ever since you first went to the library.
You really think I wouldn’t know when my own princess isn’t in her room?
Arboria has been following you whenever you’ve taken to prancing around this Hel hole.
I was fine with the library, Astrid, but what I’m not fine with is you breaking into the Vatran king’s office!
” She pants heavily. Astrid just stands there, blinking stupidly.
“Arboria’s been following me?” Fionn’s familiar’s Gift is the ability to pass unnoticed, so Astrid shouldn’t be surprised.
Jessa throws her hands up in the air. “The way your mind works confounds me sometimes. Yes, she followed you; your clever little mist doesn’t work on her.
Tonight, she came back to tell me as soon as she saw you using a blood-soaked hankie on the king’s office door, but by the time I got down there, you were already inside.
How you got blood to bypass the king’s wards I don’t even want to know. ”
Astrid looks back to Bastet, who gives the smallest shake of his head. So Jessa isn’t aware of everything, then. She internally recants her proclamation that Bastet is a little traitor.
“I wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t important.
” The register is now back where it belongs, which was the main reason for her visit, but Astrid couldn’t waste the opportunity.
And this trip has proven more fruitful than the last. She slips her hand into her pocket to reassure herself that the scraps of paper are still there. “I found something—”
“You know what? I don’t want to hear it. I came here to talk to you about something important, something that pertains to your surviving this duel.”
Jessa pulls the chair out from the desk and sits heavily, her golden whip shimmering around her waist. Astrid decides to keep a healthy distance in case she feels shouting isn’t enough, so she goes to the sofa in the opposite corner of the room and sits with her legs curled underneath her.
“She doesn’t have a dragon, Jess,” Astrid says. The giddiness she felt earlier in the courtyard bubbles up again. “She doesn’t have a dragon and I’m still alive.”
“Well, that explains the insanity of your actions tonight. You must be feeling pretty invincible right now, huh?”
Astrid’s grin drops. “Spit it out.”
“Skylar’s an Exhauster,” Jessa says. Astrid’s mouth pops open. An Exhauster. Someone capable of draining life from another, like the executioner. Sqa?i, no wonder he had such an effect on Skylar. She must have thought she was the only one.
“Poor Skylar,” she murmurs. It acts as kindling to Jessa’s already flaming temper.
“What in Hel are you talking about, ‘poor Skylar’?” She stands back up.
“Poor you! Stars above, Astrid, I don’t know what’s going on with you.
Giving Skylar healing potions and laughing with her like you’re old friends.
Yes, Fionn told me about you and Skylar today.
Have you all taken leave of your senses?
Are you really so oblivious to everything that’s going on? ”
“No, of course not. I just mean, no wonder she didn’t want anyone to know what she was. Her own family has hunted and murdered Blooded like her. Come on, you must have a little sympathy.”
Jessa rubs at her temples. “Why, why, why are you so fucking good.”
“Not that good. I do sneak around the castle and break into places I shouldn’t.”
“I am this close to physically beating you, do you know that?” She falls heavily down on the chair once more. “Why aren’t you more worried about this?”
“Because it could be worse. She has no dragon and has a power that requires her to touch me if she’s going to use it.
And, honestly, I don’t plan to let her get anywhere near me.
” In reality, she hasn’t planned much of anything—she doesn’t want to think about the duel.
Can’t stomach the idea of killing Skylar, and wants to think about the actualities of what’s happening in three weeks as little as possible.
Jessa’s silent for a while, contemplating, fingers dancing along her knee. The circles under her eyes are so dark they look like bruises.
“Jess, are you alright?”
She nods, but it quickly turns into a shake of the head, and then her lips press together and start to wobble.
Astrid is there before the first tear falls.
In all the years Astrid has known Jessa, she can count on one finger how many times her friend has properly cried.
And that time was the fifth anniversary of her family’s death.
Astrid found her curled up against Quincy on the grounds of Isfjell’s fort, sobbing against the big hawthorn tree they’d sometimes have picnics under, saying she could hardly remember what her sisters looked like anymore.
Like she did back then, Astrid pulls Jessa into her body and holds her as tight as she can. Her friend’s soothing aroma—pine and citrus—wraps around her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Jessa hiccups. “I’m just so stressed—today was torture not knowing if she’d make it off the island, then your mum being away, me being left in charge here surrounded by enemies, what’s happening with the floods and the bloody Blight.
” She presses her face into Astrid’s stomach.
“It’s too much. And now I feel awful and guilty for admitting it because it’s not as if I have to fight in this duel, but, Astrid”—she pulls her face back, skin blotchy—“I’d take your place without hesitation, you know that, right? I don’t want to lose another sister.”
That sets Astrid off. She folds herself onto Jessa and the tears spill over.
“You’re not going to lose me,” she whispers.
“And never keep how you’re feeling from me again.
Your feelings matter, especially to me, and whatever I have to face soon, I’d never be able to face it and survive if it wasn’t for you.
You’re my sister, too, and I’m here for you as much as you’re here for me—do you understand?
” She squeezes Jessa and repeats, “You are not going to lose me.”
The promise sits uncomfortably with Astrid, but Jessa’s breathing starts to level.
“How are your cramps?” Jessa asks, wiping her nose.
“I’m not on my period. I lied.”
Jessa laughs through a sob. “For fuck’s sake. I did think you were late.”
“As flattering as it is that you’re aware of my monthly cycle, I’m taking a birth control elixir to stop it. I’m due right when the duel falls, and the last thing I need is bloating when battling for my life.”
“Smart. Good to know you can engage your brain now and then.” Astrid elbows her in the arm. “Do I even dare ask where you were today?”
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
Jessa groans. Astrid heaves herself up and grabs a box of tissues. She gives Jess a watery grin as they wipe their faces, but Jessa can’t quite reciprocate.
“I’m sorry, really,” Astrid says. “For adding to that stress. I’ve been trying to help, not cause you more problems. No more lies from now on, okay? Though it will mean your future involvement in my dastardly plans.”
“Yay for me.” Jessa discards the tissue and leans back, propping an ankle across her knee. “Go on—you might as well tell me what you found in the king’s office.”
“So all the books in the library about the Heart are missing, but I didn’t find them in the king’s office, either.
” Astrid swoops Bastet up off the bed and plonks herself on the floor at Jessa’s feet, him beside her.
He harrumphs in protest, then immediately begins purring when she gives his head a scratch.
She pulls out the scraps of paper she’d hidden in her pocket and lays them in front of her like a jigsaw puzzle. Bastet sniffs at them.
“But I did find something. He had a fire lit this evening, and you’ve got to ask yourself why someone would light a fire in an air-conditioned room in a city that’s as hot as the inside of a volcano.”
Jessa leans forward, forearms braced on her thighs. “You didn’t?”
“Root around the smoldering wreckage of his fireplace? The blisters on my fingers say yes, yes, I did, and look what I found.”
Arranging the pieces of paper so that they’re facing Jessa, she assembles them into an order that makes some sense despite a lot of the content being burned away. Jessa’s eyebrows draw closer and closer together as she reads.
“It’s a letter to the king from the baroness of Brithan.” Her spring green eyes are bright as they land on Astrid. “Telling him it’s time to do something about the Blight in Vatra.”
THE BLIGHT IN VATRA? THE SCOUNDREL, THE CUR!
“Oh, there’s more.” Astrid points to another charred piece of paper with her mother’s name on it.
“She was sitting beside Mum at the dinner. They must have spoken about it.” Astrid saves the most illuminating scraps for last. She moves the final few pieces toward Jessa and taps them.
Her friend sucks in a sharp breath, then reads aloud, disbelief etched in every word.
“ ‘You told us you had a plan to fix the Heart. It obviously isn’t working.’ ”