Chapter Princess Astrid Lights the Flame
Princess Astrid Lights the Flame
They were fighting again. As usual, it was her fault.
Astrid knew she shouldn’t listen, but that was one rule she was no good at following.
She pressed her green ear against the smooth wall of her nest and held her breath. Her father’s baritone reverberated through the layers of plaster and fine, hand-hewn wood that separated her bedroom from her parents’ suite.
“...coddle her, Dagur!”
She flinched away from the skin-warmed plaster.
Astrid’s stomach knotted as tightly as the braid that kept her long raven hair out of her face.
That tone haunted her, waking and sleeping.
Her mother’s voice was like a knife. The cuts it left took a long time to heal, and just when they did, the blade came out again.
The worst was when Astrid knew her mother was right to be angry.
She had messed up. She deserved to be the one taking the cuts, not her father. But his baritone rumbled through the wall all the same.
“Has it ever occurred to you that she’s a child? Children ought to be coddled now and then!”
“She’s not a child,” her mother snapped. “She’s a princess of the Orclind and future matriarch of the Seagrim Clan. Good gods, I’d already killed a man by her age!”
“And look how you turned out!”
Her mother’s snarl sent a chill down Astrid’s spine. “I led this territory through a century of war!”
Her father never raised his voice. He didn’t need to. Instead, he said things with such a calm, effortless clarity that the truth of it carried a devastating impact.
“You led this territory into war,” he replied, “and I pray every day that our daughter has more mercy in her heart than you. The gods gifted her some softness and I thank them for it.”
“Mercy? She’ll be lucky to live long enough to lead, let alone be merciful!”
“It was a few tears, Sigrid,” her father shot back. “She’s seven. She got overwhelmed. You put a child in front of nearly a million people and told her to perform a rite that would be hard for an adult to remember. What did you expect?”
“I expected her to do her duty. That’s all I ever expect of her, and yet somehow she continues to fail.” There was a desperate edge in her voice when she continued, “How will she survive the court if she can’t even light a fire, my mate? If she shows this much weakness—”
There was a pause. Astrid squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip, willing the tears to stay locked inside.
She hadn’t meant to mess it up. All she’d done for a week was practice the rite, and she’d been so, so looking forward to the first night of Burden’s Moon.
She’d never been allowed to attend the Moonrise festival before.
It’d been everything she dreamed of: a sea of jubilant orcs gathered around hundreds of bonfires, fireworks bursting in the sky, the scents of smoke and rich food blending with snow in the air…
But when she climbed the steps with her mother and that unimaginably large sprawl of people went silent, Astrid couldn’t do it. She didn’t know why. The words just wouldn’t come. With every second that passed, the worse it got.
When her mother looked down at her with that familiar disapproving glare, she’d shut down entirely. Her chance to light the flame vanished the moment the first tear escaped.
She didn’t see her father sprint up the steps, but she’d been so glad when he swooped her up into his arms and shielded her from the murmuring crowd. His rumbling purr soothed her panicked sobs and the touch of his kohl-darkened hands to her elaborately styled hair was a balm to her dashed hopes.
But comfort was always fleeting. Astrid knew there’d be a reckoning when they returned to the palace. Her mother hadn’t even looked at her the entire ride home. That was always a bad sign.
When even the staff wouldn’t meet her gaze as they helped prepare her for bed, she knew it was very bad indeed.
Softer voices filtered through the wall — her mother’s and her father’s, gentled by some understanding she couldn’t grasp. Astrid couldn’t hear what they spoke of now, only that peculiar tone. It was something like sadness, and that was worse than anger.
She turned away from the wall.
I need to do better, she thought, dragging her comforter up to her nose to muffle the sobs she couldn’t quite stop. Why couldn’t I just say the words? I know them. Papa taught me. Why was I so scared?
Her father had assured her that stage fright was perfectly normal, but in her heart she knew it wasn’t the crowd that had scared her.
It was her mother, and that shamed her.
She wasn’t sure how long it took, but eventually her tears stopped flowing. Astrid stared at the silver-embroidered roof of her nest with dry, itchy eyes. Exhaustion made her small limbs heavy, but sleep refused to come.
That meant she was still awake when the door to her bedroom opened. From beyond the heavy curtains of her nest, her father whispered, “My star, are you sleeping?”
Her heart squeezed so hard, it nearly knocked the wind out of her.
Astrid sat up and scrambled toward the entrance of the nest. Pushing the curtains aside, she answered, “Papa?”
He was barely visible in the thin sliver of warm light that spilled from the nearly closed bedroom door, but she’d know the shape of her father’s broad shoulders and stocky frame anywhere.
Only the whites of his eyes and teeth were truly visible when he said, “Do you have a moment for your papa? I have a surprise for you.”
Overwhelmed with the relief of having him near, she scrambled to push the curtain open for him. “Come in!”
“Thank you, my star,” he rumbled.
She scooted back into the nest as he squeezed in. That was no easy feat, considering his size, but he didn’t complain about the cramped conditions as he laid back onto her pillows. Astrid cuddled into his side immediately, drawn into the comforting warmth of her father’s embrace.
His scent, smoke and green grass, eased the terrible knots in her belly. Nothing seemed quite so bad when her father was with her. Not even failing her mother.
“I had a feeling you wouldn’t be sleeping,” he sighed, hugging her close with one arm. “Were you listening to me and your mama again?”
“Yes,” she admitted, unable to lie to him.
He tsked. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“I wish you wouldn’t fight so much,” she replied, pressing her face into his chest.
He sounded tired when he said, “I know, my star. I know.”
“I’m sorry I—”
“You did nothing wrong, Astrid,” he cut in, voice hardening. “You’re a good girl. All you ever do is your best. If your mama and I fight, it’s because we both love you too much. We can’t always agree on the best way to help you, and that means we lose our heads.”
“If I’d just lit the fire, you wouldn’t have fought at all,” she sniffed.
“Ah, well, who can say? The fun part of adulthood is that there’s always something silly to fight about.” Patting her back, he added, “And there’s still time for you to light the flame, my star.”
Astrid sat up a little. Squinting at her father’s shadowed face, she asked, “How? The festival—”
“Doesn’t matter. The holiday continues with or without us. That means we can have our own traditions.” Pulling her back into his side, her father reached into what she could only guess was his back pocket.
“Here,” he said, putting what felt suspiciously like a pack of matches in her little hand. “Light the flame, Princess Astrid.”
She stared at the small white candle he held before her. Eyes watering, she warbled, “Really?”
“Go on,” he encouraged.
Her hand shook so badly it took her several tries to strike the match, but when it lit, it seemed as bright as the sun in that soft, dark space. The metallic scent of the matchstrike bloomed in the air, as sharp and strange as magic.
Her breath trembled when she dutifully recited, “We gather the wood. We gather the clan. We gather the stone. We gather the children. We light the flame. We light the way. May Burden’s sacrifice never go unseen, and may his love n—never— never go unfelt.”
She nearly dropped the match when she tried to light the wick, but her father steadied her hand just in time. He guided it toward the candle with all the gentle confidence he did everything.
Something warm and powerful expanded in her chest as she watched the wick catch. A gentle sphere of light illuminated her father’s beloved face, all hard angles and tough green skin. He held the candle carefully between them when he leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead.
“Perfect, my star,” he murmured. “You’re perfect, and your parents love you. Never doubt that.”