Chapter Twenty-One
Bryn
Bryn’s arms ached from beating on the punching bag. She yanked off the heavy gloves and tossed them on a shelf. Sweat dripped down her face and she grabbed a towel. She glanced at the cell phone on the bench. No messages.
Sven and Lars had headed out shortly after the interruption.
Despite her pleas, she had been left behind to worry and brew in anger.
She couldn’t help but feel like she had put Sven in danger by coming to Stagholt.
Obviously the assassination attempt had nothing to do with her, but she had only made things worse since.
Punching the bag while pretending it was Alitta had been the best option after Sven had banned her from leaving the castle. Her argument that the enemy could be within the walls had fallen on deaf ears. He could fly. She couldn’t. She had to stay behind.
She plopped down on the bench and stared at her hands. What would I look like as a dragon? Hell, she didn’t even know what Sven looked like in his alternate form.
After a quick shower, Bryn grabbed her cell phone and punched a familiar button. It only rang once before a very breathless Randi answered.
“Where have you been?”
Bryn frowned. “What do you mean? I’m in Stagholt where I told you I was going.”
“I have been trying to call you for days. Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
“You? You were worried about me?” Bryn giggled. “That’s a change. I’m usually the worrier of the family.”
“I’m serious, Bryn. You haven’t checked in since you left. Of course I was concerned. I was even thinking about figuring out who you were going to work for so I could call them. You told me at one point who they were. I would have figured it out sooner or later.”
Guilt ran through her. She hadn’t kept her phone charged and with everything going on, she hadn’t really thought about her phone. “I’m sorry. I should have at least texted you.”
“I tried to convince myself that you were just busy with your new job, but that didn’t really help much.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Everything has been such a whirlwind.” She didn’t even know where to start. “But Stagholt is absolutely gorgeous, just like I expected.” At least that was true and a safe subject.
“Have you been writing in your journal?”
Another shot of guilt. “Here and there.” A little white lie. “How are things with you? How’s college life treating you?” She hoped the deflection worked.
It did. Randi launched into a long rendition about college life, freedom, and all the people she had met, many of the male persuasion. Bryn kept checking for text messages while her sister talked and almost lost track of the conversation.
“Mom and Dad haven’t even called me, but that’s not surprising. Now with both of us gone they don’t even have to pretend to be parents and can just work themselves to death.”
Bryn regretted that she and Randi didn’t have the close relationship they could have had. It would have been too easy to have her sister ask a few choice questions to get some family background.
They chatted for a little longer before Bryn ended the call after promising to keep in touch. She needed a shower and spent the next hour with hot water cascading against her tired shoulders.
Her phone dinged a missed call as she dried off.
It was a number that she didn’t recognize and she frowned.
No one in Stagholt knew her number except Sven, possibly Lars because he knew almost everything, but this wasn’t a number from Alabama.
She hit redial in case Sven had used someone else’s phone, but a female voice answered.
“Who is this?”
“Shut up and listen,” came the command. The voice, while feminine, was deep and gruff. She spoke for a moment and then hung up.
Bryn’s hands trembled as the phone slipped from her ear. The world around her seemed to freeze while her mind scrambled to process the words that had been spoken with cold clarity.
They had Sven.
She stood alone in the locker room wrapped in a towel, and the mere air in the room pressed in on her like a heavy, suffocating weight.
Her heart thudded in her chest and her pulse pounded in her ears.
He was injured, they said, but not dead.
Yet. The words clung to her mind and repeated over and over again as she shook herself from the daze and grabbed her clothes.
Frostfen Deep.
The one place Sven had warned her to never go, banned her even. The place where it seemed that everything whispered of danger. A place where Sven told her that none of them were safe.
But now he was there. And she was the only one who could save him.
Come alone. Such a cliche. Had it not been such a horrible situation, Bryn may have laughed. It seemed like every show on television used the line at least once.
How did they get my number? How do I get out of the castle alone? Should I go alone? Where is Lars? None of her questions had any answers. With Lars and Sven gone, she didn’t know any of the other guards enough to trust them. With her luck, she would pick the one to trust who was actually the mole.
But with them gone, she had a better chance of sneaking out.
She hurried back to her room and without a second thought, she grabbed her coat and stuffed it into a bag. She wandered the hallways until she found an empty corridor that led to an exit door. She peeked around the corner as she reached the end of the hall, but no guards were anywhere to be seen.
She refused to contemplate the fact that once again there was a door that was not being guarded as she slipped out.
It was almost dark and the air had grown cold.
She could see her breath as she hurried along.
She was in a walkway behind the castle and she hurried across the lawn out to the fence before someone saw her.
There was no gate that she could see, so she slipped on her gloves and grabbed a hold of the wrought iron.
It took some doing, but she finally managed to swing her leg over the top of the fence. If anyone catches me now, I’ll be so embarrassed. She grunted as she balanced on her belly before she dropped down on the other side. Happy that she hadn’t broken a leg or an ankle, she jogged down the sidewalk.
The only hope she had of getting to the deep was the train. Otherwise, she had no idea. With no idea how late the train ran, she hurried to the station as fast as her legs would carry her. She reminded herself that the days were shorter in the winter, so it wasn’t as late as it appeared.
She knew she should ask for help. The guards would have known what to do, but they wouldn’t have understood that if she didn’t go, if she didn’t try, they could kill Sven, even Lars if they hadn’t already.
It was better to go alone even if no one else knew where she was.
She loved him enough to fight through the darkness for him.
The train station was locked when she arrived. She beat on the door with all the pent up frustration that poured from her heart. Her chest heaved with each breath and tears almost froze as they ran down her face.
Hannah. Maybe if she made it to Hannah, she would know how to get to the deep. Why had she never asked how to get there without the train?
Because Sven told you not to go there. The little voice in her head made sense even though she didn’t want it to.
Before she could start toward Treks to find Hannah, a man stepped out from a small alley behind the station. Bryn let out a little shriek as he suddenly materialized in front of her. She stepped backwards but he put up a hand.
“I’m just here to let you on the train.”
“Who are you?”
He pulled out a set of keys and moved to the door. “Doesn’t matter. I just needed to be sure you weren’t followed or with anyone.” He opened the door and gestured. “Trains ready. All you have to do is get on. It’s set to stop when necessary.”
“Where’s Sven?” Her spine stiffened as he gestured again. “Tell me where he is.”
“Lady, get on the damned train or I’ll put you on it. I had a simple job to do. Don’t make it difficult.”
The expression she read on his face told her that he would just as he threatened. She doubted that he knew where Sven was anyhow.
She took a seat on the train and watched as the man pushed a few buttons on a terminal and then gave her half a salute before the train pulled out. Where she had been excited to be alone in a car the first trip, now she paced in the dark and wished anyone was with her.
The lights of the town sped by as the train headed word the mountains.
She could see the tall cliffs loom in the dark thanks to the illumination of the moon.
Instead of beauty, though, this time they represented a formidable prison and she was headed straight for the dungeon.
She tried to remember how long it had taken her before to reach the Frostfen Deep, but she had no idea.
She had no idea what waited for her when she reached whatever the destination was. No clues had been given over the phone, but her only thoughts were of reaching Sven.
Now that she was on her way, she realized that she had no idea how exactly she was supposed to save him. She had no plan. No weapons. No inkling of a way to fight dragons. Iron swords and knight’s armor popped into her head, but she was a little too late for thinking of props.
Her hand bumped against her pocket. “My phone. I have my phone.” She yanked her gloves off and pulled it out. She didn’t even remember tucking it into her jacket. She pushed a button and it glowed one bar. It wasn’t going to work for long.
Hannah was the only one she could think of to call. Google spun and spun without giving her a number, and she almost threw the phone. Finally a screen popped up with Treks’ phone number, but it froze so she couldn’t just click the link.
She growled in frustration as she read the phone number over and over. She switched over to make a call and typed the number in while still chanting it like a mantra. At first, she got nothing.
“Come on, come on.”