2. Fraught exits & see you later’s #2
Her father was an esteemed merchant and a close friend of my own sire, which meant we spent much of our youth being shoved together and told to occupy ourselves while the grownups conducted business. It blossomed into a lifelong friendship that never faltered, no matter the distance or time.
That we resembled sisters—or cousins, at the least—was just a bonus; we were the same in so many ways it was eerie, while still contrasting each other endlessly.
Both sandy, sunny blonde, but Streja’s hair had never touched her shoulders. Where I was well built through my hips and thighs, her full bust was a thing of envy. We had matching hazel eyes, though, and skin that freckled in the summer. We were even born in the same year, just a few months apart.
She would make this entire trip infinitely less painful, even if I wanted to wipe the amused smirk she was watching me with off her face.
I took a measured breath and hoisted myself onto my steed. “Do I want to know, Stre?”
Streja’s eyes roved over me, and she quirked a neat, dark blonde brow. “Odessan rows? Very fitting, princess, but no wonder you’re so fucking late.”
I smoothed my hand over the dual rows of braids—woven under, never over—that pulled my hair back from my face and scoffed, “These were nothing. It was the hour in the bath that did me in.”
“A bath? Goddess. Only you would on a day like today.” She shook her head and chuckled before slipping out a thoughtful sigh. “How are you feeling about everything? You don’t look as shaken as you should for someone who’s, you know…”
Well, it was only a matter of time before that was all we had to talk about.
Before I answered her, I took a lengthy glance back at the fortress as our entire party moved in a slow wave of clopping hooves. The fortress in which I was born and only left when my cavalry assignments dictated it. The same fortress I’d likely never see again.
I should have drunk in the last sight of it, soaked in the immense expanses of expertly carved pale stone and the thirty-one years of memories held within.
But I forced my attention away from it all faster than I had any right to.
“How am I feeling being married off to some old, flaccid-cocked dark fae king I’ve never met before?” I let out an indignant scoff. “Just thrilled about it.”
“Fuck me,” she chuckled. “When you put it that way, princess.”
We earned a pointed glance from our party lead—Wendell, I finally remembered—so I dropped my voice to a mumble, “How the fuck else am I supposed to put it?”
Streja’s nose wrinkled, and she turned her attention out onto the roadway as we filed down it, falling into a formation that saw us tucked square in the middle. With no reasonable escape, of course.
After a little too long, her eyes slid back over to me.
“Well, Nor, if you were to ask little old me how I felt about all this…” Streja raised a brow and tipped her head at me, motioning me over closer.
Sidling over as much as my somewhat begrudging travel companion would allow, I sighed and repeated, “If I were to ask you…”
Streja pursed her lips before whispering, “I know you don’t like to talk about any of them, but I think Troy, Linus, and Kier may have all been on to something, getting out of here when they each did. And now you get to…follow the trail they unknowingly blazed.”
There was no stopping how I bristled at her casual mention of our old, old friends. Deserters, really, who we had agreed many years ago were no longer worth the breath of discussing. How she drew a line between their willing acts of abandoning our kingdom and my forced hand was beyond me.
“Oh, right,” I scoffed. “What a fucking trail they blazed.”
“I’m serious, Nor.” Streja let out a heavy huff and shook her head.
For too many minutes, the only noise around us was the clopping of hooves on weathered cobblestone, the chuffing of horses, and the monotonous hum of chatting party members flanking us.
“Look,” Streja finally said, “all I’m saying is, maybe along the way I’ll find some wealthy shadow-stepping woman who wants to use me as a footstool, and I can ride things out with you until someone—” she clicked her tongue, drawing her finger discreetly across her throat, “—your brother…”
“Streja,” I intoned, my eyes wide.
She gave me a dismissive shrug. “What? ‘Tis only a matter of our fickle Mistress Time getting her act together, and we both know that. Then, you can come right back where you belong and claim the crown his late Majesty should have passed to you instead.”
Fixing my eyes back on the gentle slope of the path leading to the service road of the fortress, I drew my lips into a tight line.
Streja could keep her delusional hopes to herself. It wasn’t like the subject of my brother’s future fate meant much to me anymore, not when I’d be tethered to a cruel dark fae king for the rest of my life—a timeframe I wished more and more to be brief.
Besides, I was never meant to be a ruler.
I was built to run free, with the wind in my hair and grass under my feet.
Not tethered to a throne. Or an ancient king. Or a dark fae kingdom.
Fuck.
All I could do to stop my mind from spinning was scrubbing my fingers over my brow as I muttered, “Let’s find another topic of discussion, please, Stre.”
“Well…all that serious and slightly depressing business aside, I’m sort of looking forward to properly seeing the Wastes, you know?” How Streja had an ounce of wonder in her voice, I couldn’t fathom.
“Goddess above. Speak for yourself,” I scoffed.
“Come on, Nor! It’ll be an experience!”
What an awful new topic—I might’ve been dreading our trek across the Wastes more than any other part of the journey.
With little to no flora or fauna, the inhospitable expanse separating Odessa from Grimmoria had infamously volatile weather, regardless of season, from hailstones as big as eggs to snowstorms that put the mountaintops to shame and heat so blistering, it cooked anything within sight. Sometimes, all three in a day or two.
How close or far we strayed from the ancient Lastlight Woods that shared borders with all three nations would have something to do with it too.
The gnarled ashclaw trees it was famous for did wonders for staving off some of the wicked windstorms that tore through the cragged Wastes.
But, they also allegedly housed creatures not keen on unwelcome visitors.
Then there was the entire matter of Grimmoria itself.
Twice, I’d written to my soon-to-be husband, asking what I should expect of the weather—mundane, I know—but he’d been of little help. You’ll see when you arrive, he would write back, and you’ll have a whole new wardrobe waiting for the climate.
Most women at court would be thrilled, but I found myself painfully indifferent. After all, I’d spent the better part of the last decade wearing my cavalry uniform more often than not, including donning full ceremonial plate easily twice as often as I’d worn anything resembling a gown.
But one foot in front of the other.
The horse and the cart and all that.
I needed to make it across the Wastes in one piece before I started worrying about the climate of my new home.