Chapter twenty-one
Eisa
“She’s not dead!” Anders was babbling reassurances, looking horrified as I sank into the nearest chair. My face must be paler than usual, because even Arik looked concerned.
To be fair, he always looked a little concerned.
“She’s not dead. At least, she wasn’t when I last saw her. She just left—“
“Anders.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and took several deep breaths to calm myself and stop my racing heart from pounding out of my chest. “Why on earth would you say it like that?”
“Sorry.” He had the decency to look chagrined as he took a large bite from a slice of bread. “Sorry. I meant she’s literally gone. Went to bed one night and was just gone the next day. All of her things were gone too.”
“Hearthmother, spare me.” I looked up to see Arik’s beard twitch ominously. At least he was enjoying my distress. “How can she just have disappeared? Did she not tell you where she was going?”
“No, sorry.” Anders looked momentarily deflated, then suddenly perked up again. “She left something for you, though!” He bounded up again and was gone before I could ask any more questions.
“Can’t deny the boy has energy,” Arik commented, settling back in his chair and slathering a slice of bread with jam. He pushed it toward me. “Eat something. You’re pale.”
“I’m always pale, and I don’t want jam.” I took the plate, despite my protests. Idunn practically moaned as I took a bite. It was so good, it took everything in me not to look like I was enjoying it. “Why aren’t you upset?”
Arik raised a brow. “Should I be?”
I swallowed the bread, wishing I had something to wash it down with. Maybe Anders could make tea. If he ever came back. “Sigrid is the whole reason we came here! You’re not annoyed she’s not here? She could be anywhere, and she’s old and frail and—“
“Kjaere.” Arik patted my hand, looking characteristically indifferent. “I believe Sigrid is a lot tougher than you think. And we couldn’t have known she wouldn’t be here.” Arik tapped my plate. “Eat more.”
He sat back as his eyes darkened, and I knew he was trying once again to reach Baldur.
Idunn let out a pitiful whine that hurt my heart, and I took a bite of the bread to mollify her.
Anders returned and placed something on the table in front of me. “Here. Sorry, it’s a bit crumpled. She told me you’d come back, and I should give this to you, but she didn’t say when, and she told me not to open it, so I hid it under my mattress and—“
“Anders.”
“Yes, sorry, anyway.” He nudged the paper toward me, looking apologetic. “Stein is back in the kitchens prepping for the day. I’ll go make tea!”
And he was off again.
“Oh, to have the energy of youth,” Arik commented wryly, his beard twitching. “What does it say?”
I wiped my sticky fingers off on the woolen overdress before examining the letter. It was extremely crumpled, no doubt from Anders’ mattress, but the hand that had penned my name made a neat scrawling script I had never seen before.
I frowned. “I didn’t think Sigrid could read or write. All of her stories were told from memory.”
“More surprises. Open it.”
I gave Arik an exasperated look as I broke the wax seal. Had Baldur been around, I would have told him to stop bossing me.
There was only one page, also filled with that same scrawling handwriting. I was embarrassed to admit that, out of practice as I was, and especially with only dim candlelight, it was difficult to read.
But I was also determined to read it myself. Arik waited patiently, cutting off a chunk of cheese and adding it to my plate as I sorted out the letters and spaces.
After several minutes, I believed I had pieced it together.
Sigrid did have more surprises than I knew.
Dearest Eisa,
If you are reading this, then it means you came back for a visit. I am sorry I was not there to receive you.
I have gone Home to be with the Goddess. If that mate of yours has any sense, he will know where to find me. (And if he doesn’t, maybe find yourself a smarter man).
Mormor
P.S. - Use the mirror. It will be faster than flying.
Below the note were five neatly drawn symbols that I couldn’t begin to decipher. The first looked a bit like the diamond scar on my chest, the second like a pointed R, and the third an M. The last two symbols were just vertical lines with shorter lines intersecting them.
“What does it say?” Arik was looking at me with one eyebrow raised.
“Here.” I handed him the letter, frowning over Sigrid’s message. ‘Gone home to be with the Goddess’ sounded ominously like death, but she must have meant a physical place. I had no idea what the symbols meant, or what she meant about a mirror, but they must be a clue of some kind?
And how did she know that Arik would be my mate?
Arik frowned, then folded the paper up and handed it back to me. “I think I know where she is.”
“You do?”
Arik nodded, his eyes flicking to Anders as he returned with tea.
He placed a cup in front of me, looking anxiously at the paper. “So did she say where she went?”
I shook my head, folding the paper away into the pocket of the overdress. “Just that she planned to go home.”
Anders looked disappointed, but rallied quickly. “So what’s it like being a drage?”
We indulged his questions until the sky grew pink.
Finally, Hilde appeared from the kitchen with a disapproving look on her face. “Let the drage sleep, Anders, and get all of this cleaned up before customers start arriving.”
The boy looked so crestfallen, I almost thought about begging Hilde to let us stay, but Arik stood and gripped his shoulder. “We owe you a debt. You have done the drage a great service.”
Almost as quickly as he had deflated, Anders puffed up with pride at my mate’s words, and he let Hilde shoo him away into the kitchen.
The attic was tiny and full of cobwebs, but it was dry, and I’d happily take spiders over soldiers intent on hunting us down.
“You certainly won Anders over,” I commented as we settled onto our makeshift bed. It was more a pile of blankets than an actual mattress, but it was warm, and my bones were grateful to have the chance to rest.
“Jealous, Kjaere?” Arik had removed his wet shirt and jacket, leaving them to dry on the railing that surrounded the opening to the ladder on the floor below.
He wrapped me in his arms, his skin colder than usual, as if Baldur’s disappearance had also sucked the heat right out of him.
“A little, although I’m also relieved to have not had to answer a majority of the questions he asked.”
“A trait he certainly learned from you.” Arik pressed a bristly kiss to my cheek and guided me toward our makeshift bed. “I’m surprised you’ve held on to the one you’re thinking of as long as you have.”
I scowled at his twitching lip. “How is it you always know what I’m thinking?”
He pressed a kiss to my nose. “Ask it.”
“Where is Sigrid?”
Arik groaned as he lay back on the blankets. He placed his free arm behind his head as a pillow, then pulled me to him with the other. “I think she’s at one of the old temples of Elysia. On àsynjaheimr.”
I frowned as I settled into the crook of his shoulder. I’d never known that Elysia had any temples. “What is àsynjaheimr?”
“A small island in the Elfr. The river that runs past Hovedstaden. It’s maybe half a days’ flight from the castle.” Arik huffed. “The name literally means ‘Goddess home’.”
“Goddess home,” I murmured, biting my lip. “Are there priestesses there?”
I’d never met a priestess, and Sigrid had never spoken of knowing any. Arik had mentioned one when declaring he’d marry me before his father, but if they were common around the realm, I had never seen one enter Henrik’s tavern, nor had I seen one in Stormhold.
But Sigrid must know someone at the temple if she sought refuge there. Why hadn’t she just stayed here with Anders, if she suspected I’d be coming?
Arik shook his head. “The temples were abandoned when sorcery was outlawed. If Sigrid is there, she’s in a ruin.”
I frowned, wondering why Sigrid would go to an abandoned temple. “Where do the priestesses live then, if there are no temples?”
“There’s a kloster in Hovedstaden. A house of priestesses.” His brows drew together in thought. “There are others around the kingdom, but I’m not sure how many.”
“Could Sigrid be there?“ I asked. A priestess house was a sort of a home for the Goddess.
“Possibly. But the way she wrote the letter, I think not.” Arik shifted uncomfortably, as if he didn’t like being uncertain. “She capitalized the word ‘Home.’ I think it was on purpose.”
“Do you think Sigrid is a priestess? Or was, before she came to Henrik’s?”
“I don’t know, Kjaere. Sigrid seems to have kept a lot of secrets. I’m almost certain those symbols she drew are volva runes.”
“Volva?” The word was unfamiliar, and I cursed myself for not asking Sigrid more about her past.
“In other parts of the world, they’re called witches. Before the Rift, they were revered as priestesses because of their connection to the Hearthmother and her magic.” Arik sighed, his brow furrowed. “But they were all killed or exiled after sorcery was outlawed.”
“But there are priestesses today,” I pointed out, lifting the tiny blue gem on Arik’s chest to examine it.
“Hearthmother save me, you’re as bad as Anders.” Arik looked down at me, his eyes glinting with amusement. “Yes, there are still priestesses, but none are Volva. Their practices are monitored by the Crown, and their ceremonies are all non-magical.”
“Then how would Sigrid know runes?”
“Another question I’d like to ask her.” Arik sighed, lifting the silver chain from my grasp. “Along with why my mother would have this.”
I gazed at the tiny gem, almost identical to the one Sigrid had placed around my neck. I had a strange urge to reach out and take it from him. To place it around my neck so the gem would hang where Sigrid’s had once. Where a diamond scar sat now.
It belongs with us. It had been so long since I’d heard Idunn that I nearly jumped. Sigrid will tell him so.
“What is it?” Arik frowned at me, and I gave myself a little shake.
“Nothing.” I wasn’t sure why I didn’t want to tell him Idunn’s belief that the necklace should be ours, but it felt wrong to demand it when it was his mother’s. “It’s just…odd.”
“I think we’re beyond odd, Kjaere.” Arik tucked the necklace back beneath the blanket, and I let my hand rest atop it. It thrummed once, as if it beat in time with Arik’s heart.
“If Sigrid isn’t at the temple, what then?”
“Pray that she’s on àsynjaheimr.” Arik laid back against the pillows, pulling me closer to him. “I don’t want to try to sneak back into Hovedstaten to search the kloster. Not with my father hunting us.”
“So it’s, what—a day and a half from here? Two days?” I sighed, thinking about how far we’d have to travel. We’d basically be doubling back, which was annoying, to say the least. “What do you think she meant about the mirror being faster?”
Arik shook his head and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Damned if I know.”
It was strange not having him privy to all of Idunn’s thoughts, and I vowed never to tease him for reading my mind ever again if we got Baldur back.
When we got him back.
“I don’t think we should risk Idunn being seen,” he added, rubbing his chin pensively. “If we fly by night it will take longer, but we risk less chance of being spotted.”
Idunn rustled in annoyance. She still forlornly prodded at the emptiness at the end of our mental bridge, only half paying attention to anything I said.
But she heard that. My magnificence is meant to be observed.
I laughed.
“What did she say?” Arik’s face was impassive, but I could see the sadness in his eyes. The guilt.
“She says people should observe her magnificence,” I repeated as I cupped his face. “And it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
He shook his head, lifting my hand from his cheek and tucking it once more against his chest. “I should have suspected. Few people know about mistletoe, but I should have realized my father would seek out any weakness he could use against me.”
“You knew about it?” The first I had heard of mistletoe affecting drage was in the throne room.
Arik nodded, shifting slightly on the lumpy pallet. “Baldur warned me when we first bonded. He was worried Einar might try to use it.”
“He didn’t?”
Arik laughed wryly. “I think he would have if the stuff grew in Ironholm. Probably too suspicious to have it imported, though.”
“How long until it wears off?”
Idunn stopped scratching at the mental bridge to listen, but both of us were disappointed.
“I have no idea. In a jernblod, if it doesn’t kill him and the dose is small enough, maybe three days?” Arik frowned, and I knew he worried for his uncle, if not his brother. “But knowing my father, the dose was not small.”
Three days is too many. Idunn sounded so forlorn that I couldn’t bear to tell her I thought it would probably be more.
“Perhaps Sigrid will know something that can help,” I suggested, remembering her penchant for deadly nightshade and other questionable poisons. “She once told me she had poisoned more than a few people, though less than a village.”
“Of course she did.” Arik hummed, looking thoughtful. As he pulled me closer, I could feel sleep dragging on my eyelids, begging me to succumb. “Sigrid seems to have all the answers, somehow.”
I prayed to the Hearthmother that she did. For all our sakes.