Chapter 34
Westley and his crew made good time, reaching the eastern docks in only a handful of days. They’d need to wait a few more for a ship to be readied to take them to Midgard.
North had tried many times to talk to him about the general, but he’d shut her down. He was quiet and morose, and two days after leaving Asgard, Easta had had enough.
“Okay, spit it out,” she said one evening over dinner. They had stopped at a pub in a small village and were seated far away from the other patrons.
“Spit what out?” Westley asked over his bowl of cold oats. Nothing but the worst for the Fae.
“You’ve been moping since we left,” North commented, looking around to make sure no one could overhear them. Viggo, Noren, and Brenna were seated a few tables away, subtly guarding the royal family.
“I have not been moping,” he muttered.
“Oh, please,” Easta said with a wave of her hand. “You are one level away from downright sulking.”
“West, please talk to us,” North said calmly.
“It’s just the mission,” he lied. “I’m wary of what we’ll find in Midgard.”
“Oh, so it has nothing to do with being separated from your mate?” Easta asked with a raised eyebrow.
Westley’s spoon clattered to the table, his mouth falling open. “That’s not . . . How did you . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“So convincing, brother.” North chuckled. “You thought you could hide this from us? It’s so obvious.”
“Not obvious enough apparently,” he said with a sigh.
“She doesn’t know?” Easta asked in surprise.
“How would she? She’s not Fae. I didn’t even realize until the night of the ball.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot,” North said affectionately.
He didn’t bother to deny it. “I know. But she’s Vanir—and before you say we can mate with other races, how was I expected to recognize this for what it is considering the Block? I just thought it was some weird thing to do with our magic.”
North and Easta were both shaking their heads.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“You forget, brother, that we know what it is like to be cut off from our bonds,” North said sadly.
North’s mate, her betrothed and future king consort of Idavoll, had been captured in the war, never to be heard from again. They’d never found out if he was alive or dead, since the Block severed, or rather buried, mating bonds.
Easta’s mate had remained in Idavoll to care for their faeling. Westley reached out to place a hand on each of his sisters’ arms. They regarded him with sad eyes.
The mating bond being blocked was perhaps the worst result of magic being torn away. To be unable to feel the other half of your soul, to experience that deep connection and then have it ripped away.
Westley shivered at the thought of his uncompleted bond being stripped from him, let alone an established and whole bond.
When she’d been struck with Noren’s poisoned blade, it was the bond he felt slipping away from him. The other half of his soul. The agony of losing her made sense.
He’d thought he understood how his sisters and all those who had lost their bonds had suffered, but he was only now beginning to see the depths of their pain.
“Why didn’t you tell her?” North asked, changing the subject back to him.
“I didn’t want to force her into it after everything that happened. I betrayed my own bonded. How could I do that to her?” His head dropped as the soul-crushing shame he carried buried him.
“You didn’t know, West. You couldn’t have. You betrayed nothing because it wasn’t there,” Easta insisted.
He shook his head, unwilling to let himself off the hook so easily.
“It was there. I’d foolishly thought it was my magic reacting to her because the gods were warning me. But it was the bond. For goddesses’ sake, seeing her suffer outraged me.”
“You let her go,” North said.
“Too late.”
“She’s alive.” Easta tried to reassure him, but it was no use.
“Okay, this is ridiculous. Now you’re sulking,” North scolded, her tone harsh. There was actual anger in her eyes. “Solveig is not some simpering, weak little female in need of coddling. She is a warrior—a general, at that. She knows the price of war,” she said firmly.
“I know,” Westley whispered. “That’s why she’s going to marry another.” The words left a terrible taste in his mouth, the urge to race back and claim her nearly overwhelming him.
“What?” his sisters exclaimed at once, causing the other patrons to look over at them, scowling.
“When?” North added.
“She told me in the letter. She must marry an Elven, unify the realms, and then give Asgard and Alfheim an heir to solidify the alliance.”
“Fuck,” Easta muttered.
Westley nodded. “And because I understand what that would mean for the entire world, I cannot stop her.”
“But the mating bond . . .” North started.
“Is not completed. She owes me nothing.”
“She owes you her life.”
“I owe her mine,” he growled. “And I am not going to stand in the way of restoring peace and magic to the realms.”
“Your bond could unify us as well, Westley,” North insisted.
“She’s right. You could bring Idavoll and Asgard together.”
Westley shook his head. “That is not what the queens want. Nor our parents.”
“Fuck our parents,” Easta said with a nonchalance that lightened Westley’s mood a fraction.
“The queens are not so cold-hearted to deny their daughter her mating bond,” North reasoned.
“It doesn’t matter. I have made my decision and so has she,” Westley said, trying to shut down the conversation.
“You’re an idiot,” North said. Again.
“Yes, we’ve established this. As long as I don’t have to attend their marriage ceremony, I can keep my instincts at bay.”
“Like Hel you can,” Easta said with a snort.
“West, while I admire how much you respect her, it’s foolish to think you’ll be able to stand by and let her marry another.”
This time it was Westley’s turn to snort. “I don’t let Solveig do anything.” Her name felt like honey on his tongue as he remembered her taste. He tried to banish the memory of their kiss, but it lingered on the fringes of his mind, haunting him.
“You’re overlooking one small point,” Easta said, looking him dead in the eye.
“What?”
“How pissed she’s going to be when she finds out that you’re her mate. And she will find out eventually. You knew, kept it from her, regardless of your intentions, and she married another? She deserves to know.”
“She deserves the right to choose with all the information,” North chimed in.
Westley took in his sisters’ earnest looks and knew they were right. But he also knew Solveig. He knew how much weight she already carried. If he could lighten her load, if he could sacrifice his own well-being, he would not pressure her into anything.
But was that what he was doing by not telling her?
Fuck.