Chapter 60
Idavoll was divided.
North stood on her balcony, observing the dissent in the streets. Her followers had rejoiced at the king’s and queen’s deaths, excited by the prospect of change. Change for the better.
But there were those who struggled with North’s agenda, still believing they were the superior Fae.
She had tried, over the decades, to reform her parents’ outdated and hurtful rule.
Knowing now that they’d been under the influence of Ragnvald and his thirst for power, she felt justified in her choices. Nothing good ever came from tyranny, and she would do well to remember that.
Change took time, and amongst practically immortal beings, time was longer. She wished they could go back to before Idavoll had split from Asgard to see what could have prevented the divide. But it was no use to dream such dreams.
Banners were being raised, replacing the black emblems of mourning with brilliant green ones, ushering in the new queen. It had been a month since the death of her parents and her coronation was set for this evening.
She’d been forced to order their captain of the guard to investigate the deaths of the monarchs—an essential charade in order to ascend the throne.
He concluded that poison was the cause of death, though no trace could be found of any one person.
North’s guard had doubled, planting the idea that someone was after the entire royal family.
Little did they know that the poison lay within the blood.
Her first act for the greater good. She had liberated her parents—Solveig had found darkness rooted deep within them, proving there’d been no hope of their recovery.
North missed her parents deeply. She missed who they were when she was a youngling.
They had lost their way, and she was not responsible for who they became.
If she could separate the people from their titles, both as monarchs and her parents, she saw they were cowards, foolish to follow Ragnvald so blindly—standing on the sidelines and watching as their people grew hungrier and more divided.
They would not change their ways to accommodate for the lack of magic.
And so, day by day, year by year, for one hundred and fifty-one years, North watched as her people fell prey to mortals, to themselves, and to demons from Hel as Ragnvald clutched the hearts of her parents and ruled through them with an iron fist.
He may not have worn the crown, but he controlled it from the shadows.
Westley was still not speaking to her or to Easta. From what Solveig had told them, though she was reticent to express her thoughts, it had mostly to do with his own guilt.
North liked Solveig. She was good for her brother, though the two had been quite secretive since her parents’ deaths—it made her nervous.
Were they plotting against her? Westley had never wanted the throne, but maybe with someone like Solveig at his side, he was considering his options for their future.
She shook the paranoid thoughts from her head. Her brother was loyal to a fault and would not do that to her.
A knock came from outside her door, and she slipped back into her rooms. When she was ready, she nodded to the guard, granting her sister entrance.
Easta surveyed the guard, raking her eyes up and down, a smirk growing on her face as he turned and left.
“Don’t.” North raised a hand to stop Easta from making whatever crude remark was brewing on her wicked tongue.
Easta batted her lashes innocently. “What?”
“Don’t play coy with me. I do not want to hear how much good it would do my soul to take my guards to bed. I’ve heard it all before.”
“Munin would understand,” Easta insisted. “Hel, Anders likes it when I bring others to share our bed,” she said with a waggle of her eyebrows.
“That’s just it though, Anders is with you when you do. And your relationship is different than ours was. We were not so . . . open.”
East snorted. “That’s putting it lightly.”
North had once taken offence to the way Easta spoke of her apathy towards sex. Where Easta craved that physical connection, that passion, North had basked in the closeness of another soul. She missed the feel of his heart more than the feel of his body.
“It would be a betrayal to take someone to bed. I can’t feel the bond, so I don’t know if he’s alive.” North placed a hand on her heart, trying for the millionth time to sense the bond of her mate.
Their bond—and relationship—had been so fresh when the Block hit. They’d just started to get to know each other.
“I never liked Munin,” Easta said, flopping down onto North’s bed.
This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that her sister said that about her mate.
“We’re even then, because Anders is a bore.”
It was true. Anders was a doorknob.
Dead boring and utterly devoid of any and all personality. North had been shocked when Easta announced she’d met her mate. North hadn’t even noticed he was standing beside her when she made the announcement—that’s how nondescript the male was.
In the two hundred years they’d been mates, North had heard the male speak maybe ten times. In the beginning, North had tried to be supportive, but when she’d found Munin and Easta went off about how he was basically walking muscles with no brain, North had lost it.
In all their years, it had been their worst fight as sisters, lasting three decades.
They could laugh and joke about it now, but it didn’t stop North from wondering how the Hel a bright, vivacious female like Easta could end up with a mate like Anders. In truth, she felt as though the gods had played a cruel joke on her sister.
She deserved someone to match her gale force personality, not flap in the breeze like a limp blanket.
Then again, Easta would say the same thing about her.
North’s grounded personality deserved someone she could mentally spar with, someone who would not balk at the strength of her roots. But Munin’s head had always been in the clouds. North thought they complemented each other—she grounded him and he made her soar high.
Her heart ached with the pain that had never healed after he disappeared. Though their bond had been new, she was as sure of him as the moon ruled over the night sky. And she missed him with every fibre of her being.
“Are you ready for tonight?” Easta asked, thankfully changing the subject. North didn’t like dwelling on her missing mate for longer than necessary.
She had done everything she could to find him, had searched for him for decades. Even now, there was a travelling band of guards whose sole mission was to find her mate.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” North said, fixing the row of earrings along the outside of her ear.
“The guards have been doubled, and only a small gathering will attend the actual coronation before we make our way into the streets,” Easta explained, though North knew every inch of the plan, since she’d been the one to come up with most of it.
Nothing could go wrong.
“Did the council agree to the extra rations for the people in celebration?”
Easta rolled her eyes. “It was like pulling teeth, but I eventually got them to agree—a double portion of food for the week went out to each person this morning.”
North exhaled a breath of relief.
The end of their suffering was coming. With the Queens of Asgard here and their relationship repaired, she’d be able to make much-needed improvements in Idavoll.
Even as they spoke, caravans of supplies were making their way here from all three realms of the Trifold. The hardships of the eternal winter over the last one hundred and fifty years would see an end.
North placed her hand on one of the tree posts in her room and a vine of Freyja’s daisies, the sacred flower of Idavoll, grew and snaked around her arm. She revelled in the feel of her magic.
Solveig had loosened the binds on her’s and Easta’s magic a few days ago in preparation for the coronation—to Westley’s displeasure.
Each time she attempted to cast out the binds on someone else’s magic, it took a greater toll on her.
She was still currently sleeping off the effects of such a drain.
North was incredibly grateful and grew as many daisies as she could until her limited stores of magic were expended.
She and Easta braided the daisies into crowns like they had when they were younglings, weaving the strands into North’s true crown. Her people would hopefully see the flowers as a sign from the gods, acceptance of their new queen.
A new beginning for their small—but mighty—realm.