Chapter 2
“You do?” It was my turn to be shocked.
She motioned with her hand to lower my voice, checking over her shoulder a second time.
There was a guard stationed outside the door, but he remained in the sitting room, and I couldn’t imagine him eavesdropping, but maybe Friar knew something I didn’t.
“I can’t tell you much right now, as I am still working on it and you might . . .”
“I might what?” I pressed, an emotion I couldn’t name bubbling in my chest. I would do anything to escape Malheim. Anything.
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to be able to be tortured for information.
Once I need your input, or for you to do something specific, I will inform you.
” She stood, brushing down the front of her dress.
It was in the same style as the ones I normally wore, and something told me she’d been instructed to wear it in the same way I had.
I grabbed onto her hand, pulling her back down. “Wait.” My chest tightened. “Collum . . . my cousin. She was here, the night Otho rescued me . . . Is she . . .” I’d meant to ask about her first, but seeing Friar was so relieving I’d forgotten.
“Healing nicely.” Friar smiled and stood once more, pulling her hand from my grip. “Now, I really do have to go, but I will return with a pregnancy support potion soon, okay?” She said the last part loudly, with a wink.
I understood, but my chest still ached as she stepped toward the door. I wanted to ask Leif to see my cousin, but I knew any such request would be promptly denied.
If Leif was even aware Collum was here.
No sooner had the door closed behind her than Leif was pushing it open again.
“Any news, my heart?” His lips moved into a smile I could never return.
“No.” I fought to keep my voice even, so he wouldn’t suspect anything. “It’s too soon for her to tell, and I have no other symptoms. She will prepare me potions, though, and we’ll monitor everything.” My voice sounded too flat, even to my own ears. I would need to try harder to keep him convinced.
If Leif suspected my deception, he said nothing, the smile remaining on his lips. “We will know soon enough, I’m sure.” He crossed the room to the dressing table, tidying up the ones he’s dropped on the floor before picking up the first book in the pile. “I have a proposal for you.”
“You do?” My mood instantly lifted, and I hated that he had this effect over me, but still, I hoped whatever it was, it would at least grant me a chance to leave the room.
“I do.” He held the book in my direction. “I grabbed this from Adis’s palace before we left, and my sources tell me it’s a book that amplifies romantic feelings between a bonded pair.”
I frowned. I didn’t like where this was going. And if I knew Adis, which I had, he would have had no such books in his possession. Which meant Leif’s sources were wrong.
I bit my lip.
“If you read this aloud, to both of us, I think we can discuss you having your freedom to move about the keep and town—”
My eyes widened, the corners of my lips turning up.
The change in my face didn’t go unnoticed by Leif. “With an escort, of course.”
It wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped for, but at this point, I would take anything I could. I reached out my hand for the book. “Can I see it?”
He handed it over, and I flipped through the pages.
It didn’t have the same leather cover the other books with Seid magic had, but it was written in the Seid language.
It wasn’t a book I recognized, and I knew it likely wouldn’t do what he wanted it to do, but I had a plan.
“We can start tomorrow, after I have a little time to study it?”
“Sounds good, my heart. Now, how would you like to have dinner in the dining room tonight?”
I jumped off the bed, ecstatic at the prospect of seeing other people. “Yes!”
I felt like a child as Leif guided me through the halls, one hand on each of my shoulders.
Although I’d only been locked up in our quarters for a fortnight, everything had changed. I no longer recognized any of the guards or servants in the halls. Not that I’d known them well before, other than Ena, but I had been noticing patterns, recognizing certain faces.
All of that was gone now.
I wondered what Leif was doing. The only reason I could think of for changing guards at a time like this was that the original ones had been sent to the frontlines and hadn’t made it.
I gulped.
My mind drifted to another keep, across a barren plain, one where my weighted lived with Ena, and Astrid—two of my only allies in this world that I was desperate to see.
But he hadn’t come for me.
Leif guided me into a seat in the dining room, which was also the room where I had first encountered his father, and read to him.
Now that he was gone, Leif took it upon himself to decorate the place.
Most of the green tapestries and the beautiful wooden table stayed, but where there was once an altar for his Seid mother, it was now an altar to his non-Seid father.
All of the live plants that once lived in decorative clay pots scattered about the room were gone.
The room felt empty—less alive—than when I’d last been here.
A thought that brought a frown to my lips.
Leif sank into the chair next to me, which was also the head of the table, carefully unfolding his napkin and laying it across his lap. I did the same.
I wasn’t accustomed to this level of dining, but I’d learned a little in the time before Leif locked me away. It bothered me that we ate such large meals when I knew there were families in Malheim who were likely struggling as I once had.
It also bothered me that only Leif and I ate at the table, leaving the majority of the chairs empty, even when I begged him to allow others to join us.
Leif was desperate to set us apart—no, above, the rest of his household.
Something which only served to increase my anger and the growing rift between us.
The servants set out plates in the center of the table filled with a variety of meats and vegetables.
I allowed myself to be served a small portion of each, only so I could push the morsels around my plate.
I didn’t feel hungry. Not when I glimpsed the ravenous glint in the eyes of the servants where they stood along the wall, hands clasped firmly behind their backs.
“Leif, the servants look a bit hungry, can’t they sit and eat with us? Or eat what is left over?” I suggested in a whisper, desperate to remedy a condition I had once been subjected to.
“They will eat when we are finished, my heart. They have their own food in the kitchen.”
I frowned. “But maybe it is not enough? They look awfully hungry.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Leif’s fork clattered on the plate. “Please turn away, all of you,” he demanded, the volume of his voice causing me to cower. Leif had never lifted a hand to me, beyond the branding, but suddenly I was worried he would.
There was shuffling as all the servants turned to face the stone wall, their backs to us.
“There you are, my heart. Now, eat.” He picked up his fork, stabbing the piece of roasted beef on his plate.
Sadness welled up in me. All I could see as the servants stood facing the wall was myself, in Adis’s care, given only a crust of bread daily to survive.
Leif had been there. He had seen me.
And still, he did this.
I forced a few bites past my lips, knowing I would need my strength for what was to come, to execute the plan that had been building beneath the surface of my mind.
I decided it was time to start the next step now.
It was time to stop wallowing and learn all there was to know about my new home.
Hopefully I would find a weakness I could exploit.
“Leif?” I asked, keeping my gaze on my plate as my fork brushed the peas around, burying some beneath the mound of mashed potatoes.
“Yes, my heart?” The words were muffled by the bite he’d just shoved in his mouth.
I fought not to cringe at the nickname, which felt like sandpaper on my skin. “I’m not feeling well. Can I return to my room?”
I peered up between my eyelashes as he pondered my request. I knew he didn’t want me roaming alone, but I needed to see Friar again.
And I needed to explore the halls of Malheim alone.
“Can you have someone escort me to Friar, and then to our room?” I added, hoping the words would force his hand, especially considering the pile of food that remained on his plate.
“I suppose that would be okay.” He called to one of the male servants who stood with their forehead pressed to the wall. The man approached, his gaze flashing between Leif and me. I didn’t recognize him.
“Please escort Runa to the healer, then directly to our quarters when she is finished.”
“Yes sir,” the man affirmed before turning to me.
I stood from my chair, dabbing my lips with the napkin before placing it on top of my unfinished plate. This pregnancy ruse was working better than I’d hoped.
The servant led me from the room, back through the twisty halls. I took note of exactly where we were walking, counting the doors in each hall, so I would know where Friar was living—to come back at my leisure after this. I refused to be denied access to her again.
Finally, we stopped in front of a door I recognized as the one next to the room Ena had once occupied in the servant hall.
My heart panged, and the mention of the servant who had escaped Malheim with me only a few fortnights before.
I hoped she was doing well in Ralheim. At least I saved one person from this mess.
The servant knocked on the door, and it swung open almost immediately to reveal Friar, a bunch of brown herbs clutched in her fist.
I turned to my escort. “This will only take a moment.”
He dipped his chin as Friar welcomed me into the room, closing the door once I was past the threshold.
“What’s wrong?” she asked immediately.
I allowed my eyes to take in the space—the plants that hung on every available surface, the shelves filled with vials and small jars. There was a cot tucked into one corner, a blanket tossed across it. I turned my attention back to Friar. “I need a love potion.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Runa, even if I knew how, you have to know potions like that are frowned upon—”
“A handful of bark from one willow tree, a stick of cinnamon, and a bunch of moonflower. Let all of the ingredients simmer for an entire day, then sit in the open before bottling,” I instructed as Friar frowned. It had been a long time since I attempted a love potion, but I knew it had worked once.
“Runa, there is no evidence that potions like that work. Even if they did, like I said, the Seid . . . they don’t—”
I cut her off again, not willing to listen to any more excuses. “Friar, do you really think Leif loves me? Do you think the way he’s treating me is indicative of love?”
Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Runa, I know things are difficult right now, but—”
“Friar.” I shook my head. “Just answer the question.”
She sighed, glancing about the room before resting her blue eyes on me. “It’s not love; it’s obsession.”
“And obsession is dangerous,” I reminded her. “Now, just follow the instructions for the love potion, and let me worry about the outcome. I’ll take the potion as soon as it is ready.”
I moved toward the door, not wanting to discuss this with her any further.
“But, Runa, the consequences—”
“I will take them as they come,” I assured her as I exited the room with my shoulders tossed back, closing the door behind me. Hopefully, Friar wouldn’t ask any more questions.
I’d decided something—that I was done being pushed around by Leif. I was going to do anything to escape his clutches.
Even if it tainted my soul.
Because war waged on outside of the walls of Malheim, and I was tired of being an unintended pawn.