Chapter 34 #2
Me neither, I respond. Fen’s solid presence in my life is something I thought I would never get to have. Bonding with a dire wolf is a dream come true, and the reality is even better than I’d imagined. His fierce love, his sass… I wouldn’t be without him for anything now.
The tears are flowing again, and they are even slower to retreat than before, still tumbling down my cheeks as I eventually pick up the dagger from the ground by Fen and sheathe it on my hip.
Do you wish to ride me back?
I shake my head. I’m not ready to go back yet. To face people. To discuss what I’ve seen. Or to have people bow to me as though I’ve done something that makes me worthy of such respect.
What I need is peace. I need to be alone somewhere.
The thought has barely entered my mind when I become aware of the music, now commonplace to my ears, yet always just as ethereal as the first time I heard it. The vandsang.
Despite my love of the music and that particular cave, I’ve only been there one other time since Magnus first took me. But it’s not difficult to find.
I follow the sounds of the song until I reach the cave entrance, though as I draw to a stop and look at Fen, his nose lifts slightly.
I smell someone else in there, Little Raven, he tells me. Do you wish for me to accompany you?
A growl of annoyance rolls from my throat. I just wanted to be by myself with the vandsang.
It’s fine, I say to Fen, unsure whether he’s actually allowed in the cave or not. I’ll be fine.
I’m surprised by how calming the effects of the vandsang are as I descend the steps.
It’s as if the sonorous tones sink into the very marrow of my bones, instantly slowing my breathing.
Maybe I should try some meditation while I’m here.
With every step, the image of the queen and the pain of the Veil’s visions recede ever so slightly, but when I reach the ground floor of the cave and see the figure sitting there, any sense of ease I had hoped to feel evaporates.
‘Typical,’ I mutter.
Brida’s eyes snap open, a snarl curling on her lips as she turns to face me.
‘What are you doing here?’ she snaps. ‘I thought you spent every spare hour you had training with Stefan, Princess.’
Just like her mother, deference isn’t high on Brida’s list of skills. The way she spits my title at me, it’s as if the word itself is toxic.
‘Stefan?’ I question. ‘Not if I can help it.’
‘So you say,’ she scoffs.
‘That sounds like jealousy there, Brida. You should really try to get that under control. And get your facts straight,’ I bite right back, patience already gone after a difficult day. ‘And shouldn’t you be somewhere begging for your mummy’s approval?’
She lurches to her feet. ‘Fuck you!’
‘You’re not my type.’ My gaze is drawn to her hands, to the way her fingers flex as if she’s contemplating using her magic on me. She’s done it before, drawn ice daggers on me.
‘Careful, Princess,’ she hisses. ‘We don’t want the cave collapsing on you in a tragic accident, do we?’
‘Don’t worry about that. It’s not going to go anywhere unless I want it to,’ I say, sounding more confident in my control than I probably should be.
‘Who’s to say you’d be the one to bring it down?’ she threatens, her fists still opening and closing.
As her eyes lock on mine, the penny drops, along with my jaw.
The chandelier. The training yard. That slip when I first arrived.
Juvenile, I’d thought.
‘It was you?’ I say incredulously.
‘You’ve no idea, do you?’ she snarls. ‘No idea what you’ve done coming here.’
Her hands are trembling, but there’s no dagger in them. No blade she’s whipped out from the air. That should make me less concerned, yet there’s something in the whites of her eyes that quivers with fury. Or is it with fear?
Without warning, she moves to pass me, but I grab her wrist, twisting her around to face me as she tries to wrench herself out of my hold.
‘Let go of me!’ she barks, and there it is – the blade, glinting in the muted light. But her grip around it is terrible, and all it takes is a strike of my knee to send it clattering out of her hold.
‘Think carefully, Brida. My wolf is waiting at the top of the stairs.’ My voice is barely above a whisper and yet I know she can hear every word.
‘You even try to run away from me, even think about trying that suffocating trick of yours, and I will make sure he rips you limb from limb and dines on your trachea.’ Great Gods, I’m joining Fen in the trachea obsession.
‘I will ask you one last time, Brida. Why do you want me dead?’
Her jaw locks and she rolls her eyes, but it doesn’t change the way her skin pales as the blood drains from her face. Maybe she doesn’t fear me, but she sure as fuck fears Fen.
‘I didn’t try to kill you,’ she spits petulantly. ‘Just tried to make you see you aren’t welcome. That you should run back to Wrohelm.’
‘Not good enough. Try again.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘I’m not buying it, and I’m not letting you out of here.’
As she fixes her glare on me, my chest tightens, but in an instant the sensation is gone. Glad to see she took my warning about Fen seriously.
‘I’m not going to ask you again,’ I tell her. ‘I know what the punishment is for killing another Issen. I’m willing to bet the laws against trying to kill the princess are pretty fucking similar.’
Her mouth twists, her top lip curling upwards into a snarl. ‘You don’t get it, do you? You don’t get the way it’s all changed because of you being here!’
‘You mean because I don’t agree with your mother?’ I ask. ‘Because her little protégé might not get the throne?’
‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ she snaps. ‘It’s not just him you took the throne from.’
Of course. I’d forgotten. Toren told me Brida and Stefan were said to be betrothed.
‘So let me guess, he’s ended your betrothal because I’m here?’
She laughs bitterly. ‘I don’t even know,’ she replies. ‘It’s not like they tell me anything.’
‘They? You mean Stefan and your mother.’
When her eyes meet mine, the fury from before is gone. Something far more pained is in its place. I release my grip around her and step back.
‘It’s all Mother ever wanted,’ Brida says quietly.
‘A way to position me at court. It was all I was meant for. That’s been my entire purpose since birth, and my mother, well …
let’s just say she doesn’t react kindly to not getting what she wants.
Her temper…’ Brida wrings her hands, her shoulders shrinking inwards, and as her voice fades out, clarity dawns on me.
‘She takes it out on you,’ I say quietly.
‘She isn’t all bad,’ Brida starts, her voice defensive, and my heart squeezes. ‘It’s not all the time, and it wouldn’t happen if I didn’t make her so mad. It’s my fault, you see.’
My hand flies to my mouth, and I try to stifle the burning behind my eyes.
The heat in them is not entirely for Brida, but for all those like her – like Kyor – who are trapped in that impossible position of loving someone no matter how much they hurt them.
For all my mother’s and father’s sins, that isn’t one that can be laid at their door. They loved us.
Brida continues, her voice small, ‘After she saw Kyor fighting the men of the ridge, saw the way people watched on, the way Magnus approved of it all… I have never seen her so angry. When I finally slipped out of the house, I didn’t know where to go, but then I saw you two fighting, just training, like you hadn’t ruined everything.
’ Her eyes fly up and meet mine. ‘But I stopped. I did. I couldn’t…
And the chandelier… I was just trying to make her happy.
Make her proud. And if you were gone… If you were gone…
Fuck! I’m just fucking like her!’ She thumps a clenched fist into her own thigh with such force that it has to cause a decent amount of pain.
‘Brida.’ I grab her wrist, but this time it’s not to stop her from hurting me – it’s to stop her from hurting herself. ‘You’re not your mother. You don’t have to be like her. You’re not like her,’ I stress. ‘The fact that you’re here, telling me this, shows me you’re not.’
‘I lashed out at you when I felt humiliated,’ she counters. ‘When you first arrived on the ice. Made you fall.’
‘You just said it yourself. Your mother humiliated you. That’s not how a mother is meant to act.’
Her bright white eyes are glazed like diamonds as she sniffs back tears, and as I stand there, she suddenly looks so young. She can’t be any older than Kay and certainly carries that same irrational, impulsive streak. Maybe that resemblance is why I feel even more of my anger at her drain away.