Chapter Twenty-Four Felnir
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Felnir
He was waiting at the Speldhelven docks to greet his queen when the boy tried to kill him.
Upon receiving word of a dozen warships approaching the harbour, Felnir had come alone save for Falk and Tyrheld, knowing Sygna would detest an ostentatious reception.
Without being bidden to it, Tyrheld had assumed the role of the Sea King’s bodyguard.
With the war concluded, most of her people chose to return home.
Much to Felnir’s regret, Vehldur had been among them.
The former wheelwright had a natural gift for command in war, but he proved deaf to his king’s enticements to stay and assume the mantle of the King’s Sword.
“Left my shop, boat, and land in my idiot cousin’s charge, my king,” he explained, head lowered and wariness in his gaze. “Ulthnir knows what mess he’s made of it all. And there’ll be young ’uns in the village in want of care, their parents having fallen in the war and all.”
Felnir could have commanded him to stay, and Vehldur would surely have complied.
A salient feature of these early months in the Sea King’s reign was the consistent aversion of his subject towards disobeying royal edicts.
But he had sent the wheelwright, and all others keen to forsake a warrior’s life, on their way with promised rewards and good wishes for their future prospects.
But Tyrheld stayed to guard Felnir’s person despite receiving no command to do so.
Reasoning that her company was markedly more preferable than Beyorn’s, who Felnir would often order on pointless scouting missions just to be spared the man’s presence, Tyrheld was formally named the King’s Shield.
Throughout the subsequent weeks her attire had slowly begun to match her enhanced status.
The ragged, grey woollen cloak had been abandoned in favour of a fine assemblage of fox fur and black velvet.
To Felnir’s eyes, she also appeared to have grown at least an inch in height, though that may have been a result of her new calf-leather boots.
Watching the Dehlgra raise oars and begin the drift towards her mooring, Felnir pondered how best to impart what he had learned to Sygna.
The Silver Dove’s revelation continued to weigh heavily on his mind, made weightier still by Wohtin’s confirmation that the spiteful ancient’s words had been no lie.
“And you chose not to share this with me over the course of the many miles we have travelled together?” Felnir had demanded.
For reasons not yet made clear, the old man no longer cowered from his rage, replying simply, “You always knew carrying such a weapon would entail consequences, did you not?”
“How long?” Felnir had asked, struggling to master his anger. “How many more years has it given me?”
“It’s impossible to say. It may be less than myself and the other Ehilkun, or more.” Wohtin paused to let a faint, bitter smile play over his lips. “Given the treacherous nature of the Altvar’s gifts, however, I would guess more rather than less.”
It was the closest Felnir had come to killing the old man.
But he found his hand stilled by Wohtin’s calm acceptance of his king’s impending ire.
Since learning of the wife and children his addled mind had contrived to forget, the typical reticence of the man once known as Angmund had transformed into rarely broken silence.
If he hadn’t been so diligent in scouring the maps bequeathed by the Black Gull, Felnir doubted he would have been able to contain his fury.
Truth, he decided as the stevedores on the wharf caught ropes cast by the Dehlgra’s crew.
He could see Sygna’s slender form at the rail, the sight of her summoning a sharp pang of longing and worry.
She will accept only the simple truth of it.
He began to ponder the wisdom of making a joke about all the countless years they could look forward to sharing, and therefore almost missed the rapid pounding of feet on cobbles to his rear.
He turned to see a boy charging towards him, a beardless youth no more than fifteen summers old, face set in a snarl that was as desperate as it was hateful.
The knife he aimed at Felnir’s throat was small, barely three inches long, but with a wicked gleam on its sharpened edge.
All of this Felnir saw in the instant before Tyrheld’s fist connected with the boy’s jaw.
She and Falk were on him before he fell, the outlaw snaring the lad’s arms while Tyrheld delivered more blows to his head and belly. Satisfied he was beaten near senseless, she twisted the knife from his grasp and held it to the boy’s throat, directing a questioning glance at Felnir.
“Your reign proves popular, I see?”
Turning, he found Sygna striding towards him across the wharf.
Behind her, the crew were still manoeuvring the gangway over the ship’s rail, meaning she had vaulted to the quayside.
She had her bow in hand, finger pressing an arrow to the stave.
The sight of the arcane weapon was a stark reminder of Felnir’s impending duty to his queen.
Compared to that, the boy’s attempt on his life seemed a welcome distraction.
“Believe me or no, but it’s been fairly quiet since I got here,” he told Sygna, pulling her into a kiss made all too brief by Tyrheld’s pointed cough.
“What do you want done, my king?” she asked, knife still poised to deliver the fatal strike.
For his part, the boy writhed in Falk’s grasp, eyes alive with defiance and an inchoate snarl coming from his lips.
To the best of his recollection, Felnir had never seen him before, yet such a pitch of hate bespoke a deeply personal animus.
“Lock him up somewhere,” he told Tyrheld. “I would have words with him. And no more beatings,” he added as the boy was hauled to his feet and dragged away.
“It seems, my queen,” Felnir told Sygna, “I am in want of protection. Would you care to provide it?”
Laughing, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing a long kiss to his lips and murmuring, “But who will protect your person from me, my king?”
The bowstring’s thrum had never sounded natural to Felnir’s ears.
The resonance was too deep and persistent to be the product of mere twine and wood.
It easily filled the bedchamber once occupied by the Silver Dove, though Sygna’s touch on the string was gentle.
She sat naked on the edge of bed, Felnir watching her from amid the disordered blankets.
Their reunion had been a wondrous release of passion, prolonged as he strove to delay the moment when he imparted his knowledge.
When he finally did, whispering the words into her ear as they lay in sweaty but contented union, she hadn’t said anything.
Instead, she huddled against him for a moment longer before disentangling herself and taking up the bow.
After plucking the string a few more times, she finally spoke: “So are we like them now? The Ehilkun? Will this… blessing be passed to our children?”
“I don’t know,” Felnir confessed. “It’s possible the old bastard’s wrong.
I feel no different.” Apart from the dreams, he stopped himself saying.
After his last clear vision of Guthnyr’s travails, the nightly torment had degenerated once again into formless confusion.
It did nothing to ease Felnir’s compulsion to reach his brother’s side.
“But you are,” Sygna said, directing a glare at the sword propped alongside the bed.
“That makes you so. As this does me.” She stroked another note from the bowstring.
“From the moment we claimed them, we were transformed. It seems the gifts of the gods are a two-edged knife.” She fixed him with a steady, intent gaze.
“I will not be an Ehilkun, Felnir. I will not cling to power until all strength has fled my withered body and I am naught but a corrupted husk, despised by my descendants.”
“That will never be us.” Felnir moved to enclose her in his arms. “We have always striven to be who we wish to be. That won’t change, regardless of the crowns we wear.”
She returned his embrace, but her voice held a tight note of concern. “To wear a crown you have to also sit a throne, my love. And I know you are intent upon forsaking the one you have just claimed.”
“Only for as long as it takes me to find my brother. I can’t abandon him, Sygna.”
“I love Guthnyr with all the fierceness of a sister. The fact remains there is no way through the Fire Isles. But I know that won’t stop you trying to seek one out.”
“There may be another way. Wohtin’s researching it.”
Sygna gave a faint, disparaging snort. “Then you’re still unwilling to rid yourself of that scheming old wretch.”
“If not for that scheming old wretch, I would have no kingdom.” Felnir nuzzled at her neck, feeling a fresh stirring of desire. “And you would be no queen.”
Sygna let the bow fall from her grasp and shifted her body to face him, their lips touching as she murmured, “I would gladly be nothing if it meant preserving you. Now…” She put a hand to his chest, easing him back and straddling his waist. “Not so long ago, you made me a promise. I think it’s time you kept it. ”