Chapter Ten Frejara
The corridors of Irongate whispered behind me as I walked, my steps slow but purposeful.
My quarters, tucked away in the northern side of the keep, shared none of the grandeur that dripped from every arch and gilded pillar of the Sorcerer Queen’s domain.
I had chosen them that way – plain, practical, quiet.
Far removed from the den of magic and politics.
The stone was older here, untouched by enchantment or vanity, holding to its chill with the stubbornness of something carved too deep to be warmed.
The walls were bare save for a single iron sconce by the door and a pair of hooks where my travelling cloak now hung, still dusted with the ash of Haedor.
The bed was narrow, tucked into the curve of the outer wall, its wool blanket neatly folded, untouched since my last departure.
A wooden chest sat beneath the window, its hinges slightly rusted, its lid bowed from use.
The campaign desk took up the far corner, scarred with nicks and wax stains.
There were no maps laid out now – only a tarnished mirror, a stack of old letters I hadn’t yet burned, and my sword, its hilt resting against the edge like a waiting hand.
The brazier had been lit in my absence. Someone, perhaps an Acolyte tasked with menial warmth, had left it smouldering low—just enough to keep the cold from turning my breath into mist.
And there, perched on the windowsill as if it had arrived mere moments before me, sat a raven.
It tilted its head, black eyes catching the firelight, and let out a single low croak – rough and hollow.
We used to call them death-singers in the old days.
First to circle the fallen, first to feast. Soldiers would weave their feathers into cloaks or bound them to their hilts, not in defiance but in hope – to fool death or greet it on familiar terms. It was an old superstition, of course.
And though no one said it aloud, there was a strange comfort in their watching.
To be seen, even by a bird drawn to endings, was better than being overlooked entirely.
Better that than silence in the sky, where the gods no longer watched.
Benni, I thought immediately. Who else would send me a raven within hours of my return to the keep?
I approached slowly, and the bird gave another low caw before fluttering toward the rafters, leaving its burden behind. I opened the note with the carefulness of someone already half-certain what it would say.
The ink had smudged in places, words bleeding together like they’d been written mid-laugh. Or mid-drink.
“Ara, they’ve made me camp somewhere between a marsh and a privy.
I’m not sure which smells worse. It’s a shithole.
They’ve given me a tent with holes in the roof and a sergeant who thinks he’s a poet.
I’ve already threatened to throw him in the river.
And they sent us salted cod again. I suspect a plot.
If I die of salt poisoning, burn the cooks at the next Feast.
Long live the Queen.
– B”
I read it twice. The tone was careless, absurd, and clearly drunk.
But I knew Benni too well to miss what he’d done.
The mention of the marsh. The tent’s location.
The Sergeant. All of it wrapped in jest, but precise enough to tell me exactly where they’d made camp.
Any fool who intercepted it would dismiss it as the ramblings of a sentimental officer too deep in his cups…
Which, of course, he was. Smiling, despite myself, I folded the note carefully and tucked it beneath discarded papers on the desk.
The faint lift Benni’s words had left me with hadn’t yet worn off when the knock came – though “knock” was too kind a word for the sound the Acolytes made.
More a scrape, like bone dragged against stone.
The door creaked open, and two Acolytes entered, robed and stooped, faces hidden behind tattered hoods.
One carried a steaming bowl, its contents dark and reeking of boiled root, the smell turning the air thick, as if it were something I could drown in.
I didn’t turn to face them. In truth, I hoped if I pretended I didn’t see them, they would scurry away. But of course, they did not.
“I don’t want it,” I said then. The mark wasn’t burning like it had mere moments before, and whenever there was a chance to refuse my Mother without risking my life or the lives of those I cared for, I took it.
Not only out of futile defiance, but the broth always left me feeling groggy, like I’d emptied several skins of wine the night before.
The Acolytes said nothing, but one lifted the ladle in its skeletal hand.
“I said no.”
Still, they approached, the ladle trembling slightly in the air, held with the reverence one might offer a chalice of sacred fire.
“If you try to feed me like a child,” I said, turning slowly, “I’ll leave you picking your teeth off the floor with broken fingers.”
The taller of the two took a step closer, gaunt fingers extended as though to grasp my chin.
That was when Daen arrived.
The door creaked open behind the haggard creatures, and Daen stepped in with the calm certainty of someone long past asking permission. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
“Leave,” he said.
The Acolytes hesitated. One hissed – a wet, rasping sound, like breath dragged through a damp cloth.
Daen didn’t blink. “Now.”
Something in his tone – not force, but finality – reached them in a way my threats had not. They withdrew, muttering in their hoarse voices, robes whispering like a draught as they slithered out, leaving the bowl behind on the low table beside the brazier.
The door shut with a dull thud.
“Charming as ever,” I said.
Daen stepped further into the room, arms crossed, his gaze falling briefly on the untouched broth.
“You should drink it,” he said at last.
“I won’t.”
A pause.
“She’ll notice if you don’t.”
“I don’t care if she does.”
Another pause, longer this time. Then, with the faintest tilt of his head: “Liar.”
That made me smile, tired and dry. “You’re talking more than usual.”
“I’m drinking more than usual.”
I glanced at the wine flagon still on the desk. “There’s still some left.”
He moved toward it and poured into the second cup without comment, as the space between us filled with the low crackle of the brazier and the faint scent of blackroot broth going cold.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said, softly.
“I know.”
But he didn’t move.
The silence between us had begun to settle, warm and companionable, when the door banged open without warning.
“I hope everyone is decent,” Astrid declared, stepping into the room with two bottles tucked under one arm and a lopsided grin that was equal parts mischief and pride. “Because I’ve brought contraband and intend not to be.”
She dropped her loot onto the desk with a heavy thunk, sending a few loose papers fluttering to the floor. “From the Queen’s own cellar, no less. The good stuff. Or so the label says, but she also labels her Acolytes as ‘trusted companions’, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Daen didn’t move, didn’t even blink. He simply raised his cup in a vague acknowledgement.
“See?” she said, pointing at him. “Appreciative silence. That’s why he’s my favourite.”
“I thought I was your favourite,” I laughed, pretending to be hurt.
“You’re both my favourites,” she said, already uncorking one of the bottles. “But only one of you has the gall to look this miserable after surviving a war and making it home.”
I rolled my eyes but took the cup she handed me.
The wine was darker than it should’ve been. Heavy, sweet, the kind of thing that clung to the roof of your mouth like sap and left your thoughts fuzzy around the edges. Right now, that suited me just fine.
Daen took his cup with a nod. Astrid poured her own in a single, careless motion, sloshing half of it onto the table.
“I suppose this is where we toast?” she asked, lifting her cup. “To Queen and country? To the blood on our boots and the ghosts in our wine?”
“No,” I said, feigning solemnity. “To us.”
Astrid smiled then – not her usual grin, but something softer, a flicker of what we’d been once. Before the titles. Before the constant wars. Before the weight of our parents and their legacies had sunk so deep into our bones we forgot what it felt like to be light.
“To us,” Daen echoed. “And to Benni, wherever that poor bastard is raising his cup tonight.”
We raised our cups and drank. The wine burned a little on the way down, sweet and cloying, but it stayed with me – its warmth spreading out from my chest, settling into my limbs.
I caught the way Daen cradled his cup – not like a soldier, but like someone trying to remember a time before he became one.
It would fade again by morning, swallowed by discipline and duty.
But here, in this moment, there was nothing but the three of us and the comfort of old wine and older memories.
We didn’t speak much after that, except for Astrid.
She filled the silence with stories, half-truths, and old jokes we’d heard a hundred times before.
Daen sat quietly, eyes half-lidded, the firelight catching the line of his jaw.
I let my back rest against the cold stone wall and closed my eyes, the weight of the day settling deep in my bones, thick and unshifting.
It was a ritual, of sorts. We had done this before – in camps, in tents, in ruined cities still smoking from our arrival. Shared wine, shared silence, shared something neither victory nor survival could quite explain.
The noise of the keep faded to a low hum; Astrid’s voice blurred into it. Daen’s breathing was steady and familiar. The wine was warm in my chest.
And slowly, quietly, I let sleep take me.