Chapter Twelve Frejara #2
I hesitated – only for a breath, but enough for her to notice – and forced the words out. “It did,” I said then, steady and unconvincing even to my own ears.
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was brittle as frost just before it snaps beneath a boot.
The kind of silence that doesn’t wait for words so much as dare them.
Mowgara’s mouth thinned to a line. She placed her goblet down slowly, deliberately, as though even the sound of silver on wood should obey her mood.
“But not enough, then?”
I didn’t say anything, didn’t move. The fire cracked behind her.
Somewhere in the far corridors of the keep, a door opened and closed, the sound muffled and distant, like something happening in another world.
Her fingers twitched once at her side. I watched her inhale through her nose, the motion small but sharp, as if she were drawing the breath needed to keep from burning me where I sat.
She moved in a single, deliberate step – too fast to seem calm, too slow to seem furious. Just precise.
“I see,” she said at last, and her voice had lost its edge. “Then I’ll have to prepare something stronger to make sure it takes properly. A charm, perhaps. Or a compound – something stouter than blackroot. Come to my chambers first thing in the morning.”
I didn’t answer – nor did she expect me to.
She had already shifted away, her attention folding back into the hearth light, the moment already dissolving behind her like smoke pulled through a grate.
Her silhouette flickered against the stones, tall and composed and utterly immovable, and she did not turn when I left.
The doors, tall and carved with the history of conquests no one remembered anymore, gave a slow creak as they closed behind me, their weight muffled by the thick runner beneath my feet.
Beyond them, the corridor was wide and silent, lit only by the last of the ceremonial torches guttering in their sconces.
Their flames, robbed now of purpose, fluttered as if uncertain whether to burn or retreat, casting long, tremulous shadows across the polished stone walls and catching in the silver trim of faded banners that lined the upper reaches of the vaulted ceiling.
My steps rang soft against the stone, the rhythm muffled by fatigue and the lingering heat in my shoulder that pulsed now in slow, deliberate intervals, as though something beneath my skin had begun to keep time with a drum I could not hear.
The dagger’s hilt knocked lightly against the inside of my cloak, a presence I was trying not to acknowledge, and yet I could feel it more keenly than before.
I had thought, when I picked it up, that it would sit beside the other and fade into the same quiet obscurity I had granted its twin for years—forgotten except in passing thought, remembered only by weight of routine.
But it hadn’t faded. It had settled in like a held breath, like a thought waiting to be finished.
By the time I reached my door, the ache in my shoulder was pulsing again, a pressure beneath the skin that refused to fade.
It had become constant now – not pain, precisely, but a presence, as though something had taken root there and grown bold enough to test its edges.
I pressed a hand against the small of my neck, but it did nothing.
The warmth lingered, steady and unreadable.
I paused only long enough to draw a deeper breath, to push the weariness down into my heels, and then stepped inside.
The fire had burned lower, settled now into that stage between flame and ember, when the heat lingers unseen but still holds the room.
The wine bottles still stood on the desk, one open, one half-empty.
A single cup remained on the edge of the table, the rim stained dark, and as I picked it up, I did not remember whether it had been mine or Astrid’s.
I stood for a while with the cup in my hands, not drinking. The fire popped once, a single sharp snap like something breaking beneath weight.
Then I heard it. A tap.
The sound came soft at first – barely audible beneath the settling of coals and the faint creak of the wood as the fire gave its last breath. Then another, sharper, like the edge of a claw on glass. I turned toward the window.
A raven stood on the sill, hunched slightly against the night wind, its feathers flattened by damp and travel, watching me with one dark eye, as if weighing how long I might take to notice.
I crossed the room and unlatched the window.
The bird stepped inside without hesitation, wings tight to its sides, and with a slight adjustment of its stance, let a small scroll drop from its claws onto the windowsill.
It lingered only a moment longer, then launched itself back into the dark with a dry rustle of wings and a single beat against the air.
I broke the seal and unrolled the parchment. The writing slanted upward as though drunk on its own impatience.
“We’ve had to relocate, which is bad news for morale and worse for my boots. The new site is wetter and windier and has introduced a new local species of biting fly.
The sergeant insists the fresh air is good for discipline. I’ve made a note to report him for optimism.
We’re near enough to hear the bells, but no one agrees which direction they’re coming from. The locals have stopped offering opinions. And food.
I’ve redrawn the supply rota four times, and no one has noticed.
Yours in service and suffering,
- B.”
I read it through once, slowly. Then again, though I already knew the measure of it. The words were scattered as ever—humour stretched thin, details folded into complaints, meaning packed tight in the spaces between. The kind of message only Benni would send. The kind that only I would understand.
The biting flies, the shifting bells, the silence from the locals – it might have read like idle nonsense, but he’d told me exactly what I needed to know.
He was south of the ridge, near the old grain route.
I could see the camp already: half-sunk tents pitched along the wet bank, officers muttering about logistics while the lower ranks argued over half-rusted cooking pots.
I could see it so clearly it almost felt like I was there myself.
I sat with the weight of it for a moment – the room, the letter, the morning I knew was coming.
I could already see my Mother in that chamber of hers, standing over a bowl of root and blood, speaking the words that invoked the old magic as if they were a kindness.
I saw myself there too, still and obedient, as I had been before. As she expected me to be again.
But the thought of it met something in me that did not bend.
I still carried the weight of the ceremonial armor—not heavy, but present. Polished for the occasion, fitted to impress rather than protect. It had always felt wrong against my skin, like a borrowed story I hadn’t agreed to tell.
I rose and started to unbuckle each piece with care.
The clasps gave easily, the straps uncoiling in a slow, deliberate slide.
I laid the breastplate across the bench, followed by the pauldrons and the polished gloves still faintly scented with clove oil.
Beside them, the old tunic still held the faint creases of the road.
I pulled it straight. Fastened the worn bracers. Found the blade belt without looking.
The travelling cloak was still folded where I’d left it days ago—heavier than the court’s silk-lined drapes but built for weather and wear. I swung it over my shoulders, fastened the pin, and felt it settle into place like an old friend.
There would be no audience in the morning. No charm traced onto bare skin. She could keep her compounds, her broth, and her gentle warnings – I had heard enough.
I crossed to the door and lifted the bar, the wood creaking softly in its frame.
Benni was out there, setting camp. The lines were shifting, and he was nearly ready.
The next part of the campaign would come soon, and I intended to meet it from the front – not behind a closed door, waiting for someone else to decide what to do with me.
Let them wake to find me gone. I was going where I belonged.
Back to war.