The Town of Thorfell Crag
The next morning, Euphemia is eager to distract herself by exploring more of the manor, perhaps visiting the garden, picking some wildflowers, and brewing some tea.
But she runs into Kelda and Asvald on her way downstairs.
“There she is.” Kelda flashes her a wry smile as Asvald drapes a mantle over her shoulders. “Up before noon today, I see?”
Euphemia chuckles politely. “Figured it’d be best I get an earlier start to my day.”
Kelda nods her approval. “Good.” Then with a smack of the back of her hand to Asvald’s chest, she adds, “Fetch her a cloak as well. We’ll both make the journey today.”
Without hesitation, Asvald retreats to the closet.
Euphemia descends the final step. “Where are we headed?”
“Into town, of course. The people should meet the baron’s new wife.”
Asvald returns just in time to catch Euphemia’s wide-eyed stare as she glances between them. “Is that wise? After everything Percival said about—”
Kelda blows through her lips. “Of course it’s wise. Percival likes to speak out of his, well, other end. He thinks frightening me will win him my land—”
“Dagfinn’s and Euphemia’s land,” Asvald corrects.
To Euphemia’s surprise, Kelda actually looks sheepish, though she wishes she wouldn’t be.
Through a tight-lipped smile, Kelda pats Asvald’s shoulder. She inclines her head to Euphemia. “Forgive me. I misspoke. They are your lands now, of course.”
“Oh, Heavens.” Euphemia feels her chest tightening. “You did not misspeak. They are as much your lands as they are mine. Please know that I would never try to take that claim away from you.” Her gaze flicks up to Asvald. “Nor from you.”
The slightest glimpse of relief washes over Asvald.
Kelda, however, grins that foxlike, toothy grin that exposes her fake tooth and suggests she expected nothing less from Euphemia.
And as they exit the manor and climb into the carriage, Euphemia is overcome with a sense of pride at the thought that she might be slowly winning the two of them over.
Carriage wheels crunch on loose rock and dirt. The sea air blows through the window, gentle on the sunny day. But all Euphemia can think about is the dream she cannot make sense of, and the locked room she cannot enter.
Alas, that conquest of the strange mechanism will have to wait.
The laughter of children chases after the carriage, the little ones bobbing on their feet to see who might be inside.
The carriage comes to a stop.
Euphemia braces herself for the outrage Percival warned about.
This time, Kelda sits in the cabin with her, so the two of them wait as Asvald descends from the driver’s seat to open their door.
“Are you frightened?” Kelda asks.
Euphemia starts to say no but remembers who she’s speaking to. “A little. Yes.”
“Good. It would be foolish not to be.”
“But you said—”
“I said Percival was trying to scare us, which is true. But he wasn’t being wholly dishonest. There are some in Thorfell Crag who grow uneasy under the changing leadership.
Truthfully, they are the same folk who have been uncertain about us for a while.
” Before pain can latch on, something brightens in her expression, a spark of life that Euphemia doesn’t think she’s seen in the woman before.
“But we have friends in Thorfell, too. Not everyone is so hateful of the Varinsson name. You have nothing to fear here.”
The cabin door opens. First, Asvald helps Kelda out of the carriage.
When it’s Euphemia’s turn, she holds her periwinkle skirts in one hand—another garment she’d found folded neatly in the chest in her bedchamber—and she repeatedly tells herself not to trip.
Not to miss a step. Not to fall and embarrass the lot of them.
She does not want to ruin this moment.
She does not want to give the people of Thorfell any more reasons to doubt her or her new family.
Asvald offers Euphemia a hand, and she steps outside, the bright sky blinding her like a bolt of lightning from above.
Once her eyes have adjusted, she realizes they aren’t in the center of town like she had expected them to be.
Instead, Euphemia finds that they are somewhere near the top of the town, a slanted road dipping before them and leading all the way down to the beach.
From this vantage point, the view of the ocean is clear. An impossibly massive sheet of dark blue that ripples as far as the eye can see.
It is the closest Euphemia has ever been to the ocean. And yet, it is nothing like she imagined. The way travelers who came through the Saint’s Hearth would describe it, she always thought it was more like a cavernous graveyard, with shipwrecks lining the horizon and tumultuous storms brewing.
This is more like a hoard of jewels than an ocean.
The water dazzles wherever the sun touches it.
Euphemia could stare in wonder all day.
But then she remembers: this is home now. She gets to view this place any time she wants.
“Come,” Kelda says, her pace brisk as she begins her descent down the road. “The people of Thorfell await you.”
Euphemia glances over her shoulder, searching for Asvald. But he has already climbed back into the carriage and begun to roll away, parking it somewhere up the street.
Euphemia’s stomach dips. It will just be her and Kelda then. With any luck, the fresh air and sun will keep Kelda in good spirits, and Euphemia won’t end up pinned against a wall again.
Descending the hill, Euphemia bustles after Kelda.
She moves slowly and deliberately at first, the steep incline worrying her.
Something about how she can see straight down to the shore leaves her feeling dizzy.
But it isn’t long before the slope no longer seems quite as daunting.
Her knees stop trembling. And Euphemia is finally able to observe and enjoy.
She soaks in Thorfell Crag like a sponge.
The town has already awoken for the day.
Men lug barrels and fishing nets to the docks.
Children chase each other up and down the uneven streets.
Euphemia spots few women outside, mostly the elderly or those who are likely widowed, but she knows from experience that most of them are likely still tending to hearth and home at the start of the fresh day.
Seagulls squawk overhead, a nearby rooftop becoming their temporary roost.
“Welcome to Thorfell Crag,” Kelda says when Euphemia finally catches up to her. “Anyone waving a pitchfork at you yet, little cloud?”
The chuckle comes against her will. “No. If anything, most of them have looked upon us kindly.”
Kelda nods to herself. “It is as I said, Percival only means to scare me.”
They continue walking through town, the experience largely pleasant.
The people of Thorfell greet her with curiosity—and something not quite like the warmth that Euphemia and her siblings have been trained to greet tavern guests upon their arrival.
It’s something a little harsher. More genuine.
Their greetings are the sort of rushed good days and curt nods offered by hardworking people who can’t afford a moment to lose but offer acknowledgment anyway.
Even if they are hasty, something about the honesty of their welcome makes Euphemia feel as if she belongs.
There are no false smiles or fake courtesies.
No judgmental glances steeped in months of rumor.
She is treated like anyone else in town.
“Now that you and Dagfinn are wed,” Kelda says as they walk. “It is important the people of Thorfell come to respect you and see you as their leader.”
Hearing the word leader, Euphemia cannot hide the doubt from her face.
Kelda chuckles. “Or at the very least, you need them to like you more than Percival.”
Euphemia forces an uneasy smile. “That seems easy enough. As far as I can tell, he’s as likable as a toad.”
Kelda snorts, but her mouth flips downward. “You’d be surprised. Some people are quite fond of toads, especially loud ones.”
Carter Thurstan comes to Euphemia’s mind.
In her eyes, he’s never been anything but a toad—a warty, brutish drunk who likes to complain to anyone who will listen.
But for whatever reason, many people in Nottinghamshire find him tolerable.
Likable, even. Though Euphemia suspects that has more to do with his brutish nature than anything.
Still, whenever a conflict ensues and Thurstan is involved, he always manages to find the ears of a small army and bring them to his side.
“I am familiar with the type,” Euphemia says.
Kelda smirks, one eyebrow raised. “Ah yes, I’d nearly forgotten who I was speaking to. If what I saw in your tavern that night is any indication of the men you have dealt with, then I expect you know the type quite well.”
Hearing the approval in her tone, pride surges through Euphemia.
Despite Kelda insisting their journey into town was meant as a way to introduce Euphemia to the locals, she and Kelda spend an alarming amount of the morning doing the opposite.
Kelda takes them down every sparsely populated street she can find, ducking the main roads in preference of the thinner alleyways and the streets with nothing but stone walls and a few wobbly doors.
The farther into town they venture though, the more the secrecy makes sense.
It is true that most of the people they pass by treat them with kindness or something akin to dispirited respect.
But it is not lost on Euphemia that as they approach some homes, the people suddenly rush inside, close their shops, and hide.
She swears she sees familiar faces among them—the same men and women who once foamed at the mouth to talk ill of her mother, her sisters, and herself.
Their faces blur with the town around her.
At one point, she swears she catches Carter Thurstan’s profile sneering at her from a distance.
Swears she finds her mother’s disapproval from the larder.
Swears she feels the weight of the clergy’s gaze as they pass by the church.
Those experiences, small as they might be, flip Euphemia’s stomach.