I exhaled and brought myself under control, still full of questions. “The city that House Skau called home is far from Avaldenn, is it not? What is it called?”
I’d seen it on the map, but not been that far east. Nor had Clemencia made me memorize anything about it, as House Skau was long gone.
“Bitra is many days’ ride. We’re working on the schedule now.”
If any one thing went wrong in the plan, that put my potential relationship with Thyra at risk. My sister might despise me, but I didn’t feel the same. Plus, I’d just found her. I didn’t want to lose her to a heist gone wrong.
Then, it hit me.
Bitra was presently the seat of House Riis, not House Skau. Over time, Luccan had created gateways between all his family’s properties, including the brothels and taverns his father owned. It made checking in on the lord’s establishments far easier than riding for days and days.
Luccan would likely have created a gateway to their castle, as he had one tucked in the basement of his home in Avaldenn. Add that to the fact that we’d been in Vitvik, where Lord Riis owned a brothel, also boasting a hidden gateway, and this heist got far easier. Part of it, anyway. We could ride to Vitvik, which I’d heard was a day’s ride away from Valrun, and from there arrive in Avaldenn and Bitra within minutes.
But that would mean outing Luccan.
My teeth dug into my bottom lip, and Brynhild let out a sigh.
“You don’t have to decide now, but soon.”
She’d mistaken my reaction. Not that I wasn’t worried about a heist, but it was concerning to force a friend to tell their secret. To rebels, no less.
“Thank you.” I needed to discuss this with those I’d arrived with. “I won’t be alone if I decide to do so, will I?”
“Of course not. Groups will form. Some rebels will go with each, but you can take your friends too.”
“Thank you.”
She said she had more than one matter to discuss and now that she’d delivered my mission, she appeared more anxious. What else could be so harrowing? “You wished to tell me something else?”
She swallowed. “I wished to share this with you at dinner, but Thyra requested my silence in the matter.”
Would what Brynhild was going to tell me be equally impactful as simply learning that Thyra existed? I didn’t see how it could.
“I was the maid that ran with Thyra from Frostveil Castle the night the two of you escaped.” Tears shimmered in the older faerie’s eyes. “I was one of the people who used to care for you and your sister as babes. Since Thyra and I were turned away from the noble house your family believed would take her in, I’ve viewed her as a daughter. More than anything, I hope the two of you can reconcile. Your mother and father would have wanted it.”
All the breath left me. Brynhild wasn’t just an advisor. I suspected Thyra considered her a surrogate mother.
“I’m so sorry for what happened to you, Neve. I wish I could have taken you both. I wish that you and Segla did not come across such trouble. I often wondered what happened to you. Is Segla still alive?”
“Segla? She was the maid who took me?”
“Yes. We were good friends.”
I hated saying the next words. “The vampire who owned me found her in the snow with a toddler in her arms. I think maybe she got lost when we fled the Lisika Castle.”
“Lisika?”
“She either fled there or they captured us,” I explained. “They plannedto use me as leverage. To wed me to Roar when I came of age and then use that power. Though I don’t know how, I’m sure it would have been easy. I was a youngling.”
Brynhild scowled. “The last Warden of the West was a vile sort of fae.”
I suspected she didn’t know half of it. Not that Roar’s father was a gatemaker who lured humans into slavery and sold them to the vampires. That was part of how his house had remained wealthy for so very long.
“His son is no different,” I replied. “Where was Segla to take me?”
Brynhild shook her head. “It matters not. That family no longer lives. Your mother didn’t know, but I later learned that they were dead days before you would have reached them. An arsonist—likely one loyal to King Magnus’s rebellion—set fire to their manor. All died.”
My hand strayed to my chest. Sympathy for the many fae I never knew bloomed inside me. It was a strange feeling, but long overdue. Had they been alive, had Segla reached them, they might have taken me in. I might have had a loving family. Not my own, but a family of Winter’s Realm.
