“Came to me asking for you.” Lord Ophain frowned. “The world is asking where you are.”
“They don’t need to know.”
“They will find out. The Knights are becoming bolder, as I’m certain you saw.” The lord crossed back to her, looking at her as though she was a child and he was the concerned parent. “The army will be at the Crossroads within the next few days. When this happens, there will be a celebration in my nephew’s honor. All the Western nobles will be there, and Aldrik will have no option but to be in attendance.”
Vhalla’s heart began to race.
“You must be present,” he demanded. “Speak with Aldrik. He will use his title to give you protection no one else can. Return South with him and—”
“No!” She jumped to her feet. Despite being a head shorter, she somehow managed to look down at the lord. “I do not need his protection. I can protect myself.”
“You are speaking folly.”
“No more than you are,” she said sharply. The lord was visibly taken aback, clearly unused to such boldness. “His protection comes with a price I am not willing to pay.”Her heart had nothing left to give him.
“Vhalla, I am only trying to help you.” Ophain’s features were overcome with sorrow. “Youandhim.”
“There is no help for us.” Vhalla gave a small bow. “Thank you for your time today, and for your answers.”
“Wait.”
She halted stiffly.
Lord Ophain crossed the room to where she stood before the door. Slowly, he pulled at the scarf around her neck, carefully folding it once more around her head. The nearly familial touch smoothed some of the roughness in her heart.
“Keep yourself hidden, at least. Be careful and, by the Mother, consider what you are doing.”
Vhalla nodded.
“And if you are ever in need, come to Norin. My protection has no price. Though I can only do so much against the Knights; they are quite the nuisance, even for me.”
Her face cracked, and she folded her bitterness into a smile. His protection had the same price as Aldrik’s. To accept it would mean to accept his family. It would invite Aldrik into her world. It would inevitably gravitate her into his orbit again, and they would both collapse in on each other like dying stars. She wasn’t ready for it.
“Thank you,” she said, and left.
Vhalla kept her head down on the way back to the bookstore, her satchel heavy. She fingered Aldrik’s watch around her neck, feeling its warmth against her palm. On the way, she stopped to buy new clothes. She’d need to get rid of the ones she was wearing. Major Schnurr had seen her in them, and Vhalla had no doubt he had imprinted them on his memory.
For the hundredth time in a few short weeks, Vhalla thought about returning home. Her feet dragged up the stairs of the shop, Gianna making no motion to switch places on shop duty with the distracted woman.But if she returned East, they would only hunt here there, too.
As long as she was a Windwalker, as long as people knew she could be used for their gains, she’d never be free. Vhalla knelt at her bedside, shifting through a pile of clothing packed underneath. Her fingers fell on a solid bundle of rough cotton.
Retrieving it, she stared at the familiar parcel. Vhalla remembered when Daniel had cut off his shirt to help her hide it. Distance had helped her sort a little through her heart, and Vhalla didn’t like the woman she saw when she replayed her interactions with the swordsman. She didn’t like her reliance on him or how she had abused the fact that he would be there for her without question.
But, clarity in the present would not remedy the chaos of the past. And, the one thing that remained true at the end of it all was that he was someone whom she valued in her life.He’d understood when she’d left. The final look on his face had told her as much. And, if she was lucky, whenever she met the swordsman again, he would be someone she’d consider her friend without the pressures of war and loss pushing on them both in odd directions.
Reverently, she unfolded the cloth, moving it aside. The axe was carved from a single stone, glittering like the cosmos underwater in the dim light of the setting sun. Vhalla now knew it may be the last of the legendary and mysterious crystal weapons—if the Knights didn’t already have one in their possession. She had been told it had the power to sever a soul.
Vhalla held it up, feeling the weight of it. A deep power coursed through her, seeping into her bones. She didn’t need it to cut through souls. She only needed it to cut through the shadows that threatened to swallow her whole. To cut down those who would use her. To hack away at the oppressive darkness that continued to try to smother her so she could defend a new dawn.
THE IDEA OFfinding a single Southerner in the Crossroads was complete and utter idiocy. Still, Vhalla waded through the sea of people flooding the streets and markets, foolishly hopeful. She saw soldiers she felt like she should know. Men and women who still donned the dark scale mail of the Black Legion. But the messy-haired man that she sought eluded her.
Cautiously, she ventured back to the center of the Crossroads. She’d not been there in the three days since speaking to Lord Ophain, and now it seemed all the riskier knowing the royal family was present. Yet Vhalla lingered, watching the other hotels and inns around the center of the world. Men and women came and went, but she didn’t see Fritz.
Then again, even if she found her friend, she wasn’t sure what she would say to him. She wasn’t ready to return South yet. She still had more to learn about the Knights, and she had to ensure they knew she wasn’t easy prey to hunt—to dissuade them from their foolish mission of furthering the cause of the long dead King Jadar. Truthfully, she didn’t want to say anything to him, she just wanted to listen to Fritz talk. She wanted to hear her friend’s voice.
Vhalla adjusted the hood on her newly acquired cape. The plain garment was the second most important thing she’d purchased recently. Strapped tightly around her waist and buckled around her thigh, just above her knee, was a specially made axe holster. Vhalla hadn’t brought the actual crystal weapon to a craftsman to measure, of course; she’d purchased an axe of similar size and shape. As such, the fit wasn’t perfect, but it kept the weapon concealed and on her person at all times.
There wasn’t any other safe place for it, she reasoned. The longer it stayed with her, the more Vhalla wondered how she could’ve ever been foolish enough to think of leaving it unattended for weeks, hidden beneath her bed.
