“We have the same goal. We both want to restore magic.”
“No, we don’t. You’re here to infiltrate my people and find a traitor among us. Not when your advisors, friends even, think it’s me.”
“I know it’s not you.”
“You can’t know that.”
“But I know you,” he insisted.
“You don’t,” she said firmly. She caught the pain that crossed his face that time.
“I do,” he whispered. “I—”
He was cut off by a shout in the forest. They both looked up to see Sten stumbleinto the clearing.
“There you are, General, I’ve been looking everywhere for you—” He stopped when he noticed the prince standing behind her. “I’ll just find you later.”
“That’s okay, Sten. The prince was just leaving.”
“Actually, no, I wasn’t.”
Sten eyed the prince nervously before turning his full attention to Solveig. But before he could say anything, she waved a hand to the prince.
“You can’t take a hint, can you? Off you go, Your Highness. I’m sure there are better things you could be doing with your time than annoying me.”
“Not at the moment.” He leaned casually against a tree, bracing his hands in his pockets.
“I was trying to be polite,” Solveig said, narrowing her eyes at him as he laughed without humour. “Maybe that was too subtle for you. You’re dismissed, Prince.”
He folded his arms in response. And he calledherstubborn.
Sten interrupted before their bickering went on. “It’s okay, General Tordottir, I-I just wanted to relay a message to you ... from ... from our mutual friends.” He was so shifty there was no way the prince wasn’t seeing through his act.
“And?”
“They want you to know that trust can be repaired when it matters most.” It looked like there was more Sten wanted to say, but with the prince hovering, he couldn’t go on. With a peek in the prince’s direction, Solveig guessed that Sten had not been cryptic enough, interest clear all over his face.
Sten was pacing and pretended to twist his ankle. The prince didn’t move as Solveig bent down to help the young male up. Sten whispered quickly in her ear, “Three ... three betrayals. One ends in death, one in Valhalla, and the other in Hel.”
Solveig helped him to his feet and then he raised his voice, surprising her by speaking directly to the prince, his eyes losing more of their colour.
“Not all is as it seems.”
The prince froze, realization and horror written plainly on his face. Sten stepped on his perfectly fine foot and walked away.
Three betrayals. One ends in death, one in Valhalla, and the other in Hel.
Solveig had never heard a more direct prophecy. She assumed that one of the betrayals was Latham. Although, did the prophecy mean new betrayals or betrayals that had already happened? She couldn’t bring herself to dwell on the fact that Gerrie was gone—what had happened to her?
Before she could contemplate who the others could be, the prince interrupted her thoughts.
“A Vanir Seer visited the castle when I was a faeling, just before I reached maturity,” he said, gazing off into the distance as he spoke. “She was only there for a few days and was always staring at me. I thought it was creepy, to say the least. One day I’d had enough.
“I confronted her and asked what the Hel she was looking at. Her eyes drained of colour, becoming white as snow. All she said was, ‘A hungry wolf is destined to wage a desperate battle. Not all is as it seems.’ Then she walked away. At the dinner table that evening, my father was livid that the Seer they’d invited into their home never delivered a prophecy. She quietly packed her bags and left Idavoll without telling anyone.”
The prince turned his gaze on her, his eyes refocusing on the present. “I never told him that she spoke to me. I’ve never told anyone.”
A cold sweat broke out over Solveig’s body. In all the recorded prophecies of history, never had two Seers used the same phrasing, even if they were prophesying about the same point in time. There was always a difference in the language used. Solveig wondered how many unrecordedprophecies were delivered word for word to match another, if there were any at all.
