Surprised, I jerked my gaze up to her face. “I was actually feeling bad for sending him to fetch something as inconsequential as a fresh pot of tea.”
She lightly slapped my knuckles. “Don’t be ridiculous. Serving you is our greatest honor. I mean it. Especially for humans who’ve served your family for generations. We don’t live as long as you, even if we’ve been blessed with a drop or two of our queen’s blood. He feared he’d die without ever having our queen to honor. He has no children, and even if he did, what would he have taught them of how to serve a queen with little or no personal experience? I at least did have some time as your mother’s consiliarius but things were much different once Queen Helle had you. She chose to remove herself from all aspects of court life to focus her efforts on you.”
“Which makes sending me to foster at another queen’s nest even stranger. I wish I could speak to her, or someone who knew why she might have sent me to Norway. There had to be a reason.”
“You may find answers in the legacy. I can’t tell you what’s inside for I’ve never witnessed its opening, but it’s customary for previous queens to leave histories about the house’s powers to their descendants.”
“You don’t know what’s inside?”
She shook her head. “No one can open it but you, my queen. It’s here if you’d like to examine it, whenever you’re ready.”
My stomach fluttered with anxiety at the unknown—but also anticipation. If the old tea sparked memories, surely my family legacy would return some of what had been stolen from me. “I’m ready, if it’s convenient.”
“Your wishes are never an inconvenience.” She pushed her chair away from the table and looked over to one of the waiting staff. “Please ask Pátair to bring Her Majesty’s tea to the study.”
The young man inclined his head. “Yes, ma’am.”
Dörr helped me with my chair and I stood. Immediately, Lokken, Myrk, and Svar stood as well. Gunnarr practically had his face buried in a large bowl, but Svar tapped him on the shoulder.
“What? Oh.” Gunnarr stood though he cast a longing look at his bowl. “Before dessert?”
“You can bring it with you if you’d like.” I looked to the young man Clara had spoken to, and he immediately straightened expectantly, his eyes flaring slightly. “Would it be too much trouble to also have dessert brought to the study?”
“Absolutely, Your Majesty.” The man stammered, blushing. “Or rather, it would not be trouble at all, Your Majesty. It’s an honor. I will see to it myself.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Arnar Skulason, Your Majesty.”
“Thank you, Arnar.” We followed Clara out of the dining room to the outer hallway, where she paused, a pained look coming over her face, making me quickly reach out to her. “What is it?”
“I just realized I never gave you a proper tour of your own house. You’ve barely seen a fraction of the rooms, and I haven’t introduced all the staff to you either. I’m so sorry?—”
“I won’t hear it,” I said tartly, just like she spoke to me when I was being silly. “We’ve barely had a moment to sleep, eat a little delicious food, and find some clothing. Of course we haven’t had time to do much else, because I could barely rouse myself today for Kathleen’s team. You can’t give a tour to someone who’s sleeping all day and night.”
She shook her head, but a wry smile quirked her lips. “I suppose so, Your Majesty. You’re certainly entitled to sleep as long as you’d like after the ordeals you’ve faced. Though I am eager to show you the rest of the house and the grounds.”
“Tomorrow will be soon enough. For now, let’s cover the legacy and dessert. Then I’ll probably need to sleep another few days.”
She laughed more openly and started walking again, though she pointed out doors and hallways as we walked. “This is where we met Grimley’s team today, as you know. It’s the more public area of the house for anyone visiting who may not be entirely knowledgeable about Aima, or simply not in your circle of trusted guests. This door is an elevator for the upper floor with state of the art security. There’s a team monitoring access to both the upper and lower levels of the house in case your Blood are ever incapacitated in some way.”
“Which is why I simply sauntered my way inside the house when I arrived,” Gunnarr said. “You can’t rely on human security.”
“To be fair, I hadn’t yet given them orders to elevate their security to top clearance,” Clara admitted. “We had only just arrived, but honestly, I should have changed their orders prior to your arrival, Your Majesty. That shouldn’t have happened, even if it was someone you Called to be Blood. It won’t happen again, I assure you.”
Speaking of which, I hadn’t checked in a while to see if anyone might be approaching. I paused for a moment and closed my eyes, turning my mind inward. Listening for a whisper or feeling that might tell me someone approached.
My dark alfar Blood wound through my mind like velvet black rivers. Lokken’s bond gleamed icy blue, white hot. Gunnarr’s polar bear fur rubbed against me, warm and cozy and comforting. I could sense Clara, standing like a basalt stone tower against the raging sea. She might only be human, but she had depths and strength.
Arnar stood inside the dining room door, a glittering speck like a star in the midnight sky. But I could tell his star fromPátair’s now. They felt different. There were five more sparkling stars in what I assumed to be the kitchen. Two stars shone upstairs in a small room. The security team, I presumed. No other humans were inside the house or nearby on the grounds.
I widened my search, scanning over the ocean where Myrk and I had flown. There were fishing boats and other vessels out to sea in the distance. No one walked the black sand beach in either direction. I skipped along the icy shoreline scanning for anything unusual. Swept back in front of the house along the road where we’d driven up to the house. Nothing. I’d felt something before, I was sure of it. I stretched further, not sure of Iceland’s geography let alone whether I scanned east or west.
The crushing weight of ice crept across the inner region of the island, cutting deep trenches in the earth, tunneling between mountains. Heat and steam bubbled up from the volcanoes below. I couldn’t remember what Clara had called the closest volcano. I could feel the pressure deep inside the earth, slowly building and simmering like a pot on the back burner of a mighty stove, but it didn’t feel like an eruption was imminent.
Something sparkled far off in the distance. A gleaming multi-colored trail of light flared and spun in the corner of my mind, but it disappeared as soon as I turned my attention in its direction. A great many stars flickered there, so it was a major city. Perhaps Reykjavík? I did want to go see my mother’s former nest. A blood circle might sparkle like that.
If the legacy didn’t reveal her secrets, then I would go there next.
