Now Ilías was cold in the ground, and the Bloodaxe Crew were in tatters. Andthis.
Rey was back in Kalasgarde. As the cold sank into his bones, so, too, did this realization. He’d fought valiantly—had run so very long.
But fate had brought him back all the same.
Ashes, but he hated it here. Each miserable mountain peak; each bend in the gods damned road; every oddly familiar face they’d passed in the town—memories, all of them, painful as sharpened flint driven into his skin.
They knew him here as Rey Galtung. Once, he’dbeenone of them. A spoke in their wheel, an essential part of this community. Now he was a deserter. An outsider.
Rey had worked long to become Axe Eyes—had worked hard to buryGaltungalongside Kristjan and his parents. He’d becomeBjarg—the word in the old language forrock. Rey had made himself unmoveable, impenetrable. But he should have known that even rocks can crack with enough force.
He was back. In. Kalasgarde.
As the temperature dropped, his misery only climbed higher. This wasnothis plan. The plan had been Istré, and then it would have been Kopa for further instructions. Not this.NotKalasgarde.
Everything had been smashed so thoroughly, he struggled to find fragments to piece back together. Rey had spent years working himself into a position with access to Magnus Hansson, had fed countless bits of information to the Uppreisna, and countless lies to the Heart Eater. And now…now not only was that ruined, but it was possible the entire kingdom would soon know his secret.
What now?
What now?
As the auroras awoke, the skies were painted in brushstrokes of greens reflected in the lake below. Bitterly, Rey stood and turned away.
The muffled flap of wings made his feet pause.Don’t look.But he was powerless against the pull. His gaze lifted, and there it was—bottomless black eyes; ghostly white face; tawny feathers tipped in black.
The barn owl.
As he stared at the creature, Rey felt the wound opening, sinew and muscle tearing, bones wrenched apart. It was agony all over again, the pain so sharp it could have been the day he’d buried Kristjan. “Fuck,” he muttered.
The owl hooted softly, and with that, the spell broke. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be here.
Rey forced his gaze away. Stumbled down the hill. Why had he come here, of all places? Everywhere he looked was like pushing on a bruise, but this…this was a raw and open wound, the pain so brutal it hurt to breathe.
Time to go home.
Home? The shield-home was no home. It was as good as a cell.
And so, he returned to his prison.
The cabin was dark and quiet as he approached, but from the light of the sister moons, Rey saw the symbol scrawled on the door. She’d drawn the protection rune in ash. The sight made him clench his teeth against the sting of self-loathing. He shouldn’t have left her here, all alone in this new place.
Do better, he thought, tripping through the doorway into darkness. The hearth had burned to coals, the curtain slung shut. Remorse tasted bitter in the back of his throat as Rey stared at that curtain, wondering if she had enough furs.
Curiously, there was no sign of provisions. It seemed Vig’s mother, Gyda, had not come after all. Had Silla found food and water in the saddlesacks? Had she been frightened when Rey had not returned?
As Rey settled onto the hard bench, pulling a fur over his body, he vowed that tomorrow, he would do better.
Chapter Thirteen
ASKABORG, SUNNAVÍK
Saga forced her eager feet to slow as she dashed through the hearth hall. It was a pleasant late-summer day, and bright light streamed through the windows, casting deep shadows behind the columns.
Saga’s gloved hand slipped into her pocket, wrapping around the small tin. She could hardly believe what she was about to do. In the aftermath of learning Signe and Alfson’s new plans, Saga had been busy. Gently, she’d pried into Lady Geira’s role in the queen’s entourage and had confirmed the woman acted as Signe’s scribe.
The revelation had been a pleasing one. Surely, Lady Geira’s chambers would be far less guarded than the queen’s. Perhaps this was why the queen trusted Geira to pen her scheming letters—fewer prying eyes.
It had taken her a day to come up with a plan. Two days, she’d spent poring through botany tomes and digging up luna bulbs from the solarium in the dead of night. It had required some careful timing to avoid patrolling guards, and twice Saga had thought herself caught for certain. Yet she’d crept in and out of the solarium undetected, before spending hours grinding the damned bulbs and picking out each fibrous bit. It had taken another day for the paste to fully dry into a transparent powder.
