A tear wiggled at the corner of my eye, and I tried to brush it away in a way the man behind me wouldn’t notice, turning my focus to the buildings of Malheim. Where we had stone-paved roads and large homes that stood close together, here it appeared they prioritized nature in a tactic similar to Salheim, choosing dirt for their roads with only a stone line on the side so you knew where the road ended and where the land belonging to the homeowner started.
The homes were small—similar to those in Salheim. Though they were built with stone and plaster like they were in my hometown, they didn’t seem nearly as large, something which struck me as odd as I noticed a woman with a babe balanced on her hip and two children running between her legs.
Anger bubbled in my chest at the thought that maybe the Seid had been allowed to live full lives in Malheim, avoiding the culling that had taken over a quarter of Ralheim adults just a decade ago. I knew I couldn’t judge based on the sight of one mother though, and I didn’t feel like asking the man at my back, so I suppressed the fire.
For now.
It was odd, though. I was prisoner and being taken here against my will; I also didn’t feel a loss for anything left behind. The reality was, I had been floundering since that day Adis had snatched me from my home, and since I hadn’t been able to put down roots anywhere along the way, it was hurting less and less each time I was abducted and forcibly moved. I know how deranged that sounded, even in my own mind, but it was the truth. My heart panged for Otho, something I did not understand as I still had yet to figure out if he was friend or foe with his emotional swings and odd behavior at dinner with his family, but I would figure this out on my own.
It wasn’t long before I noticed a large building rising in the distance. Until this moment, Ralheim and Malheim had been very different cities, but as I noticed the similarities between the building ahead and Adis’s compound, I began to worry.
They appeared the same.
Both were large palaces with a tall exterior wall, and I had a hunch I would find the same circular courtyard set-up inside, allowing the servants a sense of false freedom every time they crossed from one room to the next.
I just hoped the servants here had a choice. But deep down, I knew it was unlikely.
We arrived at the gates, where I was directed to dismount. I grimaced as I stretched my legs for the first time in hours. “Don’t run,” the man behind me commanded, as if I had anywhere to run. Or the energy to try and outrun the horse-like creature (I’d already forgotten the fancy name the man called them.)
I shifted my weight from foot to foot, waiting for him to finish his discussion with a stable boy. Just the sight of the young man leading a large horse away brought Leif to the front of my mind, someone else for whom I felt a small pang in my heart. I didn’t know if that made him my weighted, since I felt the same pang for Otho, but it was something to delve into later.
“Come,” the man directed, leading me by the hand as if he hadn’t just snatched me from a stranger’s kitchen in the dead of night.
Now that the sun was well on its path through the sky, I took this time to observe my captor. I don’t know what I had been expecting of a man of Malheim, but he was quite ordinary. Though he was tall, I estimated he was still a bit shorter than Otho, and less broad. He had dark brown hair similar to my own, and our skin tones were both light.
He led me through a courtyard, pushing my neck down as we crossed into a darkened room.
Though this giant building had looked like Adis’s compound from the outside, inside, it was a whole different world. Just like their villages, it was clear they revered nature in all things, with the room containing plants in every corner—though how they survived without sunlight, I wasn’t sure. In the center of the room, was a large wooden table, and at one end there was a man with blond hair, resting his chin on his hands, which were propped on the table. It was hard to see his features in the darkened room, but the arms his chin rested on certainly weren’t what I would call small.
“Welcome to Malheim.” The man spoke, but he didn’t say my name, which revealed to me that he didn’t know it. “I am the viscount here. You may call me Hansen.”
Before I had the opportunity to respond, the man behind me pulled out a chair, forcing me into it.
“I have heard rumors about you.”
I raised an eyebrow. That was surprising since I had only been a woman for a couple of days. “You have?”
“I have,” he affirmed. “My spies in Ralheim report you are capable of reading Seid magic.”
My mouth went dry. He did know. And now I wondered who his spies were. Was it Astrid? Friar? Otho? All of them? Had I played right into their greedy hands?
“We will not harm you, but I want magic too. If Adis has it, it is only a matter of time before he uses it against us to change the outcome of the war.”
I shook my head, scared of what would happen when I said the next words. “Magic doesn’t work that way. It’s in ancient books. If you have one, I can read the magic in the book to you, but I cannot conjure it out of nothing.” It was odd, though this was technically betraying my province, it didn’t feel bad like I expected it would.
I held no loyalty in my heart for Ralheim.
He didn’t appear flustered by my confession. “I see. You carry none of these books with you?”
I motioned to myself, sitting in this chair in what had to be obvious was a nightgown. “I carry nothing with me.”
“Well then.” He was pensive for a moment. “If I have my spies acquire these books, will you read the magic to me?”
I nodded. While I was tired of being a pawn in this war, I was certainly not in any position to refuse—and so far, Hansen did seem a smidge more transparent with his motives than Adis.
“Interesting.” He moved his hands from their position under his chin. “You care nothing for your homeland then?”
“After what they did to me?” I scoffed, wincing as my memory brought the sound of my ribs being kicked by those shiny black boots to the forefront of my memory and the brand on my wrist itched. “But also, I must warn you that the magic I read to Adis was nothing major. Nothing that could turn or transform a war.”
