Freya stood apart from the félag at the end of the hall. They’d cleared all the rooms in this wing. She was half-tempted to bar every window, too, so anyone who climbed the walls had no chance of getting in. How terribly ironic that castles had the reputation for being fortified structures and yet they were full of security failures.
Footsteps echoed loudly as someone ascended the stone steps leading to this wing. A singular, resounding thump accompanied each set of steps. Relieved, Freya leaned against the wall.
Brenn arrived seconds later, holding her staff and wearing a flowing set of priestess robes originally meant to impress the scholars with its authenticity. In contrast, her hair was all over the place from her rush to get up here.
“By the goddess, Freya. Where did all this blood come from?”
Freya touched her ear and winced. She’d nearly forgotten. A fire hazard didn’t explain an ear wound.
“Let me heal you,” Brenn said.
“I will not leave,” Freya said.
“I can bring my supplies.”
Freya’s ear stung, and there was an indent where skin used to be, but the wound had mostly clotted. Her gloves were stained with the dried rust of her blood. “I don’t think I’ll be regrowing that skin,” she joked.
“Freya,” Brenn said. “Please.”
Freya said nothing, which Brenn took as acceptance. The eyes of the queen’s félag from down the hall weighed heavily on Freya. She did not want to be healed in front of anyone—to have this admission of her vulnerability. That she could be hurt, that she was just human.
By the time Brenn returned with her supplies, Freya was tired of standing and waiting, listening for anything that could take her by surprise.
The first swab of cleansing agent against her ear caused Freya a great deal of anguish, but she steeled her gaze. Sensing her pain, Brenn was gentler after, wrapping the ear and whispering something in a trance-like cadence, her eyes looking far away. When she was done, Freya’s ear was admittedly less sore.
“You were right. I don’t think the skin will grow back,” Brenn said. “Wait, what’s this?”
Freya turned away, but Brenn was too quick. Without warning, Brenn grabbed Freya’s chin and dragged her close. Freya winced as Brenn dug her fingers into the sore, raised skin at either side of Freya’s lips.
“I warned you.” Brenn sounded so heartbroken that Freya felt a tinge of regret. “It’s a bad idea, Freya.”
Freya wrenched her chin out of Brenn’s grip. “I can make my own decisions.”
“Can you?” Brenn asked. “Or do you need to ask me what the goddess says first?”
Freya pursed her lips. “I don’t care about the goddess, and I don’t believe in wyrd.”
“You are a contradictory woman, Freya Wedd.” Brenn’s eyes bored into Freya’s. “I wonder whether you are lying to me or to yourself.”
The argument was too public, but Brenn was less explosive than Freya, and she deflated at seeing her friend upset. The fight never lasted long in Brenn—something Freya had noticed early on, and part of the reason Freya had stood up for Brenn and gotten them both out of the human wars. For better or worse, Freya was drawn to people whoneededsomebody.
“Please be careful,” Brenn said, gentler. Then she put her hand over Freya’s collarbone, and Freya felt her heartbeat slow. She was more aware of her surroundings than she had been before.
Freya had the wherewithal now to acknowledge she’d fucked up. Not with Astrid—even if she never had the chance to kiss her again, she wouldn’t take that back for the world—but with her immediate, terrified reaction to the assassination attempt. She’d seen the arrow and had narrowed in on eliminating every threat, no matter the cost. She’d had Varin evict the scholars, and she had been obvious about her level of influence.
The félag knew her true purpose here, but now outsiders to the castle might suspect that she was more than a mere handmaiden.
From their conversations at the dinners Freya had attended over the years, the scholars were not huge gossips, but an assassination was a big enough event to go down in the historybooks. Freya had to make sure they did not hear about the attempt.
Freya was slipping. She wanted to smack her head into the wall. How had she been so obtuse? The things she should have done would keep her up at night. She had to ensure Astrid’s safety—her primary goal, now and always. She remembered the feeling of Astrid’s lips on hers and shuddered. That was a problem. There had to be a balance between her feelings and her actions. A balance she had never struggled with before.
Another problem was that she could notdismiss Guthmar without causing some sort of international incident. Vakker Castle’s court had seen more near-disasters this year than since before Astrid was elected queen. They did not need the Sydlig king upset with them. For all Freya’s power, she was not willing to put her queen in deeper danger.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Freya said. “I needed the adrenaline to keep me from falling asleep.”
Brenn’s brow furrowed in concern. “You should rest to think clearly.”
“About protecting the castle, or something else?”
