“Why would you lie?” Brenn asked. “An illness sounds better than an argument from our end of things. An argument is volatile, a sign of trouble. An illness is a good excuse not to embark on a hard month of travel.”
“We cannot presume to know the minds of royals,” Guthmar said. There was a cheekiness to him, a glint in his eye. “Elgir is sick, but your queen is not.”
Blood roared in Freya’s ears. “Pardon me?”
“I saw her,” he said.
Guthmar was always wandering the castle. Perhaps he spotted the decoy from Astrid’s old balcony and recognized the fraud.
“He did not see her,” Tassi said, wrapping his hand around Guthmar’s elbow. “He has had too much to drink.”
“She was with the burly orc,” Guthmar insisted. He shook Tassi off his arm and glared at him, then tapped his nose. “The one with the scar.”
“Hedda?” Brenn asked.
“You saw Hedda?” Freya said, still not processing.
Tassi looked as though he wished to cover Guthmar’s mouth. “He saw two of the félag leaving the castle. But it does not mean anything. Right, Guthie? Tell them that’s all you saw.”
No one from the félag should have left the castle. They were all working double shifts, covering Astrid’s old rooms and her new ones. Heat licked up Freya’s spine. The first sign of alarm—delayed, like all her other instincts had been delayed.
“You saw Hedda leave the castle?” she said.
“Freya, let’s listen to him,” Brenn whispered.
“Where did she go?”
Guthmar pointed. “She was with the queen. I told you. The queen was dressed like…” He stopped, hiccupped, visibly lost his thought trail, blinked twice.
“Dressed like?” Freya said. She had jumped to her feet, though she did not remember doing so, and she had the neck of Guthmar’s doublet gathered in her fists. Tassi stepped forward as if to intervene, then he let his hands fall to his sides.
“Dressed like a soldier,” Guthmar finished weakly. He did not resist Freya’s anger, but leaned into it, gazing into her eyes like he was really seeing her for the first time. “The queen without her shadow,” he concluded.
The first thing he’d said when he’d seen her. He told her right away, and she had missed it.
Freya released Guthmar with such force, he fell back and Tassi had to catch him. She stormed away, feet pounding the dirt.
The guards at the castle gates greeted her and faltered when they saw the thunderous look on Freya’s face. Brenn followed quietly, making pleas Freya could not hear through her fury.
This was all Hedda. It had to be. She had unrestricted access to the queen, and she had kidnapped Astrid for how she’d been treated. So stupid on Freya’s part to not talk it over with Hedda first before making the marriage arrangement which ended Hedda and Ruga’s relationship; stupid, also, to not have known the resentment building up behind Hedda’s stony exterior; and stupider yet to not understand how such resentment would manifest even more harshly once punished.
People were so unknowable. Every time Freya thought she had them figured out, she was taken aback by something new. Nobody was like her.
The félag guarding the queen’s new rooms parted for Freya with practiced precision, as though she wasn’t about to barrelthem down if they didn’t move. She flung open the door to the antechamber.
“Freya, really,” Brenn said from down the hallway, out of breath.
The antechamber was empty. Unguarded. Where in the goddess’s name was Hrothgar? Of all people, she had trusted them to protect their queen.
The door to the inner chamber opened before Freya reached it.
Astrid was on the other side. Freya’s heart began to calm, taking in the crown and the familiar fabric of her cloak.
No, not Astrid: An impostor in Astrid’s clothes. Freya’s hand was empty one second and armed the next. She shoved the blade of her knife up at Hrothgar and they leaped back to avoid the blow.
“How long have you been planning to betray us?” she shouted, swinging at them. She wished she had her dagger. “Where is Hedda? Where thefuckis the queen?”
A hand closed firmly around Freya’s wrist, and she lashed out with her elbow, which Brenn caught in her other hand. Brenn looked into her eyes, calmly, and waited. Freya loosened her grip on the knife. It fell to the plush red carpet with an unsatisfying noise next to the cat.
