Calmly, Fenrir lifted a leg and began to lick himself.
“Please be gentle with Hrothgar,” Brenn urged.
Freya was not feeling particularly gentle. She was like the blades of her knives, sharp as steel.
“I don’t know where she’s gone,” Hrothgar said from a safe distance. They removed the crown as gently as one would handle a newborn and set it on the side table. “I cannot disobey a direct order from my queen.”
It came to Freya all at once. Her brain had jumped to the worst possible scenario—betrayal within the court, Astrid gone forever at the hands of those she trusted the most.
But Astrid had left on her own. And Freya had pushed her there.
Freya slumped onto the bed. Hrothgar took several sizable steps backward.
Was there a way Freya could have prevented this? She’d known Astrid felt trapped in here, and she had thought Astrid would be willing to put up with it. Was it her own fault for taking away the queen’s agency? Freya couldn’t shake the feeling she had finally gone one step too far.
Maybe it was not being trapped that bothered Astrid the most. Maybe it was Freya herself and the intimacy they’d shared. At the time, Astrid had assured Freya it was something they both wanted. But being something they both wanted didn’t mean it was immune to regret.
Freya was not prone to crying, but an itch built behind her eyes.
“Brenn.” Her voice cracked; she tried again. “Brenn. Can you do something to make sure she is safe?”
“Of course.” Brenn stepped lightly to the nightstand, still winded from the mad dash upstairs. She set the staff against the wall and lifted the crown.
“You’ll want to close your eyes,” she warned.
A strong breeze swept through the room. Freya’s hair whipped around her ears, the unseasonable smell of summer grass filling her nose. A light, brighter than anything she could properly shield herself from with merely her closed eyelids. A sound like back in Brenn’s house—the clanking of keys, the cawing of a raven, the yowl of Fenrir. And then the light disappeared, the breeze went away, and it was like the room wascompletely devoid of air, stale as it had ever been, and Freya could not entirely blame Astrid for leaving.
“She is safe,” Brenn said. “With Hedda. She’s still disguised as Hrothgar.”
“Where is she?” asked Freya.
She sensed Brenn’s response before the priestess could speak, how Brenn tamped down the instinct to deter Freya. “I saw docks and the sea.”
“She’s been gone for several hours,” Hrothgar added, a bit guiltily.
“I know where she is,” Freya said. “Will you join me?”
This was Freya’s fault. She’d locked Astrid away without thorough consideration for her feelings. She hadn’t properly conveyed to Astrid what she meant to Freya, or perhaps she had told her too much. She hoped the queen would give her the chance to apologize—and that Astrid would still want her around, in one capacity or another. Whichever way she would allow Freya to serve her.
Brenn was fast on Freya’s heels when Freya arrived at the stables and demanded a horse. A startled stable boy, half-asleep, jumped up at once and brought her two.
As Freya mounted the horse, her muscles moved, but her mind had stilled. Above, her falcon cawed.
Chapter Eighteen
In a port town several hours’ ride away, Astrid and Hedda sat across from each other at the Rosebriar Inn with two steins of mead between them.
The smell of this place was like coming home. Fish and yeast and the sweet notes of fruit. The ceiling bore the same slightly hideous and ill-woven tapestry of a woman playing the lyre. It was so old that it frayed around every edge, red strings dangling down. Worn, ugly, and familiar.
When Astrid was younger, her family had stopped in Rosebriar more often than the city of Vakker, though it was barely notable enough to mark on a map. Trading hubs in Torden were plentiful, but there was something about this town that had endeared her parents to its fishers.
The creaking of leather followed Astrid when she shifted to face Hedda. Hrothgar’s leather armor was a tad oversized on her, in spite of her perception that they were the same height. Hrothgar was back in Astrid’s room, sulking in her clothes. The narrative they’d come up with was quite simple: Hedda and Hrothgar had left the castle to celebrate their night off.
As long as no one knew the félag did not currently have nights off, they would be fine.
Astrid imagined if it were Hrothgar here and not herself, Hedda would be warmer toward them.
Hedda glowered at Astrid impressively. Once, when Hedda and Astrid had trained to be soldiers together, Hedda would have gladly accepted any alcohol gifted to her, perhaps even challenged Astrid to a drinking contest. Now, reserved, Hedda sipped as daintily as any earl in polite company.
