“My source is incredibly reliable and verifiable. Guthmar, tell your new queen.”
Guthmar threw up his hands. “I cannot say,” he said.
“Why, you—”
“If we could refrain from name calling, please,” Astrid said, suddenly feeling very tired. “I have never spoken ill of you in court, Skarde, nor have I thought you wanted to be involved after my many pleas for Sydlig’s help were ignored. I do not understand how it has possibly been turned against me like this.”
“Who is your source?” Freya asked from her corner.
Everyone turned to face her. Freya was serious, her knife on display. She did not look like the meek servant who blended into the background.
She looked like a threat.
“I would just like to say,” Guthmar interjected, “that I do not think this is true any longer, Skarde. As I said to you in my letter, I believe the source was mistaken.”
“Damn your useless letters.”
“Who is your source?” Freya repeated.
And then Freya looked up, up, up, and her eyes widened in horror.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Someone was feeding bad information to King Skarde.
Freya was determined to figure out who. It was clear King Skarde was not the kind of person who would let a conversation go anywhere meaningful. She found her interjection important and necessary, or else she would not have made it.
If they could not trust King Skarde, and they had a threat to every side of them but the sea, Torden was doomed.
As the accusations flung back and forth, Freya caught onto one thing—the poisoned brother. Guthmar had mentioned that Elgir, the original ambassador, was sick. Pustules, he’d said, a symptom Freya recognized from her research at Astrid’s bedside. And he’d said it like he knew there had been some foul play afoot.
Was it possible Guthmar was the poisoner? Freya had seen him talk his husband out of killing a spider once. Maybe the king was setting Guthmar up to take this fall, while ridding himself of a brother who he thought was going to kill him and steal his throne like in the old days of orc country. King Skarde wouldneed someone to take the blame, and Freya fully believed this king who waved his sword around like he didn’t care who caught the pointy end was capable of cold-blooded murder.
The sound of scraping stone drew Freya’s attention from the king. A sound from above. In the calamity, no one had thought to look up, not the félag and not Freya.
She tilted her head back to seek out the source of the noise. There—past the corbels, on the ledge, a silhouette against the morning sun. A figure, crouched. Freya only caught a glimpse when the figure’s arm twitched.
“Get down!” Freya screamed.
She had time to register Norga and Sigurd throw their bodies over the queen, tackling her. King Skarde stood in the middle, dumbfounded as his soldiers at Freya’s demand.
It was one of those times where being invisible did not come in handy.
She leaped over the chair, where Guthmar huddled with his hands over his head, and shoved the king squarely in the chest, knocking him back.
The head of the arrow landed thickly in the rug—just barely snicking the leather of Freya’s boot. If King Skarde hadn’t moved, he would have been shot.
“Out!” she screamed. “Everyone out!”
The Sydlig soldiers bottlenecked the narrow exit. Between them, too much armor, too many broad shoulders. Norga and Sigurd crouched and shuffled Astrid away from danger.
Guthmar jumped out of the chair and hid on the side opposite the window.
Freya chucked one of her knives at the archer just as another arrow whizzed past her and landed in the shoulder of one of King Skarde’s guards. Right in the chink of his armor.
Stars. They were a good shot. The archer caught Freya’s knife under their boot and kicked it away.
The archer was too high up. Freya didn’t have the momentum she needed to be as deadly as she wanted. The arrows would kill anyone in this trapped space.
