Chapter Thirty: Frejara
We rode for days with the wind at our backs and our faces towards Irongate. The land rose and fell in long folds of heather and scrub, unfamiliar even to me. We had abandoned the old roads early on—too likely watched, too likely patrolled—and so we kept to the lesser veins of the land: deer paths through thickets, dry streambeds that twisted like serpents through the hills, and forgotten cart trails half-swallowed by weed and time. There were ways to slip past the Queen’s net if you knew where it was strung, and I had helped string it – which meant I also knew where it sagged and frayed. We moved more by instinct than plan, following the shifts in wind, and melting into shadow when something overhead passed too slow, too knowing. At night we lit no fires. At dawn, we strained at every sound. And always, always, my eyes were drawn to the sky.
Since the stream by the oak and the breathless fire that had risen between us, we had spoken little of what had passed – but it stayed close, as if unwilling to leave either of us. I felt it in every brush ofhis hand against mine as he helped me down from the saddle, the way he lingered close when we set camp, when his fingers curled just beneath my chin before he kissed me – not with urgency now, but with something that asked nothing and still gave everything. His gaze often found mine when the light was slanting low, and more than once he had reached for my face like it was something he needed to relearn. He said the fire was still in my eyes – a ring of it, thin and bright – and when he touched me, I felt it too, not as a flare but as warmth, like something kindled that no longer feared the storm.
We crossed the Ironvein by dawn on the fifth day, where the river bent sharp against a rise of rock, and the rush of water masked the sound of our horses. Beyond the curve, a shallow hollow opened between stone and trees, cradling the weather-worn frame of Ironhold. At first, I knew it by scent – smoke-charred pine, old leather, and the faint metallic trace of river moss and soldier’s blood. A waystation, long used by patrolling officers when the outer hills still needed watching. I too had stopped here a few times, years ago, sharing a flask with Benni while Astrid and Daen rolled dice by the firelight and argued over nothing. It looked smaller now but still sound enough. The door still stood. The roof had been patched. And someone had left a stack of kindling by the wall, dry and cut to even lengths – which meant it had been used not too long ago. I ran a finger along the inner latch and found dust. Three, maybe four days past. No more.
I turned to Mathias as he stepped inside, ducking beneath the low beam. “We’ll be safe here. The next patrol isn’t due this side of the river until midweek, and even if they come early…” I let the rest hang, watching as he moved through the space with the wary ease of someone who never quite forgot to listen. He found the corner where the bed frame still stood, bent to test its weight, then glanced back at me. I gave a small shrug. “…most of the old guard’s loyalty runs to me.”
We may all have marched beneath the Queen’s black banners, butthere were soldiers in those ranks who followed me first. Not because they were told to, but because I had bled beside them, shoulder to shoulder in the muck and roar, and earned what rank could not demand. They remembered that I had begun where they had – with blistered palms and hand-me-down steel – and that I rode at the front when it counted. That I learned their names, their griefs, and the way they held their blades. That I asked for no obedience I hadn’t once given. Those loyalties wouldn’t die easily – they were burrowed deep.
I stood a while in the threshold, my hand resting on the frame where the old wood had splintered beneath years of use, and let the shape of the place settle around me. There had been laughter here, once – the easy kind, loosened by shared wine and too little sleep. Before titles. Before command. Before the hope of what we had wanted to become had hardened into what we were allowed to be. Benni used to whistle some off-key tune while unpacking the rations, swearing they’d forgotten the good bread on purpose. Astrid always tried to sneak a second blanket before Daen inevitably handed his over without a word. Once, I’d pretended this could be enough – the patrols, the dice games, the bitter wine in tin cups, and the thought that we might steal a life from the years the Queen hadn’t yet taken. But it was never ours to keep.
Mathias had said nothing, but I knew he had been watching me. When I turned, his gaze met mine with a kind of softness that didn’t need explanation. He stepped forward, slow, and reached for my hand, his thumb grazing the inside of my wrist gently. I tipped my head toward the far corner where the old hearth sat cold and dark, covered in charred wood and soot.
“We used to come here, the four of us. When we could. Before… everything.” The words felt thinner in the air than they had in my mind. He didn’t press for more, only let our hands remain joined as he nodded once, slow and sure.
“I can see why,” he said. “It feels like a place that might remember joy, even if it no longer holds it.”
The air in the waystation was cool and musty with disuse, but the structure held, and that was all we needed. A few battered crates still lined the back wall, and between them we found an old oilcloth, curled at the corners, and a rusted kettle that Mathias inspected with a frown before setting aside. I cleared a patch of floor near the blackened hearth and lowered myself slowly, letting the weight of the ride roll from my shoulders.
“It’s a few hours’ ride if we press hard,” I said. “Less, if we risk the river path. Irongate’s not far now.”
Mathias crouched beside me, one knee to the floor, his hands working a stubborn lid of a tin pot. “Then we wait for nightfall.”
It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t answer with words – only a short tilt of my head. The moon would rise late, and the shadows would be deepest just before it came. That was the time to move.
“There’s a way through the Northern wall,” I said, running my fingers along the groove in the stone where the hearth’s mantle had once been fixed. “A narrow passage, hidden behind the watch post. I used to slip out that way as a girl, when I couldn’t bear the airs and graces of the keep – when I needed to breathe clean air without someone lording over me.” I ran my hand through my hair, undoing its braid. “We’ll use it tonight. But until then –” I gestured to the space around us, the worn stones, the battered crates, the weathered roof still holding off the sky. “We rest. Whatever waits for us in Irongate, it won’t be forgiving.”
We stripped the saddles and left the horses to graze by the riverbank, tethered just loosely enough that they’d feel the freedom but not forget the reins. The river ran cold, but I stripped down without a word and waded in, letting the shock of it carve a clean line through the dust and weariness. Mathias followed, slower, his curses half-swallowedby the current, and I laughed – not because it was funny, but because it felt good to laugh. We didn’t stay long – just enough to wash away the road and let the world narrow to rushing water, bare skin, and the warm spill of sunlight through the trees.
We ate what little we had – hard bread, dried fruit, a sliver of smoked meat each – and sat by the hearth where the sun caught in the cracks of the old stone, while a gentle fire chased away the last chill from the air and our skin. Mathias leaned back on his elbows, eyes half-lidded with contentment, and tipped his chin toward me.
“Tell me something,” he said. “From before. One of the good stories – the kind that gets better in the retelling.”
I let my head fall back, my gaze drifting up through the beams.
“Alright,” I said, the word soft with memories. “There was a night, one winter, when the pass froze over and we were stuck here for five days. Astrid tried to trap rabbits and only managed to catch her own foot in the snare. Daen bet her a week’s rations that she’d never hit the kettle from across the room with her dagger – and she split it in two on the first try. The kettle, not the dagger. Benni lost the dice pot three times in a row and accused the stones of treason. I think he slept with them under his pillow after that.” I looked over and found Mathias already smiling. “We were tired and half-starved and smelled like wet wool, but it was one of the only times it felt like… ours.”
For a while we sat like that, letting the day stretch long across the floorboards, neither of us in any rush to fill the space between. But then the stillness settled different - not uncomfortable, just heavier - and I turned back toward the hearth, watching the ash drift in the bands of light. “If this is the last breath I take in this place,” I said, not quite meaning to speak it aloud, “then I’m glad it’s this one.” I paused a moment. “With you.”
The words sat between us like something offered, not yet accepted, and when I looked at him again, his expression had softened.
“I don’t think that’s the path laid for you,” he said, quiet but sure.
I studied him, the flicker of firelight in his hair, the shadow of his jaw. “Have you seen it?” I asked. “My path. Can you see it now?”
His head tilted slightly, not in dismissal, but weariness. “It doesn’t work that way. The Sight comes when it wants. Shows what it wants.”
The echo of it was unspoken but unmistakable. I remembered his words, spoken once under broken rafters and borrowed sky. “That’s a shame,” I whispered, and this time there was something gentler in it – touched by memory. “Could’ve made things easier.”
“Yeah.” Mathias let out a dry breath, not bitter but carved by resignation. “Would’ve made a lot of things a lot easier.”
The light was falling slow now, drawn out in long gold strokes across the stone and wood, softening the harsh lines of the ruin into something almost tender. Dust turned to motes, dancing through the beams like they too wanted to linger. I felt his gaze before I turned to meet it – already on my skin, searching without demand, familiar now in the way gravity is. When I moved toward him, he didn’t reach for me, not at first. He only waited, letting the moment unfurl on its own time, like he knew it might be the last breath we took without fear pressed to our backs.
I closed the distance and sank into his lap, my knees bracketing his thighs, my hands bracing gently against his chest. For a heartbeat, we just looked at each other. Then I leaned in and kissed him – not like the first time, fierce and consuming – but slower and deeper, like I wanted to memorise the shape of his mouth, the weight of his breath, the sound he made when he felt safe enough to give himself over. His hands rose to my waist, warm and certain, and as our bodies pressed together, I felt the stir of something beneath my skin – not wild this time, not writhing or raw, but molten, anchored,alive. The fire in the hearth pulsed brighter, the old candles flickering fuller in their rusted sconces, as if the room had drawn breath with us.
He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes flicking to the ring of flame now gleaming clear around my pupils. “Beautiful,” he murmured, and I didn’t know if he meant the magic or the moment, but I let the sentiment settle in me all the same.
