Pain radiated through my temple. “What am I supposed to do now?!”
“Explore the castle,” she said, waving me off. The court dispersed, going back to their duties, as if this were some kind of halftime performance.
“You can’t do that!” I called after her, but she had already disappeared into the belly of the castle.
“She’s the Queen of the Huldufólk,” Freyja purred, swinging in front of me so she could walk backwards and talk. “She can do whatever she wants.”
“Where are you going?” I huffed.
“I’m going to spar.”
Uh, I most definitely wouldn’t be doing that. Not that she invited me, anyways. “Where did Gunnar go?”
“Huh.” With a sly grin, she tilted her head. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“What? No, that’s not—” I hadn’t meant it like that. I slid my pointer and thumb across my brows, the pressure building behind my eyes.
And just like that, between one heartbeat and the next, I was alone.
Well, at least I wasn’t sentenced to my rooms as if they were a jail cell. Might be worth checking on Eldi, though.
“Got yourself in a pickle, there?”
I glanced up.
His eyes struck me first: a glacial blue, almost translucent. The rest of him was just as shockingly beautiful it hurt to look at him—and that wasn’t just from the overstimulation of using my Source.
“Who are you?” I didn’t mean to come off so exasperated, but I really was not in the mood for small talk. I needed peace, quiet—not some dude leaning against the archway, arms crossed, chiseling out lean lines in his forearms.
“Flóki.” He slowly spun a dagger between his fingers, the sharp tip indenting his skin. “That was quite a show.”
“Show?” I scoffed. “That wasn’t for entertainment purposes.”
With a twitch of his lips, he ran his thumb along his blade. “Whatever it was, we needed it around here.”
“What?”
“Magic.”
I peered at him closer then: pointy ears, towering frame. He was elven. Wisps of dark ink marked his lotus-white skin, a vivid contrast of dark and light. A chill ran down my spine, either from the temperature or the intense way he tracked my movements.
“Don’t you have Galdur?” Pushing off the railing, I did my best to trot across the balcony and into the vaulted hall on my rubbery legs.
“Wait! Do you know where you’re going?” He propelled himself after me, matching my strides. “Let me be your tour guide. It’s River, right?”
Well, he had two things correct: I had absolutely no idea where I was going, and I could only assume he knew my name because every servant, soldier, and subject was spreading it like wildfire.
Shooting him a quick glance, I kept my pace, too proud to slow down. “So, are you an Eye, too?”
He nodded, the silver hoops puncturing his cartilage glistening in the light. “Stationed in the highlands. They brought me here for Haustgildi.”
He gently steered me around a corner, clearly knowing where we were going.
I stared down at where his hand met my shoulder, the rings digging into my flesh, my brows coming together until he lifted it. “Haustgildi,” I repeated, doing my best not to butcher the term. “What’s that?”
“The annual harvest festival.” Now with a deathly cold palm grazing my lower back, he guided me down a spiral staircase. I didn’t bother to shrug him off—exhaustion was seeping into my bones, turning the whole world fuzzy. “Well, technically it’s meant to be a yearly thing, but we haven’t had one in decades. Maybe Hildur is showing off for you.”
It surprised me to hear him drop her name so casually. Addressing a royal by their title was a sign of respect—all the elves did it, even ones super chummy with her, like Gunnar.
