Before Jessa can land another hit, Astrid pulls a vial from her belt and smashes it against her defensive shields. The air around Jessa fizzes as the destabilizing solution gets to work; and before Jessa realizes what’s happening, Astrid is spraying another vial across her face. The dazing draught takes hold and Jessa sways, stumbles. Astrid feints left before aiming a right hook at her jaw, knocking her to the ground. Jessa lands on her back, hitting the dirt with awhomp. Before Jessa can block her, Astrid pins her, drawing a claw and placing the dagger at her throat. Jessa blinks up at her in shock.
“Casting isn’t everything, you know.” Astrid grins at Jessa.
One second she’s smiling down at her friend, the next she’s being thrown through the air, crashing against a rack of weaponry. Her shield absorbs most of the impact, then fails completely, and she falls to her knees, winded. Again.
Jessa strolls over to her, shit-eating grin on her face. “Casting iseverything. That shield just stopped me shattering your spine. Now get up. Let’s call it a day. I’m sweating like a pig on a spit.”
Astrid takes the offered hand, barely mustering a laugh. “You smell like a pig on a spit.”
“Quincy will be pleased at least.” Jessa slaps Astrid on the back. “Don’t look so crestfallen. Take the win, okay? That shield was strong. It’s progress.”
“If you say so.” Astrid sounds sulky, she knows, but the heat, the aches, that image of her father, the adjustment to whatever this link is to Skylar—it’s all weighing heavily on her and she just wants to sleep. It’s been a weird couple of days since the Blood Binding. She snorts. As if her entire life hasn’t been weird when the duel has been her fate.
“What are you snorting at?” Jessa asks. She passes Astrid a bottle of water as they leave the training ground, greeting Fionn, Arboria, and Quincy, who have been standing guard at the entrance. Bastet, against his own wishes, remained in her room, given the Vatrans still don’t know about him.
“Thinking how nice it is to be able to wander the grounds of the castle without the fear of someone trying to kill me.”
“You might be blood bound, but you can’t be complacent, do you hear me? You don’t go anywhere without a guard, your vials, or your pendant.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Jessa shoots her a look that tells Astrid she sees right through her. Astrid hopes the flush she feels creeping along her chest isn’t obvious; she hasn’t told Jessa about her midnight foray to the library—she’d kill Astrid herself if she knew—and, yes, it was stupid, colossally so, given she found nothing of use there and bumped into the prince. At least the trip to the gardens was worth it. Astrid has been able to brew a new batch of her tincture. She takes a sip now, just to level herself. It’ll be a couple of days before it starts to work in earnest, but it’s stillhelping, despite the side effects it brings. She could live without the nausea.
They find her mum waiting for them just outside the main doors to the castle, Bjorn prostrate next to her as he suffers in the heat. Quincy whines in sympathy.
“What are you doing down here? I thought you’d be at dinner,” Astrid asks, kissing her mum on the cheek.
“Postponed. The king had to deal with something urgent.”
“How did it go today?” The queen has spent the day in “diplomatic discussions.”
Her mum purses her lips. “The denials are still coming thick and fast, but the queen at least has suggested they will ‘conduct an investigation’ to see if the Heart is somehow linked to the Blight. As if they don’t already know what’s going on, but then, perhaps she doesn’t. He’s not exactly a progressive, Zachary.”
“Any news from back home?” Astrid says.
Gwen scrubs at her face. “Torrential rainfall in the Flatlands. We’ve got the Ulvene moving in to help with evacuations because the whole area is a massive flood risk, but we’re talking thousands of people.”
Jessa tenses beside her. Astrid feels so powerless, even knowing she’s doing what she can to make this right. “I’m so sorry,” she says. What else can she say?
“Me, too. But we’re doing everything we can to help. It’ll be okay.” Her mum links her arm in Astrid’s and guides her inside, Jessa relieving Fionn from guard duty before following with the familiars. “How was training?”
“Pretty good, actually,” Astrid says, even if she doesn’t fully believe it. She doesn’t want to add to those worry lines on her mother’s forehead. “Mum? Itisgoing to be okay. I’ll make sure of it.” And she will. She’ll win the duel and bring the Heart back to Arturea—she will be a descendant worthy of Nyx. Or try to be, anyway.
Thinking of Nyx reminds her of the tapestry, of those strange details. “Did you know Nyx had a mate?”
Her mum frowns at the abrupt change in subject. “He didn’t. He and Kira weren’t mated.”
“No. No, I didn’t think they were.” She supposes it might not betrue; one tapestry showing him with a mate mark does not a robust historical fact make.
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Nowhere—just something I saw. A tapestry around the castle,” she adds at her mum’s quizzical look.
“Oh? I’d like to see that.”
There’s not a chance in Hel she’s going to tell her mother where it is. “I can’t even remember where I saw it—everything has been such a blur. He had a wand in it, too.”
“Did he really?” Gwen is very interested in that. “I’ve not heard of that before, either.”
