Land of Fury, page 26
Brynn smiles. “Honestly, I haven’t been able to stop considering it. What an amazing gift for people who have lost all hope or think they’re alone in the world.”
Whatever my sister has gone through over the years, it’s obvious what optimism has done to her—she beams with it now—and I know that, in some way, I have the Reaper to thank for that.
My mind drifts to Brynn’s life before him. Though she’s told me little of her servitude, I know far too well what it would’ve been like for her. “I met Von Magnusson in Northhelm.” I shake my head, incensed and shouldering a sense of guilt that my sister was a slave to such scum and I could have helped her—that Estrid might still be alive if I had. “Our sister—”
“No—” Brynn grabs my arm and glares at me. She’s as feisty as I remember too, and my heart aches with happiness. “Don’t shoulder that burden, Zander. Or,” she says wryly, “should I call you huntsman?”
When I have to fight not to roll my eyes at her, she smiles slightly, then heaves out a breath. “But I’m serious,” she continues. “I’ve blamed myself plenty for the both of us. You thought we were dead. We thought you were dead. What’s in the past is done.” She stares at the ground as we continue a leisurely pace.
The wind whips through the alley, and Brynn pulls her furs up around her neck. “I’ve come to terms with it, Zander, so you have to as well.” She huffs an incredulous laugh. “Besides, look at us now? I would never have met Killian if things had been any different, and you and I—”
Brynn stops, turning to face me. She scours my face as if she still can’t believe I’m standing here, and I smile at the utter disbelief in her eyes. “Had things been different, we would not be standing here.”
I nod because it’s all I can do under the weight of so much emotion, too full of gratitude and sadness and regret to push any of it away. Somehow, after everything that’s happened, I have gotten nearly everything I’ve ever wanted in two days—Thora’s affection and forgiveness, and a sister I thought I’d lost to the fire during the queen’s raid.
“The gods play such vicious games,” Brynn whispers, and she reaches her hand to cup my cheek.
“Aye, that they do.”
The impish glint in Brynn’s eyes I remember so well suddenly returns. She playfully smacks the side of my face with her palm, then continues walking. “You are loyal to the crown we are fighting against,” she muses. “How strange is that?”
“I am loyal to the princess only,” I tell her. “She is your answer to mending this kingdom.” I point down the lane. “The tavern is this way.” We continue in silence for a moment. After spending most of the day walking and filling each other in on the missing years of our lives, it’s time to do what we set out to do—to meet Killian and Thora back at the tavern. To discuss the future of Norseland.
Brynn practically snorts as she considers something.
“Care to share?”
“Your princess is only here because she wanted to flee her own kingdom.” Brynn shrugs, shaking her head. “What a mess.”
“Yes, and now that she has seen what her mother has done to Norseland, she refuses to leave. Olaf has kept me abreast of your plans for the Reaper name, and if you truly want to expand your efforts, Brynn, you can do that with Thora.”
Her gaze darts to me. “Thora?” she says with a smirk. “I think you have feelings for the princess, brother.”
I say nothing, because it’s true. “She is what this kingdom needs, Brynn. She is the only reason I did not kill myself when the queen saved me.” I hate how true the words are, but they are genuine, and there are far too many years wasted apart to hide anything from her.
Brynn’s eyes dim with sadness.
“The princess was a bright light in the darkness, even when I was nearly burned to death. There is just something so—”
“Good about her?”
My eyes meet my sister’s. “Yes.”
Brynn nods, and I open the door to the tavern. “I felt it too, when I met her,” she says. “Though I admit, she must be made of stronger stuff than we think to have lasted this long with a mother like that.”
As we step inside, I expect to see the tavern full of patrons, and my horsemen relishing their travel break, obnoxiously drunk at the tables—their laugher booming through the entire place. But the tavern is empty, save for Sasha cleaning the bar and Killian and the princess sitting at a corner table, tankards in front of each of them. They are lost in a serious conversation, oblivious to our arrival.
Brynn and I look at each other. “It appears we missed the meeting,” she says wryly, and she weaves around the tables to join them.
Thora and Killian don’t notice us until we’re nearly stopped beside them, and finally, they glance up.
Their gazes appear as curious about our revelations today as we are about theirs.
“So,” Brynn prompts, pulling out a chair beside Killian. “What did we miss?”
I sit in the seat beside Thora as Brynn pours us both a mug of ale.
Leaning back, Killian watches the princess as she takes a sip of her drink. There’s an ease in Thora’s expression, and a prideful gleam in her eyes as she rests her hand on my thigh beneath the table, a barely-there smile curving her lips as she sets her ale down again.
My leg tingles, and I lace my fingers with hers.
“There is much to do,” Killian offers in everyone’s silence. “But we agree that there is little we can do until the queen is dead.”
“I must speak with my sister,” Thora adds, and she looks from me to Brynn. “I will make her understand. It is the abbess that is our greatest concern. We need to know everything we can about her—all that she has done.” When Thora looks at me again, I can see the wheels turning behind those bright green eyes of hers. “She must be stopped, Zander. We have to know how deep her scheming runs and who she keeps in her pockets. Who knows how many chieftains are getting coin from her in my mother’s name, and overtaxing their own people because they think it is the will of the queen.”
I nod. “In light of all we have learned about the Blood Riders, I have wondered the same thing.”
Thora’s brow twitches with unease, and her gaze darkens. “How long do you think my mother has left?” Thora’s affliction is written all over her face—the guilt she has for asking such a question, even if she has no genuine love for her mother. Or perhaps that has changed, now that she knows how misled the queen has been—how misled all of us have been.
“The queen’s health has declined significantly in the past few weeks alone,” I explain, looking at Brynn and Killian. “She thinks she hides it from me by putting color on her cheeks and around her eyes, but I know she has been seeing the physician multiple times a week, and she no longer uses iron salts, but tinctures that she goes through daily.” I look at Thora. “I would say a few months at most.”
“Well, her charade has worked,” Brynn says, “because all my life, I thought the queen was nothing less than indomitable. What, exactly, does she suffer from?”
“My grandmother had the green sickness,” Thora explains, and she looks at me. “I assume it is much the same?”
I nod. “A weakness of the blood.” Though it is not much of an answer, it is what I know and all I can give them.
“In the meantime,” Thora continues with a brittleness in her voice she pushes through. “We find out where the Blood Riders are. We need to get proof of the abbess’s design in all of this, then we go to my mother. She cannot ignore evidence like that.” Thora glances around the table. “I will not let her. And I know that once all of this comes to light, my sister will agree.”
“We have a good idea of where to start looking,” I tell them, my mind ticking off every abbey and monastery in the north alone. “I will—”
The tavern door flies open with a clatter, and Reider bounds inside, heading straight for us. “One of Ferguson’s men arrived with news from Winterwood.” He glances around the table. “The queen is dead.”
40
THORA
The hour is late as I pace my room above the tavern. The rug is threadbare and does little to stave off the cold air seeping through my stockings, but I’m too unsettled to care. Had we not needed time to secure a week’s worth of provisions to journey back to Winterwood Keep, we would already have left, and I would be on my way back home to Siggy and whatever awaits me in the wake of my mother’s death.
With each step, I struggle to untangle my feelings—my sense of relief in knowing my mother can no longer hurt me, and guilt that I am not crying tears of sadness. Instead, I’m stewing in anxious anticipation for all that will follow. Unrest and uprising throughout the kingdom? And who knows what liberties the abbess will take without my mother glaring at her with watchful, distrusting eyes. And I loathe to guess what poisonous words the abbess is whispering in my sister’s ear.
My eyes blur with tears for Siggy and how lost she must be without my mother guiding her in all things. For the struggle she will have to endure moving forward, and the fact that I’ve abandoned her.
I stare at my bed, the furs not even touched. Then at the hearth in the fireplace, the flames now only embers. Shaking my head, I tie my robe tighter around me and head for the door. I will lose my mind if I’m to pace like a caged animal until sunrise.
Opening the door, I peek into the corridor. Only a lantern, sitting on a small table, illuminates the hall. The stairs leading down to the tavern are dark, and though light flickers under some of the other doorways, it’s Zander’s I stare at.
He’s awake. I feel it in my bones, and before I tell myself it’s not proper, I realize I don’t care, and cross the hall to his room.
“Zander,” I whisper with a light rap of my knuckles. Pressing my ear to the door, I listen for him to stir. Almost immediately, the floor creaks under his steps and the latch lifts.
I straighten as he opens the door.
Zander’s blonde hair is loose, hanging down to his shoulders, and his blue eyes are shadowed with troubles. As predictably as ever, his brow furrows and his gaze shifts over me with concern. “Are you all right?” he murmurs.
“I cannot sleep,” I tell him. “I would like your company, is all.”
His jaw ticks as he battles with himself. Propriety would have him send me away, but we’re well past that.
Finally, Zander moves out of the way, opening the door for me to come in. Odin’s tail thumps from his curled form at the fire, and though his eyes meet mine, he doesn’t lift his head, only huffs and closes his eyes again.
Zander clears his throat in my silence, and my gaze shifts back to him.
“I cannot stop thinking about what happens next,” I confess, and I pace the length of his room. It’s much like mine, with a bed and fireplace against one wall and a table in front of the window across from it.
Zander pours me some wine from the jug on the table and hands it to me.
“Thank you.” I take a sip and lick my lips. Then, heaving out a sigh, I continue to pace. “This is really happening, Zander—the queen is dead. And now—” I shake my head. “I am afraid of what happens when the entire kingdom finds out.”
When I turn to pace the other direction, Zander stands a few steps from me, his expression earnest in the firelight. “You are not alone in this, princess,” he says softly. “You never were, and if you choose it—” He swallows thickly. “You never will be.”
Lightness fills me. “Because you will be with me?” I confirm, needing to hear him say the words. He knows my kingdom far better than I do. Far better than Siggy does. “Because I want to make things right, I’m just—” I shrug as I peer into his eyes, wanting nothing more than for him to tell me everything will be all right. That he has a plan for this, like he does for everything. “I will need every loyal person left. I am not a fool—my intentions mean nothing if I have no idea what I am doing, and everything is about to get worse. There is still so much I do not understand, and I will need your help—”
“And you will have it,” Zander says softly. Reaching up, he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “You have never been alone in this, Thora, even if you didn’t realize it. You have Gunhild and Reider, Fiske, Elof and Dane—you have all the horsemen. You even have the Reaper, who, as of tomorrow, leaves with more of our allies to expose the abbeys and churches in the east. They will all work alongside you to make this right.”
“And you?” I whisper. Even if I know Zander has feelings for me, I can’t help but notice he did not mention himself in that litany of allies.
Zander’s gaze shifts over my face. “I am yours, princess.” When he calls me that now, it doesn’t feel like a wall erected between us, but an endearment. “I have always been yours. And I will be yours for as long as you will have me.” He stares into my eyes, utterly sober.
My stomach somersaults and my heart skips a beat as I stare right back at him, into his tumultuous blue gaze. I can’t fathom how it’s possible that we have been at odds all these years—that I have tried so hard to forsake him. I’ve always known, in every part of my being, this is how it should’ve been. Zander and me. And yet, even with the magnetism crackling between us, he inches back the barest amount, and it feels like a chasm.
“Do you promise?” I breathe, desperate for him to come closer, not move farther away.
Zander drops his chin the barest amount, his eyes holding mine in silent confirmation.
“Then,” I say, licking my lips, “why does it feel like you are pulling away from me again?” I fist the fabric of my robe at my side, desperate to hold on to something as I anticipate his next words.
“I will not compromise you—”
“But I want to be compromised,” I urge ruefully.
Zander’s angles soften as he smiles, and my heart melts all over again. He never smiles, and it’s all I can do not to swoon.
“This is not me being rash or acting overwhelmed with all that has happened, Zander—whatever you may think. I have wanted you for as long as I can remember. Don’t you see that?”
Reluctance eclipses the surprise in his eyes, but whatever he sees in my expression seems to swiftly calm him. The furrow in Zander’s brow smooths, his chest rises and falls steadily, and then slowly, he takes the wine from my hand, sets it on the hearth, and leans in, dusting his lips over mine. It’s tender but beseeching as his mouth lingers for a moment. “Then,” Zander whispers, his breath warming my cheek, “you shall have me, princess.” He tucks another strand of my wild hair behind my ear, and as his hand falls away, he cradles the side of my face, beckoning me closer. “My sword and my heart.”
Zander’s kiss is worshipful this time. His tongue coaxes mine, and his soft lips are teasing. Even the stubble on his face brushes featherlight against my skin, sending treacherous goose bumps over my body. It’s delicious and intoxicating and I never want it to end.
The kiss in the woods was nothing compared to this. There’s no rush of adrenaline to spur us onward, no anger or bristling frustration. Only Zander and me, and a feeling of belonging I’ve never known. A lightness. A languid, chaste kiss, borne from what feels like a lifetime of waiting.
My hands move up his chest and over his shoulders, my fingers twining in his hair—it’s so silky, the feel of him so surreal, I worry this is a dream. Our hands explore one another, and our panting breaths nearly match the crackling of the fire that fills the silence of the room.
Zander’s hands move down the column of my neck, his thumb grazing the hollow above my collarbone before trailing the length of my arm. My nightclothes feel too tight against my skin, too thick and invasive as every nerve in my body thrums with yearning for his touch.
The parting of lips, the gasping of breath. The brushing of fingertips and the crescendo of urgency. Together, we are a ballad of love lost and found, and threading my fingers in Zander’s hair, I kiss him harder, pull him closer, and silently beg him to take me here and now, because I can no longer stand it.
His powerful hands skim down my sides, just grazing the tender flesh of my waist, and I moan into his kiss.
Zander’s fingers tangle in the sash knotted around me, and I expect him to untie my robe, but he grips hold of it instead, groaning as he pulls away. “I never thought it could come to this,” he murmurs, exhaling an unsteady breath. It’s almost as if he says it to himself.
Another second of hesitation passes as he looks at me, our panting breaths filling the sudden space between us. Then Zander reaches out, brushing the crook of his finger against my cheek. “I have denied myself any thoughts of you for so long—”
“Zander?” Gunhild’s voice is low and muffled on the other side of the door, and she lightly knocks.
Zander squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his forehead to mine. “Yes?” he answers reluctantly.
“We are ready. Shall we saddle the horses, or do we wait for dawn?”
Zander’s eyes open, shifting over my face. “Ready the horses,” he grits out, and I see the regret in his eyes. I nod, knowing our journey is more important than this moment between us, even if I wish the world would fall away, just this once.
The floor creaks outside the door as Gunhild leaves, and Zander and I heave out weary breaths. “Apologies, princess,” he says, claiming another kiss, more earnest this time as his muscular arms clutch my body against his.
I wrap my arms around Zander’s shoulders, grinning as I press a last kiss of my own to his lips. I feel Zander’s desire. It hums in his chest and hardens in his groin, and with a moan of my own, I pull his bottom lip between my teeth, leaving my mark for later.
Zander groans, and rising to my tiptoes, I brush my lips against his ear. “I have waited for you this long, huntsman,” I rasp. “I can wait a little longer.”
PART FOUR
41
THORA
