At the end of the hall was a curtained doorway where Halfdan paused to say, “Wait here.” As soon as he spoke, two of the old men stood up from their seats and rested their hands on their swords. They still looked wrinkled and gray, but they stood as straight as their blades and the thick veins on their hands hinted at their strength.
“Wait for what?” Freya kept her eyes on the two older men.
“For me!” Halfdan shook his head as he pushed back the curtain. “I have to tell the queen that you’re here.”
“Can’t we just tell her ourselves?” Wren asked. “It might save time.”
Halfdan stared at her a moment. “No.” And he left.
Freya, Erik, and Wren exchanged confused looks to confirm that they all found the procedure ridiculous, and then settled into gazing dully at the two men-at-arms standing by the fire. The other men went on eating as though nothing at all had happened.
The iron door beyond the cloak room clanged and a sharp pair of boots clacked on the stone floor behind them. “What idiot brought that damn animal into the city?” The voice was high for a male, and a moment later a very young man strode into the dining hall.
Freya guessed he was just a bit older than Wren, maybe twenty winters at most, and he wore his youth proudly. His beardless cheeks were pale, his long black hair shone in the torch light, and his sealskin trousers clung to his slender legs. His short leather jacket had been dyed black and his cotton shirt was bleached bone white. His left hand rested on the silver pommel of the sword on his hip, and his knee-high boots shone with oil as he strode across the hall.
He jabbed a finger at the old guards and his voice rose with every word until he was shouting with flecks of spittle on his lips. “How hard is it to understand? You don’t let reavers into the city, you don’t let them past the walls, and you don’t put them in a cell inside the damn castle!”
Freya stepped in front of him with both hands on her knives. “That reaver is my sister.”
The youth stopped and bared his teeth in the most vicious smile she had ever seen. “Then you don’t have a sister anymore, do you?”
What? Did he kill her?
She drew both knives at once, shoving one at his throat and the other at his belly. But the youth’s long- fingered hands were faster, whipping his sword from its sheathe. He smashed her hands aside with the silver pommel and shoved the edge of blade at her neck. Freya’s eyes went wide as she saw the bright gleam of the steel vanish under her chin.
Steel clanged in her right ear, and then scraped harshly beside her head. She turned and saw Erik holding his new steel knife just above her shoulder, blocking the youth’s sword. Her husband grabbed the collar of her coat and yanked her back as he stepped forward, still holding his small knife against the long sword.
Freya glanced once at the older guards, but the two men on their feet looked bored and the four men sitting at the fire were merely watching over their shoulders as they ate.
“I don’t know your face,” the youth said. “Who the hell are you?”
Erik began to sign with his left hand.
“He’s my husband,” Freya said.
Halfdan burst through the leather curtain behind them. “Leif! Put that blade away before I use it to show you your own bowels!”
The youth called Leif shoved Erik’s knife aside and slipped his sword away. “Does the queen know about this?”
“She does now,” Halfdan said. “She wants to see them. Should I tell her that you kept her waiting?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Leif said so softly it was almost a whisper. “Let’s all go see Her Highness together.”
Chapter 8. Queen
Halfdan held back the curtain and Leif strode through first. Freya exchanged a quick nod with Erik and they followed the youth into the next room with Wren and Halfdan close behind them. They emerged from the curtains into an audience chamber half the size of the dining hall behind them. Heavy iron bars filled the windows like rusting teeth, and the cold night air swirled in with the smells of the sea. Two huge iron braziers glowed full of red coals against the walls, forcing everyone who entered to stand between the fiery blasts when they approached the throne. And as much as she knew that she should be looking at the woman on that throne, Freya couldn’t help staring at the chair itself.
It was made of wood. The legs, the seat, the arms, the back, and each little carved bird and flower and crest and bear was pure, veined, grainy, stained wood. It was brown and red and black, polished and gleaming like bright steel and yet warm and vital like Katja’s eyes.
Katja. I kicked her. I kicked her in the face.
Freya blinked and focused on the queen. She was a middle-aged woman, her dark red hair streaked with soft grays. Her eyes were lined with age and worry, and painted black. Her lips were thin and tense, and painted red. Her hands clasped the arms of her throne, displaying her black-painted nails and silver rings studded with blood-red rubies.
The rest of her body was buried in ermine, a river of white and gray fur pouring down from her shoulders to her feet, except for a sliver of milky flesh running from her smooth throat down between the hidden swells of her breasts.
Freya stood between the braziers and felt the heat rolling up the sides of her body. She bowed her head slightly. “Lady Skadi, I’m Freya Nordasdottir, a huntress from Logarven.”
“Yes,” the queen said. “Halfdan says you’ve brought your plague-bitten sister to me.”
“We did. We took her to Gudrun in Denveller first, but she couldn’t help us.” Freya glanced back at Wren. “And she died. But before she went, she told us that Skadi of Hengavik might be able to cure my sister. So here we are.”
“You went to Hengavik?” The queen nodded. “Or what’s left of it?”
“We did. There was no one there but the dead. And the bones of the giant.”
Skadi smiled a little, and then a little more. “The bones of the giant?” She shook her head. “I watched that giant fall from the sky, its flesh all afire, a trail of smoke slashed across the heavens. When it struck the ground, I thought the world itself would shatter and swallow the entire city.”
Freya nodded. “I’m sure I will enjoy hearing that tale some other time, but right now my sister is a rabid beast in a black cell underground, and she needs your help.”
“My help? You want me to cure her?” Skadi curled her fingers into fists. “Don’t you think that if I had the power to cure the plague, I would have done it by now? Do you think I would have that hideous wall casting its shadow on my city?”
Freya felt the icy resolve in her heart begin to melt, dripping down her spine with fear and doubt. “I’ve brought Wren, Gudrun’s apprentice. She has the knowledge of every vala of Denveller, to help you.”
Skadi glanced at the girl in black. “Ah, so you were her last apprentice? You have my sympathy. I had the good sense to leave when I could. I suppose you had the good fortune that Gudrun died before she destroyed too much of your life.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Wren said. “Except at the end.”
The queen nodded, and then frowned. “Logarven? Wasn’t there a vala out there as well?”
“There was,” Freya said. “She’s in your cell at this moment.”
Skadi’s brows rose in understanding. “It would seem our sisterhood has entered a rapid decline of late. And the reavers have gone as far east as Logarven. I suppose it would be asking too much to expect some good news these days.” She rubbed her forehead.
“My lady, do you know where the reavers came from?” Freya asked.
“Has Fenrir really returned?” Wren asked.
Skadi looked up and said, “Yes, I do know, and as to your question, little sister, the answer is yes. Fenrir
