Fire and Lies (10 page)

“Can I safely assume the execution is canceled?” Bergen smirked and pushed himself off the wall.

“Assume it,” Rune said.

“Ottar won’t be happy.”

“I don’t care what Ottar wants.”

Bergen shrugged. “I’m not happy.”

“If you have something to say, then get on with it,” said Rune.

With a sigh, Bergen dropped himself into the chair across from Rune.

“You want her,” Bergen said.

Rune frowned. “No, I don’t.”

“You haven’t left her side in two days. You had Torunn house her in Mother’s bower and you protected her by appointing her as your vassal when Ottar did what Ottar does.”

“I wasn’t protecting her,” Rune said, looking up from the basin. “I was protecting Ottar.”

“Oh…” Bergen bobbed his head. “So it was Ottar you were looking out for.”

“Yes,” Rune said, throwing the soap into the basin and taking up the towel on the floor. Bergen pulled his chair around, closing the space between him and his brother.

“You took a broken nose from her and kept her alive.”

“You don’t know what she can do,” Rune said.

“Don’t I?” Bergen asked making a gesture that drew Rune’s attention to the scar on Bergen’s right brow.

Bergen leaned closer and lowered his voice.

“Geirolf is right. You can have her in the dungeons as easily as the north bower. Hel, you could have had her last night when she was practically riding your dragon in her sleep!”

Rune snapped his head up with full attention.

“What?” Rune asked.

“But you don’t want her…” Bergen leaned back in his chair, knowing he had him.

“I don’t,” Rune insisted, pulling on a fresh pair of boots.

“Oh, all right.” Bergen rolled his eyes at the denial, exhausted with this back and forth. “You don’t want her,” Bergen mumbled. “Hel, I want her.”

“Don’t!” Rune said.

Bergen raised a brow as if Rune’s protest was sufficient evidence for his case.

“I don’t want her, Bergen,” said Rune as he finished tying the laces and dropped his foot to the floor.

“Then you don’t mind if I help myself,” Bergen said. Rune rose to his feet and threw Bergen a bored look.

“She is attractive,” Bergen mused. “Nice hips.”

“Back off, Bergen.”

“I’m just saying—”

“So am I!” Rune said.

“Alright, alright,” Bergen surrendered, throwing his hand up. “She’s all yours.”

“No,” Rune said. “Not mine. Just not yours.”

“Right,” Bergen said, not believing Rune for a moment. “You want to grab a mead? Geirolf just finished a fresh batch.”

“Some other time,” Rune said. “Right now, I have to stop my guest from escaping.”

Rune sprinted into his sitting room and to the pair of double doors that led to the corridor outside his chambers.

“Oh,” Bergen exclaimed, wide-eyed as understanding dawned on him and the smile fell from his face.

Pausing, Rune sighed with his hand resting on the door handle.

“What?” Rune turned back to Bergen.

“You don’t
want
her,” Bergen said. “You
like
her.”

“I don’t,” Rune denied. 

“Right. You don’t,” Bergen said. “When are you going to tell Geirolf and Torunn about that thing inside of you?”

With a wave that dismissed Bergen’s question, Rune stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him.

“Too desperate to see how desperate he looks,” Bergen mumbled and began thumbing through the wide variety of Rune’s mead supply.

T
orunn had done exactly as ordered, but no more. Mid-way down the upstairs hall, the key keeper swept Kallan into a large collection of rooms. There, the servants were already at work building a fire within the hearth.

In the bedchamber opposite the hearth, servants bustled about, preparing a bath with rose-scented water and oils. Kallan scanned her chambers, taking in the fur-laden bed, the fine, blue pitchers and basins tucked between candles that had been scattered strategically. Bed tables, chests, and wardrobes intricately carved from rich oak added a luxury she had not expected.

Across from the hall entrance, a pair of double doors fitted with stained glass opened to a solar filled with vegetation that encompassed a table and chairs. That room spanned the entire west wall of the bower, including nearly half the bedroom. Overall, the chambers had been lavishly decorated with the best Gunir could offer, leaving her curious as to why such a room had been given to her at all.

By the time the servants stripped Kallan of her clothes, the fire crackled and filled the sitting room with warm orange light. As one maiden whisked the bundle of soiled and tattered clothes away, others assisted Kallan with her bath. They stoked the fire and lit the candles. With her head down and mouth closed, Kallan sat while one of the servants scrubbed the filth from her back.

Kallan’s pale skin breathed free from the mud and wear from her journey, but the bitter unwelcome and cold gestures from Torunn’s servants left her nerves as raw as her feet.

The servants aggressively lathered Kallan in lotions. They shoved and pinched her into a russet gown ornamented with gold embroidery. They pulled the knots from her hair with a cold hate that left Kallan aching for solitude.

Where is Rune?
she almost asked repeatedly. The thought always followed with a hollow hurt. The servants finished their chores with a systematic chill that abruptly ended with the metallic click of the chamber door. Alone, Kallan stood, plagued with the animosity Rune would never be able to order away. More than ever, she longed for Lorlenalin.

She dared a step, and winced against the pain inflicted by her journey. Kallan gazed at a vast tapestry hanging over the bed.

An image of Freyr and his golden boar, Gullinbursti, stared down at her with the same cold hate as the Ljosalfar servants.

Even their gods gaze down at me with disdain.

A silver sword with black pearls embedded into its onyx hilt hung from Freyr’s side. As if condemning her presence there in Gunir, the god glowered, hating her, damning her with his golden eyes.

So much like Gudrun’s
, she thought.

Kallan held her attention slightly longer than expected before pulling her mind from the needlework. She shoved aside the silent protests made by her stiff joints and moved to the solar.

Windows fitted with blue and green glass brought from the Southern Deserts lined the solar wall, drawing Kallan’s curiosity. The sun had started to set, throwing a barrage of pinks and oranges over the city. But the light that poured into the solar cast greens and blues across dianthus, hellebore, and blue anemone. Marble and soapstone pots overflowed with ferns, foliage, and vines of ivy.

Kallan glimpsed through a green pane of glass and peered to her right. The barracks hummed with distant laughter. The battlement on all sides made it difficult at best to see the river where only a handful of houses were visible over the wall that locked her in.

In less than a moment, she had decided to escape.

Her skirts rustled against the floor and hid her bare feet as she made her way to the sitting room where a table lavished with trays of fruits and meats awaited her. Her stomach clenched with pain, but she refused the food of her enemy.

Holding her breath, Kallan clasped the handle of the double doors and, much to her surpise, pushed the door open. Kallan poked her head into the corridor, glared at Rune staring from his chair across the hall, and slammed the door with a curse.

Wringing her hands, she whisked herself into the bedchamber, eager for the next plan of action. She stopped when she saw the open window and dared to look down the side of the castle and assess the straight drop to the stone courtyard below. She could scale it easily enough if she had a certain spell tucked with her pouch.

At once, she searched the rooms. Scrambling, she looked about as her mind raced through the chain of events that landed her there in the Ljosalfar’s keep, dressed in their clothes, defenseless, starved, and alone.

Kallan stopped.

Slowly, she turned to the sitting room door, rejuvenated with a fresh wave of loathing toward the one thing that brought her there. She shook with a sudden awareness of every agonizing moment since he carried her away from her beloved city. Her memory sharpened with aggression on every minute detail from the night before, and Kallan waited.

The door creaked open.

The hall’s light poured in through the slit followed by Rune’s head, unaware of the demon that lurked in the shadows. Stepping into the room, he leaned against the door, closing it behind him, and shifted his eyes to the right as Kallan slammed her hand into his face. Grasping the side of his head, Rune stumbled, barely catching himself from falling. Already the raised flesh formed to Kallan’s handprint.

With her body sleek in russets and gold, Kallan towered with a rage Rune hadn’t seen since he told her there were no boats in Nidaros. At once, he was overly conscious that he had entered the Seidkona’s lair unarmed.

“What was that for?” he asked.

Kallan tightened her hands into little white balls. She heaved and shook with a wrath she fought to hold back.

“For kissing me,” said Kallan. “And for you.”

Rune rubbed his face. “Me? When?”

“You! All of this! This is your fault!” Kallan’s voice filled the bower. “I had helped you! I was letting you go! Even offered you a horse! I’ve done nothing to you and you—!”

“You ordered me beheaded!” Rune said, throwing back his shoulders and welcoming the deluge of anger Kallan finally unleashed.

“You deserved it!”

“It’s my
head
!”

“You didn’t seem to be using it!”

Both sharply exhaled as they showered each other with loathing.

“You kissed me!” Kallan said, finding more fight in her.

Rune smirked, his anger ebbing. “You deserved it.”

Kallan gave a girlish growl and threw her hands to the air.

“Why does everything have to be so difficult with you?” she asked. “Time and again you drag me back, despite my incessant order to release me! You follow me, bug me, harass me, hound me…” Kallan huffed. “And then you kiss me! But you never admit your real intent! Instead, you lavish me with insult, degradation, and humiliation! Don’t you smile at me! Always keeping five steps away from me! If you hate me so then be done with me!”

Her accusation wiped the humor from his face.

“I’ve tried talking to you,” he began coolly. “I’ve proven my fealty countless times and still you doubt my intentions.”

“You can’t expect me to believe you went through all your efforts in Midgard to win me over as an ally,” said Kallan.

“No. Not an ally,” Rune said.

Kallan huffed.

“To prove to you that I am serious about putting a stop to this war,” he said. “That is all I have ever wanted.”

“Then why did you kiss me?” Kallan asked, searching his face for lies.

“Because, Kallan,” Rune said, “it is the only time you allow yourself to feel anything at all.”

“Don’t pretend you kno—”

“You’re so quick to abandon your emotions, you can’t feel anything anymore! You use this war to hide within your city while you push everything around you away!”

“Stop it,” she said.

“You wallow so deeply in your grievances that you’re blinded by the traitors in your own precious pearl…you and your flawless pearl! You’re so quick to blame me for the death of your father that you fail to see the murderers manipulating you from Lorlenalin’s shadows!”

Kallan raised her hand to strike, but Rune caught her wrist mid-swing.

“No, Kallan. I kissed you because it was the time you are ever sensible.”

With a jerk, he released her wrist and walked toward the door.

“Sensible!” Kallan shrieked, following on his heel. “When should I be sensible? When you dragged me from Lorlenalin, while I was starved, drugged, and beaten by the Dvergar? Or when I was drowned in the lake?”

“And I got you out every time!” Rune said, turning on her. 

“It was the least you could do for abducting me!”

“To ensure you lived!”

“By dragging me from the children?” Kallan said. “From Eilif and Daggon? From the only place where I was safe?”

Kallan stomped into the solar, hugging herself against the absent chill. Tears swelled in her eyes as she stared through the green glass over the city to the river.

With a sigh, Rune followed Kallan into the solar.

“Bergen brought them from the deserts,” Rune said, pointing to the colored glass.

Kallan made no movement that she heard him or cared.

“The children,” he said. “You speak of them often. Who are they?”

“Orphans,” Kallan answered.

“War orphans,” Rune said. “Like you?”

A tear slipped down her cheek.

“And without you, they have no one,” Rune said.

Kallan kept her eyes on the horizon.

“You have no proof Lorlenalin was safe,” he said.

“You have no proof it wasn’t,” she said, pulling herself from the window to face him.

Rune shrugged. “There is Borg.”

“Who is Borg?”

With furrowed brow, Rune cocked his head in hesitation.

“How many times have you sent a request for negotiations to Gunir?” Rune asked. His change in temperament coerced her cooperation.

“Countless,” she said.

“Who did you send?” His tone was gentle.

“I told you once. Aaric, my high marshal, oversees negotions between Lorlenalin and Gunir.”

Rune shook his head. “No one from Lorlenalin has ever presented anything stamped with your seal.”

The shadow in his eyes left no doubt to his claim. Bewildered, Kallan paused in search of an explanation that didn’t come.

“Did you ever actually see Aaric leave with your orders?” he asked.

“Every time,” she said, locking her gaze onto his.

Rune exhaled long and slow.

“Who is Borg?” Kallan asked, unable to ignore the knot in her throat.

“A Dokkalfr,” he said. “We assumed a member of your court.”

Kallan felt her face drain of color.

“For nearly a century, he has informed us of every move you make,” Rune said. “Moves only those within your court would know. He reports to my scout, Joren. Borg has spoken to no other.”

Kallan paused to search her memory again through centuries of faces, of names, and records. Slowly, she shook her head. “There is no Borg in my court.”

When Rune sighed, Kallan pressed, “And you propose he’s working with Aaric?”

“It is a possibility we must consider,” he said. “All we know is that you have given Aaric countless orders bearing peace, and we have only ever met Borg who provides us with information needed to act defensively.”

Kallan gave a short pshaw, but Rune wasn’t ready to back down.

“Joren has been sent with signed requests for negotiations as many times as you’ve sent those messages to us through Aaric,” he said. “And not one message has ever been received.”

Kallan snapped around, mouth open to protest.

“Ever,” Rune cut off her interruption. “By either of us. Now, either Joren failed to deliver those messages, or someone intercepted those messages to you. Either way, someone in Lorlenalin has betrayed you.”

“Perhaps it is Joren who—”

“There is a chance Aaric hired Borg,” Rune continued as if Kallan hadn’t spoken. “How else would someone, not belonging to your court, be privy to that information?”