Fire Falling (26 page)

Even outside the market her arm still lingered around Daniel’s. The night chill was setting in and he was familiar and warm. Vhalla smiled, fussing with the dagger strapped to her left arm.

“It doesn’t work as a concealed weapon if you’re showing people it’s there,” Daniel scolded with a grin.

“You’re right, I suppose,” she agreed with a laugh. He hadn’t touched the new dagger strapped to his calf for hours.

They strolled through the market and back to the central square, where the East-West Way met the Great Imperial Way. Firebearers walked about lighting the lamps, and Vhalla found it amazing to see a society that had sorcerers so integrated in helpful ways. She smiled, eyes following one in particular for no reason. He moved to a building with large circular stained glass. Vhalla paused shifting her bag on her shoulder.

It was a bad idea.
She was having another moment where she needed to admit it, and stop herself. Vhalla took a breath. “I—” She paused, glancing between Daniel and the building. “I need to make a quick stop. The inn is right over there. You can go ahead.”

“No, I’m not letting you walk alone in the Crossroads at night,” he said definitively. “It can be dangerous.”

“Very well,” she sighed softly. “Then wait out here for me?”

“That, I can do.” There was apprehension locked in his eyes, but Daniel kept it away from his tongue and spared her comment.

Vhalla took a breath and summoned her courage, walking to the front doors. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see Aldrik again.
Wasn’t she mad at him?
But at the root of all her conflicting feelings was the need to see him, to say what needed to be said: the truth.

Soft music, a Southern sound, played from one of the rooms off the main lobby. Vhalla looked uncertainly at the shut doors and opulent parlors. A man cleared his throat from behind the front desk.

“I have a delivery for the Crown Prince,” Vhalla announced.

The older man folded his bony fingers and regarded her skeptically. “What could you possibly have?”

“I’m the Windwalker,” she declared, attempting to use credentials to dodge the question.

“That is most excellent, and what is so important that he would not leave word?”

Deflated that her approach hadn’t worked, she lost her resolve and mumbled, “He ... We have work to do ... for the Emperor.”

“I’m sure ...” The man didn’t believe her in the slightest. “Unfortunately the prince has explicitly asked not to be disturbed. Do take care.”

Vhalla sighed softly, resigned.

“Vhalla?” Prince Baldair stopped in a hallway joining the lobby with other rooms, walking over to her. “What’re you doing here?”

“My prince, I was just leaving.” Vhalla keenly remembered the last time she and Prince Baldair had spoken.

“She was asking to see the crown prince,” the treacherous clerk informed.

“Vhalla.” The golden prince frowned, glancing at the man and thinking better of continuing. “I’ll take her there myself.”

“You will?” Vhalla and the desk man said in unison.

“He’s shut himself up; I’ve not seen him once. Company is a good thing, no?” Baldair placed his hand on the small of her back and practically pushed her up a wide staircase.

“You’re really taking me to see him?” Vhalla asked as they reached the second floor landing.

“Of course not, but I am going to ask you what you think you’re doing here.” In private, the prince dropped all decorum.

“It’s nothing important,” Vhalla muttered. She was already second guessing her mission.

“I thought I told you to stay away.” Baldair frowned.

“It’s not your business.” Vhalla pulled the bag of candy from her pack. “And I also wanted to give him these.”

“Lemon peels?” Prince Baldair recognized the sweet shop’s marking. “Vhalla ...” he sighed. “I don’t know what kind of relationship you think you can have with my brother—”

“I don’t want one,” she said defensively. The words crossed her lips before Vhalla could think about them, fueled by spite.

“No, you do. He has you under his spell,” the golden haired prince insisted.

“What are you talking about?” Vhalla took a step away.

“Why else would anyone want my brother?”

He caught her wrist as she tried to leave. “Let me go.”

“I’m trying to help you.” Somehow, Prince Baldair managed to sound sincere.

“Let me go!” Vhalla tugged against his firm grip.

“What is all this commotion?” a voice called from the end of the hall. Vhalla’s blood turned to ice in her veins. Elecia, in a loose sleeping tunic and nothing else, stood barefoot and groggy eyed. She yawned as she came closer. “
Vhalla
? What are
you
doing here?”

“Nothing!” Vhalla said, trying to make a hasty retreat. “I’m trying to leave right now.” She clutched the lemon peels to her chest and tried to turn, but Prince Baldair still held her wrist.

“You’re still in there? At this hour?” Prince Baldair’s surprise at the sight of Elecia caused him to ignore Vhalla’s tugs against his grip.

“Baldair, quit being an ass-face, take the girl, and go,” Elecia snapped. She seemed exhausted and worn thin. Somehow even her hair seemed less fluffy than normal.

“Just what have you two been doing all this time?” Prince Baldair inquired.

“Can your curiosity be satiated solo?” Vhalla asked weakly, still attempting to leave.

“Brother, by the Mother, I swear ...” A low voice, rough sounding, as though it hurt to speak—yet still very clearly annoyed—came from the back of the hall. Elecia turned and sprinted back to Aldrik.

“You need to go back to bed.” The other woman stood in front of him, a dark-skinned palm contrasting with the pale skin of his bare chest.

Vhalla’s eyes widened as she took them in. Elecia barely dressed, tired, her hair a mess. Aldrik looked as close to sleep as she’d ever seen him—and half-dressed. His pale, well-sculpted chest brought a hot flush to her cheeks. Aldrik didn’t just tolerate the contact; he didn’t seem to mind Elecia’s proximity, her touch. He moved his hand to place it on the other woman’s shoulder.

The bag of lemon peels slipped from Vhalla’s hand and dropped to the floor.

The noise of the bag dropping and the candy scattering silenced all parties involved. Aldrik’s eyes were the last to find Vhalla but they met hers with a mix of surprise and confusion. Vhalla took a quivering breath.

There was nothing to say. The silence stretched another painful minute. Just before it was about to break she turned on her heels, wrenched her hand from Prince Baldair’s slack grip, and sprinted.

Vhalla ran down the stairs, out the doors, and into the square. She tilted her head back and took a deep breath. The cool air hitting her lungs made her choke, and Vhalla doubled over. The sobs had already started. She pressed her eyes closed and felt her whole body trembling.

A pair of hands tentatively placed themselves on her shoulders, hovering a moment before making contact.

“Vhalla,” Daniel whispered.

She spun. Her cheeks soaked with her barely-silenced crying. “I told you, I am the queen of bad ideas.” Vhalla tried a smile that was quickly consumed by the tears.

Daniel pulled her to him and wrapped his arms gently around her shoulders. He whispered soothing words into the crown of her head and held her. Vhalla pressed her face into his chest, clutching his shirt. She felt her knees give out.

Daniel supported her. He held her, saying nothing, asking nothing, as she sobbed. Vhalla didn’t care who saw her. Behind her eyes was the singular image of Aldrik and another woman. A woman whom she knew had been in the palace for some time, of some noble birth if every suspicion was correct. They were both adults, of the right age, and of the right breeding. They were together, interrupted from
something
, in the night. She thought of his bare chest and it stirred something within Vhalla, which only made her weep more.

Vhalla clutched Daniel as though his arms were the last thing holding her sanity together.

T
HE SUN WAS
setting over the rooftops of the Crossroads. Vhalla raised her hands to his face. Aldrik leaned into her, took them in his, and kissed her palms lightly. She whispered to him and he whispered back, the words which she had been longing to hear. She shifted closer to him, his lips parted.

Then Vhalla was only watching, Elecia’s beautifully long fingers were across the pale of his face. They leaned closer, and Vhalla let out a cry.

She gasped in the night air, waking with a start. Vhalla looked around frantically, remembering where she was. Daniel was fast asleep in the chair Larel had previously occupied. The Westerner and Fritz were still out eating dinner, oblivious to Vhalla’s shattering world, and Daniel had refused to leave her alone. Vhalla collapsed back onto her pillow, forcing her eyes closed.

The next time, her hands were his. The fingertips ran over a shadowed face in the dark. She couldn’t make out the features but Vhalla knew they were not her own.
Were they Elecia’s?
Her mind wandered while trapped in the prison of the dream. Her heart beat fast and she felt blood shifting its attention. There was a carnal desire it wanted to attend to.

Vhalla rolled over and opened her eyes, staring blankly at the wall. She whimpered softly and pulled the blankets over her head.

She ran through streets of fire and death. The bodies were already mutilated, their battered limbs and shattered skulls littering the ground. Vhalla sprinted through the streets, through the shadow people. Tonight, tonight she would be fast enough, her feet told her, and she allowed the wind to pick up beneath her.

Vhalla came to a skidding halt before the demolished building and she tore at the debris. Each rock that moved made her heart beat a little faster. Eventually she saw a face beneath the rubble. Vhalla paused;
he
wasn’t supposed to be there. She tore away the remaining remnants and took Aldrik’s body into her arms, weeping.

She awoke for a third time, and then a fourth and a fifth. Her mind was too heavily armed with the stuff of nightmares. Daniel was gone, and she heard talking muffled through the door. Vhalla instantly recognized one voice as Larel’s and waited for the other woman to slip silently into the room.

“Larel,” she whispered weakly, feeling the bed shift to accommodate the new person.

“What happened?” Larel ran her hands through Vhalla’s hair lovingly.

“Aldrik—” Vhalla choked on his name. “He and Elecia ... they ...”

“They what?” Larel coaxed gently.

Vhalla recounted the events from earlier in the evening, and Larel listened dutifully. She said nothing, good or bad, absorbing the whole story. Vhalla broke down again when she retold the moment of seeing Elecia and Aldrik together.

“I know she’s noble. The way she acts around him, the way she calls him by his name ... There’s something there, Larel. I just—I didn’t want to see it.” Vhalla sniffled loudly.

“She is,” Larel said softly.

“She is what?” Vhalla rubbed her eyes.

“She’s noble,” Larel confirmed.

“What?” Vhalla stilled. “How can you be certain?”

Larel sighed and averted her eyes. Whatever she was about to say Vhalla knew she wouldn’t like. “She didn’t start coming around until he was older. During the few years we were very distant from each other. He spent a lot of time with her, when she was around. I didn’t remember until I heard the reception for her here in the Crossroads. She’s a Ci’Dan, a noble family from the West with ties to the crown. I never really studied history—that’s Fritz’s area—but I always assumed she was a potential bride, given his age when she appeared.”

“You knew.” Betrayal was a hot poison. “
You knew and you didn’t tell me?
”

“Vhalla, listen,” Larel demanded, pinning her to the bed with an arm. “
Listen
.”

Vhalla stopped fighting, but that didn’t stop the anger pulsing through her veins. The world was out to lie and cheat her; maybe Prince Baldair was right.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t believe—I still don’t believe—that you have anything to worry about.”

“How can you say that? She’s a noble woman, she’s known him for years—
I saw them together
!”

“Hush.” Larel tried to calm Vhalla’s hysterics. “When you are together, Aldrik looks for you, only for you.”

“He spent a lot of time with her.”

“He did,” Larel conceded. “But he never looked at her the way he looks at you. He never reached for her the way he reaches for you. Vhalla, Aldrik cares for you deeply, I know he does.”

“You don’t know anything,” Vhalla mumbled.

Larel just sighed and rubbed Vhalla’s back as the younger woman cried softly.

Vhalla was shocked later when a messenger brought her an Imperial summons. It was a tri-folded card sealed with the blazing sun of the Empire in black wax.

“Are you going to open it?” Larel asked after Vhalla’s tenth lap of the room.

“I will,” she said with false confidence.

“Today?” Larel had the audacity to tease her.

Vhalla shot the other woman a glare, and Larel was only moderately apologetic. The Westerner hadn’t changed her tune that Aldrik had no interest in Elecia.