Vhalla snorted.
“So is that,” Elecia laughed. “You’d think you’ve never been to a finishing class in your life.” Vhalla rolled her eyes at the face Elecia made. “Now, I am tired; snuff the light and let me sleep.”
“But of course, Lady Ci’Dan,” Vhalla proclaimed with dramatic flair, obliging the request.
“Lady Ci’Dan, don’t you forget it,” Elecia murmured. “For I expect to be appointed the next Lady of the West for my service when this is all over.”
“Deal,” Vhalla replied easily and honestly.
For the next two nights, Vhalla and Elecia shared a bed. On the third, they were able to find an inn, and Vhalla relished being in Aldrik’s arms once more. Elecia wasn’t a bad bedmate; in fact, Vhalla was beginning to enjoy the woman’s company more with each passing day.
But nothing was better than the feeling of Aldrik’s breath on her skin, the way he moved, the way he whispered in the dark. Vhalla relished it all. It was one of the many things that reaffirmed she had made the right decision—to stay with the man she loved—in spite of the chaos in the world around her.
It was easier with each passing day to stand gracefully at his side as he introduced them as a couple. Grabbing her stomach to try to quell the butterflies was still a regular occurrence, but it happened less and less. It was all practice for a new life, she reminded herself, one that would begin in Norin.
“It’s been a pleasure to have you this evening,” a lord praised them after dinner one night over drinks. Aldrik had reluctantly accepted a glass out of pure etiquette. Though he hadn’t touched it after the obligatory sip with the lord’s toast to them, his eyes did dart to the glass from time to time in silent debate.
“I knew the day you came out to the Southern Court that you were destined for greatness. I think we all did.”
She smiled as he lied through his teeth. “Is that so?”
“You had such natural grace and elegance, born of the Empire. Only fitting for you to be with our Emperor over that Northern girl.”
“I stand by what I said then. This Empire would have been lucky to have someone like Princess Sehra as its Empress.” Vhalla was not going to tolerate any animosity between the regions. An Empire of peace; she wouldn’t lose sight of that dream as long as she drew breath.
“Of course.” The lord clearly was not equipped with the eloquence to reply to Vhalla’s praise of Aldrik’s former betrothed.
Aldrik brought his lips together in a small smile, enjoying the lord’s struggle at Vhalla’s words. As Vhalla became more adept at navigating nobility, she began to play small games alongside Aldrik. She didn’t think she’d quite reached puppet master status, but she certainly was improving.
“I hear you have plans to wed in Norin. Quite exciting.”
“I am looking forward to making our love official.” Aldrik squeezed Vhalla’s hand lightly.
Vhalla gave him a small smile. He’d invited her to speak any objections she had to wedding in Norin, but Vhalla had never said a word. Everything had been in such turmoil before their escape from the East that she hadn’t had much time to think on it. By the time she could, it had already cemented in her mind as fact.
“The other lords and ladies I keep in correspondence with are also surprised that you will marry before reclaiming your throne.”
Aldrik obliged the lord, answering his unspoken question. “When I return South, it is to reclaim the home of my forefathers and present my bride with her future home. The Empire Solaris is strong still. Why wait to lay the foundation of the future?”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” The lord seemed satisfied with the answer, and Vhalla wondered how much of the ways of nobility, ways that had led Aldrik to deciding to wed in Norin, she didn’t understand. “While I realize that the Imperial chapel in the capital may be the preferred place for the ceremony, I am looking forward to a Western wedding. Perhaps a new tradition?” he mused aloud. “Our late princess had her wedding to the Emperor in Norin as well.”
Vhalla stole a look at Aldrik. His face betrayed no change in emotion, but she could almost physically feel him withdraw at the mention of his late mother. Vhalla put her glass down on the table, hardly touched out of solidarity for her betrothed.
“Please excuse me.” She stood. “I am weary from the day’s ride.”
“My lady, allow me to escort you.” Aldrik was on his feet as well, along with the Western lord.
“I’m fine, Aldrik, just tired. Please enjoy the company,” she encouraged.
Vhalla knew he needed to mingle with all the lords. Their Empire depended, in no small part, on their unquestioning loyalty and resources. She also knew, justly or not, that some things were more easily shared between men, and she trusted Aldrik to take advantage of the opportunity.
Despite what she said, Vhalla didn’t retire to her room. She hadn’t had much time alone with Fritz since the East. She found her Southerner curled up in a plush chair by the fireplace in his room.
“You look cozy.” Vhalla shut the door softly behind her.
“Quite cozy. Come join me, Vhal.” Fritz lifted up the edge of his blanket.
She was happy to accept his invitation and wedged herself next to him on the oversized chair. “Cozy indeed. What book did you find?”
“Something awfully boring. A collection of family autobiographies. They’re all talking about how amazing they are.”
Vhalla laughed, flipping through a few pages. She shook her head. “Nobility.”
“Hey now, you’re a noble. Soon to be the noblest of them all.”
Rather than laughing it off as she would any other time, Vhalla paused, studying the fire. “Do you think I will do a good job?”
“Nope.”
She blinked at him in shock.
“I know it.” Her friend nudged her playfully. “Don’t doubt yourself.”
“If I do, will you be there to reassure me?”
“Always.”
Vhalla closed the book in her hands, leaning on Fritz’s shoulder. “You’re right, this book is boring. You should tell me a story about you instead.”
“Well, I suppose if the Empress demands a story, she will get one.”
“I’m not the Empress yet.”
“Yet,” he agreed only on that one word. “All right, let’s see . . .” He shifted before settling into a more comfortable position. “When I joined the Tower, I was mostly alone. I didn’t really know how to make friends. I’d always had my sisters, and they had to tolerate me. But, well, you know, our home was far from the village, and my family was nervous about my magic freezing another child or something horrible. So I didn’t have much interaction with other kids.”
Even in the best of cases, like Fritz, magic was still a separating force.
“I was finally around people like me, and I had no idea how to bridge the moat that I had unknowingly dug around myself. Larel took pity on me, after one instruction, and went out of her way to sit with me in the library. For three months we met there at the same time, same table, every day. It was never formally said, but we both knew where we would wait for the other.”
“Was that the table where I found you?” Vhalla thought back to the first time she had laid eyes on the messy haired Southerner. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“It was.” He rested his cheek against her forehead. “I met Grahm there as well . . . One day, I walked in, and my table was taken. Now, the old me would’ve just sat somewhere else. But that was my table, and my friendship with Larel had made me bold. Plus, he was really, really cute.”
Vhalla laughed softly and closed her eyes. She wondered how often Fritz thought of Grahm. Right before she dozed off, she wondered if the Eastern man she had befriended was even still alive.
JUST A HANDFUL of weeks after leaving her home, Vhalla found herself once more in the Crossroads. It couldn’t have been a happier sight. The hustle and bustle of the market, the shades of every type of person strolling about. Victor’s tyranny and
Vhalla’s last, less than favorable, experience at the Crossroads couldn’t diminish her fond memories or the good energy that was palpable in the air.
It was the center of the world. It was where she had confessed her love for the man she would marry. It was where she had made and lost friends. It was where she had found strength. She had dreamed, cried, laughed, and—it dawned on her in short order after arriving—gained a glimpse of the future.
Her gaze was locked on the main market as they passed, headed toward the standard Imperial hotel. Vhalla was suddenly very curious.
That night, Aldrik’s breathing was slow and consistent in her ear. He curled around her back, as had become their habit. It had been an hour since he’d last moved and, for once, Vhalla had outlasted him when it came to the race of who would be the first to slumber. The prince who was once unable to sleep was now an Emperor who slumbered mostly through the night and fell asleep relatively quickly after his head hit the pillow—so long as he wasn’t kept awake engaging in any activities with his future Empress.
With small wiggles over a painfully long period of time, Vhalla freed herself from his grasp. He stirred, a soft murmur in disapproval, but she had waited long enough that he was well and truly asleep. He was barely visible in the darkness, but with the slit of moonlight streaming between the curtains, Vhalla could make out his face.
His brow was relaxed, and he looked almost peaceful. Tonight, she had gone to bed with a very different man than the last time they had curled together in the Crossroads. His skin had a healthier glow, and the circles underneath his eyes had lightened. The journey in the West had been easy so far, and it felt like they were thawing out after an impossibly long winter.
Vhalla stood slowly, easing her weight off the bed. His fist curled around the blankets where she had just been, but Aldrik showed no other signs of waking. She retreated into the bathroom, easing the door silently closed behind her. The tile was cold on her toes as Vhalla began to rummage through the wardrobe. Word of the Emperor’s eminent arrival had spread, and the hotel had stocked the closet with clothing in advance, welcoming them with much pomp and circumstance.
She massaged her scarred shoulder after slipping a tunic over her head, thinking of their praises. The Western lords and ladies applauded what a smart match the Windwalker was for their Emperor. They never seemed to hear her when she corrected them, that she was just a Commons. It was no easier to bear the misplaced mantle now than it was when they first set out in the West.
Dressed, Vhalla poked her nose out into the dark room. Aldrik hadn’t moved and remained still as she crept past the sliding door. Vhalla ran a hand through her hair, teasing out the knots Aldrik’s eager hands always left in her tresses. She knew she should feel guilty, sneaking away from him as she was, but some things demanded answers.
She avoided the main lobby, staffed all hours of the day, slipping out a back door. No one paid her any mind, her hood drawn and her head down. She wanted to remain as inconspicuous as possible. She willed herself to fade into the shadows.
The late hours of the Crossroads were a very different place. Most stores were shuttered for the day, save for the more creative establishments that were just opening for halfway drunken and seedy-looking patrons. Men and women leaned against the corners of alleys with come-hither stares, beckoning those who came and went with promises of dreams and pleasure.
Vhalla drew her hood tighter; now was not the time to be the future Empress Solaris.
As one particularly shady-looking character beckoned to her, forcing Vhalla more into the middle of the road and out of the shadows, she wondered again why she had left the hotel. There was a touch of shame about what she was about to do, shame for the doubt that still lived in her heart despite all her friends’ assurances. Aldrik swore that their future was one of love, prosperity, and happiness. But he did not know what the next day held, let alone what would come in the years before them.
A familiar storefront seemed to materialize out of nowhere, interrupting her thoughts. It was completely dark, save for the light of a single candle on a table. Vhalla’s hand slipped from her shoulder to her neck, and she silently begged Aldrik to forgive her for her doubts.
The drapery in the doorway was drawn to the side, as if inviting her, and Vhalla entered boldly. Some unseen force pulled the curtain shut behind her, and Vhalla turned in surprise, her eyes trying to adjust to the sudden darkness. When her gaze swept back within once more, a face—illuminated by the candle—peered back.
“I knew you would come.” The woman’s voice was as smooth as silk and more melodic than any instrument Vhalla had ever heard. It beckoned. It beseeched. It hinted at promises that people wanted to give but were too afraid to make.
“You did?” Vhalla realized the low display case the woman stood behind was empty. Shelves that were once cluttered with all manner of items were now barren, occupied only by shadow.
“That was not the first time you have heard such, Vhalla Yarl.” The woman stepped into the circle of light created by the candle, and Vhalla could see her more clearly. She was once more draped in robes, but this time they were of a pristine white, trimmed in gold. Her long black hair cut a sharp contrast against the garment. Vhalla blinked in surprise at someone so boldly wearing the Imperial colors. “Wasn’t it true then, as well?”
“What are you talking about?” Aldrik’s face from the first night they had met in the library was clear across her memory.
“You know of what I speak.” The woman placed her fingertips on the table, dragging them as she slowly walked around. “The man whose crown you have worn spoke those words to you.”
“How do you know that?” Vhalla raised a hand to her forehead, remembering when Aldrik had placed his crown upon her brow in his chambers at the palace. There was no one else there then, and neither she nor Aldrik had told anyone.
“I know it the same way I knew your name the first time we met. This knowing is why you have sought me out.”
“If you know so much, then you know why I am here.” Vhalla reminded herself to be brave. She would not show fear, no matter what powers this woman possessed. Her bravery came easy, a soft whisper in the back of Vhalla’s mind reassuring her that she would not be harmed here.
“I do.” The woman folded her hands before her, leaning against the case. With the candle at her back, the woman’s features were shrouded in shadow. But her eyes. Vhalla was surely imagining their unnatural glow, a trick of the light, perhaps . . .
“Then let’s begin. Do you still have the supplies?” Vhalla looked around the empty room.
“Let us,” the woman agreed. “But I do not need supplies this night.”
“Isn’t that how curiosity shops work?”
“You have already cast your future to the flames and marked the three intersections of fate, Vhalla Yarl.” The woman held up a fist, uncurling fingers as she spoke. “At one such intersection I tried to guide you. At the other, I made an effort of saving you. You only have one meeting left now with me.”
“What?” Vhalla struggled to comprehend the woman’s meaning. She had only met Vi once before, and that was in this shop. Or so she thought. The night she stole Achel, the image of magic, glittering through the air like feathers, came to mind. “In the North? Was it you?”
“It was.”
“And the Knights of Jadar, the windmill.” Wheat.
“It was,” she repeated.
“What are you?” Chill horror poured ice into Vhalla’s veins. The Crossroads suddenly felt a world away, and Vhalla felt very alone with the woman before her. “Why are you doing this?”
“Tonight is not a night for your questions,” Vi declared. “I possess great strength, but coming to you when you are not at an intersection of fate is exhausting for even me.”
“If you will not answer my questions, then we have no further business.” Vhalla stepped backward, reaching for the curtain of the door and unable to find it.
“Tell me, do you love
this world?”
The question caught Vhalla off-guard. “Of course I do.”
“Of course,” the woman repeated. “You don’t realize how much you say that. Of course you will do this, of course you will go there, of course you will oblige the demands made upon you.”
The many times Vhalla had said those words rushed through her mind. She didn’t say it that often, did she? Surely no more often than anyone else.
“Do you know why?” Strands of hair slipped over the woman’s shoulder as she tilted her head to the side quizzically. The question was clearly rhetorical as she continued, “Because it is what you were made for. Those things were what you were meant to do. Long before you ever met your prince or arrived at his castle, red strands of fate pulled you from the East, setting it all into motion.”
“You speak of the Mother.”
“If that is the name you choose.” The woman smiled. “You are trapped in a vortex. Time and again, you will repeat your fate dutifully. If we cannot change fate itself and save our world.”
The woman stepped away from the case. Barefoot, she didn’t make a sound as she floated over to Vhalla. Closer now, Vhalla could no longer deny the red glint to Vi’s eyes.
“Let me see you,” she whispered.
Vhalla was transfixed, helpless to do anything more than let the woman lower her hood. The woman’s face held an odd sort of longing tinted with sorrow.
“You are younger than I expected, and so much weight on your shoulders, future Empress.”
“I will be the Empress?” Vhalla jumped at the first definitive thing she’d heard in the Firebearer’s words.
“You will be.” The woman stepped away. “I told you then, you would find what you sought.”
“But I never sought—”
“You sought him,” the woman interrupted with a sudden intensity. “You knew who he was and what his title meant. You knew, even if you didn’t admit it to yourself; you knew what being with him would lead to. And now you have him.”
“I know all this already.” Vhalla was desperate for her to return to whatever comments she had on the future.