by Bec McMaster
She came back.
He could barely breathe.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Tormund demanded, slapping him on the shoulder. He turned his head and bellowed, "Turn the bloody ship around."
Haakon scraped a hand through his hair as he strode down the gangplank. He was leaving. Today. Without her. And then she simply swept back into his life, as if she hadn't finished toying with him. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded.
She hadn't run into his arms.
He hadn't dared hope.
But it filled him now, a whisper of everything he'd ever dreamed of.
Árdís opened her mouth, as if to say something, and then shook her head. "You said you would stay for three days."
The words took him by surprise. He felt breathless, slightly buoyant. "You came back?"
Instantly she seemed to realize where his thoughts had turned. A flicker of guilt swept over her face. "No. I'm sorry. I need help."
His heart fell.
Of course. The faint swell of hope broke like a tide within him, scraping the shoals of his heart raw. She threw him the merest scrap and a part of him leapt upon it like a starving beggar.
Well, he would not be that man anymore.
"Help?" His gaze raked her from head to toe, noting the mud on her cloak and the bedraggled hem of her skirts. "I'm done playing your games, Árdís. I want to go home."
"I'm not here to play games."
"No?"The very thought of being her puppet infuriated him, and he forced himself to harden his heart, despite the plea in her voice. Turning, he lifted one arm, gesturing toward the ship, and the rail full of interested sailors. "Then what do you want? Somehow I doubt it's to give my ring back."
"Will you just listen to me?" she demanded.
"You have five minutes. Convince me why I should help you."
"Because you're the bloody reason I'm in so much trouble!" she snarled.
He blinked.
"Remember this?" She shook the bracelet at him. "I cannot fly. I cannot shift shape, and I cannot touch my magic."
"You said you'd remove it somehow."
"Well, I cannot."
A knot formed somewhere in his gut. "I never meant to trap you like this."
"And yet, you did."
"So you want me to remove it?"
"Yes!"
And then she'd be free to soar out of his life forever.
Haakon captured her hand, trying to ignore the sensation of her smooth skin in his. He looked down, into her heart-shaped face. It didn't matter how angry he was with her, in that moment, all he could see was what they'd had together. Tormund was right. He would love her forever. There would be no other woman for him.
But he could not force her to stay.
Swallowing hard, he never took his eyes from hers as he murmured the words of release, "Er þér sjálfrátt fararleyfi...."
Light sparked against his fingers. His heart twisted in his chest. Árdís licked her lips, as if to say something, but then heat flared and both of them jerked their hands apart as the links of the bracelet began to stretch, and then snapped back together and fused as tightly as ever before.
It hadn't worked.
Árdís tried to pull at it. "Why is it not working?"
Haakon stared. It had almost broken apart, but something stopped the spell from releasing her at the end. "They were the exact words he told me to speak."
"And you didn't think perhaps he was lying? You didn't think he might find it amusing to trap a dreki princess into her mortal form?"
"I wasn't... I wasn't in the best frame of mind at the time."
She looked up.
"It was barely a week after I'd discovered the truth. I was angry"—furious—"and I wanted to get the truth from you." He closed his eyes for a moment, hating the depths to which he'd stooped because of her. "I'm sorry. I truly am."
Árdís pressed a hand to her forehead, and turned to stare sightlessly at the docks. Haakon reached for her.
And then stopped.
A man hobbled his way toward them, leaning heavily on his crutch. Árdís's stare locked upon him, and her resolve seemed to firm. "I need to know where to find the sorcerer who gave this to you is. Perhaps I can get him to remove it."
That would take her days. "Can you not ask one of your dreki friends to take you there?" He looked to the north. "There's bad weather on its way."
"I know. And no." She drew her cloak tightly around her, as if she felt the chill coming. "I cannot ask another dreki for help."
"Why?" The tone of her voice gave her away.
Árdís glanced up from beneath her lashes, and he saw there the ghost of the woman he'd once known. The one who looked to him for reassurance once upon a time. "Because I'm fleeing the court."
A gull screamed as they stared at each other.
"Fleeing the court," he repeated softly.
Despite his anger, he couldn't help starting to think now. Three dreki had been "sent" to find her the other day. And none of Árdís's actions had been that of a woman who wanted to return with them.
"Are you in trouble? Nobody's going to hurt you, are they?" His voice thickened.
"No, they won't hurt me." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm a princess, and the last of my mother's direct descendants." Bitterness soured her voice. "If they hurt me, then they cannot get what they want from me."
"Which is?"
"My mother wants me to mate with Sirius, one of the males at court. The mating ceremony is set for tonight."
The years fell away, a stew of jealousy simmering within him. He had no right. "He's the one who came for you the other day."
"Yes."
"And you don't wish to mate with him?" After all, she'd told him to find another woman. What did he expect? That she would never replace him?
"No, I don't! This is my mother's doing. I just.... All of my life I've obeyed her rules. I won't do it, not this time."
Running away. Again. The same as she'd done when she swept into his life and tore it apart.
"Where are you heading then?"
She looked out across the harbor, tendrils of blonde hair brushing across her pale forehead. "I have only one place to go, where my mother and her court won't come for me. They won't risk facing Rurik, and he would take me in. I know it. I could be free to make my own choices in life."
The implications made his mouth tighten. "His lair is days away from here."
"I know."
"You cannot fly."
"I know." She looked up then. "I'd hoped...."
"That I would remove the manacle. And then you'd be on your way." Curse her. Curse her for giving him a moment of hope, and then dashing it across the cobbles.
Turning to stare out toward the sea, he raked a hand through his hair. The knot in his gut was back. He'd been torturing himself for far too long. He wanted to go home. He wanted to see his family again, and hold his nieces and nephews in his arms. To taste his mother's cooking, and sweep out the dust in his home—the one that held such memories for him.
Or perhaps burn it.
But he was the one who'd put that fucking manacle upon her. She could have been by her brother's side by now. Safe. Free to chase whatever sort of life she sought.
One without him in it.
Árdís cleared her throat. "I was actually hoping... for a little more help than that."
He looked at her incredulously.
"You want me to take you there?"
"Just as far as the svartálfar. It would be a few days’ journey. That's all. I know it's out of your way, but I don't have a great many options at this point in time. If I could fly...."
But she couldn't.
Because of him.
He'd made so many mistakes in the past year, consumed by his quest for revenge upon the dragon he'd thought had stolen her. He was still making those mistakes, driven by hurt and pain. The gaping hollowness within him yawned.
"I know I ask for too
much," she whispered. "But you don't understand. This is not just me asking for help." Árdís glanced toward the stranger who'd almost made it to their side. "Marek is one of the court. They sentenced him to death. If you won't help me, then perhaps.... Would you consider helping him?"
The stranger looked like he'd been beaten within an inch of his life, and a bandage covered most of his forehead. Haakon recognized fever when he saw it in a man's eyes, but he also saw the sort of look a man gave when he worshipped a woman.
One of the court? Was that all he was to Árdís?
Every muscle in his body locked tight. She couldn't be asking this of him. Could she?
"Who is he?"
"A servant," she replied, without a hint of anything more in her voice. "He is loyal to my brother and will pay the price for it, if I do not help him escape."
Relief. Sweet relief. For whatever this Marek felt for her, it was clearly unreturned. But how easily had jealousy stirred?
"This will only end in tragedy," he said, half to himself. A reminder, to steel his nerves.
"It doesn't have to," Árdís murmured.
He'd be better off cutting her from his life.
He'd gotten what he wanted; not answers, not truly, but a chance to stare into her deceitful eyes and tell her how he felt.
It wasn't anywhere near enough to slake his pain.
But....
"You still want me."
For a second he'd believed, truly believed, there was something left between them. And maybe that was another question he needed to answer, before he could bury her in his heart.
Perhaps Tormund had the right of it when he'd suggested Haakon had asked the wrong questions.
She'd married him because she hadn't truly understood what he'd meant when he asked for her hand, but why had she left him?
"We'll destroy each other," he said, though it was more a recitation of facts. "And I don't know how much of myself I have left."
He hadn't realized, until her face fell, how much hope there'd been in her expression. "I see."
No, you don't, he wanted to scream.
He'd dragged himself out of the depths of a never-ending tankard of ale. He'd burned for one purpose only in the last seven years: to find his wife and rescue her. To save her. To hold her in his arms one more time.
The truth of her deception had shattered him like a cheap vase, and he felt as though he might have glued the pieces together again, but the fracture lines still showed. All it would take would be one more blow and he'd fragment into a million pieces.
And this time, there would be no more putting himself back together.
"If you won't help me," she said, as she turned away. "Then I shall find someone who will."
Like hell. His hand locked around her wrist, and he belatedly realized he'd taken three sharp steps. "Who?"
Árdís froze and looked back. But the spark of defiance in her eyes told him she knew exactly how to play him. "It's none of your business. Sail home, Haakon. Live a wonderful life. I'm no longer your concern."
Heartless dreki princess. But the muscles in his gut clenched as a shiver of need trembled through her eyes, and she looked away. He was afraid some part of him would always twist in knots when he saw her, as if his very soul yearned to let her wrap him around her little finger once again. His only consolation was the fact it seemed he wasn't the only one so tempted.
Haakon looked down, his thumb stroking the smooth skin of her inner wrist, and brushing against the cursed manacle. He couldn't, with any good intentions, allow her to remain shackled like this. No matter how much he didn't dare trust her.
"I will help you," he said, his gaze flickering to the stranger. "And your friend."
"And what will it cost me?"
"I owe you a debt for binding your magic like this. It wasn't my intent, but my honor"—or what remains of it—"insists I stay at your side until I can help you remove the manacle. I will help you, Árdís." His resolve began to form. "I will escort you to the sorcerer, where we can remove that shackle. Then you'll be free to fly to your brother's side. I owe you nothing else. And then it ends, you and I."
"Ends?"
"Yes. Ends. In exchange I want only one thing."
Árdís's breath caught again. "What?"
"My grandmother's ring," he told her.
Instantly her hand went to the valley between her breasts, where his ring no doubt hung. This time she looked troubled, and all for a fucking ring. "It's mine."
Haakon reached out, his fingertip caressing the silver chain around her throat. "Silver's never truly been your color. You always preferred gold, to match your mercenary heart."
Árdís snatched at the chain as he began to withdraw its length from her dress, her fist curled around the damning ring at the end of it. "What would you know of my heart?"
His face closed over. "You're right. I wouldn't know a damned thing, except to wonder if you even owned one. Regardless, the ring is not yours. It is, however, my price."
"I don't know if I...."
"It's just a ring, Árdís. My ring. I gave it to you with the intention of seeing you wear it for the rest of your life; however, that's not to be. Leaving it with you indicates there's something left between us. And that's not true, is it?"
He practically dared her to deny the truth.
She didn't.
Yet nor did she offer him an answer to that question.
"I need an end to this," he said roughly. "I cannot go on with even a shred of hope left. I told you that you'd ruined me. Perhaps that's a lie. I ruined myself. I've done things"—he thought of Rurik's mate Freyja, whom he'd used as bait in order to trap the mighty dreki, without a care for her feelings—"that I would never have done. I don't even think I like who I've become. But I cannot move on, not until I know this marriage is truly buried. And if you give me back that ring, then I know there's nothing left for us."
The wind blew Árdís's braid behind her, and she stared through his chest, as if trying to find some sort of answer herself.
Turmoil filled her amber eyes as she slowly lifted them. "If you help me remove this shackle, then I will do my best to hand the ring to you."
Done. It was done.
He nodded shortly. "I'll go tell the men our plans, and then we'll board."
"Board?" She shook her head. "We cannot go by ship."
"Why not?"
"Because they're dreki," she insisted. "They'll be looking for me in the air. The second they realize I'm not flying, they'll start searching elsewhere. They'll search all the ships leaving the country. On land we can hide, but on a ship we'll be too vulnerable. There's nowhere to run, and I cannot hide for they will feel my presence if they come close enough."
He considered the ride north. It was more days than he'd hoped to spend with her. "We're just as vulnerable on the ground."
"But unexpected," she stressed. "The last time I fled, I went to the continent. There's no reason for us to head north. There's nothing there—except your sorcerer. We have to be unpredictable if we're to escape unwanted attention."
"Surely they'll expect you to flee toward your brother."
"But not from this direction. I just have to make it onto the lands Rurik has claimed. If they broach his territory, it's an act of war, and he's powerful."
Far too many days of riding ahead of them, with her at his side. "What about your friend?"
"My name is Marek," the servant's eyes glittered watchfully, "and I will help protect the princess."
He'd be lucky if he could even fall at an enemy's feet if they attacked, judging by the look of him. Haakon assessed him. "You won't make it more than a day's ride north."
"I can," Marek said fiercely, "and I will."
"He's unwell," Haakon said, turning the question over to Árdís. "The ride will either kill him, or he'll slow us down. He needs rest and a healer."
"Marek, he's right. You have a fever." Árdís pressed her hands to her temples. "They won't sense him if the
y board the ship and he's hiding. He's a drekling, not a dreki. His lack of magic is a boon in this circumstance." She looked up. "Could he sail with your men?"
Gunnar watched him from the ship, as if wondering what they were talking about, and a thought occurred. "He can rest in the passenger cabin. I'll send the ship north, to meet us in a cove near where the sorcerer dwells. If anyone sees it leaving Reykjavik, their search will turn up nothing. Then you can hand me the ring, I'll board the ship, and you can fly east. The subterfuge might work."
Árdís bit her lip thoughtfully, and he was struck by how familiar an expression it was.
Haakon shook himself. He could not allow himself to fall for her charms.
"It might work," she whispered.
He nodded abruptly. "Stay out of sight while I unload the horses."
She obediently tugged up her hood.
"Oh, and Árdís?"
"Yes?" She looked up warily.
"The second you have your wings back, I leave with the ring. Until then, I'm your guard. Nothing else."
"Agreed," she said softly.
It was the only way he could protect himself from the inevitable heartbreak, for it seemed she wasn't the only one skirting the truth.
His heart still belonged to her.
A part of it always would.
But he didn't dare let her know.
Malin hit the stone floor of the cell and rolled, turning to face the prince.
Sirius loomed in the middle of the cell door, his broad shoulders almost filling the frame. There was no way past him. No way through him. And the implacable expression on Sirius's face told her she wasn't going to be able to distract him.
No, he was just like his father. Stellan and the Queen sneered at those like she who were born with impure blood, and couldn't manage the transition to full dreki form. Malin knew the dreki was within her—she could feel it whisper through her veins at the sudden implications of danger, and sometimes she almost imagined she could make flame wield to her whim—but it wasn't enough for those who preferred purebloods.
Like the prince before her.
If not for the old laws the Loremaster insisted had to be maintained, Malin knew she'd have been outcast from the clan, or worse, made to vanish.