by Bec McMaster
The pair of them looked at each other.
"We're tried that," Haakon said. "Numerous times."
"The manacle's magic is will-based," the dwarf said, with a smirk. "So if your barbaric Norseman here cannot remove it, then it's got naught to do with trickery. It's because he truly does not wish to do so. Not deep in his heart, where the magic lies."
"I want to remove it," Haakon growled.
"Do you? You said she was your wife. You said you were trying to win her back." Dúrnir slapped both palms on the table and leaned forward. "I think someone's not being entirely honest with himself."
Haakon straightened, taken aback. "I...."
"You cannot break the bracelet," Dúrnir said. "I cannot remove it. The only way you're getting it off her is if you truly wish her to be free of it, deep in your heart."
They didn't speak all the way back to the horses.
Haakon paid the young boy for minding them, then led her down the narrow track to the beach. Smooth oval pebbles gave way to black sand, and the seas were particularly choppy this afternoon. Though the sun was out, it barely warmed her skin. The wind was too cold.
Árdís kept trying to work out what to say. She'd been so certain she'd walk out of the svartálfar's house and be able to take to the skies. She hadn't even considered defeat.
Or was it truly a loss, after all?
Árdís realized she was toying with the bracelet. This would have been goodbye, if they'd succeeded. And she didn't want to say goodbye. Not truly.
Haakon kicked at a pebble, wending both hands through the back of his hair and clasping them there. The movement pulled the drape of his coat tight, and it rode up, revealing his shirt underneath. Sleipnir nosed at his lax reins, but stood obediently.
"I didn't know," Haakon finally said. "I swear I had no idea I was sabotaging you."
She stared out at the sea, strands of her hair whipping across her face. "I believe you."
His startled gaze cut to hers.
Árdís reached up, her fingertips grazing his cheek and the rough stubble that lined his jaw. "It's all right, Haakon."
"No, it's damned well not." The muscle in his jaw flexed, and he cupped her hand there, closing his eyes briefly as he turned into the touch. His voice roughened. "I'm endangering you by keeping you trapped in this form. You could have been safely in your brother's lands by now. You would have nothing to fear. Your mother couldn't drag you back."
It was what she'd set out to do at the start of this escape, but there was one thing missing in this scenario.
Her heart skipped a beat. A part of her held no regret. "And you'd be gone."
Something dark moved in his eyes.
"I thought that was what you wanted." His voice roughened.
The pad of her thumb brushed, just lightly, against the soft stubble on his cheek. Longing filled her. She opened her mouth to speak. To tell him how she felt. Doubt brewed in her heart, an uneasy storm that stole the words from her lips.
I love you. I will always love you.
But she would be the death of him.
"Damn you," he whispered. "What do you want?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do you want in life? Us? Me? If you could have anything in your life, without repercussions, what would it be?"
Nobody had ever asked her that before. "I don't want to be selfish—"
"You're not being selfish." Haakon captured her face between his hands, his arctic blue eyes seeming to see right through her. "It isn't wrong to take what you desire out of life, Árja."
She licked her lips, hearing her mother spit the word again and again. "I...."
"I think that word came from someone else. I think whoever told you that you were selfish wanted to force you to follow the path they'd set out in life for you. And the one time you fought free, the one time you took what you wanted, you were punished for it. Am I correct?"
Árdís clenched her eyes shut, but the truth reverberated through her like she was a struck drum. She could have fled the court with Marduk all those years ago. But she'd been scared to break free, frightened to take what she wanted... and laced with enough guilt to make her question her every move.
"If your mother wasn't involved, then what would you choose for yourself? Me?" Haakon's voice shivered roughly over her skin. "Would you still deny me?"
"No." She didn't even have to think.
"You're stronger than you think you are. I saw the look on your cousin's face when you unleashed your power upon him. You could burn the world to ashes with your magic."
But so can she. Her fingernails snagged in his damp shirt. She wanted so very badly to believe him. She wanted to claim what was hers.
But if she wasn't strong enough—if she couldn't defeat her mother—then she would lose him.
Forever.
He saw all of it in her eyes as she looked up at him, his own softening. And a look of ragged fury came over him. Desperation.
Haakon's head lowered toward hers, and her breath hitched. He'd stolen kisses in the past few days, but he'd been so careful with them, as if he did not dare allow her to know how deeply he wanted her. He'd been holding back. Hot, wet kisses designed to inflame her, but distant somehow. Hands all over her, stroking her body to the edge, each move designed to give her pleasure, but nothing more.
This was different, in almost every way.
A fierce, hungry kiss, unlike all the others they'd shared since they'd met again in Reykjavik. She could remember meltingly slow kisses, kisses that lingered all over her skin when they'd shared a bed as husband and wife, but they seemed a distant memory. It felt as though there were not enough moments left between them now, and she could feel the same urgency echoing through his tightly strung body.
A kiss, before time caught up to them again.
A kiss, before she remembered the weight of everything that lay against them.
A kiss to stay the darkness in her heart when she faced such an uncertain future.
She clung to him, her hands curling around his wrists. And a desperate thrill lit through her veins as his tongue touched hers. Árdís melted against him, letting him know in so many silent ways how much she'd longed for this.
Touch me. Please.
Promise me forever, even if we both know it's a lie.
"It's not a lie," Haakon whispered, against her mouth, and she drew back with a startled jerk, mentally checking her psychic shields.
They were firmly in place. But the moment had jolted her, sending her tumbling into a stormy sea of hope that her greatest wish was coming true, and fear it was not. That it was simply a joke Fáfnir had been playing upon her.
They separated, both breathing hard. Haakon studied her face, her eyes, her swollen lips. "I will wait for you," he whispered, as if he saw her indecision. "No matter how long it takes, Árja. I will wait for you to make your choice."
This man. She didn't deserve this man.
Árdís pressed her forehead against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her as if he knew how much she needed him to hold her. Not even the frigid air blowing in off the sea could touch her. All she could feel was the heat lingering in his skin.
"What do we do now?" she whispered.
He'd tried once more to remove the manacle the second they were out of the svartálfar's house, and had failed again.
"I said I would get you safely to your brother and I meant it. I'll signal the men. We'll sail for Akureyri. From there, it's another day or so to your brother's lands." His hand stroked up and down her spine, pausing to cup her nape. "You'll be safe there, Árja. Finally free of your mother and her machinations."
A tremor ran through her. "We're not there yet."
"Not yet," he replied grimly. "But do not doubt me."
Árdís swallowed. There was something to be said for his stubborn, infuriating nature.
Nothing could vanquish it, when Haakon set his mind to something.
The signal fire on the beach was dying down
as Haakon leaned on the rail of the ship and stared across the sea. It winked on the edge of the horizon, before blinking once and vanishing in a snuff of light.
"Well?" Tormund asked, joining him at the rail as the ship splashed through massive breakers.
He couldn't see Árdís anywhere on the deck. He'd spent the last hour shouting orders and hauling rope, and she wasn't in her cabin where she was meant to be. Or in Marek's cabin, where she'd headed when they boarded.
"Well," he repeated, knowing exactly what his cousin wanted.
Tormund grinned at him. "Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't your wife supposed to be free of her bracelet, and flapping her way through the skies right now?"
"It's a long story."
"Not that I mind the detour. I mean, this is the most enjoyment I've had in years. I've made eighty kroner off Gunnar in the last week alone." He reached out and touched Haakon's throat. "And I think I'm about to make another twenty off Bjorn. Is that a bite mark on your neck?"
Haakon growled, and slapped his cousin's hand away. "Leave it alone."
He didn't want the men discussing their bedroom habits.
"On one condition. I want the full story. She's still here, we're sailing for Akureyri, there's a bite mark on your neck, but you look like you've just buried your dog. Things don't add up, my friend."
He stared out at the waves, the splash of salt water wetting his face. "She left me because she thinks her mother is going to kill me."
Tormund's eyebrows shot up. "Somewhat shorter than I imagined, but intriguing. Go on."
He scraped a hand over the back of his neck. "And her mother is hunting her now...." He let the words flow out of him, feeling his shoulders soften as Tormund listened.
It felt somewhat akin to lancing a wound.
"Well," his cousin finally said, when Haakon had run out of words. "That makes my brother's mother-in-law sound like a saint. Can you kill her?"
His head turned sharply. "What?"
"The dreki queen is just another monster, my friend. And you hunt dragons." Tormund held both hands out, and then cupped them together. "The solution seems simple."
"Have you been drinking? She's locked away in a court full of dreki."
"Then lure her out."
"With what?" He saw Tormund's expression shift. "No. No. I am not going to put Árdís in danger."
"The same way she's afraid to put you in danger by letting herself love you?
Son of a— He'd never thought of it that way before. "It's not the same," he said weakly.
Tormund scratched his jaw. "Do you love her?"
"Of course."
"Then you're a fool if you don't fight for her."
Haakon leaned on the rail and saw nothing. "Me fighting for her was never the problem. It's whether she'll fight for me."
"Perhaps you need to give her a reason to fight. And then let her do so, regardless of the risk."
He looked at his cousin sharply. "Is our love not reason enough?"
"Loving you was never the problem. I recognized that the moment I saw her look at you when we tried to kidnap her in Reykjavik. She looked at you as if you put the moon in the skies—or no, as if you were the moon, but she knew she could never touch you." Tormund peered upwards. "I mean, look at her."
Haakon craned his head back, his gut dropping as he saw her in the crow's nest. "What the hell is she doing?" He swore, and then strode along the deck, but Tormund captured his arm.
"Leave her be. She spent most of the previous trip up there too. I think it makes her feel as though she's flying."
Flying.
His stomach felt like it plummeted. His first instinct had been to get her safely down, but as he watched her lean into the wind, her red skirts fluttering behind her like wings as she laughed, he realized Árdís was exactly where she needed to be.
"She's a dreki princess, Haakon. And you're still thinking of her as Árja, the woman you married, but she was never truly that woman. She buried her true nature, and there's only so long she can live that life. This was never going to end with you throwing her over your shoulder and sailing back to Viksholm. The life you knew is gone. If you want her, truly want her, then you might have to accept a different Árja. A different life. One filled with volcanoes, and treasure, and a host of dreki males who would see you a threat. Enemies you cannot even conceive of." His voice softened. "I think she knows exactly what she's dragged you into. She's frightened you can't accept her world. She's terrified you'll be killed. And her reasons for such an assumption are legitimate reasons. If you want her to fight for you, Haakon, then you need to convince her you want the dreki princess, and not just the dream the pair of you conjured. You need to convince her you're man enough to handle her world. And survive it."
Everything Tormund said was the truth.
She wasn't just Árja, the wife he'd promised to protect until his dying breath. Saving her had been the only thing that kept him going for the last seven hellish years, but Árdís didn't need saving. Not the way he'd been thinking of. She'd fled her mother's court, saved Marek from certain death, and managed to tear her cousin Roar to pieces when provoked. If it came down to it, he was more vulnerable than she.
Nor was she merely a dreki princess, tied to her court and her people, but determined to live her own life.
She was both the woman he loved, and the princess who wanted him to see her. To understand her. A woman taking her first brave steps into a new world where she finally had choices, and throwing off the shackles of her mother's domineering shadow.
If he wanted Árdís to fight for him, then he had to let her do so.
If he wanted her to choose him, then he had to confront his own stifling urges.
Keeping her in his life was not his decision to make. He'd known that, but he'd only been halfway to the truth.
She needed a warrior, one who wasn't afraid to stand at her side, instead of in front of her, using his body as her shield. Her mother had planted so many doubts in her head. He couldn't continue to contribute to them.
To save her, he had to set her free. To let her become what she was always meant to become.
He had to get that manacle off her. She was born to soar the skies, and his own contrary nature was keeping her locked away on the earth.
But how could he release her when he wasn't even consciously aware of keeping her contained?
It was his innate fear of losing her that held her captive.
Fear. It all came back to fear. Árdís's fear to reach for what she wanted. His fear of letting her go, knowing she might be too afraid to choose him.
Running away from her mother was only half a solution. If they didn't deal with the queen, then perhaps she'd never truly be able to spread her wings. Rurik's territory would merely be another cage, albeit larger than the one she'd inhabited.
And he wanted her to live this new life she craved so badly, even if she did not choose him.
His gaze began to focus, and he realized he was staring at his cousin. Through him.
"It's a lovely face and all," Tormund said, "but I know I'm not what's held you speechless for the last minute or so. What are you planning?"
"You're right."
About everything.
"You can say that a little louder if you want to," Tormund said promptly.
"I cannot mount an assault on the dreki court," he said thoughtfully. Slowly. Plans began to stir through his mind. "And I cannot fight the queen's magic, or her dreki pawns. I have nothing but a sword, a ballista, and my own body. Árdís can wield her mother's magic, but she cannot fight alone. We need each other, if we're to have any chance of defeating her mother."
Tormund blinked. "You're going to let her fight her mother?"
"If she will." He turned toward the passenger cabin. "That doesn't mean I'm merely going to stand back and watch. Árdís is better equipped for this fight than I ever will be, but she needs me to stand at her side. I hunt monsters. I kill dragons. Magic or not, the drek
i queen is merely another monster. She's not invincible. There has to be some way to defeat her."
"I'm liking the sound of this," Tormund said.
You would. It made him pause though. People would die if he threw himself into a war with the dreki queen. "I need allies. But this is not your fight."
"Remember that little discussion we had about choices? Count me in." Tormund's heavy step fell in behind him. "This sounds like a legendary quest, and while Haakon Dragonsbane has a certain ring to it, Tormund Sigurdsson is missing a little something."
"Certainly not humility," Haakon said, with a tight hawkish smile that faded as he rested his hand on Tormund's shoulder. "There's no one else I'd rather have at my side. Make sure you don't get yourself killed. Dead legends can't reap the rewards. Think of all the hearts you might break."
"I don't intend to die." A flash of white teeth. "I have good solid Danish kroner to spend, and Árdís owes me a fistful of emeralds. And a crown."
Haakon rapped on the door to the passenger cabin, where Marek was still recovering.
"You think the drekling can help?"
"I think the drekling knows more about the queen's court than any of us, including my wife. Her mother guarded her fiercely, whereas Marek was part of the brewing revolution. He knows who wants to throw off the queen's yoke. And he might know some of the queen's weaknesses."
"Clever," Tormund said, rubbing his hands together, as Marek opened the door.
18
What are you doing?" Malin demanded as Sirius strode to the edge of a sharp jutting cliff. She was tired and sore, and so far there'd been no sign of Árdís. They'd spent a day in Reykjavik, trying to track the princess down after a young man said he'd seen her get on a ship. Sirius had left Malin in an inn while he scoured the countryside on wings. He'd picked up the trail outside of town, and came back for her, and they'd ridden across half the countryside in circles, while Malin stubbornly kept her mouth shut.
"Why is she moving so slowly?" He'd sounded utterly perplexed.