by Elise Kova
Vhalla swallowed her pride, and accepted his help into the saddle. He forced her to sit in front, his arms on either side, gripping the reins. Erion spurred his horse forward, and Vhalla gripped its mane.
“What’s your name?” he asked out of earshot of his comrade as they worked their way across the large burnt trek.
“Serien.” Vhalla didn’t know why she lied. “Serien ...” He sounded uncertain.
“Leral.”
Further conversation ceased as they reached the brim of the valley Soricium sat within. Vhalla stared in awe as she saw the full Imperial army for the first time. Hundreds, no thousands, of tents and hovels were constructed down a shallow basin. Vhalla’s heart raced as she saw the true force of the Empire, the greatest achievement of the Emperor Solaris.
At the center stood a giant walled forest, trees even higher than the behemoths Vhalla had witnessed in the jungle. It was the last stronghold of the North. The final remnants of the once legendary sky city and the place Vhalla had been brought to conquer: Soricium.
Soldiers stared in curiosity as they rode down through camp toward a roughly built T-shaped building. Clearly the term “camp palace” had been used in irony. She’d made it, she realized in shock. She’d actually made it to the North.
“Major Jax is inside.” Erion dismounted, offering a hand to help her down.
Vhalla ignored it, walking ahead of him past the two confused guards on either sides of the door to the building. The room within was nothing more than makeshift walls and packed dirt, long tables at varying heights flanked either side of the hall. Men and women moved between papers and diagrams, leisurely discussing things. All turned as she entered.
“Head Major Jax,” Vhalla demanded as Erion entered behind her.
“Erion, how many times must I tell you not to bring me wild women until after dark? It’s distracting.” A man grinned wickedly. He had long black hair that was tied up into a bun, black eyes, and olive skin: a textbook Westerner.
Vhalla crossed over quickly, pulling the satchel off her shoulder. She held it out to him with trembling hands, suddenly filled with nervous energy. The head major cocked his head to the side, assessing her before prying it from her white-knuckled grip.
He placed it on the table, pulling out the parchment that was stained red at the edges. Jax moved from one paper to the next with increasing speed, the arrogance and humor of earlier falling from his face in favor of emotions Vhalla would deem far more appropriate.
Two dark eyes snapped up to her. “You ...”
“You have to send help, now.” Vhalla took a step forward. Her whole body had begun shaking. “Send him help. You can, right?”
“Erion, Query, Bolo!” Jax slammed the papers down on the table. “Assemble seven hundred of your best.”
“What?” One of the other majors gasped in shock. “Seven hundred?”
Jax didn’t even indulge the question. “Xilia!” A woman crossed over. “I need these clerical items, in duplicate for good measure.”
“In duplicate?” the woman repeated. Vhalla saw the long list of Elecia’s scribbling.
“Everyone else, go find your fastest, most reckless riders. Bring me the men and women who will put themselves and their mount’s lives last and their mission first.” The room stared at the Western man, open-mouthed. “Now!” Jax shouted, slapping his palm upon the table. “Go now!”
That was the first time Vhalla saw the true diligence of the Imperial army. Despite the confusion, the question, and all the vast unknowns, the soldiers moved. They did as their superior told them, and it was a sight so sweet that it made her want to cry in relief.
“They-they’re going to go?” Vhalla whispered, staring at the doors the last soldier had disappeared from.
“Yes, within the hour.” The major rounded the table slowly.
Exhaustion rode the wave of relief as it crashed upon her and her knees hit the ground. Vhalla braced her fall with an arm, the other clenching her stomach. She couldn’t breathe, but she felt dizzy with air. She wanted to laugh and sob and scream at the same time. She’d made it to the North.
Jax crouched before her. Vhalla’s gaze rose from his boots to his face. The Western man squinted.
“Vhalla Yarl, the Windwalker.” Her name on the lips of a stranger made her uneasy, and Vhalla sat back onto her feet to assess him with equal interest. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t you.”
She laughed bitterly, remembering Elecia’s first unappreciative assessment of her months ago. “Sorry to disappoint.”
The man tilted his head. “You show up as if you materialize from the wind itself, to save the life of the crown prince whom you jumped off the side of the Pass in an attempt to save. You’re unassuming, you’re filthy, and you’re soaked in what I can only presume to be the blood of our enemies.” A grin slowly spread across Jax’s face, like that of a rabid beast. “Who said anything about being disappointed?”
THE WASHROOM IS back here.” Jax led her toward the upper part of the T Vhalla had seen from the outside.
She nodded and followed him mutely. In the wake of accepting her and Aldrik’s death, she was experiencing difficulty processing the concept of salvation. The hall perpendicular to the public area had one door at the end on the left side and two on either wall to Vhalla’s right with a fourth before her. The shoddy construction made it easy to tell that soldiers, not craftsman, had erected the building.
“Not really fitting for a lady, I know,” Jax chuckled. The bathroom was the bare essentials, and he quickly had a large wooden barrel filling with rainwater from a rooftop reservoir.
“I’m not a lady.” Vhalla shook her head. “This reminds me of home, actually.”
As a child, she’d bathed with her mother in a barrel not unlike the one she was faced with now. Thinking about her mother was odd. Vhalla wondered if the woman who had scolded her daughter for climbing too high in the trees and had sung lullabies would recognize the woman Vhalla had become. It was crushing how different Vhalla was from the last time she’d been home.
Jax leaned against the wall by the soaking barrel. “That’s not what Elecia wrote.”
“What isn’t?” She was jarred out of her thoughts.
“She said our Lord Ophain made you a Duchess of the West.” Jax folded his arms.
It took Vhalla too long to remember that Elecia was Lord Ophain’s granddaughter. Of course she would have found out. “A hollow title,” Vhalla laughed.
“And you’re quick to offend.” He stilled her amusement. “I take Western tradition quite seriously, and I will be the first to tell you I’m not alone.”
Vhalla remembered how Daniel had been elevated to lordship upon joining the Golden Guard. A fellow soldier would likely take such things seriously. “Sorry, I hadn’t meant—”
Jax roared with laughter. “You think I actually give a damn about those crusty old nobles? Reddening their cheeks and pretending their hair still grows in black?” All amusement fell from his face as suddenly as it appeared. “But seriously, some would take offense.”
Vhalla opened and closed her mouth, but words failed to form.
“Well, darling, I’d love to stay and join you, but I need to see those riders off. I’ll find you some fresher clothes on my way back.” Jax made for the door, stopping just in its frame. “You’ll be well enough alone?”
Vhalla brought her hands together, meeting the man’s eyes as he peered down at her over his shoulder. It was a serious question. There was something about his madness that called to her own.
“Yes,” Vhalla said with more confidence than she felt. “I’ll manage. Send the riders.”
Jax nodded, clearly understanding her priorities, and left. Vhalla turned to the steaming tub of water. Jax must be a Firebearer, she mused. He heated the water just as Larel had heated the streams and ponds they bathed along the march. Peeling off her clothes was like shedding the shroud of the other woman. For weeks Vhalla had worn the memory li
ke a shield, Larel’s last gift: her name in the form of Serien Leral.
The water was just shy of scalding hot but Vhalla still shivered. She was alone. Larel and Sareem gone, Fritz far away, and her library with its window seat ... Vhalla’s eyes fluttered closed with the pang of nostalgia. She allowed herself the sweet agony of dreaming, of thinking of returning to the palace in the south. Of sitting with Aldrik once more in his rose garden. Of finding something that was different from all she had known but was still something she could call normal.
Two quick raps on the door was the only warning before it pushed open again. “I brought you clothes.”
“I’m not!” Vhalla pressed her naked body to the side of the barrel, trying to hide it in the curve of the wood.
“You’re as red as Western crimson.” Jax laughed at the color of her face. “What? If you have something I haven’t seen, then that would be a real treat.”
“This isn’t ...” Vhalla was about to die from embarrassment. She’d bathed in group baths before, but with other women.
“I thought you weren’t a lady?” He grinned wildly. “Certainly acting like a noble flower with all this modesty.”
“I don’t know you!” she balked.
“Do you want to?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Out!” Vhalla demanded.
“If the lady commands.” Jax left, unapologetic.
Vhalla dunked her head under the water. This man was nothing like any noble she’d ever met. Any sane person she’d ever met!
But he was thoughtful as well, she discovered. The water steamed at a perfect temperature once more. There was a mostly clean drying cloth waiting for her atop two different options for shirt and pants. Both were oversized on her petite frame, which had been narrowed by a long march and lean food. The shirt wore like a tunic, and the pants needed to be rolled. But with a belt they would sit on her hips rather than slide off.
The major stood waiting for her across the hall when she exited. Vhalla’s face was instantly scarlet again, and she pursed her lips to keep in her frustration.
Jax pushed away from the wall, keenly picking up on her emotion. “What do you know, there was a woman under all that blood and grime.”
Vhalla shifted her chainmail tunic awkwardly in her hands. “Right, this way.” He turned away from the side of the hall that ended with a single door. There was a door on either side of them, and Vhalla quickly realized whose quarters these were.
“Is this Prince Baldair’s or Prince Aldrik’s room?” She paused in the doorway Jax was leading her through.
“Baldair’s. He won’t mind, and you look dead on your feet.” Vhalla stared across the hall, and Major Jax didn’t miss the obvious thoughts floating across her face. “Unless you’d rather stay in the crown prince’s room?”
“I would,” she whispered.
Jax let Vhalla wander across the hall alone. He hovered in Baldair’s doorway, watching the Windwalker as she slowly pushed up the simple wooden latch that held the crown prince’s door closed. His eyes followed her as she comfortably, almost reverently, entered the quarters of the most private man in the Empire.
There was nothing notable about it, a few chests against one wall, a bed opposite, and a desk positioned near a shuttered window. Vhalla stopped to engage in a staring contest with an empty armor stand waiting for its owner’s plate to return.
Aldrik’s mangled face flashed before her eyes, and Vhalla gripped her shirt over her stomach, willing the sickening feeling away.
“Here.” Jax placed a palm on her shoulder, causing Vhalla to nearly jump out of her skin.
She stared down at the vial in his hand. “Only one?” Every time she’d been wounded, half a cleric’s box was forced down her throat.
“Are your wounds severe enough to merit more?” Jax asked earnestly. Vhalla shook her head. “Not the physical ones at least, right?”
Vhalla pulled away from him, squaring her shoulders toward the Western man, defensive of her feelings. He was like wildfire, unpredictable, burning through one emotion and then the next. She squinted up at him and opened her mouth to speak.
A silent knowing gleamed in his eyes, a depth that both stilled and humbled her. His fingers wrapped around hers, closing them around the vial. “Drink, Vhalla Yarl, and get a good night’s sleep. From the looks of you, it’s been a while.”
Jax left her before she could respond. Vhalla stared at the vial in her hand and wondered just what the man could see in her, what the world saw in her now. Her thoughts spun like a top, faster and faster, out of control until she eagerly brought the potion to her lips, drinking it in a gluttonous gulp.
Vhalla collapsed upon the bed, his bed.
It smelled stale. The linens hadn’t been washed in a long time, if ever. They had a dry crunch and gave off a damp and earthy aroma. But somewhere under the musty scent was a musk that Vhalla knew well. She curled in on herself, clutching at the mattress, pillows, and blanket. Leather, steel, eucalyptus, fire and smoke, and a scent that was distinctly Aldrik—a combination that overwhelmed her.
When Vhalla woke next, she expected to have only slept for a few hours. The sun hung low in the sky and the room was dim with the orange light that penetrated the slats of the window shutters. She dragged her feet to the main room; it was mostly empty, save for two men having a drink at the end of one of the long tables.
“Sleeping beauty wakes.” Jax grinned, his hair was loose and it fell straight to his lower chest.
“It hasn’t been that long.” Vhalla sat a good space away from Lord Erion and across from the head major. “Only a day,” Erion mumbled over his drink. “What?”
“You were out a bit. Guess I was right about that whole sleeping thing,” Jax said proudly.
A day ... She had slept for a whole day. Vhalla quickly did the math in her head. “Any word from the riders sent?”
“It’s only been a day. They can’t even be halfway.” Erion set his flagon on the table.
“I made it in two days,” Vhalla felt the need to point out to him.
“Well, you must not be human.” He glanced at her sideways. “Maybe you’re half-wind, Serien.”
Vhalla ran a hand through her hair, checking it from the corners of her eyes to see if the black ink that masked her Eastern brown had washed out from the bath. It hadn’t completely, but it had faded enough to contribute to the Western man’s suspicions. She looked across to Jax, but he had already begun the swift process of changing the topic.
They were both Golden Guard, but Jax hadn’t shared her identity despite Erion’s clear suspicions. Vhalla could guess why it would make sense not to prematurely reveal her true name, but she didn’t have a reason to expect such loyalty from a man she hardly knew. They placed food in front of her, and Vhalla stared at it listlessly. Her mind was full, which meant it silenced the grumbling of her stomach. But Vhalla knew she must be hungry.
Slowly, diligently, she cleaned her plate. In the forests to the south, there was a dying prince depending on her strength. Elecia had said that one person couldn’t sustain two, and Vhalla meant to prove her wrong. At the least, she’d buy them all more time.
Vhalla returned promptly to Aldrik’s bed and buried herself under the blankets. She slept as long as her body demanded, which proved to be a fair deal, and ate everything she could in the following three days. Vhalla worked to restore her strength and conserve her energy, avoiding any undue exertion or risk. It meant most of her time was spent within the camp palace among the other majors, but Vhalla quickly found herself of use.
During the day, she transcribed notes for Jax as he helped manage half the army. He and Erion had been left in command alongside a grizzled old major whom Vhalla had yet to interact with. There were no objections from the majors toward their current commanders in the stead of the Imperial family. The only time questions arose was from trying to decipher Jax’s notes, and thus Vhalla had found an immediate use.
The Black Legion’s Head Major’s penm
anship was laughable, and the majors were grateful for Vhalla’s cleaner lines and tidier letters in their ledgers and records. The appreciation was mutual, as it gave Vhalla the opportunity to learn about the siege and the army in a way she never had before. Her prior readings on military tactics and methodologies began to make more sense when given the framework of a real life situation. Vhalla saw how troops were managed on the perimeter. She sat quietly and let the men and women talk about rationing and sending hunting parties into the surrounding woods. She also began to see the lines between theory and actuality. Vhalla repeated in her head the information she gleaned, quickly committing it to memory and filing it away for later use.
Her days were quite full, which only made the empty nights harder. Without distractions her mind began to wander. The silence seemed to stretch into eternity and seeped into her Bond with Aldrik, making her question if it was finally beginning to waver. Nothing about the Channel between her and Aldrik felt as it had been. Like the dormant earth in winter, she had no dreams of his memories and no heartbeat in her ears other than her own.
Vhalla prayed that it was the distance and his weakness taking their toll. But she didn’t know for certain. Not knowing, combined with the emptiness, threatened to drive her mad.
On her fourth day, she’d indulged in a mid-day sleep, only to be woken by trumpets in the late evening. It couldn’t be Aldrik returning, she reasoned. At the earliest, he’d be ten more days, so Vhalla rolled over and pulled the blankets over her head. She felt amazing with all the rest and proper eating, but Vhalla remained determined. The seven days Elecia had promised were almost up and somewhere on the far edge of her consciousness was an exhausted wavering of magic.
The door opened and Vhalla turned groggily, not expecting the man who entered.
“Well, I can’t recall the last time I caught a woman in my brother’s bed.” Baldair laughed summer into her frozen world.
She sat quickly, letting the sound wash over her. Vhalla stared in shock at the golden-haired prince. She and Prince Baldair hadn’t had the most stable or conventional of relationships, but he had given her and Aldrik one last night before they entered the North—before they were parted, potentially forever. The younger prince likely had no idea the place he had earned in Vhalla’s heart with that.