In moments like this, she could almost believe it was more than jealousy that provoked him. That perhaps it was not her heart alone that had been traded. But it might as easily been pride. Isolfur hated facing the limits of his power—hated that she was his, and still he could do nothing to protect her. That much was more than clear.
“As long as you kept your word, and no guards came in search of us, I will be safe enough. Frida will not betray my trust. She is mine, come with me from my father’s court in Hunaland.” The only one who did, for it was all that Gunnar had allowed her.
He feared foreigners in his court, feared that she might usurp him somehow if she was surrounded by loyal retainers. One maid had been all that she was allowed, and Frida, her best friend since they were children, had volunteered herself at once, even knowing it meant sacrifice. For in Gunnar’s court, who would she wish to marry? Who would wish to marry her? She was too independent, too brazen, too strong for any of Gunnar’s men to want her, and unlike Signy, she did not have to hide those essential qualities of herself—or at least she did not have to hide them as fully, for a maid was not expected to behave like a queen.
“I will take you back,” he said then, his gaze sliding away from hers. “Let me see to your wounds, weave the spells required to grant you the power of my voice over your king, and then I will return you to your friend.”
She hesitated, studying his expression, the creases at the corners of his eyes and the furrow of his brow. “Did you use that power on me?”
His eyes widened, darting back to her face. “What?”
“The power of your voice,” she said. “Your Persuasion. Do you use it on me?”
He was shaking his head before she had finished, and something inside her unknotted. “There was never any need. Any purpose. You already wanted me, wanted to bargain. And I wanted to know why. I might have compelled you to tell me, that’s true enough, but I find there is more than one truth, more often than not. That sometimes we reveal more of it in our lies than we do when we are forced to speak baldly of a single motivation. But you gave me everything. You give me everything of yourself, and to bewitch you now—it would be a needless cruelty that would not grant me what I desired.”
“And what is it that you desire?” she asked carefully.
Isolfur’s hand found her stomach, smoothing over her skin. He had dropped his gaze again, refusing to meet her eyes. “When our son is of an age to wear Gunnar’s crown, should the king die, you will be free of the duty that has bound you. Is that so?”
Her breath caught. “That—I had not considered—”
“Is that so?” he asked again.
“I suppose…” she said. “If he is a fair man, a worthy king who does not seek to strike at his neighbors, to do harm to my people.”
“He won’t,” Isolfur said. “You will have had the raising of him, after all. I know no one more capable of instilling worth inside a man.”
“Then yes,” she said. “Once I have secured peace between Gautar and Hunaland, and Gunnar is dead, my duty will be discharged. The burden will be my son’s to bear. Our son’s.”
“Then you will be mine, and mine alone,” Isolfur told her. “And I will have what I desire.”
“You mean to steal me away, then?” she demanded, irritated at the thought. All of this—everything. It was only about possession. Only because he did not wish to share her with anyone else, because she was one of his things. Not his friend, not his lover, not his—not a person in her own right.
“No,” he said, laughter in his voice. “Sweet Signy, always leaping to the worst conclusion. No, I would not steal you, you foolish woman. I would set you free. Free to come to me of your own will, and stay as long as you like, without fear, without worry, without any regret.”
It silenced her utterly. A heartbeat, then two. A half-dozen, and she still did not know what to say, what to think. Her thoughts spun, the conclusions baffling—even the worst of them. He had her now, owned her body and blood, heart and spirit, sometimes it seemed. She could not fathom why he should wish to give that up, that power. “But if I am free…”
He twisted a shoulder. “It is true, you need not come to me at all, then. Once Gunnar is dead, you will have less need of my protection, my services, if you will. Our children, too, would be safe enough, I’d imagine. But if you called to me, Signy, anywhere in this world, I would come, all the same. Bargain or not.”
“You would give me back my heart?” she asked softly. “My body and my blood. Give me back everything I gave to you, for nothing?”
“Not for nothing.” Isolfur met her eyes then, his own dark with emotion. “For love, Signy. For your love. That you might know it is yours, and yours alone. You can give it in no other way. We both know that. You are mine, now, in every other way but that, and I find I would prefer it otherwise. But the bargain we struck—” His fingers pressed against her stomach once more, possessive again. “It will not be easily undone until certain conditions are met. Until you and our children are made safe, and my debts to you are truly paid.”
“But you are a brook horse,” she heard herself say, not even sure herself what she meant by the words.
He huffed out a breath, just short of a laugh. “Yes,” he agreed. “The last of my kind who still lives free upon these lands. And you are a woman in a cage—do you not remember what I offered you that first day, when you summoned me to strike this bargain?”
She shook her head. “You wanted me to remain here with you.”
“I promised you that if you did, you would be made free. You refused me then, but I do not think you would do so again. Not if Gunnar was dead and our son sat upon his throne, ruled in his place. Your purpose fulfilled.”
“How can I know?” she asked, her heart racing at the thought. At the suggestion of the future he had drawn. Not just the freedom, but the rest as well. Love, freely given, freely shared between them, with no bindings but their own desires. “How can I be certain that this yearning inside me is not yours?”
“That is in part why I would set you free,” he said. “That you might know the truth of your own feelings as well as mine. I know well enough you would not trust my assurances now. And nor should you. For even I could not be certain, absolutely, that what you feel is only your own desire, uncolored and uninfluenced by mine.”
That he did not blithely reassure her, did not try to persuade her that her feelings were entirely her own—that, more than anything else he might have said, convinced her that he meant his words. That he wanted more than just this false thing between them, but a true relationship of equals, of friends.
“But you are a brook horse,” she said again, her thoughts still circling around that truth. “And I am only a woman, my life no more than a heartbeat next to the length of yours.”
“I am a brook horse,” he agreed again. “And within my cottage, even an ordinary woman could live five hundred years. But you are not ordinary, Signy. There is elf blood in your veins, and all we must do is bring it to the surface. You could live a thousand years if you wished to, here with me. In this cottage, I could make it so.”
It was more than she could believe. More than she might have ever dreamed. A thousand years. But that kind of gift—it could not come free. She sat up, frowning down at him. “In exchange for what?”
He grinned then. “Leaping again already? In exchange for your companionship, nothing more. The hope of love. Or perhaps—would you be reassured, if I promised to take you as my wife? It would solve the problem of your suspicious nature, at the least. You’d have no cause to mistrust my gifts, then, for what was mine would be yours. Everything shared between us.”
His wife. She stared, dumbfounded. “You cannot mean it.”
“I do,” he said. “If you were not married already, I would take you as my wife tomorrow if you would have me. If we did not have this bargain already betwee
n us, complicating it all.”
“But we have spent only three days together,” she protested.
“And how many days did you spend with Gunnar before you married him?”
She pressed her tongue against her teeth, her jaw going tight. “That was different. A political alliance. This would be—what you propose—” She grasped for the words, but shied from them just as quickly again. Love. That was what he suggested. A marriage for love.
“We have years yet to decide,” he said. “Years before our son is grown, and if my feelings change, if I tire of you in that time, I will set you free, all the same. But you asked me, Signy, what I desired. And I would not have you think I wanted you for a slave. That you were not more than a prize to be set upon my mantel and admired at my leisure. You offered me the companionship of an equal, a willing friend, and that is what I would have of you still.”
She murmured an acknowledgment of some kind, her thoughts spinning, her heart wrenched. And she let him work his healing magic upon her back, until her skin was left fresh and unmarked, smooth and soft as a child’s again. The gift of his power cloaked her, when he had finished the weaving of it, and they helped one another dress, every brush of their fingers against skin a lingering, reluctant farewell. But one she was growing more used to making, even if it pained her.
Her tongue felt thick in her mouth when he left her, at last, upon the stream bank, and she spoke little to Frida once she found her again, and they began the too short walk back to the castle.
“I fear I will have need of you again,” she told her friend, when they had regained sight of the walls. “Every day, or every other at the least. Will you serve me in this, Frida? Even though I dare not explain.”
Frida’s lips twisted, a long breath escaping. “Is it truly a risk worth taking, my lady?”
“I believe that it is,” she said. “For the child, for my own safety and strength. You know what it is for me, living inside those walls. I will wither before long if I cannot find some way out. But do not think I ask it lightly. That I do not know the danger in which I’ve placed you.”
“I know,” Frida said softly. “And when I came with you, I promised your father I would do everything I could to keep you safe. To protect you. But if Gunnar whips you again, now...”
“He won’t,” she said. “He needs this child too much to dare.”
“Only promise me that you will be careful,” Frida said, catching her hand and squeezing it hard. “Protect yourself, Signy. In every way that you’re able.”
“I will, Frida.” She squeezed her friend’s hand back. “And I am in this, I promise you.”
Every day or two, she came to him, and every day or two, he cloaked her again with the power of his voice, lending her his Persuasion. What need did he have of it, after all, when he had Signy in his bed?
Their time together was always brief. Stolen hours, no more than half a day at a time, but stretched as far as he dared, to allow her both pleasure and rest, the latter far more needful, he found, as her pregnancy progressed.
“I do not sleep well in the castle,” she admitted to him finally. “Gunnar leaves me to my own devices for the most part, but I am never certain. And when it has been more than a day, when I can feel the magic fade and leave my tongue, I fear he will feel it too, and come. Punish me for my manipulations.”
Isolfur wished he could reassure her, promise her otherwise, but the truth was, he couldn’t. He gave her everything he could, protected her and the child in every way that he was able, but his power was far too limited for his own peace of mind. For hers. It wasn’t enough to protect her fully, and it never could be. Not when upon land, he was nothing more than a horse.
“You’re safe here,” he said instead. “And you can sleep as long and as deeply as you require, undisturbed.”
And she did. Slept long and deep, sometimes in his arms, sometimes while he watched over her, or prepared a meal from the food Fossegrim provided him. Signy did not care for the cold, raw fish he preferred for himself, and the babe had other ideas still of what she should or should not eat. Isolfur accommodated all of it, as far as he was able, and with the help of the old elf when it was beyond his skill. Fresh, warm bread, wrapped in the same magic-woven fabric as Signy’s cloak retained its heat and thick, hard crust even when he carried it through the water, and after he had seen her joy when he’d produced it the first time, with sweet butter and wildberry jam, he had arranged with Fossegrim to have it always on hand.
They still took their pleasure in one another’s bodies, of course, and Isolfur was delighted to discover that Signy’s desires matched his own in that regard, but as the weeks turned into months and her belly grew larger, they found other pleasures in their time together, more subtle but no less satisfying. Reading to one another while lying before the fire. Telling stories of their own, Signy’s most often of her homeland—filled with laughter, as she spun the smallest detail into a humorous adventure. But she enjoyed his stories, too, of what the world had been before the elves had come, of how they had joined power with the dragons to reshape it.
He had seen so much, and she so little, but she always hungered to know more, and that, too, pleased him. Had she cared only for her own concerns, her small corner of the world and nothing beyond it, he would have found her company tedious before long. But he’d known from the moment she called to him, summoned him for her own reasons, that she was more worldly than most to begin with, and the more time they spent together, the more she only confirmed what he had already seen. What his heart had already recognized.
Signy was the kind of lover who revealed themselves only on the rarest occasions of a brook horse’s long life. Once, during their youth, they might find such a partner—when everything in the world was new, and they knew as little as the lover they’d taken. But after that, when the brook horse had outlived his first love, every relationship after was diminished and diminishing, until there was nothing in the exchange for them but physical pleasure and dull companionship—better than the endless isolation, but only just. Until the men and women they bargained with meant nothing at all beyond the service they offered as vessels for that release and relief. And the longer a brook horse lived, the harder it became to find a friend, an equal, among such short-lived, small-minded people.
“I wish we did not need to wait so long,” Signy said, one afternoon, when she was nearing the end of her pregnancy.
Already she had warned him that she would not be free to return to him again for some weeks, until after the child was born. He was as uneasy as she about the separation, for she would be far too vulnerable without his magic to protect her, and how Gunnar might respond—if he would realize at all what she had done—was impossible to predict.
“Eighteen years,” she murmured, lacing her fingers through his and settling more contentedly into his arms. “That is how long it will be before this child is old enough to rule. Assuming it is a boy at all. If you’ve given me a girl, it will be even longer before I’m free.”
“Free of me?” he asked, watching the small movement beneath her bare belly, of the child as it moved inside her.
“Free of Gunnar,” she replied, her lips curving. “Free to remain here with you, and live my life as it pleases me.”
“The years will fly past,” he promised her, pressing a kiss to her brow. “One day, you will look back, and they will be only a blink of the eye. No more than a heartbeat, skipping by.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But they stretch so long ahead of me now, when all I want is this. When returning to that cold, dry castle is nothing but bleak misery. And every day I come to you, it grows longer. For the time I spend here is nothing outside.”
“Would that I could make it otherwise,” he said, and meant it. “And hurry the time outside in exchange for these stolen hours. But I fear your husband would notice if you disappeared for days at a time.”
<
br /> “Ancestors protect me,” she said softly. “Even as things stand, he may yet notice what I’ve done. And then what?”
“Call to me and I will come,” he said. “A drop of your blood into the well, and I will spring from it.”
“And we will both be trapped,” she said. “No, Isolfur. I would not see you condemned for my mistakes. This risk was always mine to take and the consequence will be mine as well.”
It was so foolishly Signy of her to say so, to insist upon it, and there was little he could do but hope the bargain they had struck would call him to her anyhow, should the child be endangered. But of course she would not wish him to suffer her fate, to be condemned. Of course she would refuse the help she had traded herself for—he would not find her so impossible to resist if she had responded to his offer in any other way.
It was why, in part, he loved her, and why that day and every day, he hated to let her go. But the child was their path to freedom, now. The sooner he was born, the sooner Gunnar might be disposed of, and the bargain that yoked them both could be dispelled as well.
And then, at last, Signy would be his—of her own free will.
“My queen,” Ragnar bowed stiffly—as shallowly as he could get away with in front of Signy’s maid. His gaze flitted over the room, eyes narrowing. “Surely you don’t mean to leave your rooms so soon?”
Mercifully, so heavy with child until these last days after the birth, Signy had seen little of Gunnar. Her immense pregnant belly had repulsed him. She’d seen the curl of his lip, the nervous darting glances at her stomach followed by a compulsive swallow, as if she were birthing the child before his eyes. She’d flaunted it after the first sign, knowing he would not admit the weakness, and let her size do what Isolfur’s voice had accomplished for her so easily before.
But now she had two squirming bundles and a rapidly deflating waistline. In other words, no protection at all, meager as it had been, from his attentions. And an even more urgent reason to take herself and the boys to Isolfur as soon as she could manage the walk.
The Queen and Her Brook Horse Page 5