by A. E. Rayne
Evaine smiled at Jael, running her hands through her long, blonde hair, draping it over her chest. Eadmund was behind her, holding their son. He caught sight of Jael and felt a sharp pain in his chest, as though he had been stabbed. His eyes retreated, and he swallowed, quickly handing Sigmund to Evaine.
Jael didn’t move. She could sense tiny, white holes in the darkness; eyes flicking around the hall, jumping between her and Eadmund.
Watching their king and queen.
And Evaine, who stood between them.
Jael blinked, trying to remove the excruciating pain from her eyes. Her hands shook by her sides; her body trapped somewhere between agony and anger. She imagined Eirik on his throne, remembering his fears for Eadmund, for the trouble Morana’s daughter would cause; hearing her own promise not to let anything happen to Eadmund or Oss.
Jael clenched her jaw so hard that she was sure her teeth would crack. She pushed her boots onto the floorboards and lifted her chest, feeling the cool wetness of her hair as it clung to her neck. It reminded her of Eirik’s hot pool, and she remembered all those nights she had spent sneaking into it with Eadmund.
When he was hers.
Eadmund.
If he had a choice, he would choose to be hers.
He loved her.
Jael fought against the pulsing, beating rhythm of rage as it sought to destroy her self-control. She squeezed Eydis’ hand and led her towards her husband and his...
‘Evaine,’ she said loudly, the sound of that name jabbing into her heart. ‘You seem to have recovered from your ordeal. But, let it be known that if Edela dies, I shall come to your door again and we shall have a very different conversation than this.’ Jael let go of Eydis’ hand. ‘Here, let me see that baby of yours. After all, I am his step-mother, am I not?’ Jael smiled as her eyes did everything they could to avoid Eadmund’s embarrassed face. Her stomach flipped, bile rushing into her throat.
She knew what they had done. Could almost see it in her mind.
‘What is his name?’ Jael asked, her arms still outstretched. She hoped that nobody could see they were shaking.
Evaine froze.
Eadmund nodded at her, urging her to do as Jael had requested.
Evaine sighed petulantly and held out her son. ‘His name is Sigmund.’
‘Sigmund,’ Jael said with a smile. A fake smile. There was nothing about her that wanted to smile at that moment. She cradled the baby as though she had been holding children all her life, but in truth, she was terrified, afraid that she would drop him. His head lolled about awkwardly as he gurgled at her. ‘Sigmund,’ she repeated, looking at his face for the first time, feeling a surge of something that was deeper and stronger than she had expected. He looked like Eadmund. Like Eirik. ‘I think you and I are going to be friends,’ she said quietly. ‘One day. You are Eadmund’s son, so you will always be mine too.’
Evaine was livid; desperate to reclaim the moment that she had been so certain would be hers to own. She reached out to snatch back her baby, but Thorgils stopped her.
‘Your queen wishes to get to know her stepson,’ Thorgils said coldly. ‘Best you let her unless you want her to put you back outside. It is still raining, I believe.’
Eadmund didn’t move; caught in a thickening mire of guilt and more guilt.
‘It’s alright, Thorgils,’ Jael said, handing the baby back to his mother. ‘He’s not mine. Not yet.’
Evaine glared at Jael but her face was a mask of strength, and she saw no fear in her eyes. No hurt. No surprise. Nothing but her certainty in that statement.
She shuddered.
Eadmund found his voice at last. ‘You should be going, Evaine,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘Fyn, please see your sister home. Take something to cover her and the baby so they don’t get wet.’
Fyn looked disturbed by the request, but he nodded and hurried to find his cloak.
Evaine frowned at Eadmund, wanting more than to be dismissed; sent away like a servant. She screwed up her eyes into small, blue beads, feeling her chest tighten with anger. ‘You will come to see us tomorrow?’ she asked sharply, demanding Eadmund’s attention which was being solely claimed by Jael now. ‘You will come to the house?’
‘I will, Evaine,’ Eadmund said hurriedly, motioning for Fyn to take his sister away.
Evaine smiled at him, glowered at Fyn, and allowed him to hurry her through the crowd of silent onlookers, towards the doors.
Jael said nothing. She stared at Eadmund, forcing her anger back behind a heavy door. Anger wasn’t the answer. Not here. Not now. She kept seeing her father’s face, hearing his gruff voice in her head, demanding that she remember who she was.
A Furyck.
Above all, she was a Furyck. She would not be cowed by anyone.
She was Furia’s daughter.
Eadmund’s wife.
Queen of Oss.
Jael heard the door thud shut. She glared at Eadmund. ‘We need to talk.’
Meena stared at the rafters, running over the things she needed to do for Berard. She didn’t want to forget anything. She felt an immediate sense of responsibility for him that was both welcome and overwhelming; for as much as Meena longed to be cared for, she was just as desperate to have someone to look after. Jaeger did not need her at all. He seemed eager to take her to his bed but quite happy to dismiss her entirely when he was done.
‘I must find a way to get my wife back,’ Jaeger mumbled as he rolled away, his voice a hoarse, sleepy whisper. ‘I can’t let the Furycks think they can take everything from us. From me.’
Meena lay in his bed, uncomfortable.
Naked.
Her body was fizzing with desire, but he had simply finished and left her. Not even glancing her way. She shivered, pulling the furs over her chilled breasts. It was dark now, and she wondered if she had brought in enough wood to see Berard through the night. He would likely not notice such a thing until he was lumping the last log into the fireplace. She started twisting her fingers into knots, not wanting to wake Jaeger up by tapping her head.
He hated it when she tapped herself.
‘I must get her back, Meena,’ he yawned. ‘And you will help me.’
It was not what she wanted to hear. Not at all.
Meena imagined Morana’s gleeful face. Her aunt would be spying on her in her dreams, she knew; watching her make a fool of herself, over and over again.
Meena rolled away. As desperate as she was to leave, she was just as eager to crawl over Jaeger’s slumberous body and claim her own pleasure. But, she shuddered, she would never think to do such a thing.
Sliding quietly out of bed, she looked around in the candlelight for her clothes.
‘Meena?’ Jaeger murmured. ‘Where are you going?’
She froze. Confused. He sounded so sleepy.
Meena stayed still, waiting, and eventually, he started snoring, and she crept away into the shadows.
They sat opposite each other in Eirik’s private chamber.
Jael could barely breathe.
Eadmund didn’t know what to say.
‘I’m leaving,’ Jael stated matter-of-factly. ‘In the morning.’
Eadmund’s eyes bulged. He leaned forward, studying his wife who sat rigidly before him, her eyes hard and fixed on his. He suddenly wanted a drink of ale. ‘Leaving for where?’
‘Tuura.’ Jael felt a burst of anger. She wanted to punch him in the face. She bit her lip and looked down instead, towards the fire that burned brightly between them. ‘We’re taking Edela there.’
‘We?’ Now Eadmund was unsettled.
‘Aleksander and I,’ Jael said, happy to unsettle him. ‘My mother, Biddy, Entorp. I plan to take everyone.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that no one is safe here. Not after what Evaine did to Edela,’ Jael said, working hard to remove all feeling from her voice. ‘I won’t be leaving anyone or anything behind that I care about. I’ll be taking Tig and the puppies too.’<
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‘The puppies?’ Eadmund shook his head. ‘On a ship?’
‘You think I shouldn’t be worried about them? That I should leave them here? When I left my grandmother behind, and look at what happened to her!’
‘They’re my dogs too, Jael,’ Eadmund insisted. ‘I would never let anything happen to them. Never!’
‘No, you wouldn’t, Eadmund,’ Jael said. ‘But nor would you have done what you just did with her. Not if you were free. Not if you had a choice in the matter. So, no, I won’t leave them. And I’ll be taking Eydis too.’
Eadmund was quickly furious. ‘No!’
Jael leaned forward. ‘Eydis wants to come. I want her to come,’ she said firmly. ‘You really think you can keep her safe? Safer than I could?’
Eadmund felt caught, overwhelmed by opposing feelings of guilt and shame, desire and regret. He wanted a reprieve from those judgmental eyes. ‘Eydis is my sister,’ he tried.
‘Eydis is my sister too,’ Jael insisted. ‘And she will come with me. You are far too occupied to keep her safe. Oss is a kingdom in great need of its king, don’t you think, Eadmund? With Ivaar in the wind? With Haaron and his sons coming for us?’ She clenched her hands over the ends of the chair. ‘But I must save Edela’s life first. And there is no time to waste. Eydis is a dreamer, promised to Tuura. You owe her that. Eirik reneged on his promise. You cannot stand in her way as he did. I will keep her safe.’ She stared at him with a confidence she suddenly did not feel.
Eadmund swallowed, words and images jangling around inside his head. Evaine. Naked and perfect. Everything he wanted.
And now, Jael. So strong and determined.
Jael...
She smelled damp, like wet wool and horses. He inhaled her, and he remembered: the evil tincture, the Contest, Tarak, Hest.
All those nights in Eirik’s pool.
He closed his eyes, trying to escape the oddly torturous memories.
‘Eadmund?’ Jael was worried by the strange look on his face.
He opened his eyes. ‘Yes, take her. Take everyone. You shouldn’t be here,’ he said hoarsely.
Jael blinked. She had seen him. Just for a moment. She had seen him, and she wanted to cry and scream to bring him back. He was in there! Lost, but in there.
If she could just find that book in Tuura.
Perhaps the answers to everything they sought lay hidden inside?
Morana wriggled about, wishing she had a more comfortable pillow.
How could her mother have survived for so many years in such pitiful deprivation? Impoverished, yet working for the King of Hest, ruler of the richest kingdom in Osterland? She growled, wistful for the soft silence of wool stuffing; irritated by the incessant rustling of hay beneath her ear.
Morana felt trapped in this irritating place. The Following needed her. They needed Jaeger. And he needed to use the book, and somehow, she would have to become a bridge from one to the other, keeping everyone happy, which was not something that interested her at all. Other people’s happiness had never been a concern of Morana’s.
And then there was Haaron.
He was smart enough to know that his part in proceedings was coming to an end, surely? Yet she needed to keep him calm, oblivious to and unthreatened by the emergence of his youngest son.
Because he was coming. Morana had seen it.
Soon Jaeger Dragos would burst from the shadows and crush them all.
Thorgils walked Jael back to the house.
She barely looked at him, shattered by what she knew had happened, desperate to be alone. The triumphant sneer on Evaine’s face, the heated shame on Eadmund’s: those images were carved into her memory.
They were all that she could see.
It was too real, too painful to even acknowledge. She could only try to exist outside it all; not opening her heart or mind to any of it.
It didn’t matter.
It couldn’t matter.
It mattered to bring Eadmund back. Nothing would be real until then.
‘You must keep him safe,’ she said mutely as they stopped before the door.
‘Safe?’ Thorgils looked confused. ‘Eadmund? From Evaine, you mean?’
‘From Ivaar. From Haaron. From Jaeger. From all of them. I won’t be here.’ Her voice drifted away into sadness.
‘What he did...’
‘He’s her prisoner, Thorgils. Hers and Morana’s. And when I save Edela, she’ll find a way to free him. We will leave in the morning. You will keep Eadmund safe until we return.’ Jael gripped the door handle. ‘Promise me,’ she urged, looking at him at last. ‘Promise me, Thorgils. I would kill him if I knew he could help it. I would kill her if I could set him free.’
Thorgils could feel her pain, and he wanted to say something to make her smile so they could laugh it off, but what? Jael had given up Brekka for Eadmund. And now he was lost to her. Thorgils grabbed Jael’s free hand. ‘I promise. You save Edela, and I’ll keep him safe for your return.’
Jael turned and opened the door, not wanting him to embrace her.
Not wanting tears to come.
She shut the door quickly, and Thorgils stared after it for some time. He thought of Edela. He hadn’t been sure that she was even alive when he’d found her, but something had driven him to turn back into that alley just in time.
And perhaps that something could save both her and Eadmund.
They were all asleep, Jael could see, even Ido and Vella who lay on either side of Edela.
Keeping her safe.
Jael smiled sadly and turned towards the bedchamber. The door was open, the warm glow of a lamp inviting her in. She thought of that first night in the house, when Thorgils had deposited Eadmund onto the floor; a great snoring lump who had disappeared in the night.
And she had saved him.
Or had she?
Had he simply always loved Evaine?
Jael noticed Aleksander watching her, the faint flames of the fire glinting in his eyes. She stared at him, oddly wistful for his comforting arms and soothing voice. She watched Edela’s chest moving slowly up and down, remembering her cottage and the chair where all advice sought would miraculously elicit the right answer; even if that answer was not always welcome.
Jael walked into the bedchamber alone, thinking about Tuura.
Where all things had fallen apart. Where people had died.
Where her life had both ended and begun.
She squeezed her hands into tight balls and trudged towards her empty bed.
Evaine had tried to kill her grandmother.
Evaine had her husband.
It was time to take them back.
II
The Room
8
Amma’s sobs woke him.
Axl scrambled off the floor where he’d fallen asleep on a rug next to the fire. He could see Gisila stirring, already moving to check on Edela. Aleksander was sitting up, yawning. Biddy wasn’t there, but the chickens, cows, and goats were full of dawn noise, and he guessed that she was outside, organising them all.
The door to the bedchamber was still closed.
‘Sssshhh,’ Axl soothed, stroking Amma’s hair as she lay there, sobbing in her sleep.
Amma suddenly jerked awake, away from him, her eyes bursting with fear, her body recoiling, then slowly relaxing.
‘You were having a dream,’ Axl whispered gently. ‘A nightmare.’
Amma sighed, wiping her eyes, feeling the wet tears on her cheeks.
‘Was it him?’
Amma couldn’t look at Axl. She was still there, trapped in that bed.
With Jaeger Dragos.
She nodded, shivering. ‘He hurt me,’ she mumbled.
Axl pulled the furs over her, furious but trying to be sympathetic. His anger would not help, nor heal her. He saw Lothar’s severed head in his own nightmares, but he had saved his mother, he knew. And, although Amma was with him now, he had not saved her in time.
She was Jaeger’s wife, and in the bri
ef moment they’d been together, he had scarred her.
Amma could feel Axl’s tension, and she panicked. ‘You won’t do anything silly will you?’ She reached for his hand. ‘I’m here now. We’re together. Safe.’
‘Safe?’ Axl frowned. ‘We’re about to leave for Tuura, hunted by everyone in Osterland soon, I’m sure. I don’t imagine that Getta is going to be very happy when she finds out what happened either.’ He didn’t sound reassuring, and he could see the fear in Amma’s eyes grow, but it was better to be honest. Amma wasn’t a child. She was strong enough for what they needed to do. ‘Sometimes you have to fight to make yourself safe. You have to fight for your freedom.’
Amma didn’t like the sound of that at all, but she knew Axl was right. While Jaeger lived she was bound to him as his wife, and in her nightmares, by the things he had done to her.
She was desperate to be set free.
Jaeger wondered what trouble he had gotten himself into with Nicolene. The sun was barely up and there she was, at his door, pushing past Egil, sliding into his bed.
He had woken up, surprised to see that Meena wasn’t there.
He wondered where she had gone.
‘I think,’ Jaeger began as he hurried out of bed, wrapping a fur around his waist, leaving Nicolene sitting there undressing. ‘I think it’s best if we don’t play this game anymore. Not with Karsten almost recovered. Not with so many things I must attend to.’
Nicolene looked embarrassed, her face flushing pink. She stopped removing her dress and started covering herself back up. ‘Attend to?’ she sneered. ‘What are you talking about, Jaeger? What must you attend to? This early? What’s so urgent that you must leave your bed at dawn?’
Jaeger’s mind went blank. He had drunk too much wine again, and his head was a thick tangle of half-grasped words. ‘I am... training. Trying to recover my strength. We must go to war again soon. After what the Islanders did? What Jael Furyck did? We have to prepare for what will come.’
