by Jessica Daw
How long could it possibly take for the Council to come up with a solution?
I wandered the halls, feeling a silent specter. Dagmar often encouraged me to walk outside, which wasn’t something she usually pressed me to do. I’d go, wandering the same as I did inside. What was the point in studying if I would never take the throne? I’d taken my future for granted all those years, but I’d lived expecting that future. Everything my parents had required me to do had been to prepare me for being queen of Vansland. From my endless lessons to lectures from Dagmar to social engagements to my very betrothal with Espen, it had all been part of the preparation. Without that goal, what had been the purpose of my solitary existence on the estate?
My whole life had become purposeless. Espen’s letters didn’t help. He’d left everything he’d known to learn how to be king, and look where that had gotten him. Killed at twenty-one years old. One of the best warriors in Luspe, according to Father, and he’d been killed. My preparation had led to me being stranded on a country estate with no future. Because how could I ever prove myself worthy?
The Council hadn’t replaced my iron bands. I should have been practicing magic, but I was terrified of it. I had Dagmar siphon my energy away daily, to make sure I couldn’t make a mistake and hurt someone.
“Maybe go outside, Helena. You seem calmer when you’ve walked in nature,” Dagmar suggested as I continued to wear circles into the carpet in my room at the country estate.
It made no difference, so I changed direction and made my way outside. “Don’t forget your coat!” Dagmar called as I walked away, running after me, coat in arms.
“Oh. Thank you.” I stopped, letting Dagmar dress me in my winter coat.
“And your boots,” she said, indicating the lace-up tan leather boots with completely impractical three-inch heels. I obediently stepped into them, letting my patient maid lace them up.
“And gloves?” she tried. “I’ll have to return for them.”
I shook my head. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.” I continued my restless, aimless quest.
Snow now lay three inches deep on the lawns of the estate. I followed the carriage lane through the gates into the woods, tall bare trees stretching far above my head, dusted in snow like powdered ladies, pale and refined against the gray sky. The world was muted, almost silent.
Likely August was more shocked by my presence on the lane than I was by his noisy interruption of the solitude. He rode at a pace I thought he would call reckless if he saw me going at the same pace, his huge black stallion Skygge breathing huge puffs of white. “Whoa!” he called, reigning in his steed, trotting it back to see me. “Helena?”
I curtsied.
“What are you doing so far from the estate alone?”
“Am I far?” I asked, vaguely curious.
“If I’m not mistaken, we’re at least three miles from the gates.”
“Hmm. I was walking.” I felt anger start to burble inside me, but kept my face as smooth as August kept his. He’d come all this way, his dark hair frosted with snow, and he’d helped me escape the full brunt of the Council’s wrath. As the current heir apparent, unless something had changed, it would be in my interest to try to impress him or at least do nothing he could pass to the Council as unfavorable. A sad state our friendship had come to.
He made to dismount.
“Don’t trouble yourself. If you’ll allow, I can ride home behind you.”
His eyebrows rose, snow lightly frosting them, turning them gray and making his face seem almost a part of nature.
“Do you object?” I was drawing on every bit of refinement and maturity I’d ever learned. August and I had run so wild, and here we were, formal as strangers.
Still looking surprised, he shook his head. “No, not in the least, if you’re certain.”
“Quite,” I said, grabbing hold of the saddle and pulling myself up behind him. I sat stiffly, incapable of being comfortable so close to August after his inconsistent behavior, treating me as an enemy and then trying to propose before reverting to treating me as an enemy.
We rode in silence. August at first barely allowed his horse to trot, but his impatience prevented him from maintaining the slow place—he allowed the horse to increase his pace incrementally, until we were nearly cantering when we reached the estate. No guard stood by the gate, as the wards placed on the iron fences were strong enough to keep most everything out. The guards were warm within the building, tending the wards.
In the stable, we dismounted, and I waited, arms folded, as August saw to his horse’s brushing down himself. That was something we had in common, always brushing down our sibling horses ourselves. A grain of doubt entered my mind with a question: What if I had accepted August’s proposal?
“Lord Flemming sends his regrets that he could not come personally, and hopes you are well,” he said once he’d finished with his horse and we were heading inside.
No response I wanted to say seemed appropriate (“What, exactly, does he regret? My birth?” or “Does he hope I fall into a pit and never come back out?”, and so forth), so I elected simply to say, “Thank you.” A quality of good royalty was patience, or at least that was one of the qualities I’d displayed a lack of. Therefore, I would wait for August to announce my future and not press for it. I clenched my fists around my skirt. I would wait. August had always hated Flemming as much as I did, the embodiment of the Council. Now he spoke so calmly of him, no resentment whatsoever coloring his tone.
Once inside, August removed his winter layers slowly, letting the servants help, revealing clothes that seemed finer than his usual fare, though I hardly had the mind to think through what that meant. I followed his example and allowed a maidservant to remove my coat and boots, providing me with slippers. I thought of the slippers I’d shed on my race to the stable, the cold of the snow against my feet as I’d run from my prospective buyers, invited by my parents. Not the time to think about that, I thought, but the words in my mind were terse.
August went to stand by the fireplace in the main hall. I’d always thought August fit better in places like this, with exposed wooden beams and a great stone mantelpiece, then in elegant ballrooms.
He turned to face me. “Sit, please, Lena.” A slip of his tongue. He hadn’t referred to me as Lena, so informal, since Espen, with the exception of when he proposed. No. I couldn’t marry August. That had been the right decision, whatever the consequences.
The grain of doubt remained.
I sat, fists bunching tighter as I held in questions and demands and suggestions and pleas. When the silence stretched, I asked, as temperately as I could, “Has a decision been made?”
He laughed once, humorless. The firelight did little to cut into the darkness of the room, heavy velvet curtains drawn over the windows to keep the warmth in. Shadows danced over his face, changing his familiar features into someone I did not recognize. “We have had an interesting . . . proposal.”
My heart chilled. Was August going to repeat his proposal, now, while I was doubting? I could not submit to marry him. Nothing would induce me to do that, not now. Would it? “Oh?” I asked faintly.
Moving away from the fireplace, he sank into an armchair opposite me. “I can’t tell you all the details, it’s part of the bargain. We’ve been given an opportunity to have you far from public eye and perhaps learn more of what you need to be a ruler.” He was cool, formal, distant. Entirely unlike himself as I’d know him.
Not a proposal from him, then. The thought wasn’t extremely comforting. “And what will I be doing?” The formality of this meeting was going to kill me.
“You’ll be living with a shifter in the north for a year. He’s an honorable man, and that is all you need to know. It will be just the two of you. You don’t have to fear for your reputation—” that was the first word that he said with emotion, disdain and anger seeping into the four syllables, “—King Aleksander himself designed the Binding for him.”
“Father designed i
t? Is he here?” I interrupted.
“No. He sent it by smoke.” That was disappointing; August carried on. “You’ll be under a Binding, too. If you break any terms of your Binding, or he breaks any terms of his, you’ll be immediately returned here, where you’ll wait out the end of the year.”
I took a moment to process that. Shifters were powerful, powerful magicians who had mastered the ability to shift fully into the shape of something else, usually an animal. It was dangerous work, because if you made a mistake in transforming, for example, your own heart, you instantly killed yourself. Who was this shifter? And why had he agreed to a Binding? I recalled Bindings were contracts made magically and meant to be unbreakable, with terms and consequences that would automatically take effect if the terms are broken, the consequences more often than not death. Father was particularly good at Bindings, and I thought August was too, though I was glad Father had designed this one. “And if he breaks his Binding? What happens to him?” I heard the challenge in my voice and tried to tame my expression into something resembling polite inquiry. I doubted my success.
“It is not your concern,” August said, his tone clipped. “You need to know that if you break your Binding, you will not be reinstated as the next heir. It is not a guarantee that you will be reinstated if you do well, because the matter is complex and you have ruffled some very connected feathers with your idiotish outburst. The shifter will keep close watch over you and will report to your parents and the Council on your behavior and progress, and at the end of the year you’ll return and the question of your inheritance will be decided finally then.”
“The shifter will report to you on my behavior and progress? Pray tell, what do you mean by that?” If August’s tone was clipped, mine was chopped into smithereens, only the slightest veneer of politeness keeping it from being outright confrontational. Between the topic of my whole future and the miles-wide-and-growing rift between August and I, I was vaguely concerned we were going to start physically fighting, though I was feeling too angry to worry about that much.
“I mean that the shifter will tell us if you are still acting like a rebellious child or if you have grown into a woman that you must be to become the monarch of Vansland!”
Like that, my great plan to be so calm and collected was smashed. “I am not a child! I am seventeen years old!”
“You are a fool, Helena Nordskov! You have become the blind idiot that your mother has been for years, but you have an uncontrollable temper that will not allow you to just fade into the background as she does. You don’t care about anyone but yourself and your childish dreams of what your life should be. All your opportunities mean nothing to you—nothing! As if you had no notion how hard it is for the rest of us, scratching and scraping and clawing our way. You care about no one but yourself!” August had stood and was pacing in front of the fireplace, the reflection of the dancing flames obscuring the color of his eyes.
I sat, fists curled tight as they could in my lap, white and bloodless. “Do you want me to apologize to you for not wanting to marry you?” I asked in a low voice, teeth clenched.
August stopped, those flame-obscured eyes focused on me. “I want no explanations from you. One day, you’ll see what you lost when you turned me down with so little thought. But this is not about you and me, Helena. This is about what’s best for the kingdom, and right now the Council has determined that I am the best for the kingdom. Do everything perfectly and maybe they’ll change their mind.” It was clear how likely he thought that outcome.
Chapter Seven
Lena
That evening
I took only a small pack. Dagmar was talented at enchanting bags to hold more than they ought to, but it still wasn’t much for setting out and starting a new life. With a stranger. In an undisclosed location.
August had spent the time I was packing preparing Father’s Binding for me. Father was very good at writing Bindings and I doubted August required so much time. I was certain he did not want to spend more time with me than he had to. The feeling was mutual.
He came to my room as the last rays of light faded with an oncoming winter storm. I couldn’t meet his eyes, aware that I had proved him right in thinking me unworthy of the throne with my childish anger at the fair consequences for my actions. That awareness made me all the angrier, which in turn pushed me to despair as I tried desperately not to acknowledge that August was right.
“I completed the Binding,” he said, nothing in his tone to indicate anger. No, it was just me that couldn’t control myself.
Performing the Binding was simple enough. The time and energy was put into it earlier—now it simply had to be activated. I read over the document as carefully as I could in my state of mind. No good leader would agree to a Binding without being very familiar with the terms.
Princess Helena of Nordskov is heretofore Bound, and if she breaks the Bindings with which she has been Bound, she will immediately be transported back to her location at the time of the Binding being signed. The terms are thus: Princess Helena will not ask her companion, the shifter, about his name, his place of birth, his station of life, or his family. Princess Helena will not ask about the location of the building where the shifter chooses to take her to dwell. Princess Helena will follow the shifter’s instructions as regarding her safety. Princess Helena will remain with the shifter until the shifter releases her to her parents or until the shifter’s contract is ended. At the occurrence of either of those events, this Binding will be over.
August had a small silver knife that he unhesitatingly drew across his right palm, creating a small incision, just large enough to bleed. Swallowing my questions, my anger and frustration and rebellion, I held out my right palm and allowed him to make a similar incision for me. I had never participated in a Binding myself before, and was surprised by the sting of that small silver knife.
We clasped our bloodied right hands together and August read the terms of the Binding. As he did so, the words from the paper where he’d written them crawled up the flesh of my arm, circling the skin just below my elbow, losing none of the blackness of the ink August had written in, even retaining his handwriting. I was again surprised by pain as my arm burned when the words settled, the moment August finished reading. He retained his grasp until the words stopped moving.
“Those will fade when the Binding is over,” he said, releasing me. To my surprise, no blood remained on my hand. Stupid Lena, I berated myself for the moment of surprise, the third in a row. I knew how Bindings worked. The blood was what fueled the spell, of course it was consumed in the course of it, leaving nothing but a white line on my palm.
Someone knocked on the door. Dagmar went and answered. A servant announced that the shifter had arrived. Dagmar nodded a thank you, closed the door, and relayed the message to us, as if we had not heard it for ourselves.
“Do you require anything else, Helena?” August asked, the picture of self-righteous self-control, still avoiding my gaze. Or perhaps I was the one avoiding his.
I wanted to ask if he would miss me, a stupid question, since I would be gone only a year. He had been absent from home for longer stretches than that. Besides which, at this point, I was hard-pressed to believe he’d feel anything but relief at my absence. I couldn’t be certain I’d miss him, not the man that he’d become. I shook my head.
“Dress her warmly, then,” August directed Dagmar, turning away to allow me some privacy. Dagmar did her work quickly, my wool stockings, sealskin boots with amazingly quality-woven waterproof magic, and an enormous fur-lined parka with a hood enchanted to block the elements.
“She’s ready to go,” Dagmar said softly.
August didn’t turn around, but walked to the door. He politely held the door for me, icy eyes unreadable, so it was I that led the way to the entry hall. Dagmar followed, carrying my bag, making us a sad little procession.
Thus it was that I had no one familiar in front of me when I turned the corner into the entry hall and saw my
intended companion for the next year. He was difficult to miss, though the hall was large and fairly dark, seeming darker with the thickly swirling snow outside the windows. I couldn’t help myself—I gasped and stumbled back a step. The white bear that was to be my companion for the next year, the isbjørn, in front of me growled, low and deep and resonating.
No. Was that . . . laughter? It didn’t seem possible that it could be laughter, yet my instincts said it was. The beast was enormous, his sloped shoulders coming past my elbow as he stood on all fours. Thick white fur did not disguise the fact that the bear was built to hunt, long-bodied, with enormous paws and curling black nails. He had a long muzzle with an ink-black nose and mouth. I thought when I’d seen illusions of isbjørns before that their eyes had been black, but this one had storm-gray eyes that I felt could see right through me.
Even knowing he was human, primal fear sped my heartbeat. I did my best to hide it, though it was probably too late after gasping and stepping backwards. Still, I tried to be bold. “I am to go with you, then,” I said, doing my best to sound confident and unintimidated.
“Allow me to introduce you to my cousin,” August said, stepping forward, his expression one of reprimand. Right. Young, unmarried ladies ought not to speak to unfamiliar men without introductions. Even if those men wore the body of an isbjørn and were already Bound to be the young, unmarried lady’s companion for the next year, without a chaperone. Besides, it wasn’t exactly proper to have young, unmarried men in one’s bedroom, even with a maid, regardless of the degree of acquaintance. But August could play a gentleman if he wanted.
“Helena Nordskov,” I supplied. “Since we are being formal, apparently.” I dropped a sarcastic curtsy. “I won’t ask your name.” I felt a faint buzzing from right arm. Apparently the Binding was warning me I was walking close to a line. “I said I won’t ask his name,” I muttered.
The isbjørn abruptly bared his teeth, showing off enormous canines, thick as my little finger, standing turrets next to the even white stones of his smaller front teeth, and black gums. “I don’t think Bindings can understand your complaints against them, just if you break the terms.” Ah. It had been a smile. The bear’s voice was deep, deeper than thunder, not sounding human at all.
