Mistress of the Wind (16 page)

His fingers tightened, clamped her waist. “Norga becomes even more powerful the moment I marry her daughter. Do not endanger yourself.”

She did not reply, and eventually his hold on her relaxed.

“Let us not waste our last hours on this.” Bjorn brushed his lips to her cheek, and light, soft and mellow, bloomed like a flower, filling the room.

He looked almost completely healed, and she stared at him, filling her eyes so she would never forget.

“I want to see you, to not waste a minute more. So I have this memory whatever may happen.” He reached behind her and tugged at the ties on her dress, his fingers clumsy with haste. When he raised his eyes to hers, they were molten. Sea green mixed with fire.

Her heart lurched as it caught his urgency. She pushed her dress off her shoulders and began wriggling out of it.

He raised his white shirt off his head, and then looked at it, perplexed. “Where did this come from?”

“I wished for it. You were so cold.” Astrid fingered the soft cotton, marred only by the drops of tallow over the left breast.

“Something truly from you. From your heart.” He looked thoughtful. “I shall wear it when Norga takes me.”

He laid it carefully aside, and the light gleamed off his skin and hair as he turned to her. Framed her face with his hands.

Astrid traced a finger over his lips as their bodies slid together, familiar and yet unfamiliar.

“If there is a way to find you, then I will.” She found a center of calm in her words. A new resolve. When dawn came, she would not lie, crying and wishing for him back. She would push away the anguish and she would
get
him back.

* * *

Astrid woke to the pale, cold touch of early morning. She stretched out and then froze. With a cry, she twisted up and onto her knees, her heart thundering. Her gaze went to the empty place beside her in the bed.

How could she have slept through? How could he have gone without waking her?

The empty bed was proof she had and he did, but how could it be?

They had lain together, soft and sated, and she had closed her eyes to savor the moment. The smell of his skin, the feel of it against hers. How could she have slept?

Unless . . . she looked again at the dented pillow, the ruffled sheets on Bjorn’s side, and wondered if he had made the choice for her?

“As least now, I know nothing is unsaid between us.”

He had whispered that to her only a few hours ago.

Could he really have enchanted her one last time? Thinking to save her from the trauma and heartbreak of his leaving. Thinking to force her to be angry with him, move on and find a new life.

“No!” She pounded the bed with her fist and leapt up. “You do not get rid of me that easily.”

“Hot water,” she called. Nothing happened. “Breakfast?” Again, nothing. The magic in her room was gone.

So was everything else, she realized, except the furniture that had been in the room the evening she arrived. The bed and a chair and table were all she could see. The ladder was gone. The dress she wore yesterday, her bath—all gone.

Naked, panicked, Astrid fell to her knees and began scrabbling under her bed. As her hand touched her old rag bundle, tears of relief stung her eyes.

She dug in the cloth sack and lifted out her old dress. The one she’d worn from her home the night Bjorn came for her. It had once been cornflower blue, now faded to match the winter sky; thin, scratchy, and over-patched. Before her, Freja and Bets had both worn it.

It had served her well enough before. And it would do so now.

She pulled it over her head. Threw the sack over her shoulder, and winced as something within it struck her back in the pendulum swing of the bag. She dug her hand inside, and came out with the gift Eric had given her before she’d left home the first time.

The tiny carving of a bear.

He’d sanded and oiled it, and it was smooth in her hands. Why had he given it to her? Guilt, perhaps. Some strange idea of a parting gift.

Whatever the reason, it comforted her. Increased her determination. She slipped it back in the sack and walked to the door, her hand resting a moment on the handle. Would it open for her?

As she pushed the handle down, something dropped from the skylight, and Astrid looked over her shoulder to see what it was.

A little dwarf. And then another. And then another. Red capped, blue shirted, with little leather boots.

The first one looked at her and let out a laugh at the surprise and horror on her face, and she did not wait a second longer.

Trusting the castle was free of all magic, she flung the door back and ran for her life.

The first mistake they made was turning back to trolls in her chamber. As they struggled out of the door on knuckles and knees, she gained a small lead.

She could only see them because the light from her skylights spilled into the passageway, but the sconces were no longer lit. It may be daylight, but within the palace it was black as a tomb and she flew down the steps in pure darkness, the thud of massive footsteps behind her.

A troll cried out as it fell down the stairs, and the others slowed their chase.

Hands outstretched, she raced across the massive hall to the door, running too fast to stop herself slamming into the stone.

“Open,” she whispered. “Please open.”

The rock did not budge.

Then she would
force
it open.

Air in the palace, to me.
She commanded the wind with her thoughts, desperate not to make another sound. The first brush of air on her face made her lean weakly back against the rock.

It had worked.

The trolls could be anywhere. Right on top of her, for all she knew. And she needed time.

With regretful, shaking fingers, she pulled her carved bear out of her sack and pitched it as hard as she could at the far wall. It skittered on the smooth granite and made a satisfying thunk as it hit its target.

She heard a grunt, and the sound of footsteps in that direction, but not three sets. At least one still stood, listening.

She could feel the pressure building as the air flowed toward her.
As much strength as you have to offer. I must open this entrance.

As soon as she’d thought it, the pressure increased, the air whistling as it moved to her. Filling the hall with an eerie sound.

Her hair whipped her face, the wool of her dress flattened against her body, and she took the strain herself, gripping what handholds she could find in the stone and pushing with all her might.

The trolls were muttering, uneasy. And the one who’d been listening took a step toward her, his footfall a clear slap of sound on the polished floor.

The air was now like the blast of wind through a narrow gorge, concentrated, terrifying, its fingers digging into the fine crack that separated the stone door from the wall of mountain. The pitch of its whistle grew higher and higher as it cried out in exertion.

Astrid’s ears ached.

She felt the door move. A miniscule jerk. She strained against the rock, grazing her hands, pushing harder. The shriek and whistle of the wind was deafening.

Hurry.

If the trolls were coming closer, she could no longer hear them. But she could smell them. The air blasted their scent at her. The smell of rock, lichen and moss.

The door inched wider, vibrating with the strain, and a tiny crack of light penetrated the hall.

They would see her. Panic gripped her as she pressed back against the rock.

She knew the moment they had. One gave a cry of triumph loud enough to be heard over the pounding noise of air, and the thin line of light from outside illuminated it, a strange stripe of brightness, as it leapt at her.

Astrid was forming her scream when the troll was batted back, the wind turning its full force toward it for a moment. The troll stumbled and fell, and the air went back to work, howling in the confined space.

In the growing light, she saw the trolls look at one another. Nervous and confused. Their hesitation gave her the time she needed, and with a final shove, the door moved just enough to let her through.

She dived through the narrow gap, grazing her shoulders, and the moment she was through the air ceased pushing. The gate snapped back with a grinding screech that set her teeth on edge.

She lay on the ground for only a moment. How long would it take the trolls to get out the palace?

Astrid didn’t wait to find out.

Chapter Twenty-three

S
he was gathering the wind to her, running full tilt at the trees to make her first leap when an yggren stepped into her path.

She was going too fast on the slithering stones, and she willed the wind, like a limb, like a part of herself, to lift her up, and she jumped.

As she sailed high above the yggren’s head, she looked down, giddy with delight and fear, and saw it had craned back its neck to look at her. Its bark-brown gaze alien and unreadable.

“Do not run,” it called in the strange, high call she’d heard before. “I am not your enemy.”

Astrid landed hard enough to jolt her legs, stumbled and raced on, readying herself for another leap.

“Stop.”

Jorgen stepped from the cool shadows of the trees, blocking her way. He was too close to jump over, too close for anything but collision.

She slammed into him and he went over like a felled oak, taking the brunt of impact on the cold, hard forest floor.

Astrid rolled off him, but before she could find her feet he had a lock on her legs.

“Wait, my lady. This yggren can be trusted.”

“It isn’t with the trolls?” she gasped out, and saw the flash of surprise in his eyes.

“Trolls?”

“In the palace.” She sucked in air. “Tried to kill me.”

“Where is Bjorn?”

There was no mistaking the panic, the fear for Bjorn in his voice, and Astrid let herself flop gratefully back to the ground, her eyes closed. He had not betrayed her.

“Norga took Bjorn at dawn.” Her throat was suddenly bone dry, every word painful to speak.

The yggren gave a cry, and Astrid sat up again, looking at it warily.

“The bargain is lost?”

Jorgen’s face, the sorrow, the despair, mirrored Astrid’s own.

“Oh, Jorgen. I am sorry. It was my fault. I had a candle and I lit it last night to care for his wounds. I saw him as a man.”

“After everything . . .”

Jorgen sat back down, pale under his dark skin.

The sound of stone crunching beneath running feet filtered through the trees.

“The trolls.” Astrid leapt up, grabbing Jorgen under his arms and hauling him with all her might.

“Leave the trolls to us,” the yggren said, its voice like the shriek of two branches rubbing together in the wind. It let out a cry, strange and terrible, and suddenly there were yggren all around.

Before she could even count how many, they were gone in their disturbing way; faster than a blink, the crackle of leaves and the swish of disturbed branches the only sound of their leaving.

Astrid shivered. “Jorgen, quickly. I must know. Have you heard of the place that is east of the sun and west of the moon?”

Jorgen blinked, his old self again. He shook his head. “That’s where Bjorn is?”

“Yes and I am going to find him.”

From behind them, between the trees, they both heard the queer, high-pitched scream of a creature in pain. It cut off abruptly.

Astrid glanced back uneasily. “I need to know the best way to start.”

“You are going on a journey?” The yggren was back, no mark on it. It might never have been away.

Astrid could not look it in the eye after it had just shed blood for her. “Why are you helping me?”

The yggren bent down on one knee. “I gave Bjorn my loyalty. So did the others. It is a mystery to us why two of our own broke their word, but we have not. Will not.”

The declaration touched her, and she nodded. “I seek the place east of the sun, west of the moon. Do you know it?”

“I have heard of it, but do not know where to find it.” The yggren cocked its head like a bird. “Why do you not ask your loyal subjects, Wind Hag? Does the wind not go everywhere?”

Wind Hag.
Was she?

Of course she was. Since the moment Bjorn asked her, she’d known it, deep within.

She bent her head. “I’m a poor mistress of the wind. I can command it, but cannot talk with it.”

The yggren shrugged. “These local air sprites do you good service, my lady, but they are not the same as the great winds.” He gestured east. “Perhaps the East Wind will know, if this place is east?”

The East Wind. Power seemed to lift up from her feet, to flow through every part of her. “I am in your debt, yggren.”

“We will watch for your safety where we can.” It stood, and then, in a blink it was gone.