Mistress of the Wind (18 page)

How did a horse ride the wind? She would just have to find out.

They broke out into the open, but the mountain was still in the way. Light seeped from either side of it, and Astrid realized it lay directly east, blocking the sun from view.

“We go over it, then.” She urged Cirrus into a trot, then a canter, until finally they were galloping along the valley floor, straight at the craggy heights.

“Show me how you ride the wind,” Astrid whispered, but Cirrus did nothing, and she imagined the wind around them, imagined it solid beneath Cirrus’s flashing hooves.

She felt his angle change, clamped her knees tighter on his flanks as he rose up. Felt her heart soar as they climbed higher and higher, until the forest was below them and they flew up like eagles, rounding the side of the mountain.

Her hair, which she’d fought into submission and braided that morning, streamed out behind her, and the old, threadbare cloak Dame Berge had given her flapped like a brown wing. She pulled it closer around her, tucking her sack beneath it. Last night, when she’d placed the golden apple in her sack, she’d heard the clunk of two hard objects hitting each other. She’d tipped the sack up to see what the apple could have hit against and there, on the bed, lay the wooden bear Eric had given her.

But she had thrown it against the wall in the Mountain Palace.

She’d stood looking down at it, her exhausted mind churning over the possibilities, but she could think of only one that made sense. The air sprites had returned it to her. Unnoticed, while she pushed against the stone door, they had recovered her carving and slipped it back into her sack.

She had picked it up and climbed into bed with it clutched tight in her hand, and fought with her tears.

Astrid blinked. Just thinking of the returned talisman again, a single drop leaked from the corner of her eye, stinging her cold cheek with its warmth. She dipped her head and rubbed her face on her shoulder to dry it, leant into the shelter of Cirrus’s neck, and held on for the wild ride.

Chapter Twenty-five

T
hey alighted in a meadow cast deep into shadow by the hill above it. Snug up against the hillside was a cottage, and to the right of it, a waterfall fell from nearly half way up the hill into a large pool. In the pale pink light of dusk, Astrid saw the water churning and foaming, the ripples reflecting the pastel sky as they eddied to the banks.

Cirrus nickered as they approached the house and a horse answered from the stable. Astrid slid off his back with a groan, every muscle stiff and sore, and led him into the tiny courtyard, rubbing his nose.

“It has been a long time since Cirrus stood in this yard.”

An old woman in a homespun dress as white as her short, wavy hair stood at the door.

“Good evening.” Astrid curtsied low, and to her surprise, the wind sprites lifted her cloak behind her, as if it were a train. “Dame Berge lent me the use of Cirrus for today, and said I might find a welcome here from you.”

“A curtsey from the Wind Hag. That’s worth a good dinner to you alone.” The old woman chuckled and stepped from her doorway into the little yard, and Astrid saw her face was pale and smooth despite her age; she had once been a great beauty. “I am Dame Elv. Go within and rest before the fire a while, or make use of the hot water to wash. I will get Cirrus comfortable.”

“I will do it.” Astrid lifted a hand to Cirrus’s neck. “He has served me well today and I should be the one to brush him down and feed him.”

The old woman looked at her with eyes that caught the last rays of sun. Pale green as the ice in a glacier. “Very well. We will do it together.”

She took up the reins and led Cirrus into the stable. Within was a horse identical to him, and the two nuzzled each other ecstatically.

“Nimbus will be happy of the company tonight.”

Astrid looked curiously at the small stream that ran through the stable, bubbling up on one end, running down a deep channel and disappearing back into the ground near the door.

“There is one in the house, too. Spring water.” The old woman handed Astrid a brush and went to fetch a bucket of oats.

The rhythm of brushing Cirrus felt good; calming after the long day, and Astrid sniffed in the sweet smell of hay, the normal, comforting scents of the barn, and thought how not so long ago, there would have been nothing remarkable in this for her. She had wished for a new world, and she had been given one beyond her imagination. But the only thing of importance to her in it was Bjorn. And she would find him again.

When they were finished, Dame Elv dusted her hands with a quick slap, one against the other, and then rubbed them down the front skirt of her dress.

“Come, let’s wash, eat and sleep. I will lend you Nimbus tomorrow. He won’t want to miss an adventure of his own after a night hearing Cirrus recount his.”

Inside the house, just as she’d said, a spring bubbled up into a basin on the floor, spilling over the sides and disappearing into the smooth stones set around it. The air seemed fresher because of it, and Astrid drew in a deep breath.

Dame Elv led her to a chair beside the fire, and Astrid had just lowered herself into it when her hostess produced a bowl of stew for her lap. Despite her hunger, Astrid struggled to keep her eyes open, lulled by the murmur of the fountain, the warmth radiating from the hearth, and the muted, steady hiss of the waterfall outside.

Her head dropped further and further forward, and she cried out as she suddenly fell head first—not into her bowl of stew, but into the churning foam of the waterfall’s icy waters.

* * *

Cold and shock slapped her awake, and panic had her heart racing.

Astrid tried to kick back up to the surface, but the water was so full of bubbles, there was nothing to kick against. She sunk straight to the bottom and was held there by the pounding water.

Think. Think!

There had to be a way. Lungs already burning, Astrid tried using the uneven, rocky floor of the pool to launch herself back up, but she got caught again in the swirl of air-laden water, pushed back down again.

“Stuck?”

Astrid caught the image of a naked woman in the water, gone before she could be sure.

A soft tinkle of laughter, cold and frothy, swirled around her.

She flayed in panic, dizzy with the need for a breath, her lungs on fire. She pictured the air above and within the water coming to her, spiraling down, and willed it to be so. Through the lights dancing in front of her eyes she looked up and saw a whirlpool coalesce above her, the air drilling down through the water. Fighting its way to her.

She glimpsed the curious, transparent face of a woman, peering through the swirling water, her features sharp, and with a final, panicked shove of her will, the air punched down to the bottom of the pool, shoving the water aside.

Astrid heaved in a shaking, gasping breath.

The water had flown from her to a spinning vortex, narrow enough she could touch it if she lifted her arms out at her sides. She balanced on the slippery, weed-covered rocks at the bottom of the pool and looked up to see the star-filled night sky above her.

The pool was deep and the amount of water around her, stretching above her, sent a skitter of fear through her body.

“Very dramatic.” The water sprite’s voice was fuzzy through the spinning water. She pushed up against the inner edge of the whirlpool as if it were a glass window, then poked her head through into the air-filled eye of calm.

Rage swept through Astrid, the aftermath of a close encounter with death, and she clenched her fists. Her hair stuck to her cheeks and water dripped from her clothes. The chill winter air from above clamped a clammy hand over her.

“You . . .” She heard a roaring in her ears, and only the nervous flash in the water sprite’s eyes made her fight for control. “You almost killed me . . .”

The water sprite stared back, her face neutral.

“What is this test about?” Astrid stood, shivering in the whirlpool’s center, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“How are you going to get out of the pool?” the sprite asked.

Astrid had wondered that herself. Away from the pounding, churning water directly under the waterfall, she could simply do away with the whirlpool and swim up. Except that would leave her in the water with the water sprite, and she didn’t trust it.

“I don’t know.”

The sprite nodded. “Those who do not appreciate the power they wield, do not deserve to have it.”

With that, she seemed to kick off of something, shooting herself to the top of the whirlpool and water began pouring down on Astrid, spilling over the lip of the air cylinder she’d created, to rain down on her.

It pummeled her, bowing her under its weight.

She had held this all in check without a thought only moments ago, and she suddenly understood her lesson. Took a huge breath as the water closed over her head.

She was the mistress of the wind. She was powerful. She needed to respect her own strength.

She called the air back and it formed beneath her, a massive bubble, rising from the bottom with her standing upon it. She rose to the surface, the water streaming off her, and she stood on the water as if it were a solid thing. Willed the air beneath her to sweep her to the shore.

Dame Elv was waiting for her with a towel as she stepped from the lapping waves onto the rocky pool’s edge, but before she took it, Astrid turned back, knelt and touched her lips to the water.

“Thank you.”

“Nicely done,” came the tinkling reply. “Nicely done, Wind Hag.”

* * *

Wrapped up in a soft blanket, her dress dripping by the fire, Astrid swallowed the last of her stew and shivered. Not from cold, but from the strangeness of everything.

Dame Elv regarded her steadily with her green eyes, and Astrid thought she saw a hint of iciness, the flash of cold interest she’d seen in the water sprite. But when the old woman took the soup bowl from her, there was nothing but friendliness and concern in her face. She smiled, and it transformed her back to a little old lady.

What she had been before the smile was more puzzling. Sharp-eyed, powerful. Magical.

When Dame Elv sat down again, her hand dug deep into the pocket of her dress.

“You may find this useful to you where you’re going.” She lifted out a comb; golden, lovely beyond anything. Even the apple in Astrid’s sack could not compare to the delicate intricacies of the design along the top. The perfect marriage of art and function.

Astrid knew her eyes were wide, her mouth open, and she slid off her chair to her knees, blanket clutched in front of her, to take the gift from Dame Elv’s offered palm.

“Thank you. I have never seen anything so lovely.”

“Haven’t you?” Dame Elv asked, and Astrid jerked her gaze up.

“Nothing man-made,” she conceded, thinking of a dew-covered spiderweb, the forest spread out before her yesterday on Cirrus. Bjorn’s face.

A lightning jab of pain pierced her and she fought back the crippling sense of loss. She would find him.

“It is lovely, you’re right.” The old woman rubbed her eyes, and Astrid wondered if she regretted her gift, but she did not so much as give the comb another look as she rose.

“I’ll show you to your bed.”

Astrid got up from her knees and slipped the comb into the bag with her other things. How these gifts would be of use to her, she had no idea, other than their great value.

But she was sure Dame Berge and Dame Elv did not give their treasures lightly.

She hoped she could reward their sacrifice with success.

Chapter Twenty-six

N
imbus was as swift a wind steed as Cirrus. Astrid watched the landscape fall away, thickly forested hills that seemed diseased with their patchy snow, valleys muddy with early winter slush and swollen rivers spilling into narrow fjords so deep their waters were inky blue.

She knew her journey’s end today was the home of another friend of the two old women, and felt the claw of panic, the gnawing fear that time was wasting. She still did not even know where Norga’s palace was, and Bjorn could even now be swearing his marriage oaths to her troll daughter.

But panic would not serve her well. She could not travel faster than she was. With her breath snatched from her lips and the icy fingers of altitude prying through her clothes, she truly was swift as the wind.

Despite the feeling her hours were running out, that the ax of time was lowering on her neck, she welcomed the nightfall and the prospect of rest. Even with the borrowed cloak, her body was close to freezing, her face stiff with cold. When she could, she dipped her head and lifted the edge of her cloak, covering part of her face, even though it felt worse when her numb fingers fumbled and the fabric was ripped from them, her face blasted by the cold again.

When Nimbus touched down and staggered to a stop in front of a neat house, she slid off his back with relief.

Astrid saw the door of the cottage was open—strange on this cold night—and she took a longing step toward it, the flicker of candlelight promising comfort within.