Mistress of the Wind (24 page)

“Get to work.” Norga carried on along the passage, and panting with nausea, Astrid heard her thunder down the stairs. She leant back against the wall, trying to banish the stars before her eyes.

The chill stone on her neck steadied her, but there was something wrong with the silence.

She looked up, and found Dekla staring down at her, her eyes gleaming at Astrid’s pain. Her pride assuaged by her mother’s kick.

The witness to her own humiliation, humiliated.

“Get up.” Dekla did not offer a hand.

Slowly, using the wall to her back to help her, Astrid pushed herself to her feet.

Again, Dekla extended her hand, but this time, Astrid did not need to force herself to pull out the apple. She knew what she faced, now. What Bjorn faced.

She put the apple in Dekla’s hand, and limped out into the world again.

* * *

Bjorn heard a door slam, voices, and he jerked up from bed.

Astrid?

His head was fuzzy, as if he were sickening, but he was sure he’d heard the impossible.

Blank walls stared back at him.

Perhaps he was going sick
and
mad. Perhaps Norga’s spell to strip him of his power within her castle walls was having a deeper, more insidious effect than merely rendering him a watered-down version of his former self.

He swung his feet down and grimaced when he saw a pulpy mess of spider spread across the stone floor. One of his hideous visitors, squashed to a paste.

He frowned.

He’d hit more than one with his boot, and he knew from experience they were robust. This one looked as if it had been ground down.

And he hadn’t done it.

Had Dekla come in while he slept?

The thought gave him an uncomfortable tingle down his spine. He wouldn’t put it past her. But to take the time to kill a spider while she was here? That didn’t ring true.

She barely noticed the things.

He frowned again. Toed the mess.

Was he so desperate, he was trying to find hope in a pulverized spider? Hope that Astrid had achieved the impossible and somehow found a way to this pit. Found a way past the guards and through the labyrinth of Norga’s castle to his room.

And what? Sat beside him while he slept and did not wake him? Vanished before he did?

He laughed at himself, even as his heart ripped in two.

Could Norga have brought him any lower?

* * *

“So the daughter is as slippery as the mother.” North spoke without looking at her, his eyes closed, stretched across his rock. Still barely there.

Astrid swallowed her self-pity—a bitter pill—and rubbed her hip. “She’s not as violent, but she enjoys watching her mother hurt others.” North half-opened an eye at that, and his lips thinned as she gave the swollen bruise one last rub. “I know where he is now. I know there is no window we can rescue him from. I know Dekla . . .” What did she know about Dekla? That the troll princess was possessive. That she longed to be admired as well as feared.

That when she looked at Astrid, her fingers twitched with their desire to claw her face, grind her head-first into the dirt.

She threw a stone into a sea as restless as herself. “He doesn’t even know I was there.”

North said nothing, and the gulls cried for her as they dived from the cliffs into the murky waves.

Astrid threw another stone, squinted at the horizon, trying to work out the time.

“It was around this time yesterday Dekla went for her walk.”

“You will arrange another meeting?” North spoke as if he did not care, but it seemed to her his voice was sharper, the air slightly colder.

“Of course.”

“What will you exchange this time?”

Astrid pulled the sack from its hiding place under North’s rock and brought out the comb and the flute. Touched each lightly with a fingertip.

“The comb.”

It was the one she least wanted to part with. The most beautiful.

Dekla would not be able to resist it.

“She’ll trick you again.” North’s voice was barely a sigh in the still, bitter air.

“She’ll think she is, anyway.” She clenched her fist around the comb, winced when its teeth dug into her palm. “I’ll take some charcoal I found on the beach and write Bjorn a message on his wall. And I will leave him something he knows could only come from me.”

“What is that?” North lifted up from the rock for the first time in over a day, a cloudy eyebrow raised a notch.

Astrid dropped the comb into her pocket and took the carved bear from the sack. She lifted it up to show him, rubbed it against the bodice of her thread-bare blue dress to make it gleam.

North grunted, lay back down, and Astrid slid the sack with its one lonely treasure and what remained of the bread and cheese from Dame Elv under his rock. She slipped the bear and a crumbling piece of charcoal in to join the comb in her pocket.

“I think the wedding is on Friday. After the raising of the gate of honor, that’s traditional. It’s what makes sense.”

“And today is Wednesday.”

“Yes.” The things that could go wrong, the danger she was in, went unspoken between them. She had two nights left to rescue Bjorn and she would do what she needed to do.

The time she had was more than she’d expected. She’d feared the worst, and she was grateful to have time in hand.

“Wish me luck,” she called to North, but he didn’t answer as she set off along the cliff bottom, weighed down by the sky and her troubles.

When she reached the deep gorge where the river fell in a sheer curtain into the sea, she climbed up beside it and started inland, following the twisting ribbon of water to the meadow where she’d met with Dekla the day before.

Waiting had never agreed with her, and while she sat and pretended not to watch for the troll princess, she realized her edginess had everything to do with the stillness.

There was no wind stirring here.

There had never been a time when she had not had the wind dancing around her when she went outside.

It was the most evil thing about this place. The dark sky and darker sea, the way everything loomed, sharp and threatening, were nothing to the wind-forsaken atmosphere.

Astrid lifted her hands behind her head and worked the knot of the cord fastening her braid.

It came free and she burrowed her fingers deep, massaging her scalp. She shivered with the pleasure of unbound hair.

Then she took the comb and began to work it through her tangles, the only chance she’d have to use her gift. She bent her head forward and her hair fell in a curtain of gold silk, a few shades lighter than the comb itself.

A shadow fell over her, and Astrid forced herself not to check her movement. She looked up easily.

“Princess.” She nodded as if they were casual acquaintances.

The princess’s eyes were blank, but Astrid had seen the longing to rip Astrid’s hair out with her black-nailed fingers before she’d mastered her jealousy.

“I want it.” She breathed the words out on a possessive sigh.

It was on the tip of Astrid’s tongue to tell her owning the comb would never make Dekla more like her. Never make Bjorn love her. But she held her tongue.

And most likely, Dekla did not want Bjorn’s love, only his admiration and obedience. And she would never have that.

“I cannot trust you,” she said instead. “The prince slept through my visit last time.” She went back to brushing her hair.

Dekla hissed, and leant over her, her fingers twitching with her desire to yank her hair.

“It was nothing to do with me, that he slept.” Her eyes gleamed, vicious in their lies.

Astrid kept her expression neutral. She needed to be a believable dupe. Not too stupid or Dekla may find her suspicious. But not too bright, either. She had to get into Bjorn’s room tonight
and
tomorrow night to have any chance of saving him.

“Well?” A hint of fear spiked Dekla’s tone.

“I don’t know.” Astrid tugged the comb through her hair one last time and laid it in her lap, then lifted her arms back to braid it, as if she had all the time in the world.

Dekla’s gaze burned her thighs as she focused on the comb.

“Decide.” The word was sharp with panic.

“It is a lot to risk for another night of him snoring through.” Astrid widened her eyes as she looked up at Dekla. Uncertain naivety.

Dekla lifted a fist to her heart and knocked it once. “I will see he gets a hearty meal for lunch and dinner. He will be strong as an ox for you.”

Warmth crept up Astrid’s cheeks at the troll’s words, offering her her lover like a whore. Dekla would think it maidenly blushes.

“What if he sleeps again?”

Dekla shrugged. “Wake him up.”

“Same time as before?” Astrid’s voice quavered. Only she knew it was anger and not a virgin’s uncertainty.

“The same time.”

Dekla almost gave herself away, the glee leaking from the corners of her mouth.

Astrid turned her head, fussed with the comb, so she could pretend she hadn’t seen it.

“Until later.” Dekla began walking away, but backwards, her eyes fixed on the comb. She unbalanced on the uneven ground of the field, and fell over with a shout.

That’s right
. Astrid stood herself, shaking with rage, and walked away.
This comb will trip you up
.

Chapter Thirty-two

D
ekla shuffled, uneasy now they were at Bjorn’s cell. Proof of her deceit lay just beyond the door, if Astrid was any judge.

She stood still and relaxed, watching the troll, her hand in her pocket. A reminder to Dekla of the precious thing within.

Dekla’s eyes followed a cliff spider scuttling down the corridor. “Keep silent. If someone realizes you are in the castle, I cannot protect you.”

Astrid lowered her gaze. “I’ll keep silent. I only cried last time because I was so disappointed.”

“I am sure you will not be disappointed this time.”

Astrid did not answer, but raised her eyebrows as she looked at Dekla. Saw the slyness in the set of her jaw, the way her eyes shifted over Astrid’s shoulder. She turned and slid the key into the lock.

“I’ll see you at dawn.” She edged the door open just enough for Astrid to slip through, then slammed it behind her.

Exactly as Astrid hoped she would.

She leant back against the rough wood a moment but she could sense Dekla on the other side, ear pressed to the lock.

Astrid shivered and stepped away, the door tainted by Dekla’s leaning presence. She took in the room in the fluttering candlelight; the glint of moisture off the walls, the gleam of black spider eyes in a corner.

Bjorn lying fast asleep.

She had known he would be. Had been certain of it. And yet, one tiny part of her must have hoped otherwise. Because suddenly she wept. Heart wrenching sobs that tore from her chest.

She walked to Bjorn’s bed, clambered over him and lay squashed against him and the wall, holding on to him as if he were a life raft in the sea of her tears.

She heard the sharp, ringing steps of Dekla walking away, no doubt satisfied that the little village girl had been disappointed once again. The thought helped calm her.

She hadn’t lost.

She and Dekla had tied this round, and she intended to win the last one.

She sat up, eased herself off the bed and took the piece of charcoal from her pocket. Lifted the candle, wobbly in its holder, and looked for a place to leave her message.

The walls all seemed too dark, too damp, but she tried a few strokes. Writing black on black was not going to work. She turned to the door, but the wood was blackened as well, and just as useless.

Her eye fell on the dull grey wood of the table, a surface both light enough and dry enough to leave her message. She kept it short and could only hope Dekla did not notice it.

Then she took the little wooden bear and placed it in Bjorn’s hand. Closed his fingers around it.

There was nothing more she could do except wait until morning, so she wriggled back between him and the wall, watching over him until the candle burnt out. Then lay with her head on his heart until morning.

* * *

He woke to the sight of Dekla’s back as she closed his cell door, a dripping cloth in her hand. Astrid’s scent seemed to cling to him, and though he hadn’t cried since he was a child, tears pricked the back of his eyes as he breathed in her fading perfume, fresh as sunshine.

He noticed water dripping from his table to the floor, and remembered the wet rag in Dekla’s hand. He frowned, struggled up, trying to make sense of the nonsensical. She wouldn’t have been cleaning it, surely?

He took the single step necessary to reach the table, and saw that far from cleaning the table, Dekla seemed to have rubbed black soot into it.

He sat back down on the bed, holding his pounding head with both hands, wondering what was wrong with him, and felt something hard digging into his thigh.