Page 14 of Blood Beneath the Snow

“You’re late,” he remarked, pulling back slightly to press his lips to my cheek.

When his gaze caught on my wrapped wounds, his expressionfell. He led me out of the dancing crowd to a table at the back of the tavern, where Freja sat waiting.

Arne nudged me toward a chair, and I sat, grabbing the frothing mug Freja shoved toward me. I took a long swig and winced at the taste of watered-down beer. Better than nothing; I was surprised there was beer of any kind left these days.

Arne grabbed my bandaged hand and held it up for Freja to examine. She gasped when she caught sight of the bruises blossoming around the edges of the wrapping. “You need to see a healer. Again.”

“I don’t want a healer,” I said, voice monotone. I didn’t look either of them in the eyes. A slow throb echoed through my hand. This injury wasn’t one I’d earned through insurrection. It was a self-inflicted expression of my pain.

The pain I couldn’t truly show anyone, even my friends. Not when they all had it far worse than I ever would.

Arne frowned. “Don’t be an idiot. You need a healer. Get one yourself or I’ll make you.”

I lifted the mug to my lips and took another drink instead of answering. Arguing was pointless with Arne, the only person I knew who rivaled me for stubbornness. No matter how much I fought him, my hand would be healed whether I wanted it or not.

Before I came up with a way to effectively protest Arne’s insistence that I see a healer, Halvar approached our table. His establishment was the center of life on the working side of town. A safe place for the godforsaken. The godtouched had no interest in a shabby tavern where the best drink offered was watered-down beer.

Us godforsaken, though? We cared far less about the drinks and far more about the camaraderie of our traditional dances and the lack of priests here.

Halvar grinned, offering us a gap-toothed smile. “Glad you made it,” he said, clapping me on the back with a giant hand.

I returned the expression. “Thanks for letting me come by.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re one of us. I’d never try to stop you.”

Some godforsaken disagreed. They didn’t realize I suffered too, albeit in a different way than they did because of my royal blood. It was hard to feel like I had anywhere I belonged.

But at Halvar’s those feelings of loneliness and sense of loss disappeared. Halvar’s was home.

Freja held up her mug. “To Halvar.”

We echoed her sentiment and took a swig of the beer, letting it slide down our throats. I shook my head and ran my tongue across my teeth, casting a glance over the crowd. Familiar faces mixed with those I’d never seen before: I nodded to the cobbler whose shop was only a few buildings down, smiled at a middle-aged woman radiating nervousness, and watched a dark-haired man only a few years older than me run a finger through the condensation pooling on the wooden table in front of him.

Halvar glanced at Freja. “How was your morning?” he asked, focusing on the towel in his hands.

She shrugged. “I had work.” Today had been her day off, but no one said anything in response to our usual code; she was letting us know the baby had been safely delivered to its parents, who were now on their way out of the country. I took a deep breath and relaxed slightly.

The codes were necessary for a reason. The last thing we needed was a gossip letting slip who was involved in my schemes. I was always more than happy to take the brunt of responsibility, especially knowing what would happen if my friends were caught. Freja leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table. “How’s your storeroom looking?”

Halvar scanned the crowd around us for eavesdroppers before answering. “Storeroom’s looking great.”

Anyone in town could tell you where the storeroom was in the Sharpened Axe. But the trapdoor underneath was a secret weguarded with our lives. The place Freja, Halvar, and I had sat and talked this morning was where Halvar taught us how to fight.

Halvar fancied the idea of a revolution against the priests. Overthrowing my father and brothers would be his dream come true. Over the years, he’d worked in secret to set up his underground operation, gathering weapons and teaching non-magical people in the city how to fight. As the anomaly of a godforsaken with two godtouched parents, Halvar’s mothers taught him everything he would have learned at the military academies. Determined to spread his knowledge and empower more of us, he took it upon himself to train those he trusted. By this point there were about fifty novice godforsaken swordfighters scattered throughout the city. In half an hour or so, Halvar would disappear for the night to help them keep learning, leaving his other manager in charge of the pub.

We knew it was risky to hide in plain sight, but Halvar’s place was as close as we godforsaken got to having our own temple. Enough people gathered here daily to keep suspicion away from anyone in particular, and we worked together to keep the priests out. I’d caused a ruckus on the other side of the neighborhood a time or two to turn the suspicious red eyes away from the pub.

The biggest problem with preparing to revolt was how long it took Halvar to trust a person enough to invite them. It was understandable, considering the necessity of secrecy, but it also meant I had turned my friend down several times when he’d asked me to lead a rebellion against the throne. Against the might of the Bhorglid army, fifty godforsaken soldiers were nothing. They’d slaughter us in less than a minute.

The logic didn’t disappoint or discourage him, though. He continued to train people, the hope of a revolution shining in his eyes. Arne, Freja, and I had been some of his first students.

The rebellion was why he pushed for me to try and join the Trials. “Just think,” he’d told me again and again. “If we could win thethrone fairly, the priests would be forced to uphold their own teachings and let you rule. They wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”

Every time, I shook my head. “Even if I could hold my own against four of the most powerful godtouched in the country, they’d never let a godforsaken be queen. They’d cut me down in an instant, teachings be damned.”

My mother’s words from the morning had never felt more pointed.You’re many horrible things already, daughter mine. Queen will never be one of them.

Halvar left to return to serving the rest of the godforsaken customers. Arne sipped his beer silently and adjusted his chair a few inches closer to me. He didn’t necessarily approve of the things we did to disrupt the priests, but he didn’t disapprove either. The only comment he’d ever made to me was regarding the time Freja and I had gathered buckets of dung straight from the fields of livestock and dumped them on the temple steps. Apparently he thought it was “childish and petty.” After, we never asked him to participate, and in exchange he never bothered us about it.

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