Page 49 of Kingdom of Embers and Ruin

Bryn was known around the castle only as the Lieutenant General; those who had been working in the palace ten years ago knew she was a daughter of the King, but they had been sworn into silence. Shortly after Maude’s escape, her father had gone on a rampage and wiped out more than half the staff in his fury, having set the servant's quarter aflame in his rage.

In Bryn’s grief, she had been unable to process what he had been doing, having only had enough time to save some of her mother’s belongings before he’d destroyed her bedroom and all traces of her existence next.

Bryn flicked her fingers, closing the door on a gust of her wind, and then extended her palm to the smothering embers in the fireplace, lifting her arm in a sweeping motion to the ceiling. The crackling sound of a new fire burned in the room and warmed the stone surfaces that had grown cold in the absence of the King's eternal flame that followed him.

She sank into a cushioned chair and let her head fall into her hands, letting out a long breath as she considered what her sister was doing in the Kingdom of Rivers. The usual feelings of betrayal and anger followed the thoughts of Maude, longing taking its place in her heart shortly after that.

Gods, she missed her sister.

When they were children, she and Maude had been so close that their mother had joked they were one soul that had been split into two bodies. She had always felt a close kinship with her older sister, and she always felt like they would go through life together as one. When Maude had left, it felt like she had taken a vital piece of Bryn with her over that wall that she could never seem to find in herself again.

She had mourned for their mother in those months after, yes, but also for her sister and herself. Ten years was a long time to be apart from someone you understood on a cellular level, and Bryn wasn't sure that she would even know her sister anymore if they ever met again.

Bryn breathed through her exercises to control the rise in the emotion she was feeling, noticing that the fire was rising with her. Bryn’sgalderhad always had to remain a secret in the palace, not because she would be considered avitki, but because she was able to manipulate both air and fire.

The royal families were allowed to rule because of their gifts for both elements that ruled their kingdoms, but as Bryn was not recognized as a royal, her firegalderremained a secret. She had chosen her air to be known because she had always been more proficient with her airgalder.It made her faster than other women her age and stronger than most of the men, as she was able to land her hits harder with the push of a bit of wind behind her.

Bryn sat in the silence of the empty war room long enough that through the large windows, the orange rays of sunset began streaming through. Finally finding the strength to stand again and don her mask of the heartless Lieutenant General, Bryn smothered the fire she had created and flicked the doors open to find her soldiers still lining the walls with faces forward, unreadable.

She exited the war room and the emotions that had gagged her these last few hours behind, heading straight to the training pitch to work off the rest of her troubles.

Several hours later, long after the sun had set and the moon had risen high in the night sky, Bryn entered her quarters. Dripping with sweat and exhausted from her training, she dropped her axe and shield on the floorunceremoniously and walked straight into the washroom where a giant bronze tub had been filled with water and had cooled hours ago.

She heated the water with half of a thought and stripped. Her slim body had filled out with lean muscle in the years she had spent training with her sword and shield, learning to make them an extension of her arms. She had been envious of Maude’s curves when they had been growing up together, but Bryn had learned to love her body as she grew into it.

Her long limbs were as graceful as they were deadly, and her heart-shaped face gave her an air of brutal elegance. Bryn’s hazel eyes matched her father's and were almond-shaped with a slight slant upward, completing the look of a savage cat ready to pounce. She twisted her braided copper hair into another knot before she stepped into the scorching water, sighing as she sank further into its depths.

The most striking thing about Bryn’s face was the tattooed runes she had running down the left side. She had woken one morning shortly after Maude had made her escape with three runes burned into her mind:thurisaz,nauthiz, andtiwaz. She had told the palace’s seer to placetiwazon her forehead above her left eyebrow— the rune for logic and leadership—nauthizunder her eye, the rune for willpower and endurance— andthurisaz—the rune for defense and intelligence, underneathnauthiz.

These runes were a daily reminder to herself of who she was and what she was fighting for. Bryn loved her kingdom, and her father was destroying anything good about it with his iron fist. She undermined him whenever she could so that the people of Logi had a fighting chance to rise together and overthrow him, and these runes kept her mission at the forefront of her actions. The King had not disapproved of them only because they could be twisted to support her future position as General.

She had a few seconds of blissful silence before her mind ramped up and directed itself back toward Maude and their mother, both lost to her on the same day.

Bryn disappeared beneath the surface of the bath and held herself there until her lungs burned for air and her mind had emptied. When she couldn't hold her breath any longer, she burst out of the water, gulping down fresh air before she settled again against the edge of the tub.

Thoughts of her mother and sister plagued her today more than usual with the news of Maude’s escape to the Kingdom of Rivers. Accepting that she was not destined for a peaceful night, she exited the now tepid water and pulled her mother’s dressing robe around her, the sage green silk sliding over her warm skin. Bryn made her way to the loose stone block that she had hidden her mother’s belongings underneath to save them from the King's destruction.

Pulling at the corner of the rug in her room and then the stone away, Bryn lifted it high into the air with hergalderbefore she reached into the hole to withdraw the last pieces of her mother’s memory. Bryn withdrew a few of her favorite books, trinkets from the Logi markets during the summertime, dried flowers that Bryn and Maude had picked for her one spring, and six of the leather-bound diaries her mother had always kept.

When Maude was young, she had tried to open the diary before to see what thoughts their mother had written down but found herself unable to open it. They both had torn at it, but it was as if the pages had sealed themselves off from anyone but Mama’s eyes.

Over the years, Bryn had attempted to open them a few times without success, so she didn’t know why she bothered now. Still, she withdrew the newest-looking diary and turned it over in her hands a few times, running her fingers over the engraved initials that belonged to her mother.

SH

Bryn pulled the front cover toward herself, expecting resistance, but was shocked when it opened to her, and she read the small inscription on the inside:

This diary belongs to Sylvi Helvig, Queen of Flame.

May the lights of my life find its contents illuminating.

She almost dropped the diary before reading the inscription a few more times, mind reeling. Why did it suddenly open to her now? What had changed since she last attempted to open them? Bryn’s mind whirled with possible answers, but the only thing that had been new since she stole these from her mother’s room was that Maude had left the city and had crossed into the Lamenting Woods and the Kingdom of Rivers. This made even less sense, she thought, because what did their mother have to do with the Kingdom of Rivers?

Brynn flipped the page to the last entry her mother had been able to write, throat growing thick with emotion:

The whimsical nature the girls have carried since their youth has been completely crushed by Harald. I look at Bryn, my sweet and funny girl, beginning to harden herself to her world. Where she picked flowers to weave through her copper curls, she now wears braids so tight I see them hurting her. She tells me it is because she cannot train with flowers in her hair when she must become a ruthless warrior to serve her kingdom. When she picks up her shield, her hair will fly into her face if it is not braided back and earn her another bruise from Ulf, who shows no patience when instructing Bryn on how to wield a sword and shield.

I tried to explain to her that shieldmaidens are both fierce and respected warriors who also braided wildflowers into their hair during the spring equinox and summer solstice. I could see my statement confused her because of the poison Ulf and Harald spew at her day and night. She is only fourteen, and yet I seeher starting down a path that will lead her to nothing but loneliness that stems from living a hateful existence.

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