Page 176 of Master of Storms
“And is she still alive?”
What was going on? Why was he so interested in her mother? “No.” It was an old hurt, but mere mention of it stirred hot coals of sadness to life within her chest. “No, she passed when I was younger. A wasting sickness. Why? Why do you wish to know of my mother?”
The stranger closed his eyes but briefly. “The Languish. Ah, gods.” He breathed the word out before his lashes fluttered and she was once more pierced by that penetrating gaze. “I ask, because you look just like her.”
Freyja gasped as he turned toward his men.
Wait! He’d known her mother?
How?
“Bring a pair of spare horses,” he called. “We return with them to the castle.”
“Wait!” No, this wasn’t happening. She had to return to Rurik. Her home. Her family. “How did you know my mother?”
“Is the circle still open, my prince?” One of his men called.
The stranger gave the small glade a sleepy-eyed look. “Locked again, I think. But we have hope. What has been opened once can be opened again—"
“The gates are shut,” she told him fiercely. “You’ll never get them open again. You’ll never wage your war. How did you know mymother?”
“Ah, you’ve run afoul of my dearest cousin”—he spat the word—“Tyndyr. How fortunate for you that you seem to have landed inmylap and not one of his little lackeys’. I promise you that—” He finally seemed to notice Ishtar, and his eyes widened slightly. “My… lady.”
The two of them stared at each other.
Ishtar cocked her head on an angle, as if examining him. “You look different to how I expected,” she said.
The stranger shared a sharp look with his second-in-command.
“Keep your hands off them,” he snapped to his men. “We’ll take them to see the king. And if any of you dares breathe a word of this when we return to the castle, I will have your tongues. This passes no one’s lips, do you understand?”
Several of his warriors exchanged glances, but two of them swung down from their saddles, and a pair of horses were brought forward.
“Here,” one of the warriors said, offering Ishtar the reins.
“She doesn’t know how to ride,” Freyja told him. She looked for the leader. “We’re not going anywhere. Not without you answering some of my questions! Who are you? What do you intend to do with us?”
“I am Caelum,” the stranger said, offering Ishtar a hand in order to haul her into the saddle in front of him. “Crown Prince of Álfheimr. And I think my father, the king, is going to be very interested in your story, FreyjaElegasdottir. You want to know how I know your mother? Then you may askhim.”
Chapter 31
“We need to sit down with your father and work out how best to get word to his allies,” Marduk told Solveig, three days after the fight at World’s End. “Árdís and Sirius are going to take turns watching over Rurik.”
Solveig froze as she sat polishing her dagger. She’d given him time to be with his family, but she’d never expected him to return to her like this. “You can go south. I will stay here and—”
“Solveig. We said we’d do this.”
She put the dagger down and tossed the whetstone aside, wiping her hands clean on a rag. “I need to see if Andromeda has had any luck in her efforts to create a smaller portal between two places—"
“You’re not even going to talk about it?” He spread his arms wide.
What was the point?“I can’t go home. I made an oath to the goddess to kill you, remember?”
“I remember. I just don’t know if that’s the whole truth of the matter.” Marduk’s lashes obscured his eyes. “Tell me a secret.”
Solveig froze. “What?”
Now?
