I loved the city and I liked my Mom. It was weird she was so different and sometimes it freaked me out but, even so, it was wonderful to spend time with her, hear her voice, sometimes see her small smile or her eyes light and rarely, but they were treasured, feel her touch on my arm or hand.
Dad was easier to like, he was much like my father in ways that made my heart swell and clutch at the same time. He was gregarious and had an open, broad sense of humor. I heard his laughter quite often in the Palace and often saw him smiling at people.
Just not with me.
Another boy rushed to open the door for us (I had learned royalty didn’t do things like open doors or, well, pretty much anything but walk to get places, eat food people served and breathe on their own) and Dad replied distractedly as we entered the Palace, “Yes, Sjofn, I’ll look forward to that. Tomorrow, same time.”
Then he started to turn down a hall and I called, “Da… I mean, Father.”
Shit! My girls kept telling me I didn’t call them Mom and Dad but Father and Mother.
He turned and looked at me, visibly forcing a smile.
My heart clutched again when I saw it.
“I’ll find my way again,” I promised softly yet fervently. “So much has happened and I just, um… lost my focus. With practice, I’ll find it again even if I have to come out every day, I’ll do it and, I promise, I’ll find it.”
He studied me with something working in his eyes then he walked the two steps back to me, lifted a hand and touched the side of my hair while his gaze never left mine.
Then he said softly back, “Thank you, Sjofn, but maybe now that you’re married you have another focus. Perhaps we can spend time finding something new we enjoy sharing together. What do you think of that?”
My heart lightened and I grinned at him. Then I admitted, “Well, I kind of actually like archery.” His eyes brightened at this news, I took heart and I went on, “I just for some reason have become not very good at it. I’m totally into keeping it up and getting better again if you’re happy to help me.”
His eyes stayed bright when he replied quietly, “I’m more than happy to help you, daughter.”
My grin became a smile. And Father smiled back and finally it wasn’t fake.
“Until tomorrow,” he muttered.
“Cool,” I muttered back.
His head jerked a little at my word (and I reminded myself that I really had to speak like they did in this world) but he kept looking at me smiling. Then he bent and touched his lips to my cheek, turned and walked away.
I stood in the hallway watching him go and grinning to myself.
Well, that went well. Finally. Thank God.
Then I turned and started to make my way to my rooms because I knew, soon, the dressmakers would be there to do a fitting for my gown for the Bitter Gales.
I had learned from my girls that the Gales was a big, resplendent ball which was preceded by a huge hunt – this one of two hunts and balls the King and Queen of Lunwyn threw every year. The Bitter Gales was held on the shortest, coldest day of the year, the hunt in the forest around Fyngaard and the ball in the Winter Palace and the Solar Gales was held on the longest, warmest day of the year thrown at the king and queen’s castle, Rimée Keep in a city called Snowdon.
One could say I was looking forward to the Bitter Gales like I would look forward to having bamboo shoots shoved under my nails, that was to stress attending it, not dressing for it since my gown was kickass.
This was because I would be attending with my husband.
In the last week and a half I had barely seen Frey and I had not spoken to him once and, obviously, he had not spoken to me. I’d seen him three times, all from a distance, all only in passing and only once did his head turn to me and when his eyes caught mine, he gave me a minor chin lift then he looked instantly away.
That hurt. A lot. Too much. More than it should.
But it did.
And the fact he kept away not only from my person but my bed also hurt.
A lot. Too much.
More than it should.
I now had four girls to guide my way and help me to understand this world better and they took this job seriously, were very informative and what made it fun was that they thoroughly enjoyed learning about my world too. So, in the last week and a half, I’d learned a lot about Lunwyn, about this world and mostly about Frey.
The good news was, my girls had asked around and he wasn’t sleeping with Viola as he had threatened or with any of my servants (the girls checked, they were, I was learning, thorough).
The bad news was, they had no idea where he was sleeping but it wasn’t at the Palace.
The good (ish) news was, in learning about my husband, I’d learned why my maidservants were so keen for me to hook up with him.
This was because sex was not at all taboo in Lunwyn. Brides were not expected to be virgins and sexual exploration for boys and girls started early, around fourteen or fifteen; in fact it was encouraged in order to prepare you for a fulfilling sex life during marriage.
“Dalliances” (as my girls called them) amongst unmarried people were frequent, often short-lived and were without any disgrace. “Affairs” or relationships between unmarried people lasted longer and were also frequent.
And, as a matter of course in their culture, with a man like The Drakkar on my hook, with his looks, wealth (and he was wealthy, I’d learned that too), aristocratic line and the sheer power he held, my girls expected me to be all for that and to want it, badly, and work for it, beyond anything, and they were, they made clear, there to help any way they could.
And when it became painfully obvious I wasn’t getting it, they did not pry but they exuberantly went about trying to get me to thaw my chill toward “The Drakkar” (as Frey was known and always referred to) and they did this by sharing a great deal about him.
I had learned he was thirty-six (shocking, he had the manner of a man much older though he didn’t look it). I had learned he commanded a fleet of five ships (five!) and all the men it would take to man those ships plus his own highly trained, personal raiding party of which Thad, Ruben and the other men I had met were members. I had learned that along with his lodge, his chalet, his hunting cabin, his fishing cottage and his ships, he also owned a chateau in the country of Hawkvale and apartments in a city in Fleuridia (which made it more of a bummer that we were not talking and it didn’t seem we ever would again because, I had to say, I would have liked to see all of these places).
Intriguingly, I learned that, although Frey was a Raider, he was not like the other ones who travelled long distances to pillage foreign, often more primitive lands, lands that did not have the resources to seek retribution against the Raiders or even Lunwyn for their raids.
No, Frey’s raids had purpose. They were, as the girls informed me firmly, just.
This was because the Frey who had betrayed his throne and cast the country into chaos had also sold or lost Lunwyn’s many treasures and sacred relics and those that weren’t sold or lost disappeared in a variety of ways in the ensuing centuries of turmoil.
And often, when not sailing on some secret mission for his realm (the girls and everyone knew of these but did not know details, obviously, because they were secret), he was sailing to retrieve Lunwyn’s lost riches. These included priceless scepters, chalices, crowns, orbs and objects that held Lunwynian, dragonian or elfin magic.
Frey had been very successful with these endeavors and on top of the extraordinary things he’d shared about himself, which would clearly demand the respect of all of Lunwyn for obvious reasons, he’d actually earned their respect by returning these important national treasures to their homeland after centuries of them being lost.
I had to admit, I respected him for these endeavors too. Not to mention, him going after them and securing them was cool, way cool, like out of an action movie cool.
I had also learned from my girls that the House of Drakkar might be the longest running nobl
e House in Lunwyn and the first known rulers of the land (which, at that time, included Middleland where my Uncle Baldur now ruled) but it was currently the least respected and most definitely the least liked.
This was because, when the Frey that went astray did his dire deeds, the House of Drakkar, like Lunwyn on the whole, descended into chaos. Without A Frey or A Drakkar born to the line, the males of the House stopped their raiding and unrest and infighting prevailed and from the stories my girls told me, it was far from pretty. Brothers killed brothers. Wives poisoned husbands and (the very next day on one occasion) married her husband’s brother, uncle, cousin who she’d conspired with to take over the House. Sons plotted against fathers. And sisters competed bitterly to make the best match to strengthen the line of Drakkar.
Although the House of Drakkar held vast wealth and property across Lunwyn, they were known to be ruthless in business, more often than not untrustworthy and autocratic with their servants and those who worked their lands. They were also known to be superior, condescending and dedicated to the order of things. That was to say they were nobles and everyone else were little people and everyone knew their place, stayed in their place and served their purpose.
This, clearly, they’d instilled in Frey.
But that was, strangely, all they instilled in Frey. For the first time in over seven hundred years, his birth heralded a true leader in the House of Drakkar and it was known widely his mother and father were overjoyed, not to mention filled with conceit that they had created the undisputed head of their House.
But, to my shock, the girls told me that at thirteen, Frey had walked away from all of that. He’d walked away from his family, his home and the House of Drakkar, boarded a ship, talked its captain into employing him and turned his back on that life and his House.
And he never went back. In fact, to this day, he had very little to do with his House except carry their name.
Although he went on to own many properties, amass great wealth (for, when sailing, Frey didn’t only raid, he also loaded his ships’ stores with goods and brought them back to Lunwyn to trade), command his own fleet and the men who sailed it, he had nothing to do with his House except the fact that he bore their name, the stamp of aristocracy they drilled into him growing up and the command of elves and dragons he’d somehow inherited through their blood.
This, I had to admit, considering the stories about his family, I respected too.
And, I had to admit as I made my way through my Palace to my rooms, it was becoming clear to me that I might have overreacted a wee bit about Frey and his dalliance with Viola.
He couldn’t know it (though, I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling he did even though this was impossible), it was not me he’d humiliated but the other Sjofn. And he’d thought she was a lesbian or, the girls told me, they were referred to here as guenipes.
And the girls knew all about Sjofn’s tendencies which also, considering the sexual openness, were not frowned upon in either sex, unless, of course the guenipe happened to be a princess and needed to bring forth a future king. Therefore, Sjofn had not only hidden her preferences, doing so for her country and her father, the king, she’d never allowed herself to act on them and vowed to her girls that in this world, for country and king, she never would (which was extremely sad).
Because of this (and Frey knowing it), it was doubtful Sjofn would care about Frey getting it on with Viola, if Viola was her servant or not. And it was definite that Sjofn wasn’t really allowed to care even if she would because what Frey said held true from my girls. He was a man, he was an aristocrat and he could do as he wished, when he wished and with whom he wished.
Although dalliances and affairs before marriage were commonplace, after marriage (yep, you guessed it), the wife desisted in these behaviors but it was not expected for the husband to do the same. It was commonplace for husbands to honor their wives and only their wives, most specifically amongst those of the lower classes but also some aristocrats. But it was not unheard of for a husband to do as he would and the wife was expected to turn the other cheek.
This did not sit well with me but I had to remind myself that I was not in my world. I was here. And Frey could have no idea I was from another world, how that world was and how it looked on these things and unfortunately was justifiably livid that I had an expectation that any Lunwynian woman and especially a wife should most definitely not have.
This sucked. It also meant that, as much as it chafed, I was in the wrong.
I just didn’t know what to do about it.
Because, although he was within his rights to do as he wished, especially since we were not married at the time he took Viola to his bed, he had asked her to serve the table right in front of me.
There was, of course, the small fact that, back when the deed was done, I had no clue he or his world even existed and he still had no clue mine did, so he was right in his weird questioning if he had actually injured me. He had not, I had just grown into my place in this world and I forgot that it actually wasn’t my place.
But still, Frey rubbing my nose in his dalliance and the mean-spirited way he did it, well… that was not nice.
And that was what was holding me back from doing anything at all.
Because that hurt. A lot.
Too much.
I’d ascended the stairs and was moving down the hall toward my rooms thinking that what sucked the most was that I missed him.
A lot.
Too much.
Logically, in the recesses of my head, I recognized this distance was probably good. Although I enjoyed spending time with the Frey I’d come to know and would have definitely enjoyed spending more time with him doing more things with him, specifically some of the things we could have been doing, the smart thing to do was keep a distance and I’d been getting in too deep.
Illogically and in the forefront of my mind, I wanted what we had back.
And that, too, was a lot.
Too much.
My girls were fun to be with, they laughed often and Sjofn was right, it was very clear they were trustworthy and they had been immensely helpful. I had a great time with them. I was enjoying spending time with Mother and discovering Fyngaard. I definitely liked learning more about this world because it was all very strange but very cool. Being a princess in a Palace, I’d learned, pretty much rocked. And I was making inroads with Father, which pleased me immensely.
But on Valentine’s line of happiness, I was no longer anywhere near bliss. I was no longer smack dab in the middle of happiness either.
I was definitely at the lower end, hovering around contentment.
And I was there, I knew, because I didn’t have Frey.
I opened my door and stopped before entering when I saw Mother in the armchair across the room, her legs crossed, her long fingernails scratching Penelope’s ruff. A Penelope who was lying on my mother’s thigh with her eyes closed, purring.
Hmm. This was unusual. If Queen Aurora wanted to spend time with me, she sent a servant to tell me she wished my attendance.
I wondered why she was there and I worried the reason was not good.
Her eyes came to me and she greeted, “Hello, my Sjofn.”
I took her in. Her face was blank thus gave no clues.
Damn. From past experience with her, I did not know if this was good or bad. She’d been warmer to me but I’d also learned from my girls that Queen Aurora could be moody, her expectations were high and those expectations were significantly elevated when it came to her daughter. Who knew what I could do to make her minimal warmth disappear and the frost return? It could be anything.
Therefore, I decided to tread cautiously.
I closed the door and moved into the room, replying, “Hello, Mother.”
She stopped scratching Penelope and motioned with a graceful sweep of her hand to the bed.
“Sit with me, daughter.”
I nodded and went to the bed, sitting on the side. Penelope opened he
r eyes slowly, took me in then jumped down, waddled across the floor, hunkered in preparation to shift her massive bulk from floor to bed then she jumped up to the bed where she waddled to me and settled with her booty to the duvet but paws and chest on my thigh and I started scratching her ruff.
Penelope knew who her Momma was and I knew this because she purred, “Mrrrr, hullo, Mummy.”
“Hullo, baby,” I whispered to my cat, she purred louder then I looked to Queen Aurora.
She looked down at Penelope then up at me and her lips tipped up slightly. It wasn’t the first time I thought she was a lot like Valentine, except without the edge of creepy and weird.
“The dressmakers have already arrived with your gown but I’ve asked them to wait for a few minutes so I could visit with you,” Mother announced.
I took in a short preparatory breath and nodded. But I didn’t say anything. I wanted to see what she had to say.
She didn’t delay and when she spoke it was soft and almost gentle.
“I needed to discuss with you something that has been troubling me.”
I tipped my head to the side to encourage her to go on but spoke no words.
She took this in and continued, “I cannot imagine, Sjofn, that you would think it escapes me or your Father that there seems to be…” she hesitated, studying me closely, “distance between you and The Drakkar.”
Ho boy.
I was afraid it was something like this. And I was afraid something like this was something that would herald the return of the frost.
I bit my lip and nodded my head slightly to agree with her observation without saying anything and thus giving anything away.
She read my agreement and took in a slight, delicate breath.
Then she said, “This troubles me for it seems very…” she hesitated, “odd. Especially coming so close on the heels of your return, a return upon which, immediately, The Drakkar demanded your Father and my attendance to inform us that he was infinitely disturbed at the attempt on your life and we were to do everything in our power to keep you safe. Something,” she rushed slightly to say, “we would do, obviously, since you are our beloved Sjofn.”