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In a manner. I suppose that was the truth of it. For now at least.

“Yes,” I said at last, because, really—what else was there to say?

Part V

The Borg

28

Tamsyn

IF THE CITY WAS DAY, THEN THE BORG WAS NIGHT.

It was alive and bustling and packed to capacity, but with none of the brightness of home. Sunlight didn’t penetrate the thick canopy of cold fog. Even when we arrived in the middle of the day, a perpetual gloom hung about the chaotic network of cottages and buildings nestled among rolling dips and valleys that slid into a basin at the foot of the Crags, where the fortress sat—a great curled, sleeping cat. The Borg. The calm before the storm. The ice before the thaw.

The sky was unseeable, unknowable here, to the eyes of man. There was no distinction between clouds and fog. Both came together, like two bodies of water converging, the boundaries of each lost, erased and blurred.

I tilted my head and looked up, seeking a glimpse of what I knew was there. Fat white flakes drifted down and fell like gossamer on my upturned face, tangling in my lashes, but I could see nothing beyond those clouds. Not the snowcapped summits I knew to be there. The Crags, waiting and watchful.

Our horses knew they were home. They quickened their pace with a surge of energy, speeding toward the sprawling fortress. It was not quite a castle. Definitely no palace. Not as I was accustomed. More timber than rock. There was a moat with dark waters and a series of heavy steel gates—defensive measures for this place, this sentinel of the Borderlands.

Once we were spotted, people poured out to cheer our return. The voices rolled like thunder over the air, and snatches of conversation reached my ears... words. A word.

Dragon.

The news had reached them. Fell’s warriors had spread the information. I felt a little sick at the knowledge, but, of course, they would want to warn people of danger.

They’d thought we were lost. Victims to the dragon. Now, riding through the streets like conquering heroes, they believed we had survived. We were a miracle manifested in flesh.

Pointed stares along with pointed fingers were directed at me, and I didn’t know if it was because I was the new Lady of the Borderlands or a survivor of the dragon. I suppose either was cause for attention.

We waited at the barbican for the final gate to be lowered so we could cross into the interior.

Fell looked over at me. “You’re home now, Tamsyn.”

I struggled to smile and then faced forward again, gazing at the hulking fortress. Beyond the stronghold, rising into the air was the rocky facade of the mountain range. It felt deceptively close, as though I could reach out a hand and touch it.

“Tonight you will sleep in a warm bed with fresh sheets and more pillows than you can count,” he promised.

He had been this way since we reunited in the skog. Solicitous and gentle, as though he was trying to make amends.Allof them had been especially cordial and attentive to me: Fell, Mari, Magnus, and Vidar. Gracious, I was sure, because I saved them from the huldra.

“Sounds wonderful.” And I meant that. I would enjoy it.

It had been a long time since I’d slept indoors. A lifetime since I was beneath a roof, in a bed, beside a crackling fire in a hearth. Upon leaving the skog, it had taken us another week to reach the Borg.

The drawbridge settled with a rattle of chains and a foreboding clang. Our small party started across it, and I couldn’t help liftingmy gaze one more time to the jagged mountains hovering over us. Even with the high crests obscured by cloud and fog, they were massive. Irregular patches of black rock broke up the expanse of silvery white snow.

The fortress, immense and sprawling here on the ground, sat small in the shadow of the Crags, and I wondered what was up there, who, even now, was, perhaps, looking down at us... watching.

The peaks were stubbornly, teasingly out of sight, miles and miles away, tucked into those clouds, but I had already seen them in my panicked flight through the sky. They were imprinted on me. I could see them still when I closed my eyes, tattooed on my memory.

As we rolled with clattering hooves into the belly of the beast, the lion’s den, the heart of my enemy’s lair, the mountain stared down at me not as an intimidating thing. Not a hard, cold, and punishing palisade. Not a daunting ridge repelling the faint of heart, summoning only the most adventurous or desperate to climb its slopes and angles in the quest for riches and glory.

It didn’t feel like such a forlorn or scary sight to me.

It felt inviting, a welcoming haven, and strangely familiar.

It felt like home.