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Maude spirals further into herself every day. I worry that she will give up on herself soon. The beatings she takes from her father when she disobeys or fights back against his rule are slowly ebbing away at her resolve, and the free spirit that has always been as wild as her flaming crimson hair, so much like my own, is crumbling beneath his weight. She holds a haunted look in her eye, the dark circles beneath them showing me how close she is to giving up.

I don’t know how to help them anymore. I cannot be a barrier between them and Harald for much longer before I am found out. When that day comes, they need to be ready to keep fighting without me.

My life was forfeit long before I came to this kingdom, but I did not anticipate it being so hard to leave my loves behind. My girls are my light, and I weep for the loss they will feel when my time to join Freya in Folkvangr arrives.

I burn small sacrifices to Frigga and Freya every night for guidance, but I fear the gods have abandoned me for the choices I have had to make for my kingdom to survive, for placing that hope in Maude, who has never understood the burden she has had to carry since her conception. I chose to steer Maude away from her fate, and now, I must face the consequences of these actions by losing the guidance of the gods.

My girls are strong, but no one can hold out forever under the cruelty that is found in this palace. I believe that they can be a force of nature if they can realize their potential together, but my tongue is tied, and I am unable to do more than bring them together the best I can. They need to know that they have to believe in each other because no one else can prevailover Harald if they can’t.

Bryn’s tears splashed onto the surface of her mother’s last private thoughts before her death. She wiped fresh tears from her eyes and put the diary down on the floor, gently. Her mother had known she was going to die before they had reached adulthood, but why?

She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, the pressure forcing her thoughts into organizing. She tried to make sense of the things her mother had written down. It seemed there was a bigger game being played that Bryn was not aware of. Their mother said she needed to find Maude and reconnect with her somehow under their father’s nose, but again, why?

Bryn found the oldest-looking diary belonging to her mother and stored the rest of them back beneath the floor, floating the stone back into place and pulling the rug over it again. She placed the diary on her bed and paced her room, contemplating the potential info she might find when she read her mother's words.

The inscription on the inside mentioned the journal's contents would be “illuminating” so Bryn couldn’t deny that their mother had intended for them to read these one day. She couldn’t understand why Mama had locked the journals away until now.

Sylvi had been a voiceless Queen in this kingdom. The King had made it very clear to her that while she bore the title of Queen, she held no sway over him. She’d hadgalder, as was expected; her flames supposedly burned as hot and wild as her husband and daughters, but she had never wielded it in front of them, just lit the occasional candle now and then. Bryn thought back to how she had been seen as almost subservient to the King rather than a true equal in the court; she and Maude had thought she was weak for it as they grew older and understood their father’s cruelty more.

Perhaps, Bryn thought, their mother was playing a long game that required her to keep her head down, much like the game she was playing now with her father.

Her last entry also mentioned that she had worked hard to push Maude away from her fate, and that the gods were punishing her for it. This puzzled Bryn more than anything until she remembered a conversation she’d had with Maude when they were both still very young.

Maude had shown Bryn her fatemark and how extraordinary it was compared to some of the ones Maude had seen amongst the other girls living in the Palace. Maude’s mark wasYggdrasil, the usual mark for the elder child in their court, but hers had the wings of the Valkyrie, as well.

Bryn remembered feeling unnerved at the site, looking down at hervegvisirfatemark and wondering why her sisters had felt… odd to look at when her own had felt normal.

Bryn stopped pacing and put her hands on the wall, letting her head hang as she processed all the information she had just learned from a single entry of her mother’s diary. She breathed deeply a few times, finding her calm in the tempestuous storm of her emotions, and focused her mind on the information she had.

Taking the approach of any general laying out their strategy, Bryn went through her memories of her mother, faded as they may be, to point out any strange behaviors or instances that might have stuck out. She repeated the process with Maude, only remembering her fatemark and how she had snapped and escaped that day ten years ago.

She needed to find out why her mother had pushed Maude from her fate and why her mother felt her death was imminent before Bryn figured anything else out. Letting out a long breath before she stood, Bryn made her way to her bed and grabbed the diary, curling up by the window that looked over Logi and settled down to read her mother’s deepest and most intimate thoughts.

What Bryn had not anticipated was that her entire perception of her mother would be shattered as soon as she started reading.

11

Herrick never expected the words that fell from his mother’s lips as she stood before Maude. Every diversion of truth, every smooth change of topic when her past came up, ran through Herrick’s mind as he continued to listen to the truth unfold in front of him.

“You look just like your mother, my dear,” his mother said, voice heavy with anguish, to the woman he had found in the fighting pits of Logi.

Heir to the Kingdom of Flame.It seemed they both had a lot to confess to each other.

Herrick’s mother placed an affectionate hand on Maude’s cheek, who flinched at the touch and took a jerking step back. She eyed the group surrounding her, the look of panic, betrayal, and disbelief heavy in her gaze as it landed on each person she had traveled here with. He watched as her stance widened, her hand hovering at her thigh where her dagger was strapped as her eyes darted from person to person.

It was as if she expected one of them to charge at her. Flames danced at her fingertips, tiny ribbons of heat invisible to everyone except for Herrick. He had seen her react like this only once before: in the fighting pits of Logi the night they met, and the Flame Soldiers captured her. Maude was beginning to take on the look of a cornered animal, and Herrick knew he needed to get her away from prying eyes before she lost her grip on hergalder.

Herrick quickly looked to his father, who read the silent request for their escape in his eyes before he nodded, taking hold of the Queen’s hand. Gunnar inclined his head toward his horse and then motioned toward Maude.

Gunnar had known who she was, Herrick realized, but hadn’t told him. Hadn’t trusted him with the information. While he was angry about his friend withholding this information, Herrick also knew that Gunnar wouldn’t have allowed her to come so close to their kingdom if he didn’t trust that Maude would protect their secrets.

Deciding to think more on this issue later, Herrick wrapped his arm around Maude’s waist before she could react and pulled her up onto Gunnar’s horse with him, placing her in his lap. Herrick spurred the horse forward, through the line of soldiers, and over the bridge.

What concerned him most about this maneuver was that Maude had not protested his abduction of her even a little. He knew she could fight him off if she wanted to, and yet she had seen him coming and allowed him to whisk her away from the spotlight.

Up against his body, he could feel Maude smothering a tremble that had taken up in her limbs. Her hood was still down and exposing her beautiful deep red hair that shone as bright as the sun in the afternoon light; it had struck him speechless when he saw it. He quickly pulled her hood back up to cover the crimson shade and leaned over the horse, building speed.

The rushing water of the river below them drummed in his ears as they crossed into Veter, along with the sharp sound of the horse’s hooves pushing off the stone. It was only minutes before they broke through the dense fog surrounding the bridge connecting the Kingdom of Rivers to the rest of Ahland. Herrick took in the sight of his beloved home as time seemed to slow for one perfect moment.