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Baldr lay in his cot as he tried to allow his mind to calm enough to sleep. It wasn't going too well.

In the days leading up to the Midsommar Ball that the palace was hosting, Baldr was busy with War Council and setting up security details for the event and both Helvig and Vilde.

As her first public appearance, Helvig wanted to make sure that his future Queen Consort was well protected in front of the masses who were about to learn the Elven were still involved in their day to day lives.

As if she actually needed the protection. Vilde could surely level this entire city if she felt like it. But Baldr bit his tongue and created a detail for her anyway.

It didn't help that the citizens of Logi were becoming more restless.

The Flame Soldiers who he had been sent to the slums of the city to sniff out any hiding vitki had been enjoying their raids entirely too much, it seemed.

Reports of complaints had flooded his desk ranging from the destruction the unruly Flame Soldiers caused to the unpaid tabs in taverns and pleasure houses.

Every day, more and more rowdy groups of residents ranging from Logi's middle class to the poorest of their city had started to gather at the gates.

The punishing taxes Helvig had implemented to fund the rebuilding of his palace after the Heir had destroyed it was a tightening noose around Logi's neck and did the King no favors in getting his city to support him.

It didn't matter, the Flame King was too busy plotting his dominance over Ahland to care about how the people in Logi suffered .

Baldr had needed to send more patrols into the markets of the noble's district and the slums with orders to keep the tensions from already anger prone civilians from attacking the soldiers stationed there.

Though his sergeants and lieutenant all outwardly obeyed his orders, he could see their disagreement and resentment at being sent to the poorest part of the city.

They didn't care about the residents there, they only wanted to continue to indulge themselves on the power the King gave them.

They were to remain present in the public squares and prevent any conflict from escalating.

That was all— no orders to arrest or raid the homes nearby.

Just be a presence in the square. He hoped that the higher numbers would prevent any catastrophe from occurring, but Baldr knew his people well.

It would only work for so long before the final match was lit by the people to set ablaze their oppressive rulers.

But it would only end in their deaths if they tried to do this alone.

He didn't want to stop the rebellion; Baldr only needed to delay the inevitable until the Kingdom of Shadows was ready to help them.

The meetings that took place to plan their invasion of the Kingdom of Rivers went slowly as the King often met resistance from his advisors.

Baldr tried to deflect the plans as best as he could by questioning the source of the information and its merit, but Helvig was relentless in his ambition.

Vilde attended a few of the meetings, her presence sucking the warmth out of the room, but she did not offer anymore input.

When he wasn't in meetings or assessing new recruits, he was searching every inch of the palace dungeons for any of the vitki he could find.

While he had known about the vitki dungeons that had been freed the day Kolbeck was rescued, Baldr had never had access to that part of the palace.

The few times he had tried to get in, his own soldiers had barred him from entry.

Faced with the same predicament that had plagued him since he took this role, he chose not to push the subject with the soldiers who had clearly come from Helvig's personal guard in the name of preserving his position.

The rationality behind the decision never sat well with him so when he sent the sketches of the palace dungeons to the pit keeper in Logi, he had included the ones for the vitki in the hopes that the rescue party would free them as well.

It would never be enough for the choices he'd had to make, but it was a start.

His search for anymore hidden vitki went unfounded which frustrated Baldr to no end.

Vilde was missing from so many meetings, what else could she be doing?

But the more he obsessed over it, the more his gut told him that if she was working on new innocent souls, it wasn't happening inside the palace walls.

Shadow draugr . The vile creatures that had become a side effect of whatever dark galder Vilde was using were being forced onto unsuspecting innocents.

He had clamped one of the iron bands on Kolbeck's throat— and Baldr was too stupid or too complacent in his role that he didn't even question what it was before he was ordered to place it on the General of Rivers.

He'd assumed it was the usual galder nullifying iron that all prisoners had worn. How horrifically wrong he had been.

Nausea crept up his throat, squeezing the breath from his lungs as he tried to get a few hours of rest.

Sitting upright, his body and his mind losing the fight against his burning remorse, Baldr vomited into a small basin that usually contained water for washing ones hands after relieving themselves in the washroom.

Bile, sour and caustic, swept over his tongue as he retched again and again before finally he collapsed back onto his cot, chest heaving and tears streaming down his cheeks.

After collecting himself, sure that sleep would not be in his favor tonight, he got up and dressed in his uniform.

If he wasn't going to sleep, he would continue his search for someone willing to speak to him about Helvig's family.

He rinsed his mouth out with clean water and grabbed a few mint leaves from his windowsill to chew on so his breath didn't offend anyone.

Before he exited, he caught his reflection in the dark window looking out over the training yard.

The man who looked back at him was thinner than ever before, his eyes hollow and gaunt. His remorse that had been eating him alive over these last few weeks was starting to show.

Shaking his head, he exited his office and headed toward the palace's servants corridors.

Baldr had also spent most of his limited free time sleuthing around the palace for any information he could get about the Heir and the late Queen of Flame.

It seemed that most of the staff who had been around during the time the Queen of Flame was alive either no longer worked her or had perished shortly after.

His last section of the palace that he hadn't checked out yet was where the laundresses worked. Due to the nature of the task, the washing happened at night so Baldr was able to finally speak with those who had become nocturnal creatures while in service of the palace.

As the long hours of the night dragged on, Baldr spoke with person after person in hopes that they would know anything.

Just when he was about to give up, he found someone who knew of a woman who had been at the palace for decades and was willing to speak of the King's family.

The young girl directed him toward an old laundress whose skin was starting to fold inward with time.

"Her mind has grown fuzzy over time, sir," the girl said, her slim face and thin body similar to most of the servants in Helvig's care. "Sometimes the things she speaks of make no sense."

Baldr nodded once, thanking the girl before she walked away and returned to her tasks.

It didn't take much convincing for the old laundress to agree to tell him about Helvig's family and all that had gone wrong. She mentioned she still had a portrait of the late Queen hidden behind a panel in her bedroom.

While Baldr followed her through the dark halls, he took in her appearance.

Her hair was a soft gray, and the thin curls were slightly familiar.

She was hunched over a wooden staff that clicked with each step she took, her pace brisk despite her age.

He felt like he recognized her but could draw no conclusions as to who she might have been.

Perhaps she was familiar to him in the way that most elderly tended to look similar after a few years of advanced age.

"It is just through here, General," the old woman said softly before leading him into a tiny living space at the end of a long hall.

"Please, call me Baldr," he said gently as he passed her to enter the room.

Frail hands grabbed his bicep, stopping him in his tracks not because of her strength but because of the urgency in her grasp. When he looked down at the old laundress, her milky blue eyes were bright as she stared at him .

"Baldr," she whispered once before she shook herself from her outburst and let go. She cleared her throat and spoke again. "My name is Anneli. Please sit while I fetch what you're looking for."

Baldr nodded once before sitting, keeping an eye on the small woman as she searched the narrow hole in the wall for the portrait she kept of Sylvi.

"Ah, there they are," Anneli said. "The last portrait of Sylvi Helvig, Queen of Flame."

Anneli handed a framed portrait to Baldr the size of a small side table, her arms shaking beneath its weight.

"His Majesty had a fit when she died and burned her belongings to ash, but not before I could save a few choice items," Anneli said in a hushed whisper. "She was quite a beauty, and so are her daughters."

Baldr nodded stiffly at Anneli's words. He was already staring at the portrait, the Queen of Flame's stunning face looking back at him with wide, green eyes that held a soft kindness in them.

Around her shoulders, locks of wine-red hair hung in a curtain of bright color, thin braids scattered throughout the thick mane weaved through the delicate golden crown that rested upon her head.

She had a heart-shaped face and a pointed chin that added a sharper edge to her beauty.

Her fair skin had golden hues underneath; the smooth surface of the paint did not do the queen any justice to what she must have looked like when she was alive.

Before him was the red-haired shieldmaiden's mother, her likeness as uncanny as Vilde proclaimed.

The two women looked identical besides the finer points of aging that Sylvi displayed and the fairer skin.

Baldr's throat constricted as he looked at the Queen of Flame, but he did not understand why.

Nor did he understand why his limbs felt weak and heavy the longer he looked at the portrait.

At last, he found out who the shieldmaiden was.

Maude.

Her name settled into his soul, a sense of rightness quickly filling him.

Before Baldr could even begin to imagine why her identity was a key that unlocked a confusing amount of emotion, Anneli spoke again.

She had retrieved another item from her cache: a small, leatherbound journal that had a round clasp on the front made of a thin piece of metal.

There is no keyhole and no clear way to open the journal.

"This was also Sylvi's," Anneli said quietly, her milky gaze on Baldr.

She held out the small journal for him to take.

As he reached for it, she lurched forward faster than he thought possible.

Baldr went to catch her when he felt a small pinch on his thumb.

Anneli righted herself and hastily thrust the journal into his hands.

When he grabbed it, a small drop of blood beaded on his thumb before it landed on the small metal clasp.

Power surged through Baldr, the scent of warm sugar and cinnamon wrapping around him before the feeling subsided.

He had dropped the journal open in his surprise, the pages filled with neat cursive sentences. Anneli reached down to grab the journal at the same time as Baldr.

"My apologies," Anneli said quickly. "I did not realize the pages were bare. I haven't been able to open it, but I thought it might be interesting to you if you read it. It appears I was wrong."

Baldr started to say that the journal contained pages full of the late queen's writing, but that gut instinct warned him not to speak the words aloud.

"Thank you for your time, Anneli," Baldr said, his voice a little more stiff than before. He hoped she wouldn't notice. "I'll leave the portrait in your care, but I will take the journal if that is okay with you?"

"Of course," Anneli nodded with a small smile.

Baldr left the laundress' room hastily. He needed to read the journal in his hands to find out why only he could see the words on the pages written in the delicate hand of the former Queen of Flame.

He needed to learn why the Heir had saved his life that day on the water.

But mostly, he needed to understand why the late queen's death evoked an emotion in him that he had only felt for one person before.

Grief and a rage so powerful it launched him into his rebellion against the Kingdom of Flame.