Page 45 of Of Ash and Iron (Flame Cursed Fae #3)

Chapter 45

Maddy

" I don't think they are here to take you to the cage."

Thyrvi moves to stand, rolling me off her. My body is so stiff from barely moving in the cage all the previous day that everything hurts, but I drag myself to my feet, skin crawling with fear.

She bares her teeth as I hear the lock turn.

The door opens silently, and Freydis steps into the cell.

A thousand emotions crash through me like an avalanche as I stare at my sister.

The bag she carries bulges with the artifacts from the vault, and the tiara gleams in her hand, but I barely register them.

All I can see are her eyes.

She's looking straight at me, and there's not a hint of ice in them. In fact, they are filled with tears.

They're my sister's eyes, the ones I've ached for through endless weeks of doubt and betrayal.

"Freydis," I choke out, tears already streaming down my face. She barely manages to shut the door before I fling myself at her.

The artifacts clatter to the ground as she wraps her arms around me with the familiar strength I've missed so desperately. She buries her face in my neck and sobs, her tears hot against my skin.

Weeks of grief pour out of me, the fear that our entire relationship had been a lie flooding out of my body. Every moment I questioned if her love had been real, if the decades of memories we shared were nothing but carefully crafted deception, leak away, fading to nothing.

The relief is monumental.

It was all real. The sister who stood between me and our parents' coldness, who protected me through every blackout, who gave me the only love I knew in that frozen palace—she was real all along. Every shared secret, every whispered conversation, every moment of comfort when I thought I was dying… All of it was true.

"I love you," I manage through my tears, clinging to her like she might disappear at any minute.

"I love you too, Maddy." Her voice breaks on my name. "I don't know how you're ever going to be able to forgive me for what I've had to do."

The pain in her voice only makes me hold her tighter. Whatever she's done, whatever she's been forced to do, she's my sister. I will always forgive her.

Freydis grabs my shoulders, holding me at arm's length. Her red eyes swim with tears, tracking down her pale cheeks. "Maddy, if it wasn't the only way I thought I could save your life, I swear to you I would never have done any of it." The raw pain in her voice makes my heart clench.

I hiccup on a sob. "I don't understand."

"I'll start from the start, but…" Her voice catches. "You don't know how it nearly killed me, sitting outside your cell last night and hearing you cry like that. I need to know that there's a chance you'll forgive me, Maddy. I'm so sorry."

"You slept outside my cell?" The thought of her so close while I suffered makes my chest ache.

"Yes, I had to wait for them all to leave until I could come in, but I couldn't…" She swallows hard. "I couldn't not be close to you now that you are in the same place as me. Is there any way you'll ever forgive me?"

"Of course I will," I tell her through fresh tears, "but you need to tell me what's happening."

Her gaze shifts over my shoulder to Thyrvi, and she lets out a shaky breath filled with wonder. "Maddy, she is the most magnificent thing I've ever seen in my life. When I saw her by your side, I was so close to giving myself away. Not reacting to her is the hardest act I've ever put on. She's absolutely glorious."

My face splits into a grin, real and joyous. "Isn't she? Thyrvi, this is Freydis."

Thyrvi shakes self-importantly and stares at my sister. "She recognizes my glory," she rumbles approvingly in my mind, making me laugh, and Freydis blinks.

"She speaks to you in your mind?" she asks, wonder replacing worry in her expression.

"Yes," I say, feeling a surge of pride.

"And your magic, Maddy." Her voice fills with fierce joy. "Your magic… I knew it was in you. I've always known it. It's always been within you."

The validation in her words, the pride in her eyes—it's everything I've ever wanted to hear from her. Everything I feared I'd lost forever.

"Freydis, did you know—" My voice breaks on the question I've been carrying for so long. "Did you know that the blackouts aren't fatal?"

Her eyes fill with fresh tears. "She told me," she whispers, "but only after you'd gone, and only because I made so much fuss. In fact, that's what started all of this."

"You need to tell me. Everything."

She nods, then reaches down to the bag and pulls out three apples. "Here, this is all I could get for you, but you need to have something."

I grab one greedily and bite it, the juice sweet against my tongue. My headache is pulsing harder from crying, but the food feels like life itself flowing back into my body. The first apple is gone in seconds.

"After you left," Freydis begins, "I was spending so much time with the mirror, trying to talk to you, that eventually I was caught with it." She swallows hard. "Mother asked what it was, and I told her. I didn't think there was that much risk in it."

Her hands twist together as she continues. "Over the next few weeks, though, things began to change. They missed your memory magic. They were starting to lose control over the court. They started to panic. Then one day I walked past the throne room and heard her speaking with someone. It was Ishild, the Frost Giant, and she was talking to her through a large mirror that must work like our small ones.

"At first I fought them. I couldn't believe they were in league with Frost Giants. I had no idea what the connection to Featherblade or the Valkyrie was at that point. All they would tell me was that it was for the good of the Ice Court."

Tears spill down her cheeks again. "When I refused to go along with their plans, they told me that you had schemed to get to Featherblade yourself, that it was your fault I hadn't gone. They were going to drug you, make you sick and bring you back. And if that didn't work… they would pay someone within Featherblade to kill you."

She grabs my hands. "I didn't know what to do, but if I had access to their information, I had a better chance of helping you. They weren't going to tell me anything if I was fighting them. So when they told me the lie that you had done it on purpose, I went along with it.

"I had to pretend I hated you, that I was on board to do anything for the good of the Ice Court. I fed them lies about how I was destined to rule and that I would prove I was worthy of being the heiress to the court." Her grip tightens. "But nothing I told them was true, Maddy. I did everything so I could stay as close as possible to you.

"When we spoke through the mirror, Mother was there the whole time, right behind me. She didn't want our father to go back to Featherblade, but he was insistent that it was important we got you out of there. She just wanted the information, and she wanted to see if you trusted me or not."

My heart hammers in my chest, my tears still falling.

Every cruel word, every cold look, was a mask worn to keep me alive. My sister was fighting for me all along, more alone in that frozen palace than I was in Featherblade.

"Oh, Maddy." Freydis pulls me into another fierce embrace. "The only thing that's kept me going is finding out you weren't about to die from the blackouts, and that you had some of the most incredible power in the whole of Featherblade."

"How were you getting information?" I ask against her shoulder.

"Mother was getting it from the Frost Giant." Her hands tighten on my back. "I realized she had a contact at Featherblade, but I didn't know who it was, or I would have tried to find a way to tell you. I had no idea they planned to kidnap you."

"Do you know why Mother was so insistent it was you who had to go to Featherblade in the first place?"

Freydis pulls back, shaking her head. "No."

A thought strikes me. "Thyrvi—" I start, but then I feel the familiar swoop in my stomach. "Hold on," I manage to say before darkness claims me once again.