Page 41 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen (The Heartless and the Wicked #4)

TWENTY-ONE – KOLFINNA

The next morning, Astrid helped Kolfinna don her training attire—dark leggings, a black tunic with green trim, and leather boots—after they had a simple breakfast of honeyed oats, milk, and dried fruits.

Right when Astrid began to braid Kolfinna’s hair, they were visited by Vidar.

He filled the doorway of her bedchambers, appearing as ominous as always.

With his wings flared out and his black-scaled helmet in place, she couldn’t help but stiffen.

She hadn’t realized how accustomed she had become to seeing his bare face, but now that he was covered, her stomach twisted in apprehension.

All she could see through the slits of the helmet were his eyes. They glowed in a way that terrified her.

Kolfinna rose from her spot in front of her vanity “What happened?”

Astrid lowered herself into a bow and released Kolfinna’s hair to fall over her shoulders in long, wavy tresses. Kolfinna didn’t bother tying it back, not when she could feel the color slowly draining from her face.

Vidar’s gaze swept through the room with a meticulous slowness that made her heart stutter. Had he discovered Blár’s plans? Was he looking for something incriminating? Had he seen through Blár’s disguise and figured everything out?

“Vidar?”

He paused to scrutinize her. The red in his eyes seemed to gleam more than usual, like something had displeased him, or perhaps he always looked like this whenever he donned his helmet.

“There has been a change of plans,” he said smoothly. “We must hurry our timeline. You will have to learn to use the cursed sword sooner, rather than later.”

“Why?”

Vidar continued to stare at the room until his gaze fell upon the worn-out book by her nightstand.

She recognized it as Aslaug’s book; after the assassination attempt, her sparse belongings had been moved to this room, the book must have been scooped up too.

He crossed the distance to it and plucked it off the surface, flipping through it.

“What is it?” she finally asked. She didn’t like how quiet he was being. A sense of urgency and suspicion bled from his tall frame, filling the air with dead. The heaviness wore down on her shoulders and she wished to run out of her chambers to see if Blár was all right. That he was safe.

“Is this yours?” Vidar snapped the book shut and turned to her sharply and she had to resist the urge to flinch back at the coolness of his tone.

“No … Why?” She approached, ready to snatch it from him, but he surprised her by handing it to her. She tentatively opened it and froze.

I will never forgive Leiknir. He must die for his crimes.

I will never forgive Leiknir. He must die for his crimes.

I will never forgive Leiknir. He must die for his crimes.

I will never forgive Leiknir. He must die for his crimes.

I will never forgive Leiknir. He must die for his crimes.

Over and over again, the same two lines were etched deeply into the paper.

Some were written neatly, while others were more frenzied, marred with fervid hatred.

A wave of nausea flowed over her and she flicked through the rest of the pages to find it filled with the same lines.

She should have expected Aslaug to hate her brother, King Leiknir, for imprisoning her for all these years, but … but this seemed to run deeper.

“Why …” The words died at her lips at the last page.

Sylvi

Erik

Raynee

Leif

Sigurd

Gunhild

Bj?rn

Blár

Vidar took it from her hands before she could memorize it or even understand what it meant. Why was Blár’s name on the list? Who were these people?

Her shock must have shown through, but he either ignored it or didn’t think too much about it. He tucked the book into one of his pockets.

“The woman you were imprisoned with, the princess,” he said after a moment. “This belongs to her, yes?”

“It … it does. Why did she write that?” Her heart pounded. She glanced through her open doorway to her antechamber, where her doors were sealed shut. Was Blár still there? Had Vidar found him? “Where is she?”

He studied her again, and she shifted on her feet.

She was aware of Astrid awkwardly standing by the vanity, her hands fidgeting in front of her.

It was comforting to know that the effect Vidar had on Kolfinna extended to everyone in the room.

Though she did notice that the air around him wasn’t as dense as usual.

“Princess Aslaug has been imprisoned for many years by her brother. She seems to hate him.” He lifted his shoulders and that small motion looked unnatural on him. “She requested for it to be brought to her.”

Hope filled her chest. “She’s alive?”

“Did you think I’d killed her?”

Truthfully, she had assumed the worst.

He must have seen the hesitation on her face, because he continued, “I did not. I promised her I would give her what she desires most in exchange for her cooperation.”

“Why …” Kolfinna stared at him, wondering if this was another ploy of his. She hadn’t done anything to gain his trust, so why was he telling her any of this? Furthermore, why did he need her cooperation? For what purpose? “What does she require?”

Vidar tapped the book protruding from one of his pockets. “Do you really need to ask that?”

“Leiknir’s life?”

“Particularly his head. Severed from his body.” He nodded. “And then she, too, can die in peace.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I need you to understand that your human king is cruel and wicked. If his own sister would barter her life for his death, what does that tell you about what kind of person he is? And yet you still wish for the humans to succeed.”

A throbbing pain built in the back of her mind and she tried to piece together what he was saying, and what was useful, and what wasn’t.

There was a reason he was telling her all of this, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was because he wanted her to know about Leiknir’s terrible character—she had known from the moment she had met the king that he held no regard for her or her people.

Vidar needed Aslaug for something, and then he planned on killing her along with the king.

Why? Because they were both royals? Did he want to kill the entire royal line?

Her stomach twisted even more as she recalled the last page in Aslaug’s diary.

Why was Blár’s name written there? It could have been a coincidence—many people had the same name—but …

but a small, niggling voice in the back of her mind kept telling her that this wasn’t a coincidence.

“Did something happen?” Kolfinna asked again.

“Why do you ask that?”

“You’re in my room. You could have asked any of your men to grab the book. Plus, you want to hasten my training. Why?”

He was quiet for a long time. So long in fact that she thought he wouldn’t answer her, but then he spoke, short and sharp and clipped, “We are at war, Kolfinna. The humans are killing our kind and every day that we linger with no progress, more of our kind die. Do you understand?”

She couldn’t help herself—she flinched.

The fae were dying. The humans were killing them. And … and she knew it wasn’t just the fae army that was dying, but likely innocent fae, too.

“You must realize that the humans wish to eradicate us all,” he murmured. “Every day that you do not train is a few more deaths on your name. A few more chances for the humans to succeed. Do you truly understand the responsibility on your shoulders?”

She took a deep, shaky breath. “I do.”

“Then why do you insist on siding with them?”

Kolfinna couldn’t answer him.

Vidar sighed, and then motioned for her to follow him out of the room.

She shadowed him and when they entered the hallway, she was relieved to see Blár standing among the other guards.

His mask covered half his face, his sharp, arctic eyes trained on the floor, and his broad figure filling out the dark leathers he wore.

Her heart skipped a beat and she quickly averted her attention back to Vidar, who strode down the hall with purpose.

Blár was still alive, at least.

She could hear the guards shuffling behind her, but she didn’t dare look back. Not with Vidar so close. She could feel her heart pulsing quickly beneath her skin, jumping to a wild, erratic tune.

“Have Freyja and Agnarr left already?” she asked, trying to catch up to Vidar’s long strides. Her gaze flicked over to the walls of the hall, the décor, anything that could help her find her way back here.

“Why do you wish to know?”

“Astrid was telling me that they would leave this morning,” she said with as much nonchalance as she could muster—as if it didn’t matter to her one way or another, like she was just trying to fill the silent void between them with useless chatter.

She could feel his narrowed eyes on the side of her face before he turned his attention forward. “Freyja left an hour ago. Agnarr will leave this afternoon.”

Her heart sank and she reined in her expression to remain neutral, even as bitterness coated her tongue.

Freyja was much easier to talk to than Agnarr.

Maybe she should have asked Astrid to wake her up so she could see Freyja off, but there was no guarantee that she would have been able to go near the fae general, anyway.

Even though she was treated like a princess, her movements were restricted and her requests had to first go to Vidar, and he would likely find it suspicious if she wanted to spend time with Freyja.

“Will he train me today?” They rounded a corner in the hallway. There were more fae soldiers in this wing of the fortress, and they all made way for Vidar, bowing their heads in respect. Vidar ignored them all, only sparing a few scathing looks now and then, as if keeping everyone in order.

“Why do you wish to train with Agnarr?” Suspicion laced his words.

“I wasn’t able to beat him in a spar last time.” She frowned, remembering how the fae male had defeated her in that short period of time they had fought. If she had to ever face him in battle, she knew she would be in trouble. “I would like to see how I would fare against him. Or maybe even Rakel.”

“And what about me?”

She looked up at him sharply, but she couldn’t make out his expression from the helmet. “I don’t know if I’m ready to face you.”

He tilted his head down and pinned her with a curious stare. “Is that so? I would have thought you would be most pleased at the idea of defeating me.”

“Oh, I would be pleased about that,” she said with a short, sour laugh. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to beat you, yet.”

He chuckled – a sound so foreign that she almost tripped over her feet.

“And you think you will have luck with Agnarr?”

“Maybe not luck , per se …” A frown tugged on her lips. “But maybe if I can use my powers, I’d be able to defeat him at least once.”

Sparring with the fae male was probably the only way she could get him to lower his guard toward her.

Maybe it was his way of reconciling with others?

Freyja had done something similar. Maybe she could get him to answer a few innocent questions in the middle of the spar.

But maybe that was too suspicious. Vidar already seemed wary around her this morning.

He must have discovered something that displeased him.

Vidar slowed in his steps once he seemed to realize that Kolfinna was struggling to keep up with his long strides. He glanced down at her, and this time, she could see the sorrow radiating from his eyes.

“You used to run after me whenever …” he began, but then he stopped, glancing away abruptly.

A bolt of pain shot through Kolfinna despite herself. She could imagine herself being a small toddler running after Vidar with his large wings and his gleaming red eyes. But that probably hadn’t scared her as a child. It was … too bittersweet to think about.

She had been ripped from her family. Robbed of a relationship with her parents.

And yet, at the same time, she couldn’t join his cause. Not … not while knowing that he would slaughter all humans if he could.

Neither of them spoke again. He took her to the tower she’d had her first trial in last week and they stopped outside the heavily rune-written doors. Her guards lined the wall, and she resisted the urge to stare over at Blár, even though she could feel his gaze prickling the back of her head.

She wanted to tell him everything about the book Aslaug kept, and she wanted to ask him if he knew her, or if he knew the list of names.

Vidar motioned to the door, his tone curt as he said, “You will have your next trial in here. My engineers have changed the runes so the trial is the same—however, you will have to use your light magic this time, instead of your shadows.”

Kolfinna’s shoulders dropped at that. “I don’t know how to use light magic.”

“It is the same as when you use your shadows.” He shifted on his feet, red eyes flicking down to meets hers. “Except instead of pulling at the darkness, think of how you want to bathe everything in light. It is not difficult once you know how to use your shadows.”

“I rarely see you use light magic.” She wasn’t even sure if she had ever witnessed him using it; maybe once or twice, but he seemed to rely heavily on his shadow magic. “Does the light magic not fit your image of a dark elf commander?”

She could have sworn he smirked at that.

Vidar motioned to the door and dryly said, “Go inside.”

“Very well.”

This was all part of the plan, she told herself as she pressed her hands against the heavy doors. The stronger she became, the better their chances of defeating Vidar and his armies. It was better this way that she learned as much as she could.