Page 26 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

HENRIK

Einar’s hair fluttered in chaotic, uneven strands.

He’d shorn it off with a knife sometime in the night, leaving it strange and haphazard and short on top.

A rare sign of mourning amongst the soldats.

They often had little to mourn. He appeared ghostly, exhausted.

Most nights, he slept on deck, near the spot where he released Agnes.

Last night, he stood at the wheel and stared out.

At their backs, the wharf bustled. People moved in the teeming, but quiet, crowd. Most avoided the two soldats, leaning against a fence and staring at the dock.

Henrik asked, “Are you sure you want to meet the Ladylord?”

“She invited me, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll go.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I do.” Einar’s jaw tightened. “I need to . . . be away from the ship for a few hours. I need a break. Something else to think about.”

Henrik nodded. A roughshod plan filled his head.

There were a lot of things about their approach to the Ladylord he didn’t like.

The power in her hands, for one. The unfamiliarity of the mainland naval structure, for another.

Pedr knew more information about the mainland navy than he revealed. It wasn’t enough.

They needed a little power.

A statement.

One card in their hand, just in case.

As he opened his mouth to explain where they were going next, Einar interrupted him. “Pedr says that Arcanists are real.”

“What?”

“There’s an Arcanist of Souls, apparently. Pedr says that sometimes you can approach the Arcanist of Souls to find a lost soul. Retrieve a loved one from death, even.”

He spoke lightly. Even. Tension threatened to cut him in half.

“Retrieve?”

Einar’s fingers tapped along the wooden railing. “From death, from Norr. From wherever Agnes is right now, without me. I don’t know!”

“That would require Norr to be alive,” Henrik said evenly, “and, if I heard you right not long ago, you don’t believe in anything associated with His Glory anymore.”

Einar said quietly, “I’m not sure there’s anything left to believe in, Henrik.”

A vacuum of silence swelled. Henrik sought for solace to impart, but found none. The haunted pain in Einar’s eyes revealed the thin line he trod. It wouldn’t take much before Henrik lost him, too.

“Pedr says it’s a suicide mission,” Einar added. “Going after Agnes’s soul. Attempting to speak to the Arcanist, all that.”

“Sounds like a story.”

“Even if it was destined to fail,” Einar whispered, “maybe death wouldn’t be the worst thing either. Maybe . . .”

“Don’t do it, Einar,” Henrik barked, low. “I know you think chasing Agnes to your own death is the answer, but it’s not worth it. Your life has value. Agnes wouldn’t want you to give up, and you know it. There’s more to live for.”

Einar swallowed so hard, Henrik heard it. “I don’t know if I believe that. You’re my brother, but you’re not her.”

“If I’m not enough,” Henrik growled, “that’s fine. But you don’t know what’s after this life. Not even a little. You’re making a plan based on assumptions you don’t control, and that’s not what we do. We plan, we execute. That’s what we do control, Einar. Nothing beyond right here.”

Einar closed his eyes. “I hate it,” he whispered. “This. . . living without her. Henrik, I hate it.”

“I know.”

When Einar’s eyes opened, something was missing.

Henrik let the silence speak. Einar needed his fire back.

He needed a reason to live. A service to give to Agnes that would build conviction until he could find it again himself.

Henrik had never cared about anyone enough to understand how Einar felt, but he had a relative approximation with Britt.

He had no idea what they were to each other, but the thought of that hatchet in Agnes’s chest had kept him up all night long.

Henrik asked the only question left. “How much do you want to avenge Agnes?”

A flare of life ignited when Einar gripped the wooden fence railing and growled, “More than I want to breathe.”

“Would you live for it?”

“Yes.”

“Would you stay here, help me negotiate an alliance between us and the mainland, and destroy His Glory? For Agnes. For her honor. For your honor.”

Einar met his gaze. “You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

With great calculation in his gaze, Einar said, “Yes.”

“Good.” Henrik slapped him on the shoulder. “Before we get to work on revenge against His Glory, we need to let the mainland know exactly where they stand when it comes to the former soldats.”

Einar straightened. “What do you mean?”

“This happened in my reefer year. When other islands or leaders set a business meeting with an unknown agenda, they hold the power. Typically, they were trying to shortchange us on exports and back me into a corner. I found that a display of power before entering the negotiations helped it go more smoothly.”

“I’m listening.”

“We’re supposed to meet with the Ladylord in fifteen minutes, but we’re going to do something else first. Make it clear that we’re not on her Chain, like Kapurnick.

She set the time, the place, the people involved, and the controlling idea.

If the Ladylord wants to work with us, we’ll need control over terms or we set it ourself. ”

Interest illuminated Einar’s deadpan eyes. “I like the sound of this.”

“Follow me. We’re going to visit the scribe.”

Finding the exact scribe Henrik sought was more difficult than expected. The Ladylord had more than one scribe in her employ, and none of them worked near her house.

Even better.

Their timeline elongated.

Lubbers didn’t clump their government buildings together, for one.

There was no Compendium to make sense of.

For another, passage through Klipporno wasn’t as simple without Britt.

She had been familiar enough to not merit questioning from patrolling soldiers, and she knew her way around.

Einar and Henrik growled a few approaching sailors off, but the distracting roadways slowed them down.

Einar followed Henrik, slowing every so often to study an unexpected weapon, then caught up. When Einar passed a display of emerald bracelets that looked oddly like Agnes’s eyes, his entire body stiffened. He walked like a plank until the trinkets vanished.

Guided by a passing stranger, they stopped at the top of the hill, near the Ladylord’s residence. A sign pointed down an opposing road.

Scribes.

Henrik rapped on the door to the first building.

It swung inside, revealing a broad-shouldered man with hands like ham hocks.

He sat behind a narrow desk barely as wide as his shoulders.

He regarded them through bushy eyebrows.

An array of books and paperwork stood on the ground, as tall as the desk itself.

“What?” he barked.

Einar’s pallor and burning rage worked in their favor. The man did a double take as they stepped inside. His initial irritation faded into a more docile uncertainty.

“My name is Henrik. I’m here to speak with a scribe working with the Ladylord to locate someone for me.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “If the Ladylord has assigned any scribe a task, and you were supposed to be involved, then you would be. Leave.”

He returned to the papers.

“Do you know Malcolm Helsing?” Henrik asked.

“From Kapurnick?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Einar grinned, scoffing.

Henrik said, “I just have a few questions.”

The man waved the direction from which they’d come. “Take it to the Ladylord’s staff.”

“Aren’t you part of her staff?”

He smiled contemptuously. Henrik stepped to the side and braced his legs, occupying as much room as possible. Einar positioned himself in front of the door, blocking the entrance. They took up what little space existed between the desk and the door.

“Not a problem,” Henrik said. “We’ll wait.”

The man hesitated, assessing with beady eyes whether Henrik was serious. After a few seconds, he harrumphed, returned to work. A mousy woman in the back corner gawped, wide-eyed.

Ten minutes passed.

The man didn’t move. The woman in the corner shuffled around, her eyes bouncing from Henrik, Einar, the man, and back again. Henrik didn’t take his eyes off the male scribe. Einar didn’t either. The man wriggled and shuffled in his chair, avoiding eye contact.

Twelve minutes.

Fifteen.

The male scribe cleared his throat. Someone attempted to enter, Einar shoved them back. While the complaining person drifted away, shouting, the man’s furtive glances toward Henrik increased. He shuffled a stack of papers, dropped a fountain pen, muttering under his breath as he fumbled with it.

Somewhere around the twenty minute mark, the woman slipped a paper onto the man’s desk. With a flicker of annoyance aimed at Henrik, he gave a brief nod. She grabbed a pile of papers on the edge of his desk and clutched them to her chest. Chewing her bottom lip, she looked at Henrik.

Henrik gave her a fleeting smile.

The man cleared his throat. “Let her out, eh?”

“I’m taking a message to the Ladylord.” Her plea barely pitched above a whisper. “A-asking permission to share the results of what has been found by our scribe. I’m the scribe Malcolm wrote to. I’d be happy to share, but I can’t without permission. I’d be let go, and I have children.”

Victory.

How sweet.

“Understandable.” Henrik shifted one step to the left. Einar followed. After the woman departed, they resumed their positions.

“Can’t you go?” the man asked with an exasperated sigh. “You’re getting what you want.”

“Maybe,” Henrik said.

“She’ll return in ten minutes!” He gestured them out with his paw-like hand.

Henrik cast a gaze to the sun, considering the time.

At this rate, the meeting’s start had long since passed.

The female scribe would take his request directly to the Ladylord, as he hoped, which would give her some idea of where they’d gone.

It wasn’t as much about the information as it was about the message.

He didn’t walk into negotiations on blind faith.