Page 3 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

HENRIK

Henrik struggled to take Kapurnick in.

Although he’d traveled the outer isles that ringed the main Kapurnick island and met with a few dragul Keepers, he knew nothing of . . . the undermountain. It stretched farther than fifteen ships of the line back to back, a hidden cache of humanity.

Out there, Kapurnick islanders reverentially spoke about Dragul Mountain, but he’d never known a world existed beneath. Did they keep the hollowed out space secret for a reason, or had he simply not discovered it?

Brilliant, quiet, luxurious, daunting. The descriptions swamped him, even as he eyed the rilly rocks and occasional security concerns. There weren’t many. As a stronghold, the Kapurnickkians had it in hand.

Also, the gold.

It . . . glowed.

The tiny flows of light sparkled against bedrock like thrown glitter. Or stars. Arcane, obviously. Until he spent a year touring around The Isles, he forgot the arcane existed. The weird abilities it gave, folktale rumors of long-dead Arcanists, all existed as children’s stories on Stenberg.

If it was arcane, who maintained it? How did they find it?

Was it safe to use it so . . . brazenly?

The questions didn’t cease as he passed beneath sparkling window panes the size of a frigate.

The rustle of papers, murmuring people, shuffling wings, drakes flying overhead with messages clutched in their talons, created a bustling yet cozy escape.

Pedr and his flotilla of arcane strangeness drove Henrik’s vulnerable position home. His Glory enslaved the soldats, turned them into killing machines, and cut them off from the wonders of the world.

Wonders like this .

Nina led him to the far side, through a wide tunnel, and stopped at a brass door handle bigger than her fist. She gripped the outer edge and tugged it open. As the door creaked toward her, a familiar man appeared. He stood on the other side of a moderately-sized room, staring right at Henrik.

Sharp gray eyes, inquisitive stare, square face. The ready shoulders and thick arms were immediately recognizable.

Captain Arvid.

Arvid smiled. “Henrik,” he drawled. “It is good to see you again.”

Until he clapped eyes on Arvid, living and breathing and existing in front of him, Henrik had brutally questioned the truth.

His former soldat Captain had faked his own death in order to stage a rebellion and soldat coup against the tyrannical Stenberg leader, His Glory.

Ultimately, thanks to soldats on Stenberg that supported Arvid, the revolt had been moderately successful thus far.

Time would tell if it continued.

“Arvid,” Henrik said, unable to help his smile.

Arvid crossed the room in four strides. He held out a hand, which Henrik accepted, but Captain Arvid yanked him into a chest-shaking embrace. Henrik pounded him on the back, not expecting the warm response.

“Good to see you alive, Captain.”

They parted, but Captain Arvid kept a firm grip on Henrik’s shoulder. “Really good to see you, Henrik. I knew you’d come to our side, and not just because of Einar.” He swept an arm toward padded chairs, cut into the stone wall. “Have a seat.”

Overhead skylights brought little light into the rectangular room, aiding the luminescence from the golden arcane infused in the wall.

Veins cut thick lines all the way across the ceiling, brightening the dark space.

A fire crackled in a hearth along the interior wall, hissing from the occasional raindrop.

They sat across from each other.

“Was your trip from Stenberg uneventful?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“None of that.” Captain Arvid shook his head. “Just Arvid.”

Henrik swallowed his tongue in the attempt. It felt wrong to be informal, like petting a cat backward.

“Arvid.”

Arvid laughed. “We’re going to do things very differently from now on, Henrik. You’ll see. How are Agnes and Einar?”

“Healthy, sir. Happy, too. They’re on their way inside. Malcolm is walking them in.”

“Good.”

Relief poured off of Arvid in waves. In the year since Henrik last saw Arvid, his eyes had aged, his black hair streaked with gray. He probably spent less time in meetings with unmanageable leaders, and more with his skin to the sky and feet on the ground. The dream of every soldat.

“Sir, I have?—”

The door opened again, startled Henrik into silence. Einar barreled inside. He took stock with a quick survey, broke into a huge grin, and met Arvid halfway across the room. They collided in a hug like crashing waves.

“You bastid!” Einar cried. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to welcome you to freedom now that you’re no longer a soldat captive.”

Einar breathed a dramatic inhale. “Feels good.”

“Besides,” Arvid said with a sidelong smile, “I couldn’t resist seeing Henrik again. I felt an in-person explanation was in order.”

Arvid turned to Agnes with open arms. She returned his hug with a few murmured questions and her typical affable grin. “It’s good to see you healthy and well, Arvid,” she said. “It’s been difficult to even pretend your death.”

Henrik barely held his shock. A Stenberg Captain hugging anyone ? Einar instantly wrapped an arm around Agnes’s shoulders when she returned to his side.

Arvid waved his hand toward the other chairs. “Might as well get comfortable. I have a lot of explaining to do.”

Arvid’s congeniality wasn’t the final surprise. Arvid and Einar’s jovial laughter, their swapping jokes, the lack of formal communication, made Henrik feel as if he stood upside down. When had the power dynamic in their relationship changed?

What had he missed?

Nina brought a tray of food and bowed out without a word. The smell of coffee and cream accompanied her inside, wafting from a hot silver pot. Einar and Arvid continued their review of events on the Unseen Island while Henrik attempted to stop his mental backflips and make sense of new things.

Arvid instead of Captain Arvid.

Physical embraces.

Agnes as a friend.

Kapurnick.

He struggled to hold the strange dichotomy together as Einar’s dramatized retelling wound down. He finished with, “The vittra all but destroyed the Unseen Island in a classic explosion of self-destruction.”

Arvid regarded Henrik. “Close call.”

He forced himself to say, “Very close, Si—it was close.”

While Einar poured the coffee and Agnes reached for cream, Arvid clapped his hands together. “Let’s talk about the soldat rebellion, shall we? First, I want to thank you, Henrik.”

Henrik struggled to turn his thoughts from the strangeness of embarking into the world without a rigid mission objective, freedom’s out-of-control sensation, and onto the reality of the rebellion.

Something he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted.

The words soldat rebellion stirred up the dredges of a distant, cold, hard knot of fear.

“Thank me for what?”

“For trusting me.”

Arvid paused, giving Henrik space to respond. Did Henrik trust Arvid? Yes, mostly. He didn’t like the silence and strangeness around the rebellion. Unease must have simmered years before he left as reefer. Why hadn’t he heard the whispers?

Who started it?

Henrik said, “I want to trust you, Arvid.”

Arvid chuckled. “Glad to see that you haven’t changed, Henrik. You’re a straight-laced bastid, and I’m relieved. Thank you for being honest.”

Einar shot Henrik a knowing grin. “Told you,” he sang to Arvid. “Henrik isn’t going to trust anyone right away. You have to earn it.”

“A fair statement, and I would expect nothing less.” To Henrik, Arvid asked, “Allow me to share my story with you?”

Henrik nodded.

Arvid ran his tongue over his teeth, pressed his forearms to his thighs. “Let me make clear that we aren’t alone. There are others in power on Stenberg that support us.”

“Who?” Henrik asked.

“I can’t say.”

“Is this your contact that Einar has mentioned?”

“Yes. In addition, there are other supportive soldats on Stenberg.”

Henrik’s heart sank. If other soldats joined the rebellion on Stenberg, that created an irrefutable tie for him to participate. A responsibility. He couldn’t so easily cut the cords of his old life if some of his brothers remained.

“Who?”

“Old Man, for one.”

“Old Man?”

The words conjured a picture of the rotund, red-cheeked guard who raised and lowered the gate into the soldat Quarters. Not truly a soldat, but regarded as part of the family.

“He sees everything in his bird’s nest up there,” Arvid said lightly. “There’s also Timmer, obviously, but he’s here now. A few new recruits, some others in the navy.”

“Any navy leadership?”

“No. There’s been a plan to kill me for more than a year,” Arvid continued. “It started with my refusal to support an underground slave trade that His Glory claimed was imperative for securing Stenberg’s interests. What those interests were, I have no idea.”

Agnes’s voice elevated. “A year? I had no idea it was so long.” Arvid shrugged, hands spread as if to say, what can I do ?

The familiarity continued to stun Henrik.

He’d never known any Stenberg military leader to speak to any person outside their circle of work, particularly not women. Nor include them in military plans.

“It’s why Oliver sent me out as reefer,” Henrik said.

Arvid pointed to Henrik with two fingers. “Correct. He knew you’d have a moral problem with it, and he wanted you to take my place.”

Einar tapped his chin with his thumb, a Stenberg affirmation. Arvid asked, “Do you know who Ingemar is, Henrik?”

“Of course.”

Ingemar Gustar, officially titled the fifth Captain of Stenberg, was the representative to His Glory that Stenberg residents voted for.

His Glory appointed the other four on his whim.

Historically, the fifth Captain had no military background, but received the Captain title as an honorific prestige.

He worked as a liaison between the island residents and the island leadership. Specifically, His Glory.