Page 39 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

HENRIK

Henrik, hands stacked behind his head, stared at the seam between the wall and the ceiling. The porthole spilled a simmering claret sunset, while the corners of the room lay in sea darkness. With Klipporno at their stern and the broad ocean ahead, he breathed easier.

Stalking night shadows consumed his tension. In the darkness, thoughts flowed. Reservations dispelled.

Selma dominated his thoughts. He set her aside to think about Einar. Agnes. The Ladylord and her reservations around him. As if on a track, he circled back to Einar. To the soldats and early memories shuffling up from the bottom of the box. It peeked open, releasing silky vapors.

A ferocious young Einar, covered in mud. His eyes were red-rimmed from tears, his teeth clenched. Rain saturated the mud around them. They ran for their lives against older soldats meant to tear them down, test their weakness.

They won.

Barely.

Einar’s voice broke through the inky black of memories. The berth lay in utter darkness. He leaned against the thin door frame.

“You’re brooding.”

“I am.”

The door closed behind Einar. Ropes creaked as he settled onto his hammock. Pale starlight lined his figure. Boots stacked, arms behind his head.

“So?”

“So,” Henrik responded.

Another silence.

After a sigh, Henrik capitulated. “I met Selma.”

“It’s her?”

“It’s her.”

“How do you know?”

“She mentioned you.”

Einar went very still. Only a glimmer of his profile was visible in the dark when he asked, “What did Britt think about Selma?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“She said that information wasn’t hers to share.”

A point in her favor, like always, though he wouldn’t have cared if she told Einar. It might have been a favor. Henrik tipped his head back. His legs sprawled out in front of him, one braced against the wall.

“It was Selma,” he said softly, “and I was a shite. I ran like a little bastid.” When Einar didn’t reply, Henrik kept going, picking up speed. “I couldn’t do it. I saw her, realized who she was, and I panicked. I left. I’m sorry. I was going to ask?—”

Einar’s firm words stopped him short. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

“I regret it,” Henrik admitted, wincing. He ran a hand over his hair, letting it hang loose down his back. “Leaving like that, I mean. I . . . shite.”

“Don’t apologize for my part, Henrik. If I never have answers, I’ll be just like the rest of the soldats. Give it time. You might feel differently after you think about it.”

The exoneration helped, and Henrik hated that he wanted it. The questions plagued him, haunting in their depth. What if that had been his only chance? What if he never saw her again? It wasn’t fair to ask for another chance.

Was it?

“In the end,” Henrik whispered, “no matter what Selma did or didn’t do, she wasn’t strong enough to fight His Glory.”

“Of course she wasn’t,” Einar snapped. “ We aren’t strong enough to fight His Glory, you bastid! And that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s why we’re overthrowing him. If demmed Arvid would respond already,” he added in a violent mutter.

Einar shot to his feet, hot energy flowing into the room. He paced with frenetic agitation.

“His Glory is a dictator, enslaving those who serve his purposes, harming whomever he wants because he claims to be Norr’s son.

Bastid.” He scoffed, and the passion underlying his words wasn’t anything new.

The ferocity was. Agnes’s death had stoked an existing fire, brought forward by the solace of vengeance.

Einar threw himself into a rickety chair, braced his elbows on his knees, and leaned into them. His head hung. “I miss her, Henrik.” His clenched voice barely wrung out, “I just want to hold her again.”

With Britt bright in his mind, Henrik whispered, “I’d feel the same.”

“I’ll kill His Glory first, even if I have to die bringing that bastid to the grave,” Einar vowed, “And then I’ll go after Agnes. I will get her back, Henrik.”

“I hear you, brother. But you’re walking a dangerous road.”

Einar shot to his feet with a growl. “So are you.”

The door slammed shut behind him.

Henrik bolted awake, disoriented by a dream. After a few rabid breaths, he settled into the familiar berth. Dust motes danced in wild sunshine. The ship pitched gently. He shoved off the floor and to his feet.

Above deck, Einar and Britt stood at the wheel with Pedr. Drake perched on Pedr’s neck, a piece of leather strapped to Pedr’s shoulder to protect him from the sharp talons and clacking scales. Einar’s shining smile meant Drake had returned with something important.

Britt beamed as Henrik approached.

“Good morning.”

He nodded, his voice a scratchy growl. “Morning.”

“News from Arvid.” Einar held up a paper. “Depending on your outlook, things are bleak.” He nodded to the southwest, where Stenberg lay somewhere behind miles of sea.

“Arvid reports that their campaign to ask Stenberg citizens about a rebellion against His Glory went extremely well. More underground cooperation than expected, but it took awhile. They had to be very careful, which is why his response was delayed. Three other soldats have defected, but the rest remain.”

“Which soldats?”

“Johan, Mikael, and Brodin.”

“I spoke to Brodin when I returned from the reefer year. Young almost-soldat, right?”

Amusement lightened Einar’s eyes. “Yes, that’s the one. He worked in the office for several months, almost a year. Arvid liked him. Brodin said he wanted to go where Henrik went.”

That a young soldat would have such high aspirations and boldness wasn’t a bad thing, but to follow Henrik so blindly? Probably wasn’t a great thing.

Einar continued. “That brings the total count of defected soldats to fifteen. Those three leaving, and the soldats who died at the Unseen Island, means the soldat numbers have been low. Soldat leadership has pushed new recruits in early.”

“It’s falling apart.”

“The soldats are falling apart, yes.” Einar nodded. “The navy is a different matter, it sounds like.” He waved the letter, then nodded toward Pedr. “Arvid is already on his way to find us. Pedr said he can help them arrive sooner.”

Henrik confirmed by glancing at him. Pedr nodded. Henrik didn’t bother asking how. It didn’t matter. Pedr had always been strange, but good on his word.

“Anything else?” Henrik asked.

Einar braced his hands on the rail behind him. The ship barreled into a rolling wave, splashing. “The situation on Stenberg sounds tenuous. The port authority was brutalized and almost drowned.”

“By whom?”

Einar shrugged. “Arvid didn’t say.”

“His Glory is losing control,” Henrik said.

The light in Einar’s gaze illuminated. “Which is why Arvid is coming here. He said a partnership with the mainland would be the right emphasis we needed to get rid of His Glory, as long as there’s not something else attached.

He’s sufficiently convinced that the majority of Stenberg would be supportive and ready to move on. ”

Something else attached was the pertinent point. The mainland wanted something from Stenberg, and he had a feeling it wasn’t only damma.

Einar passed Henrik the letter.

“Arvid will be here in two days.”

Henrik passed the day on the stern, in the sunshine, with his throwing stars and brooding thoughts.

Einar paced, speaking plans to Pedr, who didn’t acknowledge him at all.

Britt made herself scarce with a book in Pedr’s berth, occasionally switching for a hammock on the deck when the sunshine was persuasive instead of overbearing.

That evening, Henrik stared at the words he’d just written, illuminated by wavering candlelight.

Selma,

Forgive me for leaving.

He crossed it out, attempted again.

Selma,

I’m sorry for ? —

He balled the paper up and tossed it onto the floor with five others. The pen nub trembled as he glowered at the fresh page.

What could he possibly say?

Closing his eyes, he accessed the memory again. The scream. The shrill, horrified shrieks. The impression of great movement followed, as if she flailed and thrashed. Until now, it had all been vague, uncertain memories. As powerful as wispy smoke. But Selma had replaced herself in them.

She howled his name from the recollection until he no longer knew if he remembered it or if it were made up in his head. She fit. Her voice. The face.

He closed his eyes and attempted to see her again. To access other memories. He mined the lower levels of his dark gut box, searching for something else. Light? Toys? Had there been a bedroom, a father? A father, yes. Of course. There must have been.

His chest knotted at the thought. All these years and he’d ignored the reality that someone had sired him. Something about seeing Selma in person unlocked the obvious truth that someone else had been involved in his creation.

It made him breathless.

Henrik blinked back to life when a snap sounded. Something wet gushed onto his fingers. Ink glugged over his hand as he stared at the broken fountain pen. The dark pool gathered in beads on the page, powerful as a blood stain.

After cleaning the mess, he pulled his last sheet, grabbed a pencil, and scrawled across the top.

Meet with me, please? Anywhere that doesn’t involve the Ladylord or anyone else. Tell me where to find you.

Erik

Drake peered at him through slotted eyes as Henrik approached Pedr, who stood at the very front of the ship, one leg propped on the gunwale. Pedr stared to the west, across the ocean. Denerfen sprawled across Pedr’s broad shoulder, snoring. His wings drooped to the front and back.

When Henrik was only three steps away, Pedr straightened and acknowledged him with one lifted eyebrow. Henrik lifted the folded paper.

“Can I borrow Drake to deliver a message to the mainland?”

Pedr eyed the paper, and then Henrik. Selma’s name was written across the back in tight letters. He nodded once.

Drake, yawning, unfolded his wings, grabbed the paper in his mouth, and jumped into the night.

How the drake knew where to go, Henrik didn’t ask.