Suddenly a hand gripped my ankle, yanking me underwater. I started to fight it, but I realized with some surprise that I could breathe easily in the clear water that surrounded me. Even though it should all be terrifying, I felt oddly relaxed.
Linnea floated up in front of me, and the way her platinum-blond curls floated around her head made her look ethereal. Under the water, her eyes somehow managed to look even more blue than normal, but a worried expression aged her youthful face.
"Bryn," Linnea said again, and it sounded like she was speaking directly inside my head. "What"s happened? Where are you?"
"I don"t know where I am." I looked around, as if there would be some kind of sign telling me the exact location of my underwater dream.
"Not here. This is a lysa." Linnea took my hand, making me focus on her. "Everything is crazy in Storvatten. They say you killed Kennet."
"I didn"t kill Kennet!" I shouted, then corrected myself. "I tried to save him, but I couldn"t. But he was behind everything, Linnea. He"s the reason Mikko was arrested."
Her eyes widened and she gasped. "Kennet? But he loved Mikko!"
"It"s too much to explain now, but you have to believe me. Kennet was into some bad things, and you can"t trust the Kanin Queen either. She was working with him."
"Who can I trust?" Linnea"s lip began to quiver. "Everything is falling apart here. My grandma is trying to run things, but the board of advisers is pushing her out. They won"t release Mikko, and they"re trying to bring Bayle Lundeen back, but they can"t find him anywhere."
"Don"t let Bayle run anything!" I warned her. "If they find him, make them question him. He knows what Kennet was up to, so maybe he can help free Mikko."
The water seemed to grow colder. It had been the whole time, but I began to feel the chill running deeper in me. And it was getting harder to breathe. Each breath I took seemed to be equal parts air and water, and I was starting to choke.
"Don"t trust the Kanin. Don"t accept any aid from them," I told her as water filled my lungs. "Stray strong."
Her expression hardened with resolve. "I won"t let anyone hurt me or Mikko anymore," Linnea promised me. "And I will clear your name, Bryn!"
That was the last thing I heard her say before the dream collapsed on me, and I woke up in bed, gasping for breath.
SIX.
alliance With one hand I tousled my damp hair with a towel, and with the other I pulled back the drapes, allowing the blinding sun to spill into the dark room. When my eyes adjusted, I half expected to see Hogdragen or maybe Viktor Dlig"s men outside, waiting to capture me.
But it was only an empty gravel parking lot on a relatively deserted highway. Being on the run made it awfully hard to not feel paranoid, especially when it turned out there was actually a conspiracy plotting against me.
"Anything exciting out there?" Konstantin"s voice rumbled from behind me, making me jump.
I let the shades close, and I turned back to see him standing in the bathroom doorway. His dark curls were wet, and he was wearing only a pair of jeans. Seeing him shirtless, I realized that he was more muscular than I"d originally imagined.
While the smooth definition of his torso was a pleasant sight, his deep olive skin was marred by scars running all over his chest and arms. Some of them were undoubtedly from the days when he partook in the brutal sport of the King"s Games, but some of them had probably been from more sinister actions with Viktor Dlig and his men.
On his chest, just above his heart, he had a black tattoo of a rabbitthe same tattoo many members of the Hogdragen shared. They usually got it after they took their oath, and I was sure that Konstantin had been the same. He"d once been as young and determined as I had been, but somewhere along the line he"d taken a much darker turn.
"No, nothing." I lowered my eyes and tossed my towel on the dresser next to the small television.
"You used all the hot water," Konstantin grumbled absently as he picked his black T-shirt up off his bed. I peered over at him, watching as he pulled the shirt over his head, then quickly looked away once he"d gotten it on.
"Sorry. I guess I"m not used to sharing."
"I doubt this place had much hot water anyway." He looked over at me. "At least your hair"s looking better now."
I tugged at a lock of my shoulder-length hair so I could get a better look at it. The faded gray had mostly washed out, and it was returning to its usual color again.
"So what"s the plan now?" Konstantin asked.
"I don"t know." I leaned back against the dresser. "What"s your plan?"
"My plan was to find you, and I"ve found you." He motioned in the air, making a checkmark with his hand. "Mission accomplished."
"You didn"t have any idea what would happen after that?"
"Not really." He sat on the bed across from me, leaning back so he propped himself up on his arms. "I didn"t know what would happen when I found you. But you"ve been on the run for some days now. Haven"t you had time to come up with your next move?"
"No." I sighed. "I mean, I know what I want to do. I want to get back to Doldastam and avenge Kasper. I want to make sure my family and friends are safe, and I want to get the Queen out of there before she hurts anybody else, which probably means that I"d need to take on Viktor Dlig and his army along with the Kanin army.
"And then once all that is done, I want to go to Storvatten and make sure Mikko is freed and that he and Linnea are safe, and then I need to make sure they get a good, honest guard in place."
Konstantin let out a long whistle. "That"s an impressive list you got there, white rabbit."
"I know. I just have no idea where to get started." I ran my hand through my hair. "And I don"t know how I can possibly take on all of that by myself."
"Hey, you"re not by yourself." Konstantin stood up and stepped closer to me. "I"m with you now. Remember?"
I stared up into his eyes, desperate to believe him. Not just because I was faced with an insurmountable task and I needed his help. But because there was something about him, something that still made me slightly breathless. It was almost as if nothing had changed since I was a kid.
I had trusted and believed in him then, and now I wanted nothing more than to feel that way again.
"I"m glad that you"re with me, I truly am," I admitted. "But there"s still only two of us, and we"re enemies of the state. No one will believe us, and we can"t defeat an army by ourselves."
Konstantin took a step back, considering this for a moment. "Maybe we don"t have to."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean ... Bent Stum."
"Bent Stum is dead," I reminded him.
He snapped his fingers. "Exactly! Bent was killed by Kennet Biaelse, who was working on orders from Mina."
I shrugged, since Konstantin hadn"t told me anything I didn"t already know. "So? How does that help us?"
"Bent Stum is Omte," he said, grinning.
"The Omte?" I shook my head. "They"re unreasonable and grumpy and, quite frankly, they"re kinda stupid."
"Trust me, I know. I spent months working with Bent." Konstantin frowned. "Bent was murdered, and that sucks, but he was awful to deal with. It was like working with the Hulk, if the Hulk was dumber and angrier."
"And you want to go to them for help?" I laughed darkly.
"Look, I get that it"s not ideal. But the Omte already kinda hate the other tribes. They"ve always been jealous of them, because everyone else is richer, smarter, and more attractive. But the Omte are so much stronger. Their physical strength is unparalleled by any other tribe, even the Vittra."
"And you think they would help us over Bent? I thought the Omte Queen didn"t care about him," I said, remembering what Ridley had said when he"d first been investigating Bent Stum after the Linus Berling incident.
"It doesn"t matter." Konstantin shook his head. "The Omte are overly emotional and quick to anger. And now one of their people was killed in some kind of conspiracy between the Skojare and the Kanin? They"ll be all over that."
"But I don"t want the Omte to destroy the Kanin or the Skojare," I pointed out.
"I"ve heard the royals are smarter and more reasonable than the average Omte civilian. Maybe if we get a meeting with the Omte Queen, we can gauge how rational she seems, and we can go from there," Konstantin suggested.
I chewed the inside of my cheek, still not completely sold on Konstantin"s idea. It wasn"t an awful idea, but with a tribe as unpredictable as the Omte, I wasn"t too keen on getting involved.
"Besides, their capital isn"t even that far away," Konstantin added. "I think it"s only a day"s drive from here."
Unlike most of the troll tribes that preferred to make their homes in the colder temperatures of the north, the Omte had just kept moving south before eventually settling in the swamps of southern Louisiana. It was as if they"d done everything they could to distance themselves from the other tribes.
"All right." I relented finally. "What have we got to lose? Let"s go see the Omte Queen."
SEVEN.
commute As the Mustang lurched along the gravel road, I leaned over into the backseat. Konstantin hit a b.u.mp, and I bounced up, hitting my head on the ceiling.
"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked.
I"d been reaching back to grab my duffel bag, but his bag was sitting beside mine, unzipped, and a flash of metal caught my eyes. Resting right on top of the clothes were two daggers, and I reached in and picked one up.
"What do you have these for?" I narrowed my eyes at him and held up the dagger for him to see. "These are the Kanin daggers you were given when you became the Queen"s guard."
It had been a large ceremony in the palace. I"d been standing as near to the front as I could get, on my tiptoes to get a glimpse of it. They were beautiful daggers, with long sharp blades and ornately carved handles of silver and ivory.
"They"re for protection," he replied gruffly. "And they"re the only things I still have from being a Hogdragen, so I"d like it if you stopped playing with them and put them back."
"Yeah, sure. Sorry." I leaned back over the seat and put his dagger safely back in his bag, then grabbed my own duffel before sitting back down. "I was just getting my own bag anyway."
"What for?"
"I don"t trust that you know where you"re going, and I"m hoping there might be something in here that could help," I replied as I unzipped the bag.
"I already told you. I"ve been to Fulatrask before," Konstantin said, sounding indignant. "I went with Mina on a peace-keeping mission years ago, and I never forget how to get anywhere."
"As rea.s.suring as that is, the sun is starting to set"I gestured out the window at the amber skies showing through the branches of the willow trees that lined the road"and I"d like to get where we"re going by nightfall."
"That"s a great idea, but if you packed a buncha maps to the troll capitals, you should"ve let me in on that sooner," he said with sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"I didn"t." I dug through my bag, pushing through the clothes I"d picked up from thrift stores and garage sales over the last few days. "I didn"t even pack this bag. Ridley got everything together."
As I moved a pair of jeans, the cell phone fell out of the pocket. I stared at it for moment, once again finding myself trapped under the tantalizing possibility of calling Ridley. It was a prepaid phone, so it was virtually untraceable, and I would do almost anything to be able to call Ridley and hear his voice and find out he was okay.
But I knew I couldn"t risk it. It was still too soon, and if anyone in Doldastam found out I"d contacted him, he would be in serious trouble. a.s.suming that he wasn"t already locked up for helping me escape in the first place.
"Who"s Ridley?" Konstantin asked. "Wait. Wasn"t he like the Rektor or something?"
"It doesn"t matter." I brushed him off, since talking about Ridley still felt far too painful, and I buried the phone back in the bag. "But this looks like a standard bag for new trackers, which means that they pack it with a few emergency essentials, including a handbook..."
Finally, I unzipped a pocket hidden at the bottom of the bag and found the handbook. Since this bag was going out into the human world, we tried to keep the handbook as hidden as possible, in case the bag fell into the wrong hands. But it was a nice a.s.set for trackers out on their first few jobs because it had tips and tricks, along with important information for them to remember.
It also had rundowns on all the other tribes in case you ran into them (which wasn"t completely unheard-of, especially when tracking changelings in popular destinations like New York City or Chicago).
"Aha!" I held up the book to show Konstantin, but he seemed less than impressed.
"Does that have an address in it?" he asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Let me find out." I tossed my bag into the backseat, and then I got comfortable, sinking lower so I could prop my bare feet up on the dashboard with the handbook spread open on my legs.
The first few sections were all things to help trackers do their jobs better, and I flipped through them quickly until I got to the parts about the tribes. When I saw that there were only a couple pages on each tribe, my heart sank.
It didn"t help that the top quarter of one of the pages on the Omte was a detailed sketch of their emblema brown-bearded vulture, staring at me with small black eyes. There were a few basic facts about the Omte, and finally, at the bottom, I found a sentence that seemed remotely helpful.
"The Omte capital of Fulatrask is located in the wetlands in the human state of Louisiana," I read aloud. "Fulatrask has an estimated population of six thousand, making it the second most populated capital of the five tribes. They live under the rule of their King and Queen, Thor and Bodil Elak, who reside in the palace there."
"That must be an older printing," Konstantin commented when I"d finished reading.
I turned back to the cover, and it looked new enough to me. "What makes you say that?"
"Because Thor died, like, three years ago," he said. "Bodil is still allowed to rule, though, because she and Thor have a little kid."
"How do you know this stuff?" I asked. "I don"t even know this."
"I traveled with Bent for a while, remember? And he loved talking about all the stupid c.r.a.p the Omte would get themselves into."
"What happened to the King?"
"There"s a tavern in Fulatrask called the Ugly Vulture." He shook his head, like he thought it was a dumb name. "According to Bent, it"s a real roughneck place, although, also according to him, all the bars in Fulatrask are really rowdy places. But the Ugly Vulture is apparently the worst."
The road had become narrow, so the swamp came right up to the edges of it, and Konstantin slowed down. As the sun continued to set, everything around us seemed to glow an eerie red.
"Thor really loved the Ugly Vulture," Konstantin went on. "That is one nice thing that Bent said about the Omtetheir royals have no problem getting down and dirty with the commoners."
"How progressive of them," I said dryly.