It wasn"t until she mentioned it that I realized I hadn"t in a very long time. While I"d been on the road, I"d hardly been able to find anything that sat with my sensitive troll stomach, and when I"d been with the Omte, they hadn"t been much on feeding us.
"It"s been a while," I admitted sheepishly.
"I"ll make you something." Mia pushed back the chair to get up.
"No, you shouldn"t be waiting on me," I said, glancing over at her belly.
She smiled and waved me off as she stood. "Nonsense. I"ve still got another month left with this one, and I can"t just spend it sitting around." She rubbed her stomach. "I"ve got things to do."
"Do you need any help?" Finn asked.
"No, you sit down and talk to Bryn," Mia said as she began bustling about the kitchen.
Finn sat across from me. When I"d had my head down, either he or Mia had poured a cup of tea for me. He leaned across the table and nudged it closer to me.
"You should drink something."
"Thank you." I took a long sip, and the warmth of the drink felt amazing.
Finn"s home, like many troll homes, was built sort of like a rabbit burrowwith most of it underground in the bluffs. This kept it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer, which was nice on days like today when outside temperatures had risen into the seventies.
In a lot of ways, Finn"s house was similar to Ridley"s house back in Doldastam, except since it was a bit warmer here, they got to have more earthy features, like dirt floors and bushes growing around the doorway.
Remembering Ridley, and the times I"d spent in his house with him usually sitting beside a crackling fire talking about work, only made me feel worse. My stomach clenched and my heart throbbed painfully in my chest. I missed him terribly, and I wanted only to wrap my arms around him.
"You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders," Finn commented.
"I kind of feel that way," I said honestly. "I"ve made too many mistakes, and too many people are paying for them."
"I"ve had to learn a hard lesson, and I think you might need to, too." Finn leaned back in his chair. "Everything can"t be your fault. You"re not that powerful. The whole world isn"t in your control."
I swallowed hard and stared down at my tea. "I know that."
"But it still feels like you should be able to prevent every disaster and protect everyone you care about from any pain?" Finn asked, and I nodded. "But you can"t, so sometimes you need to trust that people can take care of themselves."
I thought of Kasper, and how he"d died trying to take care of himself. And Ridley, and how I didn"t know what the Queen had done to him after I left. And Tilda, and how she was dealing with so much now. And Linnea, and how she was alone in Storvatten, trying to fight for her life and her husband"s. And Konstantin, and how if Viktor or his men found him, things would end very badly for him.
I shook my head. "I can"t turn my back on them, Finn. If I can help them, I have to."
"I"m not saying you should stand by and watch people suffer," Finn clarified. "But you can"t save everyone. You can only do as much as you can, and then you need to move on."
"But..." It was hard to speak around the lump in my throat. "Kasper died."
"Did you kill him?" Finn asked me directly.
"No."
"Then it"s not your fault."
"But I could"ve done more." I looked up at him. "I should"ve done more."
Finn leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "Bryn, if you could have done more, you would have. That means you did everything you could."
I couldn"t argue that, so I lowered my eyes again.
"From what I gather by what Ember"s told me, and what you told the Queen, you"ve been trying to fight a ma.s.sive enemy on your own," Finn said. "You"ve been taking on far too much for one person, and I think you should get some rest for a while."
"I can"t," I insisted. "Not when people I care about might be in danger."
"You"re no help to anyone if you"re falling apart."
"That"s the worst thing about Finn," Mia said, smiling at me as she set a heaping bowl of vegetable soup in front of me. "He"s usually right."
"Thank you," I told her, and I used all my restraint to keep from wolfing down the soup. I didn"t think anything had ever smelled as wonderful or tasted as delicious in my life.
"You can stay here as long as you need to," Mia told me, as I devoured the soup. "Our door is always open to you."
I wanted to thank her for that, and tell her that I didn"t think I"d be staying here that long. I couldn"t just rest on my laurels, no matter if my body needed it or not. But I was far too famished to do anything besides eat.
TWENTY-THREE.
reevaluate Before this had become Finn and Mia"s home, it had been the house that both Finn and Ember had grown up in. Ember"s old room had become Hanna"s, but she would stay in Liam"s room tonight, so I could use her room. I"d tried to insist that they didn"t need to go to any trouble for me, but Mia just did it anyway.
Despite my exhaustion, I lay awake in Hanna"s slightly-too-small bed, my feet hanging over the end. A lighted mobile hung above the bed, casting shapes of the moon and stars over the ceiling.
The walls were a pale blue with clouds on them, and Finn had told me that Ember had been the one to paint the room this way when she"d been ten. I remembered her telling me about her childhood, when she would lay awake at night plotting her escape from this small boring house and her boring life. Ember had been determined to escape and have an adventure.
Now I couldn"t help but feel a certain kinship to her, lying awake the way she had, wishing for an escape. Of course, I would happily trade all the troubles that were stretched out before me for a boring life with my friends and family again.
As soon as I thought it, I wondered if that was entirely true. Obviously, I would gladly get rid of Mina and Viktor and all the dangers that went along with them. But would I ever be content to just settle down and lead a normal life the way Finn and Mia had?
Before everything had completely gone to h.e.l.l, Ridley and I had made plans to be together when this was all over. Of course, now it seemed impossible. I wasn"t even sure if I"d ever be able to see him again.
But for a brief moment I allowed myself to fantasize about the life we might have led together. It wouldn"t be exactly like Finn and Mia"s life, since I wasn"t sold on the idea of having kids myself. Staying at home and raising a family was great for people who wanted it, the way Mia so obviously did, but I wanted something different.
I could work as a tracker for a few more years, traveling and seeing the world. When I came home, Ridley would be there waiting for me, pulling me into his arms. Sipping wine by the fireplace in the winter, and riding the horses out to the bay in the summer. Arguing about the politics in Doldastam, or what movie to watch. And falling asleep at night in each other"s arms.
We could have a life together.
Or at least we could"ve, before I"d been accused of treason.
But still, when I drifted off to sleep, I couldn"t help but imagine the life that Ridley and I had almost had together. How we"d so nearly made it.
In the morning, I awoke to a little boy standing next to the bed, staring right at me. When I opened my eyes, there he was, and I almost screamed. Funny that after everything I"d seen lately, it was a two-year-old boy that nearly gave me a heart attack.
I wasn"t sure how Liam would react to me picking him up, but I decided to give it a go anyway. When he didn"t scream, I took that as a good sign, and proceeded to carry him out to the kitchen, where Mia was making breakfast.
She immediately apologized for him waking me, but I brushed it off. Besides, I honestly felt better than I had in a while. Getting a decent meal and a good night"s sleep did wonders for the body.
I didn"t even mind that since I"d picked Liam up, he refused to let go of me. Eventually, when he began tugging on my hair with his pudgy hands and poking me in the eyes, I realized where all his fascination came fromhe hadn"t seen many people who looked like me in his life.
After breakfast, I finally managed to detangle myself from Liam and headed outside to work out. I"d been trying to work out every chance I"d gotten, but since Konstantin and I had been on the move, and I"d been starving, exhausted, and anxious the whole time, I hadn"t gotten as much done as I"d have liked.
Finn and Mia"s house sat on a plateau, with a small field of gra.s.sy flat land extending out over the bluff. A split-rail wooden fence wrapped around it, preventing any animals or small children from tumbling over the edge.
Finn and Ember"s mom used to use the land to raise angora goats, but since their parents moved, taking the goats with them, Finn hadn"t picked up the tradition. The only animal he and Mia had was a solitary pony that Finn had apparently gotten as a birthday gift for Hanna.
The pony, rather inexplicably named Calvin, came over to investigate what I was up to. It was dark gray, with a long mane and fur around his hooves, so in many ways he appeared to be a miniature version of my Tralla horse Bloom, admittedly a much stouter version. He only came up to my shoulder, and he appeared bemused behind his thick bangs as he watched me stretch.
When I started running laps along the fence, Calvin trotted along with me, his short legs hurrying to keep up. But he quickly grew bored of that and went back to nibbling at the gra.s.s and flowers.
Eventually, I"d moved on to doing burpeeswhich was dropping down to a squat, getting in a push-up position, and then immediately jumping back to the squatting position and standing up again. I"d done about a million of them when I"d been in tracker school, but the last few weeks had taken their toll on me, and I was going way too slow.
Whenever I"d drop to the ground, Calvin would sniff my hair, as if it to make sure I was okay. I was on about my twentieth burpee when I heard the gate to Finn"s property swing open. I stopped what I was doing long enough to look over and see the Chancellor, Bain Ottesen, standing just inside the gate.
"Finn"s inside the house," I told him, wiping the sweat off my brow with the back of my arm.
"Actually," Bain said with a sheepish expression, "I"m here to see you."
TWENTY-FOUR.
hunted With my heart pounding in my chest, I walked across the field to meet Bain. There weren"t guards with him, so it felt safe to a.s.sume that the Queen hadn"t decided to recant her amnesty and arrest me. But that didn"t mean that she hadn"t decided that it might be better for her kingdom if she sent me away.
Bain stepped carefully toward me, avoiding particularly muddy spots in the yard since he was barefoot. Because they had nicer weather in Forening than we did in Doldastam, the Trylle got to spend a lot more time free from footwear.
He was dressed nicely in black slacks and a dress shirt with a tie, and his brown hair was styled off his forehead. With his earnest expression and clean-cut appearance, Bain reminded me of those guys who went door-to-door dropping off religious pamphlets.
"What"d you want to see me about?" I asked when I reached him.
He pursed his lips for a moment. "I have some strange questions to ask you, and I don"t know if you"ll be able to answer them. But it would be helpful to us if you did."
"I"ll do the best I can," I replied carefully.
Calvin had followed me over, and he began sniffing Bain. When Bain spoke, he began absently petting the pony.
"What do you know about what"s happening in your kingdom?" Bain asked.
My stomach clenched, and I shook my head. "Not much. I haven"t really been in contact with anyone there since I left. I briefly talked to the overste, Ridley Dresden, but he wouldn"t say much beyond the fact that everything is falling apart there."
"Did he tell you that King Evert was dead?" Bain asked, watching for my reaction.
"Yes, he did."
"And I am a.s.suming that you had nothing to do with Evert"s death?" he asked, and it did sound more like a formality than a serious inquisition.
"No, of course not!" I said, probably too forcefully. "I was in" I stopped myself before I accidently let it slip that I"d been locked up in the Omte palace when Evert had died. "I was long gone by then."
"I thought as much." Bain looked away from me, staring out at the river below, and a warm breeze blew past us. "The Kanin Queen has begun acting very ... strangely."
I tensed up. "How so?"
"About a week and a half ago, your kingdom sent out a blast of WANTED posters." He glanced back over at me. "Of you, obviously. But along with them was a letter stating that Doldastam would no longer be allowing visitors of any kind."
"That"s insane. Did the letter say why?" I asked.
"Just that they were running an investigation. But that"s not the really strange part," Bain went on. "It was signed by Queen Mina. And with the Kanin, every official letter or decree I"ve ever seen from them has been signed by the King. Sometimes the Queen cosigns, but she"s never alone."
I shook my head. "The Queen is never allowed to make p.r.o.nouncements like that, not on her own."
"When King Evert died, our Queen Wendy called to offer her condolences," Bain said. "Mina talked to her briefly, but she also informed her that, unlike every other royal funeral I"ve heard of, no other royalty was allowed to attend. Only those already living in Doldastam could go.
"Mina cited safety being her priority, but it all felt off to Wendy," he concluded.
"Holy s.h.i.t." I exhaled shakily. "She has them completely isolated and totally dependent on her. Everyone in Doldastam is trapped."
"Which brings us to this morning and the strangest part about all of this." He reached into his back pocket, where he"d tucked a rolled-up tube of paper out of sight. "We received these, along with a lengthy letter."
He handed a tube to me, and I unrolled it to reveal two sheets of paper. The top one was a black-and-white poster of myself. The photo was the official tracker picture taken every three months. In it, I stared grimly ahead, my eyes gray and blank.
LARGE REWARD IF FOUND.
WANTED: BRYN DEL AVEN.
AGE: 19.
HEIGHT: 5"5".
HAIR/EYES: BLOND, BLUE.
COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST THE KANIN AND SKOJARE.
INCLUDING CONSPIRING TO KILL THE KANIN KING AND SKOJARE PRINCE.
SUSPECTED OF WORKING WITH KONSTANTIN BLACK.
The beginning wasn"t much of a surprise, but it was the last line that made my heart stop cold.