Mistress of the Wind (19 page)

Nimbus blew warm breath on her neck and she turned and pressed her cheek against his nose. “Come, let us find our hostess. She must be in the stable.”

Astrid led Nimbus to the small barn just visible around the back of the house but there was no one there save another wind steed.

She brushed and fed Nimbus and trudged back to the front of the house. As she approached the door, the small ball of unease she had not realized she carried became heavier. Dropped deeper in her chest to her stomach.

What test this time?

She stepped across the threshold and peered in. Candles lay on every surface. Thick, scented, they were far above the miserable tallow stick that had been her downfall. She sniffed in pine, burnt orange and rose. Even less at her ease, she rolled her shoulders, wincing at the stiffness in them.

“Are you afraid?” a woman asked from behind her.

Astrid gasped and spun, her mouth already forming a ‘Yes.’ Her eyes widened at the beauty who stood just outside the door, her red hair glistening, the burnt umber of her eyes gleaming as they caught the light of the lamp she held in her hand. This woman could have been any age, although Astrid guessed her to be as old as her mother; with a vibrancy and glow her mother had long lost.

A woman in her prime.

Was she afraid?

“No.”

“You should be.” The woman swung back her arm and threw the lamp at Astrid’s feet. The oil within spilled out and the fire ran after it, hungry.

Astrid stepped back, her eyes meeting the woman’s in shock across the fence of flames. The woman’s lips gave a slight twist, and she shrugged her shoulders as she turned to go.

As if this was their signal, the flames leapt higher, head height, and Astrid was surrounded by a ring of fire. She spun, desperate for even the smallest of gaps, but there were none. She was enclosed as neatly by flames as she’d been by water the night before.

They began edging closer to her, and the air shimmered in the heat, pulsed against her. Astrid ripped off her cloak and wrapped it like a massive scarf over her mouth. Her eyes stung and panic clawed like a leashed beast against her chest.

She blinked, forced moisture into her eyes, as she caught sight of sprites dancing in the fire, their heads thrown back in glee.

“Come join us,” one called as it leapt and spun, dizzy with joy.

There was a wildness, an abandon to their dance, and Astrid found herself leaning forward, dangerously close to the heat. The smell of singed hair jerked her back.

The sprites laughed harder, twirling closer and closer as they gave themselves up to the crackle and hiss, to the heat.

“You can be wild as we are, our dearest one. Come join the dance.”

Astrid had the clear image of Tomas blowing the bellows on the fire, the air feeding it, strengthening it.

Fire needed air. They didn’t call her their dearest one for nothing.

But air did not need fire. She would not obey.

When do you ever?
It was as if Bjorn had leaned over and whispered in her ear, and confidence surged through her. She smiled beneath the scarf her cloak made, at once sure of herself, and her strength.

Her instinct was to draw the air to her. To blow this fire out in a gale of wind. The rush of air tugged the curtains at the windows inward, but the sprites fell upon her gale like starving wolves on fresh meat, leaping higher still.

A sprite boldly fingered Astrid’s dress with a flame-tipped hand, and she slapped at it with the edge of her cloak.

If air fed it, would no air kill it?

Through the wool of her cloak, Astrid took a deep breath and sent the air away, imagined it flying out, a whirlwind in reverse, with her at the epicenter.

There was sudden silence, as if a heavy door had slammed between her and a raucous party, and every flame was extinguished.

She waited one more beat of her heart in the pitch dark to make sure every spark was dead, and then willed the air back.

Expecting smoke, she took a breath through her cloak, but it was as if there had never been a fire. She could only smell the sweet oils in the candle wax.

She stood in the room, in the dark, and waited.

The candles suddenly relit, and the woman stepped into the cottage.

“Welcome.” She looked Astrid straight in the eye, with no apology. “I am Dame Ild.” The corners of her mouth turned up when she said the word ‘Dame’, as if it amused her.

“You wanted my power.” Astrid felt slightly apart from herself. Detached.

“It was part of the test, but I’m sure Berge and Elv had misgivings leaving this one to me.” Dame Ild smiled suddenly, a genuine smile, and her face lit up, warm and inviting. “There is nothing more tempting on a freezing night than a fire, eh?” She laughed.

“I am one of you.” Astrid spoke slowly, her whole body trembling at the revelation. “The four of us . . .” She looked absently for a chair and stumbled to one. Flopped down.

“Hmmm. We’ve been wondering where you’ve been. Must be seventeen years since we saw the old one, at least.”

“I . . . didn’t know.”

“So we realized. Seems you’ve landed on your feet though. Caught the prince before he had a chance to work out what you were.” There was a slender thread of heat in her words. Of spite.

Astrid shook off her daze. “Would that have made a difference? Why shouldn’t he love the Wind Hag?”

“Do you see any of the three of us with a man in tow?” Dame Ild moved to her fireplace and Astrid saw for the first time a stew pot sat simmering there. “We’re too powerful. The men don’t like it.”

“There aren’t many like Bjorn.” Astrid stood, and joined her hostess at the fire. They were sisters of sorts, and the youngest two of the four. She sensed they would have a long future together.

Dame Ild’s face softened. “No. There are none like him. You found the only one strong enough to accept you as you are.”

“And I lost him.” Astrid was surprised how stark her voice sounded. Shocked when she felt tears on her cheeks. The second time she’d cried in as many days.

Dame Ild moved to the table near the fire and picked up a slim golden object lying there. “Here. This is all the help I can give you. That and the use of Stratus for your final day’s journey to the East Wind.”

Astrid took the delicate golden flute, struck by its elegant simplicity. “Thank you. I am in your debt.”

“Ah. The Wind Hag owes me a favor.” Dame Ild smiled. “Let us eat and drink to that.”

“Dame Elv said something similar.” Astrid frowned. “What does it mean?”

Ild shot her a wicked grin. “You’ll work it out soon enough.”

Astrid turned the flute in her hand, her fingers tracing the smooth gold lines. “You owed the favors, before.”

Dame Ild did not answer as she laid the bowls upon the table. Her eyes glinted in the firelight. And for a moment, Astrid saw her as she truly was. More powerful, more magical, than she could ever imagine being herself.

And yet, Dame Ild once owed the Wind Hag so dearly, her delight at now having the balance in her favor made her smile like a child at a birthday celebration.

Which meant Astrid could be as powerful as her one day, if not more so.

And the question that kept bumping up against her mind, a small fishing boat against a storm-swept dock, was did she want that for herself?

Chapter Twenty-seven

S
tratus sped on the back of the wind sprites, over rolling plains and low mountain ranges. As she clung to him, as the muscles in his legs and back bunched beneath her, Astrid felt a stab of nervousness at the thought of facing the East Wind. In theory, she was its mistress, yet who was she to command it?

Bjorn would say if she was the Wind Hag, she must act like the Wind Hag. Be bold. But he had a right to his power. Had sacrificed himself for the greater good and shown himself worthy.

What had she done?

Perhaps it was not what she had done but what she could do? Astrid’s heart lurched as Stratus suddenly dived through the air, angling down toward the highest peak in the range before them.

The time for vacillating was over.

She was not capable of bluster and lies, of presenting herself as more than she was. Neither was she powerless—the dames had shown her that.

An ‘oh’ escaped her lips as she took in the significance of her thought. Perhaps the tests were to help her control her winds as much as anything. What good was a Wind Hag otherwise?

An eerie whistling rose and fell in the buffeting gale around the peak, low as a moan, high as a shriek.

Stratus alighted on a wide stone ledge near the top of the mountain and Astrid slid reluctantly off his trembling back. With a snort, he broke free of her hands and ran straight off the far side of the ledge, banking in the air, his eyes wild.

The sight of his terror chilled her. But fear and doubts had no place in her life. Time was wasting.

She imagined Bjorn treading toward his waiting troll-bride in time with the seconds beating past.

She set down her sack, smoothed her hair and straightened her back.

“East Wind,” she called.

“You have come at last.” The whisper was in her left ear, from behind, and every hair on her scalp and arms rose. Warm, humid air enveloped her, making her cold fingers and nose tingle.

“I came as soon as I realized.”

“Realized what?” the voice breathed.

“Who I am.”

An arm, solid, but solid as air becomes solid when channeled at speed, slid over her shoulder and came to rest just above her breast. Near her heart.

“Do you understand what your absence has meant?”

“Tell me.” Astrid turned, forcing down her fear, keeping her voice steady and her face calm.

An image of a man stood before her, an outline of gray-blue cloud. A strong, handsome face framed by hair so long, it flirted with his thighs. Long robes swirled around his feet, and she saw his hands were strong, his wrists thick. There was challenge in his eyes.

“We have been left to fight among ourselves, to battle about who has reign over the lands. Without you to give orders, we have turned against each other.”

“Did you not think to find me?” Astrid wondered now why they never had. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, the way he shimmered insubstantial as a mirage, yet the force of his presence was unmistakable.

The East Wind lifted both his hands and shrugged. “We thought the Wind Hag had not passed her mantle on.”

“But the air sprites knew where I was. They have been with me always.”

The East Wind stilled, his hair and robes no longer moving in constant motion. “They would only have kept your location secret if . . .”

Astrid watched his face change, saw a flash of hurt.

“If what?” The answer came to her before he could reply. “If the Wind Hag bade them to do so?”

He nodded, and warm air rippled over her. “How old were you when the Wind Hag died?”

“Three years old.”

“Too young to exert your will over us.”

“And if one of you no longer wished to be commanded by your mistress . . .” There was a hitch in her throat, a tremble within for her younger, vulnerable self.

“Kill the new Wind Hag?” The East Wind’s eyes seemed to blaze, even though they were made of nothing but smoky cloud, and heat radiated off him. “Never.”

“Yet she thought there was a chance of it,” Astrid said. “And why would she if she didn’t already suspect one of you did want to be rid of her?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, her mind tracing all the threads.

“How did Norga find the Wind Hag? How did she come to kill her?” She’d thought, from Bjorn’s story, that Norga had seen the Wind Hag take him and had followed her, but what if she’d been told by someone else? By one of the Winds.

“She was killed taking the boy, wasn’t she?” The East Wind spoke bitterly. “She was obsessed with him.”

“Did she really mean to keep him?” She couldn’t imagine it.

“She thought he would consent to stay. To marry her, when he got older.” He said the words like he was swearing.

“What would a husband have meant to you?” Astrid asked. Nothing good, by the sound of it.

The East Wind’s hair flew out around his head, humid air radiating out with it. “A master as well as a mistress. As if we were not enough for her. She looked at the human world and longed for the love of man and wife. Longed for beauty.”

Despite the heat, his words chilled Astrid. Was she no longer human? Had the Wind Hag’s gift changed her that much? Then she thought of Ild’s jealousy of her love for Bjorn, and saw in it a reflection of the Wind Hag’s need.

“Who of you had most cause to feel aggrieved?” She needed to know if one of her Winds wished her ill.

The East Wind pondered the question, his hair lowering and swirling around his shoulders. “The North Wind. The Wind Hag liked to walk the earth looking for a husband, and she liked to do it in warm weather. Which meant either me, or South or West carried her. North rarely had a turn.”