Mistress of the Wind (23 page)

She did not know how many minutes had gone by before she felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck lift, felt the prickle of awareness of quarry under a hunter’s gaze.

She looked up sharply, and saw the troll princess watching her from the path. As if the touch of Astrid’s gaze broke some sort of spell, the princess strode toward her, and it took all the self-control Astrid possessed not to scramble to her feet as she loomed closer.

She hadn’t expected the troll to be so big, although that seemed foolish now—she knew the size of them. The princess was more than head and shoulders above her. Her gray-green body was covered with a layered dress of the same colors, and she looked like a massive stone on the move.

There was also something in the set of her jaw, the gleam in her eye. She was intimidating. A power in her own right.

Not just a poor thing in the shadow of her mother.

“Good day,” Astrid called, and her voice cracked.

The troll princess stopped just in front of her, and Astrid could see her nose grew almost to her lips, bent a little to the left. A pungent scent of hot rock wafted from her.

“What is that you have?” The beady eyes barely looked at Astrid’s face, they were fixed on the golden apple, glowing softly in Astrid’s cupped hands.

“A golden apple.” Astrid struggled to stop the quiver of her voice.

The princess reached out a hand, her fingers bending into a claw, her fingernails black. She stopped a mere snatch away.

Astrid did not draw back, but her hands closed more tightly around the cool surface of the apple, and at last, the princess looked her in the eyes.

“I want it.”

Astrid shook her head, unable to say a word under the force of that gaze. They both knew the only thing stopping the troll from taking it by force was the magic of the apple itself. Magical things could only be given freely, otherwise Astrid would not be in a position to bargain at all.

“I will give anything for it.” There was a wistful, childlike quality to the troll’s voice and Astrid saw her eyes were dreamy as she gazed at the gleaming treasure.

The troll’s wistfulness gave her confidence and strength. “You cannot give me what I want for it.”

“Name it.” The troll knelt beside Astrid, still looming.

“I hear there is a prince locked in the castle over the hill.” Astrid moved the apple onto her lap, covered it completely with her hands. She gripped it tightly, to stop them trembling.

The troll went still. “So there is.”

“I hear he is handsome as a god. They say he is a god. Or the son of one.”

The troll snorted. “He’d like to think so.”

“I’m getting married soon.” Astrid managed to lower her eyes demurely. “They say if a woman spends the night with a god, they are blessed with fertility forever.”

“Do they?” The troll princess barked out a laugh.

Astrid took a deep, stuttering breath. “I will give you my precious apple for a night with the prince.”

The troll lifted a hand to her face, tapped her fingers against a cheek that looked fuzzy with mold. “For all the good it will do you, I agree to those terms.”

Relief engulfed Astrid as if she’d been dunked in a bracing sea, but she kept her head down, her eyes on the sparse dry grass of the field. “How will you arrange it?”

“Give me the apple and I will tell you.”

Astrid shook her head, and she didn’t need to pretend the stubborn line of her mouth.

The troll looked regretfully at the treasure.

“Come tonight to the castle. I will meet you at the gate after the evening meal and take you to the prince’s chamber. I’ll come for you again in the morning at first light.”

Astrid nodded. “You will get the apple when your end of this is complete.”

A snarl escaped from the troll’s mouth, and she drew herself up. “Do you know who you address, peasant?”

Astrid opened her eyes wide and shook her head.

“Princess Dekla. Show some respect.”

Astrid nodded, but she did not apologize and she kept the apple tightly clasped.

“You’re either simple or you’re impertinent.” Dekla jumped to her feet, amazingly quick, and for a moment, Astrid thought she’d strike out.

But her eye fell on the apple again, and she took a step back, as if to put the temptation of a sound beating out of reach.

“I will see you tonight.” With a final, longing look at the apple, Dekla turned back to the castle.

Astrid watched her go, and wondered what Dekla would do if she realized the man Astrid intended to marry was the very one the troll princess was shutting her in a room with that night.

* * *

Astrid stood, small and insignificant, before the barred doors of Norga’s castle. She fiddled with the apple deep in her skirt pocket, North’s entreaties for her to reconsider echoing in her head, and the weight of Dame Elv’s bread heavy in her churning stomach.

A scrape of wood on slate sounded to her right, and a sliver of light shone from a small door cut into one of the massive wooden gates.

“Come,” Dekla whispered, and Astrid took a tentative step forward.

Dekla shifted uneasily, glancing over her shoulder into the dark courtyard.

“The guards are inside, having their ale. Hurry.”

Astrid gathered her courage and slipped over the threshold.

The moment she was through, Dekla closed the door and shot the bolt across, careful not to make a sound.

Without a word, she strode to the inner-castle entrance, and Astrid had to jog to keep up. When they reached it, the troll princess blocked the open door and peered inside before jerking her head for Astrid to follow her.

As she stepped into the castle, Astrid was hit by the smell of troll. Iron-scented rock and moss. She remembered leaning up against the mountain door, smelling that same smell as the wind bombarded her, as Norga’s killing team closed in, and shivered.

Dekla led the way to an open staircase and Astrid stayed close to the wall as she pulled herself up the massive, uneven steps.

They reach a passageway, and Dekla stopped at the third door on the left. “I do not care how badly things go. I don’t care what happens to you in there. You stay within, quiet, until I come for you at first light. I cannot risk standing here to listen for you.”

Astrid nodded, keeping the smile from her face, hoping her eyes wouldn’t give her joy away.

She hid her impatience as Dekla unlocked the door and held it open for her. As she ducked under the troll’s arm and glanced back, she saw the satisfied smirk on her rival’s face as the door swung closed.

A cold fist closed around her stomach as she took in the room. A small candle gave off an unsteady light, revealing a prison cell. A narrow bed lay against a wall, and a chair and small table stood in the center of the chamber. There were no windows, and Astrid realized they were in the sea-facing part of the castle, that the wall before her was the one she had scaled early that morning.

But all these realizations were just background to the focus of the room.

Bjorn lay on the bed, his eyes closed.

“My love,” she whispered, kneeling beside him. “I have come for you.”

He made no sound, and suddenly stricken, Astrid reached out a hand and touched his face. He was warm, alive. But she could hear now from his breathing he was in a deep, unnatural slumber. The horror of that realization seemed to stop time.

“No.” Her anguished cry was echoed back at her by the dark walls. This could not be. After everything, after managing to do the impossible, to be right here with him, for him to be enchanted . . .

She turned to look at the small table, at the remains of food on the plate. Sniffed the air. The smell of the rich stew lingered, and was at odds with the starkness of the cell.

So, enchanted, or perhaps . . . drugged.

There would be no joyful reunion tonight.

Chapter Thirty-one

B
jorn lay as if dead. He wore the shirt she’d wished for him, but the three drops of tallow over his heart were no longer the only stains marring the snowy white linen. They were lost in the grime and gray now.

Still, not even the filth of Norga’s castle could dim his beauty. Her breath caught as she watched him in the weak light of the candle.

Something moved, furtive and sly, and she jerked her eyes up. A cliff spider, as big as her hand, eyed her from the dripping cell wall above Bjorn. It did a little to-and-fro dance, as if undecided which way to leap.

Astrid watched it warily and shrieked as it dropped onto Bjorn’s chest.

She flapped her hands ineffectually and it stared up at her with shiny black eyes, unconcerned. Dekla’s little watchdog.

Astrid edged to the table, too afraid to take her eyes off it, even for a moment. She reached back, slid the plate off.

She lunged, flicked the repulsive thing off Bjorn and onto the floor, and jumped on it. Jumped until it was a squashed nothing beneath her worn-out shoes.

Then she lay her head on Bjorn’s chest and wept until the weak dawn light edged beneath the door.

* * *

She was standing, waiting, when Dekla opened the door, her face a careful blank.

“Cried all night, did you?” Dekla’s eyes were full of hard amusement. “Why is that?”

Astrid said nothing and Dekla glanced into the room.

“He doesn’t look like he’s moved since when I first let you in.”

Astrid clamped back the scream within her. She looked at Bjorn one last time.

He stirred, on the brink of waking, and Dekla moved as if stung. She grabbed Astrid by the shoulder and shoved her out the door, slamming it closed and turning the lock in one panicked movement.

“Time to go.” She spoke as if short of breath and her hand trembled slightly as she held it out expectantly.

Astrid forced herself to plunge her own hand into her pocket and bring out the golden apple.

Moments before she dropped it into the troll’s palm, the whisper of a footstep on stone sounded just behind them.

The shock, the abject fear in Dekla’s eyes, made Astrid snatch the apple back and drop it in her pocket. She stepped away, crouching down, deep in the shadows, and Dekla turned toward the footsteps, blocking Astrid with her body.

“Mother?”

Astrid saw her palms slide up and down her sides, the jagged black nails of her fingers snagging and pulling the wool. When there was no answer, no further sound of footsteps, she bunched the fabric up in fists. Squeezed until her knuckles were white through the sage green of her skin.

“Mother?”

At last the footsteps moved again, and the shadows around Astrid deepened as something big blocked off even more of the dawn light coming from the thin slits of the windows facing the courtyard.

“Who were you talking to?”

“No one.”

Dekla had been expecting the question, Astrid could tell by her smooth response. She’d recovered well from her shock at her mother’s spying presence.

“You said something.” The voice was menacing, and Astrid was suddenly aware of the strength of her opponent. This troll had captured Bjorn and enchanted him. She must never forget how powerful she was.

“Just talking to myself.”

The smack of flesh against flesh, the crack of a hand across a cheek, made Astrid bite back a cry. She stuffed her fingers in her mouth and stared up from the dark corner where she crouched. She’d rather know if a blow was coming her way than be taken by surprise. She always had done. It had made her father hit her harder. To him, her looking him in the eyes was a challenge.

“That’s for all the sulking you’ve been doing,” Norga said, her voice icy. “Going out for long walks, skulking in passageways talking to yourself. I’m making you the Mountain Princess. I’m putting you over the yggren, over the sprites. And what thanks do I get for it?”

Dekla said nothing, as if she knew no response would be the right one. Any answer would earn her another blow.

Astrid watched Dekla’s nervous fingers, and remembered her own twitches with her father.

This scene had been played out many times between mother and daughter.

Had Dekla been happy when her mother was with Bjorn’s father, playing princess? She’d been abandoned for a more beautiful life, even though it was all a pretense.

Dekla was sobbing quietly, holding her cheek with both hands. She did not even glance Astrid’s way.

“Stop sniveling. Not here.”

Dekla moved a little, and at last, Astrid could see Norga. She looked an older version of her daughter, but her face was harder. Crueler. She was bigger by at least a head. Double Astrid’s height.

She pointed at Bjorn’s door and lowered her voice. “Get some backbone. You’ll need it to control the golden boy.” She half-raised her hand, as if to strike out again, but changed her mind, and instead lashed out with her foot at Astrid.

Her clog clipped Astrid’s hip and pain exploded in her side. Astrid could not help the whimper that escaped her gritted teeth. When had Norga noticed her?