“I hate bloodflies,” a guard muttered.
“And well you should, my burly friend, well you should. Nasty little creatures, as we all know. However, they do have a very useful skill in that they drink the blood of their victims, and these ancient bloodflies have an added virtue. They can drink the aether in the blood as well.” He paused to give Skadi a long, stern gaze.
Freya saw the understanding dawning in the queen’s eyes.
But is he telling her the whole truth, or a half truth, or none at all? I can’t read him.
“They’ll hatch soon?” she asked.
“Hours, mere hours,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything breed so quickly.”
“And when they hatch from this nest of yours, what will they do? Did you give them a taste for demon blood? Will they pull the plague out of the reavers and return them to their normal selves?”
“That was my first thought,” he said, rather seriously, his lips tense. “That was what I hoped to create. A true cure. But you can’t separate this disease from its host. You can’t take the bad blood out and leave the good blood behind, so to speak.”
“A poison, then,” the queen said. “The flies will infect the reavers with some disease that will wipe them out?”
“Not a poison,” he said. “A vaccine. If these flies of mine bite one of you, you’ll be protected from the reavers’ venom. It will be impossible for you to be turned into one of them. And if the flies bite a reaver, it will calm them. Or maybe pacify them. Actually, I don’t know exactly what will happen to them, but it will certainly be an improvement. I didn’t exactly have the time or materials to test it.”
Skadi paced a few short steps back and forth in front of him, her long black dress swishing across the bare stone tiles. “How did you make this vaccine, exactly?”
“With great skill, Highness.”
The queen frowned at him. “And where is this nest, exactly?”
“Close by, Highness.” He rested his hand on his sword, and the guards jerked forward, but Skadi waved them back, and he nodded his thanks to her. “You’re trying to decide whether to trust me, whether to believe me. I remember this same moment from when I first arrived and I told you who I was and where I came from. You doubted me then just as you doubt me now. And I know there is nothing I can say that will truly persuade you. So, Highness, I suggest we go to bed.”
Skadi slapped him.
Omar winced and touched his cheek. “My word…” And then he feigned realization, overplaying the part. “Oh goodness, no! Did you think I meant you and I, together, in bed? No, no, no. Whatever in the world would lead you to think that?” And his eyes snapped to the right to look at Leif for the first time since he arrived.
Leif swallowed, his eyes darting to the southerner. Freya grabbed his arm and bent his hand back, knocking his sword to the ground. Leif yanked himself out of her grip and stood a few paces away, glaring at her.
“You took your eyes off her. What did you expect?” the queen said dryly, though her gaze remained fixed on Omar. “I do believe you have something prepared. Whether or not it is truly meant to solve the reaver plague, I don’t know. It may even involve the bloodflies. You were ever one to muddle a lie with the truth. But I don’t believe you left your precious package unguarded in a hole on Mount Esja, or that you would leave your grand design to chance buzzing about on the wind. It’s closer than that, isn’t it?”
“As close as it needs to be, Highness.”
“Inside the city.” She turned to the guards. “Search the south wall, and retrace his steps as he came through the city from the gate to the castle. Look in open sacks, or on the low roofs, or in the shadows between the houses. Anywhere he might have easily tossed something as he walked by.”
The house carls frowned. “What are we looking for?”
“Anything that looks out of place.” Skadi paused. “But it probably is a bloodfly nest. And there may be more than one. Go. Hurry. Get as many men as you need.”
The guards hurried out, leaving Omar smiling in the center of the room. “I always said you were a very clever woman, Highness. Intelligent, educated, shrewd, suspicious, and untrusting. But you’re still playing the same games by the same rules, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’re still dealing in power and control.” Omar winked at Freya. “Always trying to protect what you have while trying to get a little more for yourself. And that’s perfectly reasonable, as long as that’s what everyone else is doing, too. But I don’t think you’re prepared to deal with someone who wants nothing for himself, and cares nothing for what you have.” He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small ball of dried mud.
Skadi drew back behind Thora as though preparing to use her as a shield against the brown lump in the man’s hand.
Omar laughed. “Are you really so afraid of-”
Leif snatched the ball from his hand and ran down the length of the hall and out the front door. Omar spun, staring after the one-armed youth. “No! You idiot!”
Freya gave Omar one last worried look, and she ran out the door after Leif.
Chapter 24. Truths
Freya flew out the door, across the courtyard, and into the streets of Rekavik. Despite the late hour, there were still dozens of people in the lanes, standing in knots around the torches and open doorways, talking and glaring as they shivered in the night air. As she ran by, Freya saw curious and angry and exhausted eyes rising to follow her, and mouths opening to speak to her, but she had no breath for them.
Leif wasn’t far ahead. She could see him darting left and right around the people in the road, only thirty or forty paces ahead, but the warrior ran with the tireless strength of youth, and of one who had not spent the last two nights slaughtering reavers.
My spear!
Her hand felt light and naked at her side, bouncing along with no warm, sweat-slick steel clutched in it.
Maybe it’s a blessing. I don’t think I could make it very far with the extra weight.
Her legs were beyond tired, beyond burning, beyond shaking. They were cold and hollow, almost numb from the unending abuse. A lifetime in the eastern hills tracking deer and bear and birds had made her a tireless walker and hiker, but not a runner. Before the first reaver appeared in Logarven and attacked Katja, the last time she could remember running was when she spooked an old snow bear and had to bolt from its den and let Erik take the animal down with his spear.
Erik…
She stumbled around a corner, losing a pace or two. But the chase went on, and on. The people of Rekavik had barely a moment to look up before the black shadows of Leif and Freya flew past with the heavy rhythm of their huffing breaths and thumping boots.
Dimly she was aware that they were running north through a part of the city she hadn’t seen before.
Not south to the new wall, not east or west to the seawalls. North. What’s north except the bay? The bay!
Damn it!
“Leif!” She screamed with what little wind was hovering in her tired lungs. “It’s a cure!”
The youth ran on in silence.
That stupid bastard!
She could see him pulling even farther away, leaping lightly over sacks and rocks and holes in the road as gracefully as an elk.
“Leif!”
He dashed around a corner, out of sight, and for a moment the echoing beats of his footfalls vanished, leaving Freya to hear only her own boots on the stones and the soft shushing of the bay on the nearby beaches and jetties. A heavy wave crashed up on the rocks, and over the roof of a small house Freya saw the white spray sparkling in the starlight.
“Leif!”
She drew her knife in her shaking hand and turned the corner and saw the young warrior stumbling to a halt at the end of the lane where the stones ran down into the dark waters of the bay. He leaned back with one arm, and she realized he was about to hurl the bloodfly nest into the sea.