Climbing up the walls were various vines and flowers, all blooming in the coldest part of the night, their scents mixing to form a heavy blanket over the sleeping city. From where her room was positioned, Maude could see that the lower buildings had open rooftops that allowed the moonlight in, their airy courtyards simple in design but no less beautiful. Reluctant admiration had swept through Maude the first time she observed the city after she woke from her stasis, or whatever the Shadow King had called it.
Turning away from the awakening city, Maude washed her skin with water and linen before she dressed in fur-lined fighting leathers, strapped her sword and axe to her belt, and slid the dagger into the sheath on her thigh after donning the leggings. The blade had not left her sight since it had been returned to her on awakening. It was curious that the Valkyries had carried her physical bodyandweapons to Nida.
She didn't understand one bit of what the healers had been saying to her when they explained what stasis was, how her fatemark bound her to the Valkyries and this life until her fate had run its course, and how her body would continue to reanimate after death until her true fate was reached. With every mention of reanimation, her mind would shut down. She couldn't meld her day to day life with the idea that true death would not be achieved until some unknown threshold was passed.
How would she know her fate was complete? Would she just wake one morning and know? Would there be a sign from the gods? Would Odin himself deign to walk the earthsimply to pat her on the shoulder and say "mission accomplished" before finally leaving her alone?
She told herself she didn't understand it because thinking about it for too long would force her to deal with the truth of her heritage and face the fact that she would be stuck running for an eternity if she continued ignoring her fate. She'd shuddered at the thought.
So she stayed true to herself and ignored it.
Maude exited her room to find Liv outside, appearing to stand guard over her through the night. She ignored her friend and turned down the hall that would lead to Gunnar's room in the Healers Wing of the palace. Quiet footsteps followed behind her, lighter than air.
"You're going to have to talk to me eventually," Liv said quietly, her voice more musical than it was before.
She ignored her, irritation still burning in her heart for how they had left Herrick at the hands of the Flame Soldiers. Liv sighed and continued following Maude in silence.
Over the last few days, Maude had explored the Midnight Palace with Bryn while Liv remained a few paces behind them, occasionally offering morsels of information on the city or structure itself. There was a sense of ease in the halls, the Elven they passed all pleasant and genuinely happy to be there. With great reluctance, Maude found that exploring the palace settled something in her that seemed to have been adrift all her life. It felt as if she belonged in the long marble and moonstone halls that curved around open courtyards that housed some of the most beautiful night-blooming gardens she had ever seen.
Not a day had passed where Maude was idle or content to stay in one part of the palace. She saw all the courtyards and memorized the easiest paths to the libraries and kitchens until she could navigate them in the dark. Eager to learn more about the Shadow Elven who lived here, she would occasionally pause to speak with those who roamed the halls with their noses in a book or a meditative air around them.
She quickly stopped engaging with them, however, when it became clear that they knew who she was already. The Shadow King must have told the Elven who frequented thepalace in case they ran into her. Their signs of respect for royalty grated on Maude enough that she stopped speaking with them, even though her curiosity burned brighter every day.
Now that she was familiar with the palace, the only places Maude ventured to included Bryn's room, the library, the kitchens, and the Healer's Wing, where Gunnar was being kept while the healers worked on him. The only person Maude had not seen was Hakon.
Holed up in his room, the Heir of Rivers was refusing to speak with Maude for even one moment. She'd tried to talk to him and plan a way for them to get Herrick back, but he seemed to want nothing to do with Maude. The last time she had seen Hakon, they were all being held captive by her father— by Helvig— and he had explained to them in excruciating detail how grandly they had fucked up.
It seemed that the Flame King had been training his Heir to retrieve the Bone Dagger for quite some time. Maude had only ever been told that she was required to train to be a fighter and protect her kingdom. She had been just as in the dark as the rest of them. But the Heir of Rivers did not see it this way; he thought Maude had been tricking them all. Liv had argued with him about it for days, but eventually, he had shut himself in with a fully stocked liquor cabinet and was rarely seen or heard from since.
Now, the Prince sulked in his chambers every day, drowning in the Elven liquor that he had taken to since their arrival. Once, when Maude and Liv had peeked in on him in the hopes of catching him sober, they found him snoring on the couch, his arm hanging down to the floor with an empty bottle still in his grasp. It had taken everything inside of her not to storm into the room and slap him senselessly for being so selfishly absorbed.
Rather than trying to find a way to free his brother, it seemed Hakon had chosen instead to add Herrick to the list of the dead and was intent on grieving him.
Flames had sparked at her fingertips when Liv had finally pulled her back into the hall, leaving him to his misery. Her friend's hunched shoulders told Maude that she had been trying to get throughto him but was losing the battle.
Coming back to the present, Maude tried to focus on what Liv was saying to her as they made their way toward the Healers Wing.
"I still don't know if I want you to be angry with me or not," Liv chuckled as she shook her head slightly. "I'm starting to think I would prefer your sympathy over this. At least that would be a real punishment."
Maude snorted once, her reaction surprising her. Then she remembered that even though Liv hid big parts of herself from everyone, she was still the same Liv who had fought by her side and become someone who mattered greatly to her. They were friends and Maude trusted her, even in the light of her secrets being revealed.
"Well, when you're right, you're right," she said, glancing at Liv and giving her a small smile before shaking her head.
Liv punched her lightly in the shoulder as she laughed a little louder. "I knew you were a sadistic asshole."
Shooting her a small grin, Maude winked at her friend and delighted in how easy it was between them. Comfortable silence lapsed between them as they kept walking. As if she had been walking these halls for years, Maude navigated through the palace quickly, ignoring the Shadow Elven she passed in the halls who bowed to her. Her focus was on Gunnar now.
She just hoped that they hadn't been too late in getting him help.
4
The carved mahogany doors of the Healers Wing stood open, the long hall beyond them spacious except for the rows of curtained-off cots. Some were occupied with minor injuries: rope burns, broken bones, and seasickness. It seemed strange to Maude that the Elven would be afflicted by the same things that humans were. It was so mundane.
In the small room beyond the hall of cots, the Matron Elven Healer's office was ajar. The candlelit room was spacious for an office; in the back, right corner stood a worktable holding all sorts of jars, herbs, poultices, and a mortar and pestle. Next to the worktable, a fireplace roared with heat that was currently cooking whatever foul-smelling potion the Matron was concocting in an iron pot. On the other side of the room, next to a second door that led out of the office, was a long cot that the Matron usually slept on when she didn't want to retire to her private quarters. Gunnar was currently asleep on that cot, his skin still pallid and sickly in the low light.
He looked the same as he did the last three days that Maude had come to see him.
Sitting by his bedside, the Matron was packing the wound on his scalp with a poultice that contained so many fragrant herbs that Maude couldn't pick out a single one as they flooded the small space. The antidote to the poison currently wreaking havoc on Gunnar's body was only just beginning to work, or so the healer claimed yesterday.
