Herrick started to pull away, but her grip only tightened until both of her hands cupped his face.
"Take your fate into your own hands," she ordered. His fatemark pulsed on his chest as she spoke. "Baldr helped us free you. For that alone, I am grateful. But he didn't know about the rest of it— the horrible things that Helvig and Vilde were doing. He was doing what he needed to do to survive— just like the rest of us. That doesn't mean he won't feel our rage when the time comes."
Gods damn this woman and her ability to make him listen to her.
"So be angry," she whispered, her lips tilting up in the corners as she repeated what she said to him on the ship. "Feel your rage. We can take it."
Finally,finally, Herrick's mind seemed to clear as he really looked at hiseldrnow.
"Welcome to the side of the disillusioned," Maude said as she smirked. "You're going to hate it."
Across from him, Bryn chuckled dryly. The rest of the room thawed as Maude talked Herrick back into his right mind.
"What you went through is not something that can ever be taken back," she whispered when their friends averted their eyes so they could have a private moment. "No one is asking you to forget. Baldr will answer for what he did to you in the name ofduty."
She rolled her eyes when she said the wordduty, forcing a half smile to form on his numb face.
"Believe me, I plan on having some words with the bastard myself," Maude chuckled before growing serious again. "But all of us here will not go a day without fighting to avenge what was done to you under Helvig's orders. And it starts with getting that iron off your throat as soon as possible. Even if I have to pry it off until my fingers are bloody."
Herrick, still unable to form words, leaned forward and kissed Maude thoroughly before laying his forehead against hers.
"Thank you,minn eldr," he whispered.
"For what?"
"For being so gods damned blood thirsty all the time."
Her laughter rang out, bright and easy, clearing the shadows from the room and his heart faster than anything else could.
"There is only one place we can get the answers we need," Aeric announced when Herrick leaned back in his chair while Maude went to stand behind him, her hand still grasped in his. "For both the removal of the iron from Herrick's throat and about which path toward ending Helvig would be the best."
He knew she would rather be pacing like the Helcat that lived within her skin, but he couldn't find it in himself to let her go just yet. Not when his tentative grasp on the truth of who Baldr was still threatened to rile him.
"Your Majesty, do you think it wise to seek her out so soon? Payment is steep when one travels to the holy land," Dahlia said, clearing her throat.
"It's the only way we can get answers," the Shadow King said, his low voice final. "Besides, Hildr is always complaining about wanting more visitors."
A rare smile spread across Aeric's face as Dahlia huffed a laugh, shaking her head slightly and rolling her eyes.
Bryn, who had been stiff since the news about Vilde was shared, seemed to shake her shock from her bones before lifting her head to look at Dahlia and asking, "The holy land? Where is that?"
"It's north of Nida, just off the northern coast of Ahland," Aeric answered her, his eyes flicking to Maude.
The anger on her face had dissipated slightly as her curiosity won her over, though her eyes remained wary. Maude did not have the greatest relationship with their gods— to visit the holy land, whose existence was only a story that Herrick grew up listening to, would not be high on her list of desired places to travel.
"We will travel to Hilgafell to see the Grand Soothsayer," Aeric finished.
25
Bryn tried to pull herself from her haze of fury and guilt about everything she had discovered about the horrible things the Helvig family had done to the people of Ahland. It seemed there was no end to their misdeeds. From the forging of their continents treaty, to the prisoners she hadn't known about, the Helvig clan was always at the center of destruction.
Aeric's low voice rang out into the dining room where their dinner sat forgotten in the wake of the night's news— it wasn't as if anyone had much of an appetite anymore, anyway.
Across from her, Liv sat stone-faced, the usual small smirk and mischief in her eyes missing as she avoided Bryn's eye. Any anger Bryn might have felt about Liv hiding the history of her family's treachery evaporated with the rest of her emotions from the night, leaving her a husk of who she had been when she had woken that day. Her legacy was one of hatred and greed— Bryn could not be angry with anyone about the history that was erased except for the people who had been complicit with its inception.
Hakon was downing his fourth glass of Elven wine in the last ten minutes— perhaps trying to set some record for how quickly someone could become useless in a conversation. Gunnar and Dahlia sat close together, the Elven healer stretching out to inspect Gunnar's wound. Herrick and Maude only focused on Aeric as he explained how they would get to this Hilgafell place, but the rest of the room was forgotten as they absorbed the Shadow King's words.
"—will sail until we reach the shores of Hlidestad, the town at the base of Hilgafell, and then we continue the rest of the way on foot," Aeric finished.
