Freja reminded him a little of Nadia, but with sharper edges to her dominance and a more ruthless nature. Her skin was pale, like that of most of her kin, and her fiery red hair was tied back with clay pins shaped like sunflowers. She couldn’t have been older than twenty, but she spoke as if she were Nyx’s mother.
She noticed Nyx glancing at her hair and patted it. “Sunflowers for the Sun Lord,” she said. “When the sunflowers turn their heads to the sun, it’s time for war.”
“So it’s always time for war,” Nyx said dryly.
She shrugged. “Unless it rains, or at night. We know when to put war to rest, imperial prince. Your empire does not.”
Nyx couldn’t argue. “The emperor seems to think women shouldn’t rule, let alone women in the hills. If you’re to continue as you are, you must stop killing his scouts and give them the information he wants, instead.”
Freja leaned back, sipping her tea. “You will not stop his scouts? His spies?”
“They aren’t mine to command.”
Freja was quiet for a minute, looking into her tea. “And if you were to become emperor?” Nyx bristled, and she sighed. “Still loyal, then? Shame. We would support you, if you promised to return our lands to us. When we fight you, you never set foot in our villages. You return our soldiers to us for burial, and you don’t desecrate our sacred fields. I do not think you want a war with us, prince.”
“General. And no one wants a war.”
Freja gave him a curious look. “Of course we do. War is change. Change is how we survive. Sunflowers die, rot, come back again. So does the Sun Lord.”
“They aren’t a lord, though.” Nyx sighed, realizing he’d probably insulted her entire belief system. “In our culture, that is.”
“They aren’t in ours, either.” Freja grinned and said something in her own language. “Our tongue has other honorifics for people who move between and without, as our god does. We call them Sun Lord inyourtongue because you lack those terms. But I thought War was a man in your pantheon.”
“I’m not a priest or a witch. I couldn’t say.”
Freja toasted him. “Neither am I. I just happened to pick the right weapons when I was a girl, which meant I was the last matriarch reborn, and now I’m having tea with an enemy prince. How did all this happen to you?”
Nyx huffed a laugh. “I played Winter with a stranger at a bar.”
“Winter? Like the season?” She shook her head. “I’ll never understand you barbarians. More of the tea, thank you.”
It was the strangest surrender Nyx had ever been given, but it was a pleasant change from wallowing in blood-soaked mud. They agreed to the terms in the end, though the whole charade was based on convincing Lamont that Freja was dead and rotting in a ditch somewhere.
“Maybe you should dye your hair,” he whispered as he let Freja out through the back of his tent. She rolled her eyes at him, looking more like Kelta than the leader of nearly a third of the region.
“The Sun Lord will just set it afire again. Maybe youshould dye yoursand come join us. You’d sire strong women, make someone a nice husband. The gods gave you big arms, General. All the better to hold a baby with.”
“In another life,” Nyx said. He watched as she slipped into the dark, joined by two figures who’d been standing in the shadows. His sentries would return to their posts soon, closing the gap in their defenses, but it was still unsettling to see them disappear into the night.
He was putting the tea away when he heard the bell at the front of his tent. He bit back a groan. Of course, it never ended.
“Enter.” He drew himself up as a messenger in the worn traveling uniform of an imperial post officer opened the tent flap. He was a skinny fellow with dark hair and eyes, and he bowed deeply as he handed a missive to Nyx.
“News from the capital, General.” He was shaking slightly, a tremor in his shoulders. “I, ah… didn’t choose… I was directed to deliver this to you…”
“Far be it from me to punish you for the news,” Nyx said. He let his dominance weight his voice, soothing the poor lad, and opened the missive.
“I don’t know why he needs to say it, General,” the messenger said. “Given that he already has two heirs. But you’d know better than me, I’m sure.”
Nyx stared at the neatly written words on the page. Lamont had gotten a baby on the poor concubine after all—and the witches said it would be a boy.
“I’m not sure if I should congratulate you or—” The messenger yelped as Nyx pushed the missive back into his hands. “General? Sir?”
“Who else knows?”
The messenger’s eyes widened with panic. “Everyone? He wanted me to read it aloud at the bonfire. Was that wrong?”
Nyx was already out of the tent, squinting in the dark. Kelta was usually at the bonfire at this time of night, being discreetly watched by one of Nyx’s soldiers. Anyone with orders to kill the emperor’s daughter would be bound to do it as soon as they knew there would be another child to replace her—and Andor, back in the palace with his mother.
