Mistress of the Wind (9 page)

And there was an honesty to that she would never have believed.

Whoever she was, whoever he was, when they lay entwined like this, blind in the dark, they were at peace. And that was enough.

For now.

Chapter Fourteen

“Y
ou look much better.” Jorgen seemed to step out of a tree trunk in the clearing, and Bjorn blinked in surprise.

“You become more invisible with each meeting.” He gathered his wits. “I owe my wellbeing to you, my friend. I know it cost you to give me so much strength. I hope you have recovered.”

Jorgen smiled, and gave a shrug. “I assume you were able to reach your lady before the troll?”

“No. I was not.” Something huge and terrible squeezed his chest every time he thought about it.

Jorgen looked at him sharply. “She is not . . . “

“No.” He wondered how much he could trust Jorgen, then decided it was worth the risk to hear his thoughts. “When I got to her, the troll lay dead. Felled in a single blow to the heart.”

“Felled with what?” Jorgen’s eyes strayed up the foothill, to the mountain.

“An ax.”

“Your lady keeps an ax in her chamber?”

Bjorn grunted. He was not going to explain the ax to Jorgen. He’d rather face the troll again.

“Well, I suppose she
is
a woodcutter’s daughter.”

“Is she?” Bjorn let his gaze follow Jorgen’s up the hill. “Then why does the wind do her bidding?”

“What does she say?”

“That she asks it very nicely.”

Jorgen shouted out a surprised laugh. “Why will she not explain?”

Bjorn sighed. “Because I cannot explain to her. She is stubborn, willful, and . . .” Mine.

“Beautiful,” Jorgen said, surprising him. Disturbing him.

“You saw her?”

“We both watched you fighting that troll. I knew you wouldn’t heed my advice to leave it be.” He assumed a pose, still as deadwood. “She thought I was a tree trunk.”

“And she is not the Wind Hag.” It wasn’t a question.

“Not the one I remember. Hideous creature. Eyes, ears, nose and mouth upside down. Topsy turvy, like the wind itself. But powerful.”

“She has given the wind leave to obey Astrid, then. And we may discover why from Astrid’s mother.”

“That would be ill-considered, with Norga watching you. Your lady spells the death knell to her plans. Rather keep her within for a year, safe.”

“I cannot keep her in the mountain that long.” Bjorn knew the admission weakened him, but it was the truth. “She will not accept it, and I cannot watch both her and Norga. She will find a way out again.”

Jorgen said nothing for a moment. “You cannot order her to obey?”

“Can you order the wind to stop blowing?” Even to his own ears, Bjorn heard the thread of ruefulness, and strangely, pride, in his voice.

Jorgen smiled, and Bjorn thought his friend was enjoying the merry dance Bjorn was being led, even if the consequences could affect him just as much.

“If her mother can explain why the wind does her bidding, what will it help? The bargain with Norga remains.”

“Norga has something to do with it, of that, I’m sure. And the better I understand Norga, the better I can defeat her.” He didn’t say it, but he knew the bargain’s end left Norga with truly nothing to lose if he should win. What would stop her trying to kill them both, then, bargain or no? Astrid was right. Rather seek out answers, try to end it now, than wait.

“You are decided.”

“I am. We will go in a week’s time.” He wanted more time to bind Astrid to him, to strengthen the connection between them that was growing beyond his wildest imaginings before he put her in proximity to her family again.

“Then good luck.”

Bjorn acknowledged the farewell with a bow. Both he and Jorgen knew they would need all the luck they could get.

Chapter Fifteen

T
hey left just after dawn.

Bjorn ran as if a troll were at their heels. And perhaps one soon would be. Clinging to his neck, Astrid looked back, and saw nothing but trees, their thick foliage already blocking the mountain from view, forcing the sun to poke through the leaves with pale fingers to find the ground.

She clutched her bundle of things tighter, remembering the small handkerchief of rags she’d brought with her just under a month ago.

How different things were now.

There was a flash of movement to the right. Something running from tree to tree, but before Astrid could tell Bjorn, he swerved left. He’d seen it, too.

“Be prepared to slide off, I will have to fight,” he said to her, and Astrid felt a chill of fear grip her heart.

“Can you not freeze it, like you did me?”

“I could, but it would not help for long. That was Sigurd, and he has many tricks of his own. Strong magic that shields him against mine.”

“You
know
him?” The cold morning air stole her breath as Bjorn ran toward a clearing a short way ahead. No place for the creature to hide there.

“I know all in these woods,” he said, reaching the clearing and stopping dead center. “They used to answer to me. Now some answer to Norga instead. Sigurd has shown his hand, after kneeling to me and pledging his allegiance only a few days ago.”

Of course. The palace should have prepared her. Of course he was the lord of this place. “Could he be aiding us, rather than chasing us?”

“No.”

He was so sure, Astrid did not doubt him.

“Get down, but stay close as you can. Within grasp. Sigurd may not be alone, and I dare not let you hide where I cannot see you. The trees are not safe.”

Astrid slid down his back and stood facing the opposite way to Bjorn, watching the far side of the clearing.

From the way Bjorn stood ready, muscles bunched, Sigurd was someone,
something
, to be feared. She wanted to ask him what he was, or looked like, but was terrified of making a sound.

Above the swish and sigh of the trees, the rustle of leaves, something ran from one of the trees at the edge of the clearing to another. So fast, once again Astrid could not see them.

Bjorn turned toward the sound, forcing her to turn too, to stay to his back. A low growl rumbled from his throat, making the hairs on the back of Astrid’s neck stand up. She shivered.

Another sharp burst of sound made her jump, and a sliver of tree trunk, twice Bjorn’s height, levered out from the pines and reached across the clearing for her. A giant stick insect man with a thin face and cunning eyes, its weathered silver hands sharp and pointed, like dead wood.

She cried out as Sigurd lunged at her like a stork strikes forward to catch its frog, and Bjorn spun, his roar echoing through the trees as he swiped at Astrid, knocking her out of Sigurd’s hands.

She landed hard and rolled to her feet, grateful the ground was thick with pine needles and spongy with autumn rains.

Bjorn had not spoken a word to his old subject, his teeth were bared and savage as he advanced.

She saw Sigurd freeze, his backward movement stopped, and knew Bjorn had enchanted him.

But with a cry he broke free of the spell and leapt, soaring up like a javelin over Bjorn’s head. A massive branch snapped from a nearby tree and was hurled by an invisible hand into the clearing, catching Bjorn a glancing blow to his hind legs.

Sigurd most definitely had tricks of his own.

And so do I.

“Come, wind, to me,” she whispered, and felt the first flutter of breeze against her face as Bjorn launched himself at Sigurd just as Sigurd leapt at him. They smashed into each other and Bjorn cried out as Sigurd raked him with sharp hands, then struck back with his own claws.

Sigurd’s shout of pain was the strange creak of a tree falling. He flung himself up, flipping in the air and arrowing down straight for Bjorn, hands out in claws.

“Stop him,” Astrid cried out, and the wind howled around the clearing, blowing Sigurd off course. Slamming him down into the ground.

Bjorn hurled himself onto Sigurd and stood over him, the pitch of his growl so low, so menacing, Astrid felt her arms pucker to gooseflesh.

A small ball of fire suddenly hovered in the air between them, and for the first time, Astrid saw Sigurd look afraid.

“Tell me why you do the troll’s bidding, even while you swear loyalty to me, traitor.”

Sigurd said nothing, his eyes on the flames that licked and leapt in the air.

Bjorn grunted. “It matters not. I could never trust you again, anyway.”

With that, Bjorn stepped back and the fire ball dropped onto Sigurd’s chest. It seemed to Astrid, unbidden by her, as if in revenge for Sigurd’s attack, the wind fanned the flame.

Sigurd shrieked, was engulfed, and the there came an answering cry from deep within the trees. Sigurd struggled to his knees, twisting in the heat and then fell, blackened and still.

Bjorn turned his attention to the direction of the other call. “Leap on, that was another yggren, and I cannot trust they are not in league with Sigurd. Even if they are not, I have killed one of their own, and they will not be happy with that.”

He crouched down for her, and she clambered on.

“What
is
an yggren?”

“They say they are the dead wood that dropped from the great tree itself.”

“Yggdrasil?” Astrid gasped. She was over her head in these circumstances. She wondered again what Bjorn was, the most powerful of these powerful, magical beings, and then wondered if she truly wanted to know.

“You were not harmed by me?” he asked her as he began to speed through the woods again.

“No.” She’d known why he’d knocked her out of Sigurd’s hands. If the yggren had started running with her, Bjorn would never have caught him.

“I see the wind still does your bidding.”

“Yes.” And it still surprised her. Somehow, there seemed no limit to how much aid the wind would give her.

“Why do you?” she whispered as the air swelled around them, seeming to speed them along. She looked back and saw a wall of dead pine needles, cones and leaves rise up like a wall between them and the clearing, blocking them from view.

“Why do you?”

Chapter Sixteen

T
he tall trees loomed over them and the late afternoon light filtered through, green and gloomy this deep in the forest. They were less than a day from Astrid’s home.

Even though she had never mentioned leaving him, Bjorn could not stop the dread that weighed him down. What did he have to offer her but the loneliness of an empty palace when before she’d had the constant company of her family?

She had not been his long enough for him to be sure of her. He had not bound her close enough.

And she was no meek miss.

She questioned everything and would not accept that he could not tell her, could not give her answers.

He found a clearing, protected by a thick stand of trees, and stopped early for the night, wanting to draw out their time together. Even though he knew it was dangerous to tarry.

“I would not like to bring my family into danger,” Astrid said, leaning back against him, sheltering in his bear’s bulk against the damp autumn chill that seemed to seep bone-deep. “Let us ask our questions and leave as soon as possible.”

“I agree.” Bjorn huffed out a contented sigh. She did not intend to stay behind, then.

“I suppose they have started spending your gold already,” she mused. “Freja would have asked for money for a house, so she and Jonas can marry. Tomas will also want his own house.”

He needed to be wary of Tomas. Of all of them, he held the most sway over Astrid, loved her the most. If he knew the truth, that Astrid was the touchstone in a power struggle, Bjorn’s only point of weakness and Norga’s only obstacle, he would beg her not to return.

“Please, promise me some things,” he said.

“My turn to swear some oaths?” He could hear a smile in her voice.

“Yes. Do not mention what has happened on the mountain to your family. I would have them know nothing of Norga and her plans.”

“I will swear to that. They would only worry if they knew the truth.”

“Is your mother afraid of me?” Bjorn remembered the way the woodcutter’s wife had looked at him, full of fear and anxiety, and already knew the answer.

“She is. She begged my father not to let me go. She said you could be anything.”

“Do not let her turn you against me.” He felt helpless at the thought of it. How could he compete with her mother’s influence?

“No one could turn me against you, Bear,” Astrid whispered to him. “I know your body better than I know my own. I know you keep your promises. I know you have a generous and kind spirit. I know you are courageous and brave.” She tangled her fingers in his fur. “And I keep my promises, too. I said I would go with you, and I will not go back on my word, no matter what my family asks of me.”