A Queen for the Frost Giant (Legends of Rahasia Book 0)

Chapter Thirty

            "I am positively dying," I moan, lying against the deck of the ship, oil-slicked packages and fat-covered food cloths hold salted meats and dark breads with the crust already giving way. Octavia gifted us with warm cloaks, mine with a fur hood. Her mischievous children, Alf and Sif gifted Lord Kasmer with a lyre they'd fashioned from horsehair and wood. One of the village girls had gifted Quinn with a pretty ribbon. The warrior woman took it well, knotting it proudly around her upper elbow and tying it with her teeth.

"What are you dying of then?" She has one leg propped at the head of the ship, right beneath the wood-carved dragon's snarling maw. "Have ill humors got you? Look into a troll's eyes, perhaps?"

"No ill humors... No trolls either." I lean back, staring up at the gray sky, the sorry excuse for a setting sun fading into night. Feel the spray hit my cheeks. I pull Octavia's hooded cloak tighter about my neck and face. "I will die of boredom. Restlessness."

Quinn fiddles at a silver chain about her neck. A gift from Zoya, no doubt. The smile on her lips gives her away. "I still think 'tis a fool's quest we're going on. You might be granted your wish of dying soon enough." She leans back then, and with a whisper intones. "Cattle die. kinsmen die. But fame, that is everlasting. The Havamal. You should read it, regina. Every self-respecting Idriolan should, if they aren't a fool."

"Are you a fool, then? Only fools try so hard to prove themselves wise." Lord Kasmer pipes up from where he was supposedly sleeping beneath the boat's wooden bench seats. He hefts an oar away from his face, hugging his lyre to him like a pillow.

"Watch it, rich boy. You're next." Quinn stares at him darkly from her quicksilver eyes.

Lord Kazmer saunters over to me, as much as he can while avoiding our provisions, stocked in the belly of the hastily restored dragon boat. He takes a seat beside me, tugging on my cloak. "It's a cold day, might I join you?" He holds his own cloak up. Rolled beneath it is a blanket that snaps forwards in the breeze. "Warm heart, cool head to temper those burning thoughts of yours."

"That's not how that works, Lord Kazmer. A future queen sharing a blanket with some strange man wouldn't look good in the courts of Ymir."

"Damn them all. Damn courtly manners." Leif tilts his darker eyebrow upwards, still holding the unfurled wool blanket. His platinum locks, I see now, have grown out with some haphazard dyeing process. His real hair is a soft, plainer chestnut brown. His face looks realer now, like something he had to hide at Ymir. His Rahasian mother, a foreigner lacking Idriolan history. Idriolan loyalties assumed to be false.

The world is cruel. No wonder he ran away to Rahasia, hoping to find some semblance of belonging there. Come back to hide under false platinum hair and courtly manners.

To make something of the nothingness of his birthright, like me. A half-Rahasian courtier. A sickly princess.

What a pair we make.

"Would you like to join me?"

"I never much liked courtiers anyways. With some exceptions." I scoot over, accepting his outstretched arm, nuzzling closer beneath the blanket. Our cloak-padded shoulders pressed closer together beneath the cover. I stretch my legs out and shriek when I kick into flesh. "Gods, is that Fell? Helvete. I'm so sorry! I assumed you were following the boat in your regular jötunn form. I thought maybe you were just scouting ahead for us, or swimming beneath."

The giant, or rather, mortal boy turns those rose-petal eyes to me, a weak smile. "Ever since my injury, my transformations have become more inconsistent. It's harder to grasp the seiðr, Fólkvangr magic." He explains to Leif. He pulls himself upwards, and the young lord grasps his elbow to help him up. "Perhaps it's for the best I remain in mortal form while on the seas. Less for Father Ardo to be mad at me for. I won't disturb his sea-dwelling denizens if I don't accidentally step on a seal or a mer-person." His eyes widen a little at the realization. "Perhaps that's why Father Ardo is keeping me mortal for our sea journey. It's so I avoid stepping on any mer-people who swim by."