Freya watched the slow movements of her potential victim intently. Her breathing was steady and quiet. The nearby animal had no right to hear her.
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale...
Exactly as her father had taught her. Her arrow had been placed between her fingers for a few moments, steady on the bowstring.
One second was all it took to decide to launch an arrow at the victim. The shot was accurate and killed instantly. This was exactly what the young hunter was aiming for. She didn't take pride in inflicting death, but she did it to keep her practice and also because she had a quiet deal with the palace cook. She did not share this information with many, but all game eaten in the palace was hunted with her own hands.
As the King's daughter, she could not afford to officially give the loot to the locals simply because she was not supposed to have that kind of hobby, but she also couldn't share the information about supplying the royal kitchen with it.
She appeared in the world as a bastard child. The firstborn daughter of the King, but a bastard daughter nevertheless. She had never known her mother, just as the King had never admitted who and what her name was. He didn't like to talk about it, and after a few times Freya gave up trying. She couldn't complain though, her father had never shown that she was inferior in his eyes because of her origin. She knew well that many children in the kingdom could not say that both parents gave them half the affection and love her father had for her.
But life would be a fairytale without a few thorns. Despite the King's best efforts, the council refused to officially grant Freya the right to inherit, forcing him to marry a woman who was a stranger. From this union two children were born, Princess Eloise and Crown Prince Emmett. Her half-siblings whom Freya got attached to deeply. For her, it made no difference that they had only a common father. For her, these two mischief-makers were like full-blood siblings. Her feeling was mutual but overshadowed by the attitude of the Queen herself. Freya had the impression that from the very beginning, the Queen treated her as a competition for the King's attention and made her personal goal to make Freya's life anything but a bed of roses.
That was the reason Freya had to keep the game matter, and so much more, a secret from the Queen's ears. If the Queen heard that the meat was being hunted by the King's firstborn, she would forbid the servants to prepare anything with it, and the young hunter could not allow that. She loved hunting and she loved her bow. Using it was one of the few activities her father had personally taught her, meaning this activity was almost sacred to her. And since she did not like killing for the very matter of killing, she decided to keep her forest activities a secret.
She walked up to the dead animal, pulled out an arrow, and wiped it with a piece of cloth. Fortunately, the doe was not too heavy, so she attached it to her black mare—Frida—with little trouble. Once she was sure her cargo was secured, she mounted and set off toward the palace. The woods she hunted in were far from home, so she had to hurry to get there before dark. She had spent too much time in the forest either way. She set off in the early morning and traveled through the territories she already knew very well. After all, she spent what seemed to be like half of her life there—both escaping the glance of her stepmother and finding calm, being united with nature.
"My lady, I've been looking everywhere for you! Why haven't you told me where you were going? I've been going crazy with worry!" Her maid—Giselle—wasn't at all shy about scolding her. Not much older than Freya, at this very moment she looked and sounded like her ominous governess.
Freya motioned for the stable boy, handing over the reins as soon as he approached her.
"Give today's haul to Peter for me please." With her hands completely free, she placed them on her servant's shoulders. "Now, why worry dear, when you very well know that I can take care of myself no matter the place," she smiled teasingly.
Giselle snorted and grabbed one of her mistress's hands to pull her toward her private chambers.
"It's not that I don't trust your skills... But in your absence the King has ordered the whole family to be prepared urgently for the evening audience, yourself included."
Somewhere along the way, Giselle let go of her hand, and Freya had to keep a fairly fast pace to keep up with her maid. At the woman's words, she slowed down slightly but quickly came to her senses and resumed her earlier pace.
"Evening audience?! What the heck is that about?" She bumbled. Never in her twenty-five years of life had Freya witnessed anything like an evening audience. More than once, her father had been forced to receive sudden guests and grant them audiences, but for audiences where the presence of the entire royal family was required, such events were planned in advance and certainly not organized in the evening.
"Shush, we must hurry, the visitors will arrive any minute, and you look like you were not hunting, but bathing in mud. It's good that you at least wear those hideous outfits instead of your dresses, because it certainly would be nothing for you to wear at this point," Giselle complained on the way for which Freya did not resent her. She was glad that her maid was not afraid to express her thoughts aloud. She found it refreshing. Maybe that's why, despite the hierarchy imposed on them, they became excellent friends over time.
"These hideous outfits you mentioned are called britches, and I cannot wear my dresses. I would hunt nothing wearing them." Freya caught Giselle rolling her eyes and smirked at that.
"Thank gods for that," her maid muttered.
Just then, they arrived at the door to Freya's chambers. Once inside, Giselle rushed immediately to see if the bath she had ordered for her lady was still warm. She ordered it to be prepared as soon as she had spotted her at the palace's grounds. The temperature seemed to satisfy her because she immediately proceeded to help her mistress get free of her dirty clothes and get into the bath.
"This is heaven." Freya closed her eyes and began to drift into the bliss.
"Oh no, no, no! Chop, chop! No time to rest, I'll help with your hair," Giselle scolded and hurried to wash her hair. Once she was done, she helped Freya leave the bathtub and went to the wardrobe for dress picking.
"What would you like to wear for that meeting?" She asked from a distance.
"Prepare the green one with loose straps. It goes well with my hair."
The maid returned in the blink of an eye holding one of the most beautiful dresses she had ever seen. Her mistress had chosen well. Indeed, the dress combined with her hair was going to be an exquisite fitting.
What Giselle never said aloud, was that she envied her mistress's hair with all her heart. She loved taking care of them. They were carrot-red, thick and curly. Simply astonishing. And they perfectly emphasized the natural beauty of the young lady. In her opinion, Freya was the most beautiful woman in the kingdom—slender, but curved in the right places, not too tall, and with that pretty heart-shaped face, emphasized by the stunning green eyes. And from what her eyes caught, she wasn't the only one who thought so. Whenever her mistress wandered outside of the palace's walls, where everyone had become accustomed to her charm, she was followed by longing glances from both—men and women.
She was almost finished when she caught the thoughtful look of her lady.
"What's on your mind?" She asked softly, this time not as a maid but as her friend.
Freya sighed softly. "I don't like this. There must be something wrong that Father agreed to this audience," she replied earnestly.
"Whatever it is, I'm sure the king will handle it without trouble." With that, Giselle finished pinning up her lady's hair, allowing her to get up and put on the dress lying on the bed.
"I guess we will see... I have bad feelings about that, though."
Fully dressed and ready for whatever was ahead, Freya left her chambers and headed toward the main hall. When she got there, she met her siblings right in front of the door, looking uptight. She was surprised they weren't already inside.
"Why haven't you come in yet?" She asked calmly, changing glances from her teenage sister to her little brother.
"We didn't want to go in without you," Eloise replied, supported by Emmett's timid nod.
"Aren't you the sweetest, scared little chickens?" Freya laughed, genuinely surprised, sending them her widest smile. She was scared too, but the children didn't need to know that. "Well, let's go in there together then, as a family, all right?"
They answered her with willing nods. As an encouragement, she grabbed each one's hand, stroking the top with her thumbs.
"Don't be scared, little ones, your big sister won't let anything bad happen to you. I swear."
And with that, they crossed the threshold. Freya could not have knownthen, how binding that promise was going to be.