corner of the hall.
Both of their heads turned, and Za stood from where she had been busy fletching arrows, sending scraps of feathers and wood fluttering like tiny sprites in the candlelight. The Princess Sehra didn’t stand, she merely turned, watching Vhalla warily. She was garbed in a loose and warm looking dress, reminiscent of patterns that Vhalla had seen on the Northern warriors’ tabards, rather than the Southern fashions she’d been wearing in court.
“You come alone?” Za called.
“I have.” Vhalla didn’t move far from the door, ready to run if needed. Though she didn’t really know what these two women could do to hurt her. Vhalla outclassed them both in combat—unless they had some secret prowess Vhalla didn’t know about—and they were severely outnumbered in the South. Vhalla suspected that the Southern people would jump on any excuse to remove a Northerner from their throne.
“What do you want?”
“I have a deal for you.” The girl’s Southern Common was elegant, simple. Her voice was gentle and bright, like morning dew.
“What could you possible want with me?”
“Sit, share our light, and I will tell.” Sehra motioned to the circle of light the candle cast on the floor.
Cautiously, Vhalla crossed the room, sitting on the outer edge. Za sat stiffly as well, close to her princess.
“You know who I am, what I am.” Vhalla didn’t want to mince words. “You know what I’ve done against your home, your people.”
“I do,” Sehra affirmed. Her eyes flashed dangerously in the candlelight. “And for it, I hate you deeper than any I have ever hated before.”
“You didn’t call me here to tell me that.” If the girl had meant to wound Vhalla, she should start by saying something that Vhalla couldn’t already assume.
“No, but I don’t want you to think you will make an easy friend in me.” As Sehra spoke, Za shifted closer to the princess, her hands busy fletching arrows in as threatening a manner as possible.
“That would never be something I’d be confused about.” Vhalla shook her head. “Though I harbor no ill will toward you and your people. The Empire invaded you without cause, no matter what is said here.”
“Not without cause,” Sehra corrected. “You know the cause.”
Vhalla met the girl’s green eyes, suddenly seeing a woman much older than her years staring back.
“Perhaps.” Vhalla wasn’t going to be the first one to bring up the axe.
“Do not lie,” Sehra scolded. “I can sense the magic on you. You have touched Achel.”
Vhalla stiffened and blinked her eyes quickly, shifting her vision into magic sight. The girl looked no different from Za, whom Vhalla knew was a Commons. Did she have a closed Channel? Had Vhalla somehow been misled that Aldrik’s bride wasn’t a sorceress?
“My mother speaks to me; she tells me the Achel has been stolen. But the Emperor rages daily for it to be given to him. It is gone, but not into the Empire’s hands. Only your hands have its shimmering remnants upon them.”
“How are you so certain?” Vhalla asked uneasily.
“I am a child of Yargen.” Sehra sat straighter at the word. “I know the old ways. I know the old magic that has long been forgotten by the southern peoples.”
“Why does Shaldan want the axe?” Vhalla hoped the question didn’t confirm or deny her possession of it.
“Because it is our history,” Sehra answered as Za shook her head in disgust at Vhalla’s question. “Because it is not yours to take, or have, or use.”
Vhalla had no argument to any of those. “You wish to use it to fight for your sovereignty?”
She couldn’t exactly fault the North for it. She personally knew what it felt like to be chained under the Emperor. She couldn’t imagine a good leader’s agony at the knowledge of their entire people being reduced in such a way.
“Not fight.” Sehra shook her head. “Make a deal for it.”
“With me?”
The princess nodded.
“What do you think I can do?” Vhalla hardly had any say in the future of the North, even less the power to give them their sovereignty.
“You hold no more love for this Empire than my people do, this much I have seen. It gives me faith for you. However, with the axe in hand, you are a danger to us as a tool of the war-hungry men who sleep in these stone walls,” Sehra said, revealing nothing Vhalla didn’t already know.
“Yet,” the princess held a long pause, “you also hold the future of Solaris in your hands.”
“How?” Vhalla frowned.
“Not hands, perhaps. Around your neck