I found myself pacing at the window again, watching the Saxon soldiers training out on the field below. Out training, and I was trapped in here with an angry seamstress and an anxious berserker.
From up here, I could survey more of the Saxon grounds, seeing what I’d been unable to see from the training grounds the day before. The training grounds lay just outside the inner castle wall on a huge flat area. But from there, the ground sloped gently up a hill to an area designed for recreation. Lush gardens filled with fountains and paths fanned out on one side, and a hedge maze lay on the other side.
Defensively, it was a nightmare. Had I known that’s what it looked like within the walls, I would’ve pushed to take the castle from there during the war. It gave an attacker who breached the outer wall the high ground, though I supposed that might backfire if they ended up trapped between the bottom of the hill and the inner wall. If they laid a trench there, it would make the perfect trap.
Only a few days spent here and yet I was thinking about how to defend rather than attack the Saxon castle?
I paced some more, trying to calm my berserker with thoughts of strategy rather than thoughts of violence.
We’d returned from the meal with the king without being harassed by any guards, but the king was surely off somewhere, plotting his revenge. That or studying a knife he thought was a magical relic when it was really just an heirloom my grandmother had gifted to a previous Saxon king because she’d never particularly cared for it.
“I wouldn’t have to sit still if I hadn’t been forced to stay and babysit you.”
She laughed delicately. “You don’t really believe that’s why the prince asked you to stay? You’re an embarrassment to him, bringing nothing but trouble.”
I didn’t deign to turn around and look at her. “Right now, I’m the only thing standing between you and a marriage you don’t want. I suggest you stop trying to play mind games with me.”
She was quiet for so long, I thought she’d just gone back to stabbing her little cloth, but she eventually cleared her throat. “Agree to leave Bastian unharmed when you escape, and I’ll give you a piece of information you want.”
Out in the training yard, Bastian had just peeled his sweaty shirt off. Even from this distance, I could make out the vee of muscle that angled down the sides of his stomach into his trousers. I was staring in order to assess the Saxon forces from this angle, absolutely not so that I could ogle my husband.
I glanced over my shoulder to find Eleanor glaring at me with practiced coolness.
“What could you possibly know about what I want?”
She pursed her lips. “Something important about the king’s leash on your berserker.”
Nowthatwas information I wanted. I looked back out the window. “You make quite the habit of snooping, don’t you?”
She hesitated for a second. “I don’t always have to snoop. They forget I’m a person, so occasionally they speak more freely in front of me than they should. I know more than any of them realize.”
I turned to face her again, studying her with a new perspective. Who would she be if she were allowed to take up space? “If I leave Bastian here, we’ll still be married. I can’t allow that to stand.”
She narrowed her eyes with determination. “You’re not married. From what I overheard, you didn’t consummate it yet.You both can attest to that, and it’ll be declared invalid. You have no need to kill him if he was never even your husband.”
My berserker reacted like Eleanor had charged at me with an axe. The surge of violence reverberated within me, but with no outlet, it yielded only pressure that turned into pain.
As though the king of either kingdom would simply allow us to say we’d never consummated it and move on with our lives.
As though I could simply walk away from Bastian now.
I could lie and say it was because he knew too much or because I’d vowed to kill him. But the truth was more complicated. No one had ever looked at me the way he had the night before, with trust and adoration all mixed in a fearless frenzy for more of whatever I was willing to give him. He didn’t fear me, nor did he want a gentler version of me. He seemed to want more than I’d even given him yet, like he was just there waiting for my every desire to be expressed.
I serve at the pleasure of my queen.
But I needed whatever information Eleanor had. I’d been operating under the assumption that when I took the king’s head, I’d be released from his spell, but magic wasn’t always that simple.
“I can’t promise to annul our marriage, but I can vow not to kill him.”
She didn’t like that answer, but she accepted it with a nod. “Good enough for now.”
Then Eleanor said, “I overheard the king telling Elric that you can’t kill him without killing your own berserker.”
The pressure in my head intensified shockingly, and it was difficult to focus. “Only if I kill him? Or if anyone kills him?”
She took a step back like she thought I might be about to get violent. “He dies, you die. That’s what he said.”
Nowthatwas a complication.
