Kyrja stole a glance at Dania, who not only had all her fair Fjorder skin covered on her arms and hands but had avertedher face. “Two. And we’re hoping to meet up with friends of ours who said they’d be here. Rafnar Svensson and Nikanor Tristansson. They haven’t checked out yet, have they? We were a bit delayed.”
The man pursed his lips. “I…I don’t know. I’m not at liberty to divulge the comings and goings of our guests.”
Which surely meant Rafwasthere. If he’d left, the man would have just said so and offered apologies, right? Kyrja smiled. “I understand. If they are here, you could just give them a message, yes? Ask them to knock on my door? Tell them I can’t wait to see Nik tomorrow, and that I have the icograph Raf asked me to get.”
The man darted a glance up at her face, narrowed his eyes. “Have you stayed with us before, my friend?”
Frost and snow, she no doubt looked familiar, and he was trying to place her. “Perhaps? My parents usually take care of our travel arrangements, and I haven’t paid all that much attention.” She went for a grin that Princess Valkyrja would never use in public—too friendly, too young, too informal. “This is my first trip without them.” All true, so it should ring so.
“Ah. Well, just fill out your name and address here, if you would.” He slid the book over to her. “And that will be twenty riks.”
That was all? She’d brought far too much. She pulled off her right glove—glad to see that her skin was nicely flushed. The fact that her nails were still low and uneven from her escapade would help her look like a thane too. Her cuts had all healed by the time she’d woken up the morning after the bombing, of course. She reached a hand into her pocket and pulled out a single coin, handed it over, and picked up the pen.
Dania coughed—a warning. She needed to write like a thane too, and they certainly weren’t given the education in calligraphy that she’d had. Mimicking Dania’s hurried script, she wrote thename she’d decided on. Mamma’s given name, with another family name as a surname.Andresa Olafdottir.And then the address of Dania’s sister, who lived in the second-largest city in Fjordlandi, well over a hundred miles from here. Kyrja hadn’t seen her in years, though she frequently rubbed elbows with Dania’s brother, Sven. She’d always loved listening to him muse and converse on what Fjordlandi might look like if they had laws like the other kingdoms, granting equal rights to all subjects.
Just a thought experiment, he’d always said, sending her a wink. Because to be anything else would mean earning the censure of the Crown and finding himself without a position.
But he knew she’d never breathe a word of his thoughts to her family. He’d only started speaking of such things after she’d brought Mamma along on one of her visits.
The innkeeper handed over two metal keys. “Rooms twenty-one and twenty-two, on the second floor. And if those gentlemen are in residence, I’ll see a message is delivered. If not, I’ll let you know in the morning.”
“Thank you.” Handing one of the keys to Dania, they hustled toward and then up the rickety stairs, which creaked with every step, frost it. That would make sneaking down after they’d spoken to Raf difficult. Perhaps there were other stairs.
They found their rooms and opened the first, tossing their nearly-empty bags onto the bed and switching on the lights. The whole thing was smaller than her dressing chamber had been, with no private washroom. The fact that the attendant hadn’t even mentioned that made her think hotels like this never had such luxuries.
Kyrja wasted no time in swiping off the hood, then shrugging out of the coat.
“Leave the sweater on,” Dania cautioned as she took her own coat off. “If someone other than this Rafnar fellow comes to the door, you still need to look the part.”
“Granted.” But she shoved up the sleeves, anyway, grateful that the radiator in the corner of the room was barely spurting out any heat. No doubt guests were expected to open it more when they checked in, but she was happy to leave it closed.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her friend settling beside her with a sigh. Dania leaned against her. “How are you holding up?”
The simple question shouldn’t have threatened the dike on her emotions again. But after forcing her eyes to stay dry through yesterday’s funerals, the tears had been threatening ever since. She hadn’t dared to release them there, not with Fodur at her side, not with every Blessed in Fjordlandi watching, with the Two Councils all in attendance and ready to judge. She’d kept everything bottled up tight and had prayed that the Giver wouldn’t repeat the sign in the crystal columns that he’d given her two days earlier.
They’d remained silent. She’d thanked him, then. Now, it pinged around her heart like a doubt.
Had it been a fluke? Not really the Giver’s anointing at all? Was the wayYour Highnessnow chafed and rubbed at her not a sign of his will but of her own misplaced pride?
She needed to go back to the Grand Kyrka. Alone, of course. But hope that the dominie would be there again and willing to teach her. She needed to know more about this being her mother had worshiped, what he expected of her, what it meant to have faith in him and make herself his.
“Kyr?”
She shook herself. “I don’t know. It’s…” She hadn’t told her friend much, hadn’t had a chance to. Her trips to the clinic had been forcibly ended, and they’d only had a few minutes together at the funeral yesterday. Just enough to whisper that she needed to do this. Now, Kyrja turned to face her. “Do you believe in the Giver?”
Dania’s face shuttered. “What kind of question is that?”
“The kind I’ve been asking myself.” She reached for her friend’s cool fingers. “I visited the Grand Kyrka the day before the funeral. Something happened.” She told her about it in quiet tones, watching Dania’s face carefully. They’d never spoken of religion before, despite their decades of friendship. Despite all the hypothetical conversations her brother would raise about forms of government and social experiments. Somehow, religion had remained off-limits.
Why? Why had a prisoner in one of her brother’s cells, a man she’d only known a few hours, been the one she thought to ask about such things, instead of her own best friend?
Dania’s eyes went wide as Kyrja described the Song, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. “I have heard of such things. My grandmother—she told me Fjordlandi had fallen away from our ordained path, that in the old days, if a king or queen didn’t receive the Song, they were ousted. That’s what started the Challenges.”
That wasn’t the history Kyrja had been taught—but the history she’d been taught hadn’t breathed a word about the display she’d witnessed. What else had it left out? She pressed a hand to her damp brow. “I don’t know what to do. The dominie, he saidIam the queen now. By right. But that’s ridiculous, I’m so weak compared to my father—”
“Are you?” Dania gripped Kyrja’s fingers. “You never saw the point in the training they gave you, in fighting each other for sport or to prove dominance. But you have mastered your magic, Kyrja. Your art is proof of that. And these last few days, you have taken over both your sibling’s jobs without a minute’s trouble.”
“But that doesn’t prove I’m stronger than they were—”
