Today is about demonstrating skill. I wasn’t lying when I told Iker our games were useful—they were indeed born out of utility. Rock climbing and trail running in the mountains. Log running in the stream that feeds into the harbor. Swimming in the mouth of the sea. Vital to life, every one of them. Useful—right down to the rock carryalong the beach, which mimics laboring to bring cargo ashore.
And each citizen in Havnestad has an equal shot to compete. Be you ninety-five or still flush with baby fat, if you can walk, you are allowed to have a go—with the royal family cheering you on, or possibly acting as your competition.
After plates of samsø, rye bread, and peaches, Nik is instructed by his father to oversee the mountain events first. Those sports have the fewest competitors, and King Asger would much rather view the action on the beach.
And King Asger gets what King Asger wants—even from his son.
True to his nature, Nik bows—no crown atop his head—before grabbing another peach and a flask of water and tugging Annemette toward Lille Bjerg Pass.
I side-eye Iker when he doesn’t make a move to follow.
His strong hand gently cuffs my wrist and pulls me close. In a breath, I’m an inch away from his lips. The depths of his eyes are striking in the high sun, clear and merry after a good night’s rest in a real bed and not a ship’s dank quarters. “Let’s just stay here alone.”
I shift my eyes to the beach. “Alone—with five thousand of our closest friends, including your aunt and uncle.”
Iker laughs and gently fingers the curls that have blown forward over my shoulder. “So many people that not a one of them is watching...”
No, they’re watching. I can feel it. He’s just used to it.
I pull away, shifting the arm he’s snagged so I’m grabbing his wrist as he clutches mine. I tug him toward Lille Bjerg Pass. “There are many side trails along the pass, thick with brush.”
He raises a brow and finally takes a step forward. “It would be a shame if we were to get lost.”
“Such a shame. Nik would be so disappointed.”
“Only if he’s lost in the same brush we are.”
It’s true. Nik returned a different person after our early morning conversation, focusing on Annemette with a renewed intensity.
With tangled hands, we march up Market Street. We are several lengths behind Annemette and Nik, though they are moving at a snail’s pace—Annemette has yet to see much of the town outside of the festival, and she’s poking in every doorway and picture window to see the wares. The sweetshop man already handed her a lollipop, which proceeded to turn her tongue a grisly shade of red. She dared to show us a block back, sticking out her tongue nearly down to her chin. It was quite the picture, a bloody maw beneath the face of an angel. Of course, she thought it was the funniest thing. I thanked Urda that Malvina wasn’t around to see it.
Nik laughed too, endearment written all over his face. He has no idea how far she’s traveled to see these things we walk past every day, to stroll down the street with him.
“I have been to Odense,” Iker starts, sun lines crinkling around his eyes, “and it isn’t Copenhagen, but it isn’t a one-horse village either. By the way she responded to the sucker, you’d suppose she’d never had a candy in all her life.”
“Showing delight isn’t a crime, Iker.” And it isn’t, though I know that answer won’t atone for Annemette’s fierce sense of wonder. Thus, I turn it back on him. “Not everyone is as difficult to amuse as the salt-worn prince of Rigeby Bay.”
His lips turn up and his eyes flash my way. “I laugh deeper than anyone and you know it—whether I’ve lived on only salt herring for three weeks or not.” His fingers squeeze mine and I kiss his shoulder. “What I mean is, there’s just something unnatural about her level of delight.”
My heart starts to pound and my temples grow hot. This line of thought is no good. No good at all. I change tactics.
“Imagine it her way.” I sweep my free hand out in front of him. “She arrived at Havnestad with a chaperone green with illness, knowing not a single other soul. And despite it all, she’s been taken in, given a bed in a beautiful palace, and the dashing prince she’s come to meet clearly believes her to be something special.” I swing up our tangled hands so they’re within view. “That is a whirlwind of delight, is it not? The curl was nearly blown out of my hair just by being a bystander.”
He gives me a courtesy laugh and snags a wayward lock of hair with his free hand, tugging it completely smooth. He lets it go and watches as it bounces back into a spiral. “That would’ve been disastrous. Even the salons of Paris would not have been able to reproduce these.”
My cheeks run scarlet as we reach the end of the cobblestones and the trailhead of Lille Bjerg Pass. Annemette and Nik have already disappeared around a bend. I step in front of Iker onto the single track, and our hands drop.
“I’m just saying,” he says, “what do we know about Annemette? How do we know she is who she says she is?”
I laugh, trying to make it seem as if he’s being ridiculous, and not appropriately concerned. “What, do you think she’s some con artist on the run, stealing crown jewels one Lithasblot at a time?” It’s the most absurd thing I can offer, except for the truth.
“No. No. She’s a sweet girl... there’s just something about her I can’t put my finger on. And I don’t like that feeling—especially when it involves family.”
“I know what it is,” I say, hoping to finally put this to rest—for Annemette as much as for myself. “She looks like Anna.”
His step hesitates behind me. “Your friend who drowned?”
“The very one.”
