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Henna couldn’t work out if it was funny or desperately sad that the people who occupied her childhood home didn’t know her. Viveca appeared behind the woman and said, ‘Oh, it’s you. Come in then,’ and disappeared off towards the living area, or at least where it had once been.
As Henna crossed the threshold she was torn between how big her father’s estate was, but how small everything looked. It felt as if she was viewing it through a different lens than the last time she’d been here, her focus narrowed by loss. Twin strands of grief wrapped themselves around her, giving her just enough space to move, but nothing near the freedom she needed.
‘What are you doing here? Mother’s out, if that’s who you were after,’ called the disembodied voice, the monied, aristocratic accent sharp enough to cut glass. It had struck Henna a little while after she had joined the Palace staff that, for all the superiority and class Viveca and her mother wore like mink, they had nothing of the class she had witnessed through the years. A class not born from wealth or status, but rooted in kindness, grace and generosity.
She was glad in that moment that her father had never discovered the truth about the person he had entrusted with the care of his child—he would have been devastated. She looked around the large entrance hall that he had chased her through playing tag, the memory of their joint laughter fading in her ears but strong in her heart. And now she realised that she had not come here to get the last of her things, she had come here to say goodbye.
As if drawn by her silence, Viveca appeared, drenched in pale silk and fur, wearing crimson lipstick and cruelty in her eyes. ‘Well, has the stupidity in your brain finally taken over your tongue? What are you doing here?’ she demanded, as if Henna didn’t have a right to be in her family home—herfather’shome.
‘What was it?’ Henna asked, stopping Viveca mid-turn, having become bored waiting for an answer. When Henna finally had her attention she pressed on. ‘What was it that I did to you that filled you with such hatred?’
‘You mistake yourself. You are so insignificant to me that I can’t even summon up enough energy to hate you.’
‘So you are simply this mean to everyone?’ Henna asked.
‘How dare you?’ Viveca screeched, charging towards Henna across the black and white checked flooring of the hallway. ‘Is this because of Nils? Have you finally decided to grow a backbone?’
There was a temptation to be cruel. To meet her poisoned barbs with taunts just as cutting and hurtful—to belittle Viveca. But that wasn’t who Henna was and it certainly wasn’t who she wanted to be. She’d told Aleksander that she knew how to deal with bullies, but she had been lying. She had never dealt with Viveca. Ignoring her hadn’t made her go away. It hadn’t made her any less hurtful or mean.
‘No, this is not because of Nils,’ she replied truthfully as the scales fell from her eyes. Shehadbeen lying to herself, just as Aleksander had accused, only not about her feelings for him. Being here after her father’s death, with Viveca and her stepmother, had been awful. Truly awful. But making herself useful to them, making herself invisible to them, had pacified the two to the point where it had made Henna’s life easier. And somewhere along the line it had become habit. It had become her way of being.
She had told herself that she liked helping people and being efficient because that was how she’d survived Viveca and her mother, but was it true? Was it what she wanted? Or had she simply been on autopilot?
She was distracted from unravelling her thoughts by her stepsister, who pulled up just short of invading her personal space.
‘Or maybe it is,’ Henna said, Viveca’s betrayal with Nils leading her back to her childhood. ‘Because I want to know what it was that I had that you wanted so much that you needed to steal something else from me.’
Viveca looked as if she had been struck, the sting bringing a sheen of unshed tears to her vivid blue gaze.‘Everything,’she answered after a heartbeat. ‘Everything. He may have died when you were young, but your father—he loved you. You couldn’t stoptelling usjust how much he loved you. Your perfect father. Mine?’ She laughed, bitterness and pain audible in her tone. ‘He left. Walked out when I was four and that was the last time I saw him.’ Henna took a step forward, but Viveca held up a hand to ward her off. ‘Andthen,’ she said, the meanness returning to her voice, ‘you took Aleksander. He was supposed to be mine. Mother said. She’d wantedmeto befriend him at that party, not you!’
All the violence and rage she saw in Viveca in that moment teetered on the brink of turning on Henna or turning back on herself and for a moment Henna felt a crawling fear scratching at the back of her neck, before she shoved it aside. There was nothing to fear here now, and truly she only felt sorry for Viveca. All that anger and hurt... And her mother had been no kind, loving or generous presence in Viveca’s life at all.
No, she wouldn’t forgive her for sleeping with Nils, but that kind of hurt had rotted something deep within Viveca. Aleksander might have buried his, locked his away, but he’d never been mean with it. He had hurt her, yes, but it hadn’t been an act of cruelty. She could see now that it had been an act of self-preservation. And in his own way he had tried—as he had with his sisters—to give her something else. To nudge her towards a position and role that she had genuinely been interested in.
‘Viveca, if you ever want to change the way things are between us I would be open to that,’ she said, thinking of how she felt about Freya and Marit and hoping that if Viveca did ever confront her demons they might at least become friends.
Viveca frowned, as if not understanding or believing her words and, before she could be stopped, Henna swept her up in a fierce hug, before leaving and not looking back. There was nothing more here for Henna. It hadn’t been her home for a very long time. Now, she wanted to look to her future.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
Freya’s question sounded in her ears. She was still excited by the prospect of the role waiting for her in London. But Henna needed a little more time. Seeing Viveca, coming here...it had cleared the path to making a decision. Yes, Aleksander’s betrayal had cut deep, even now she felt the sting and burn in her chest, as if she’d inhaled winter’s bite. Her heart had broken, but her soul had kept her standing and she owed it to herself to fight for the very best for herself. In her heart, her father smiled and some of the pain from the loss of Aleksander eased just a little.
Can you meet me in the maze? I need to talk to you privately but I can’t leave the Palace. Please, Henna, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t desperately important. F xx
It was the day before her flight and the last thing Henna wanted was to return to Rilderdal Palace, but Freya had sworn that Aleksander was away on business. She hadn’t even wanted that much information because her mind had quickly filled with questions about the organisation, whether Kozlov had kept his word, whether Tuva was with him...
Henna had refused to read any newspapers, listen to any news reports. Her only social media had been through the palace communications team so even that was closed to her now. She felt oddly isolated and out of tune with Svardia and hoped it was for the best, even if it felt wrong deep in her heart. The car Freya had sent for her passed smoothly through Security and took the private road access to leave her just beside the maze.
Unable to resist, her hand reached out to swipe across the hundreds and thousands of tiny little vivid green leaves. They tickled her palm like the memories playing in her mind. As a child, the walls of the maze had towered over her. They were still taller than her, but only just, which made them feel so much less intimidating.
She peered into the entrance and called out for Freya, but heard no response. Was she supposed to meet her here or at the centre? Henna checked her watch and, hating the idea of keeping Freya waiting, she started on the path she had forced herself to learn after getting lost. She had discovered that it had been designed as a labyrinth rather than a maze, there being only one true path to the centre, with many dead ends and confusing junctions along the way.
As she followed the route she knew in her mind, she couldn’t help but feel that she was taking the first steps on the right path of her own journey and she was excited to tell Freya what she’d decided about her future. Henna was lost in the thought of her best friend’s reaction when she turned into the heart of the maze, so it took her a moment to register what she was seeing.
Aleksander had clearly been pacing back and forth, but he stopped the moment she emerged at the centre of the maze. She had never seen him like this. His hair was messy and his shirtsleeves rolled back. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, and even then hestilllooked devastatingly handsome. The sun glinted on the golden strands of his hair, and the flex of tension in his jaw only served to make him look glorious. Henna shook her head, intensely disliking the fact that she hadn’t built up an immunity to him.
‘What am I doing here, Aleksander?’ she demanded, hurt and angry that he would do this to her, manipulate her,again.
In that moment Aleksander saw the pain he had caused Henna. He was struck silent by it and all the things he had prepared to say, had written and tried to memorise disappeared. Refusing to wait any longer for his answer, she turned to leave, forcing him to cross the distance between them in quick strides, rounding her and cutting off her exit. She had to pull up short to stop from crashing into him.
