34. Maddy

Chapter 34

Maddy

I struggle to pay attention the whole way through Brynhild's rune lesson, which only serves to prove her point about my not being able to concentrate properly.

In archery class I pass out, and it's the first time it's happened since I've discovered that the blackouts aren't going to kill me.

"Six hundred and seventy-five," I murmur as I come around, and then realize with a jolt that it isn't the number I've survived. This is just the number I've suffered .

Martom is next to me, and he actually helps me to my feet and reinstalls my bow in my hands whilst Dimec and Thira laugh at me from my other side.

"Thank you," I tell him.

"You good?" he asks.

"Course." I shoot arrows into the targets, and realize I'm smiling the whole time. I'm better than good. I'm not going to die.

I go back and check the berry bush, in the hope that now I know my bear's name and have actually spoken with her, I might be able to see the Bear Wing. But it's still a berry bush.

Later that night, after dinner, I see Sarra. When I tell her about my conversation with Thyrvi, she is delighted.

"I can't wait to meet her."

"I assume she can only talk to me," I say thoughtfully. Although it seems like Thyrvi's a law unto herself as far as knowing what to expect goes.

"Well, I still want to meet her."

"She's kind of terrifying," I say. Sarra gives me a look, and I hold up my hands. "Obviously she was only interested in 'tasting the tang of lifeblood' of my enemies, so I'm sure you'd be safe. I'm just saying… She's kind of big. With really big teeth. And claws."

Sarra doesn't look in the slightest bit put off. If anything, she looks more excited.

"Let's get your shield finished, and then you can tell her I helped you put her face on it."

We redraw the patterns for my shield, making adjustments to the design, but I don't have much time over the next week to work on it.

In addition to my laps around the Battleyard and my weight training, I try to practice my magic every single day.

When I go to magic training with the other ice-fae on Tuesday, about half of the time I'm able to do what I am asked, like freeze the ground beneath my feet or create a snowstorm twenty feet away from me, but the rest of the time, my magic doesn't respond to my commands. Brynhild is curt but not rude, and the other rooks don't laugh or mock me.

Wednesday in forging class is the only real time I get on the shield, and I'm determined to make it even better. To my surprise, Harald takes far more interest than before, giving me advice during the whole class and then helping me with the actual forging well into the evening, when everyone else has left.

When I get back to Sarra's workshop that evening, I freeze as I step through the doorway. The entire room has been completely trashed. All the things on her table have been knocked over, the chair is tipped to one side, there are scorch marks on her bench, and the embers from the fire have been distributed all over the furs.

"Maddy!"

I spin to see her coming in behind me with thick gloves on, carrying large burlap sacks. Her eyes are wide, and I hug her.

"What happened?" I ask. She passes me a sack, and I join her in picking up everything off the floor and putting the broken or beyond-repair items into the sacks.

"I don't know. I think—" She pauses, and I can hear fear in her voice. "I think they may have drugged me."

"Who? "

"I don't know! I just woke up in my chair and the room looked like this, and I feel so sick."

"Oh, Sarra." I drop the bag and move to hug her again. I'm worried that this was meant to be an attack on me. If any of the others know where I've been sleeping, and know that the furs that are now burned and singed are my bed six nights out of seven, then this could have happened to get to me. But why would they have drugged her? That makes no sense. They could have just waited until she wasn't in the workshop.

She's pale, and I can see her hands are trembling.

"Sarra, I'll clean all of this up. You go to bed—you need to rest."

"I can't. Look at it all. It needs sorting out."

"I can do all of that."

"But how do you know where everything goes?"

"Sarra, I've been in here enough to know where everything goes, I promise."

Eventually she nods and lets me lead her to her bedroom in the thrall quarters that she shares with two other human women. They're not there, but I tuck her in, give her a quick kiss on the forehead like my sister used to do to me when I felt unwell, and then go back to her workshop.

I clean the room and can't see anything missing or anything badly damaged on her workbench. I find some new furs from the laundry room and attempt to patch up the pieces of the big fur that I like sleeping on the best with them, and by the time I'm done, the workshop looks mostly like it did before .

It's hard to get to sleep that night, though.

On Thursday, we're told at breakfast that instead of choosing between sailing, kitchen skills, or swimming, we're going to learn hunting skills in preparation for the Oskorela . It's a sobering reminder that we'll be going out into the canopy soon, but I'm also finding myself excited at the idea of learning new skills.

Harald and Valdis take us up past the Bird Wing to a large glade that's nowhere near as pretty as the small one I found myself in with Kain.

The one that makes me blush even to think about.

"This is the Hunting Grounds," Harald informs us. I recall seeing that label on my map. He points to some tables that have been set up. "First, we're going to go through food. You're going to learn how to cure meat and gut fish."

It takes all morning to learn how to prepare food that's been foraged yourself. Preparing meat is interesting. I've never seen it done in the Ice Court before, and treating it so that it doesn't go rotten and stays good to eat is fascinating. Learning which berries and fruits are safe to eat and which aren't is less interesting because I already read about it in stories as a child.

Around the middle of the day, Kain strolls into the clearing. Everybody turns to look at him, including Harald and Valdis, but when nobody says anything, they carry on instructing us. I'm looking down at a dead fish, trying to stop my lip curling as I hold the sharp knife in one hand and try to remember exactly how to remove the guts that would make you sick if you ate them.

"You know your bear would eat that raw," Kain says in my head. I snap my head up and glare at him.

"Well, I'm not eating it raw," I mutter to myself. The rook nearby throws me an odd look, and I sigh. Everybody here thinks I'm crazy.

When we're done with the fish, Valdis talks us through how to use a sheet of canvas to protect yourself from the elements. "When you have wings, it's particularly important that you keep your feathers safe," she tells us, and a spike of desire for wings assails me so hard that I almost gasp. "For now, you're going to learn in pairs, as you will be undertaking the Oskorela in pairs."

Everybody moves into pairs, pulling canvas sheets out of two large chests, and I'm standing completely alone. There are twenty-one of us. I can erect my canvas alone. I stride over, picking up a huge piece of fabric. It's heavier than I realized. I'm just beginning to regret my decision when a black-gloved hand reaches down and takes most of the weight for me.

"I'll be your partner," Kain says, his eyes glinting. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself responding.

Valdis rolls her eyes. "Fine," she says. "Now, you'll need to find at least four sticks. They'll have to be at least three feet high, and then you'll need to sharpen the ends of all four into points," she calls .

People start drifting toward the thick canopy surrounding the clearing, looking for suitable sticks.

"How can you talk to me in my head when you have no magic?" I say to Kain as soon as everyone around us has gone.

"I'm a Valkyrie and we're in Featherblade. All the Valkyrie here can do that."

"Does your wolf speak to you in your head?" I ask, and then wish I'd not engaged him in conversation. It's the first time I've spoken to him since the shitshow that was the strength display.

"No," he says. "He gives me impressions. He gives me commands. He shows me emotions. I know what he's thinking, sure enough, but he doesn't speak inside my head."

"Huh." I head toward the nearest tree, scanning the ground for sticks. He strides after me.

"You spoke with your bear," he says.

I sigh, bend down, and scoop up a large stick that looks perfect for the job. "Yes."

"Actual words?" he asks.

"Yes."

"And what's she like?"

I look at him. "A bloodthirsty toddler."

He barks a laugh, and my insides flip. His eyes harden again. He looks annoyed that the laugh escaped. "I might have guessed. I knew you weren't as innocent as you pretend to be."

I stare at him a beat, and almost tell him what I learned about the blackouts. But if he knows he can't bait me to help him into the vault with the allure of a cure, he might try something else.

You could ask him to help you into the records room. It's my own voice in my head, and I ignore it.

"Just because my val-tivar is bloodthirsty, does not mean I am," I say.

"Oh, princess, I saw you after you punched the shadow-fae prick. You loved it."

I screw my face up and wave my stick at him. "Find sticks."

"Sigrun's gone, but there must be somewhere else we can find a key," he says quietly. "Or we try to get in without a key."

I keep my face a mask.

We carry on erecting the canvas in silence, and Kain is an enormous help. I couldn't put the tent up by myself. The canvas is too heavy, and the task is too awkward for one person. He doesn't speak to me anymore, but his blazing eyes never leave mine, and I end up just chatting away to myself through sheer awkwardness. Kain saunters off as soon as Valdis says that the lesson is over, and I take my time folding up the canvas carefully. When I take it back to the chest, I hear a voice that makes me pause.

It's Inga, and she's talking to Harald.

"I swear to you, hersir , I saw a bear. It was ten feet tall at least, and it was on fire."

Her voice is urgent with excitement, not fear. I hold my breath, worried that anything might give away my presence. They're on the other side of a tree, but I can hardly see them, so I assume they can't see me.

"A ten-foot bear made of fire," Harald repeats, and I can hear the same doubt in his voice that I heard when I told him I'd seen a giant white bear.

"Yes! Yes, she was there! I saw her. I was connected to her, I'm sure…" Inga trails off, and my blood runs cold.

She has a bear val-tivar too.

"Do you have your fire magic back?" Harald asks. There's silence, a kind of flickering sound, and a flash of light on the other side of the tree.

Harald grunts. "This is exactly the same as Madivia."

"I'm nothing like her," Inga snaps instantly.

Harald's voice is placating when he replies. "Neither of you have staffs, and now you both have glimpses of a new kind of val-tivar along with staff-less magic."

There's another long silence, and then Inga says, "How do I make the bear stay?"

"I don't know," replies Harald, "and nor does Madivia, yet."