Chapter 30: Weak
The silence of the sun-room had become a physical thing, a wool blanket smothering her. Astrid counted the cracks in the ceiling plaster for the third time that morning. Seventeen major ones, a web of countless minor ones. She knew the journey of every sunbeam as it crept across the floor. She could identify the servants by the sound of their footfalls outside the door: Lena’s quick, light steps, Gerran’s heavier, measured tread.
The only variable was Lyra.
Lyra, who was currently latched onto her breast with a ferocity that still startled her. The baby’s tiny fist kneaded the air, her eyes squeezed shut in primal effort. This, at least, was a function Astrid’s body hadn’t failed. A small, vital victory in a war she was otherwise losing.
“You’re drinking like it’s your last mead in a snowstorm,” Astrid murmured, brushing a wisp of downy auburn hair on the baby’s head. It was hers. Everything else was Caius—the shape of the eyes, the hint of a curl. But that hair was pure Nordane.
The door opened without a knock. Only one person did that.
Birna entered, smelling of forge-smoke, pine resin, and cold air. She carried a wooden tray with a bowl of broth and a hunk of dense, dark bread. “Still alive then.”
“Barely,” Astrid said, not taking her eyes off Lyra.
Birna set the tray on the side table. She’d taken to wearing a hybrid of Eldorian servant’s garb and her own leathers, which unsettled the chamberlain to no end. She pulled a small, wicked-looking dagger from her belt and began cleaning her fingernails with the point. “Your father left at dawn. Took fifty of his own back north. Said the sight of all this polished stone was giving him a headache.”
A pang, sharp and sudden, hit Astrid’s chest. He hadn’t said goodbye. That was his way. Leaving was a fact, not a ceremony. “And the road?”
“Started. They’ve cleared a quarter-mile from the southern edge. Our masons are arguing with their engineers about the slope of the drainage ditches. Nearly came to blows yesterday. Your prince had to go down and mediate.” A faint smirk touched Birna’s lips. “He told them to build two ditches, one each way, and let the gods decide which one worked. They looked at him like he’d sprouted a second head. Then they went back to work.”
Astrid could picture it. Caius in his fine clothes, standing in the churned mud of the Blackwood fringe, using sarcasm as a tool. It should have seemed absurd. It didn’t.
Lyra finished, detaching with a soft pop. Astrid maneuvered her onto a shoulder, patting her back with a rhythm that was now automatic. She looked at Birna. “My legs.”
Birna’s knife stilled. She met Astrid’s gaze. “What about them?”
“I need you to move them.”
“The physician’s apprentice does that.”
“I don’t want his soft, pitying hands. I want yours. They’re my legs. I want them moved by someone who knows how to handle a weapon.”
Birna sheathed the dagger. She didn’t speak as she came to the foot of the bed, peeling back the lightweight summer blanket. Astrid’s feet were pale, the muscles already looking softer, less defined. Birna’s strong, scarred hands wrapped around her right ankle.
“Tell me what you feel.”
“Nothing.”
Birna lifted the leg, bending the knee, then straightening it. The joint moved with a hollow, mechanical sound. It was just meat and bone. A tool disconnected from its wielder.
“Now?”
Astrid closed her eyes, searching the dark emptiness below her waist. She willed a spark, a flicker, a tremor. She imagined the feeling of Birna’s calloused palm against her sole. “Nothing.”
Birna moved to the left leg, repeating the process. “The prince asks about this. Every day.”
“What do you tell him?”
“The truth. That you feel nothing. That your spirit is still trapped in the high passes, staring at Kael’s body.”
Astrid’s eyes flew open. “Don’t.”
“Why not?
“Because it’s not a spirit,” Astrid snapped, the sound brittle. “It’s nerves. It’s severed lines. It’s a thing a surgeon could fix if one existed who hadn’t drunk himself to death on cheap wine.” She looked away, out the window where a sliver of the new construction was visible. “Talking about it won’t summon feeling back.”
Birna let the leg down gently. “Neither will silence.” She pulled the blanket back up. “Your father’s hunters found the camp. What was left of it.”
The air changed. The quiet room turned cold. “And?”
“Nothing natural. No animal would have done that. The bodies were stripped of anything useful. Weapons, mail, even bootlaces.” Birna’s voice was flat, factual. “They were stacked. Not tossed. Stacked, like cordwood, beside the ashes of the fire.”
A precise, chilling image. Astrid’s throat tightened. “A message.”
“A signature,” Birna corrected. She leaned against the bedpost, crossing her arms. “Someone wanted it known this wasn’t random wolves. Wanted us to know they weren’t afraid of the waste, or the effort. Or of Nordane.”
Lyra burped softly, a tiny, mundane sound against the horror. Astrid held her closer, the baby’s warmth a small bulwark. “Caius knows?”
“He knows. He’s been in the archives since dawn, looking for any record of similar… styling.” Birna pushed off the post. “He’s trying to solve a puzzle with a sword. It’s almost endearing.”
“He’s trying to do something.”
“So are you. You’re keeping a human alive with your body. That’s not nothing.” Birna headed for the door. “The broth will get cold.”
She left. Astrid stared at the steam curling from the bowl. The smell of chicken and herbs turned her stomach. Doing something. She looked at her legs, these dead weights under the linen.
An hour later, the door opened again. This time it was Caius. He looked older. Dust from old parchment clung to the knees of his trousers and the cuffs of his dark blue tunic. There was no amused expression now, just a focused exhaustion. He carried a sheaf of papers and the faint, sweet smell of ink.
“I’m told I’m endearing,” he said, dropping the papers on a chair.
“Birna talks too much.”
“She’s the only one who tells me the truth.” He came to the bedside, his eyes doing their usual swift inventory of her and Lyra. “You didn’t eat.”
“Not hungry. What did you find?”
“Accounts of banditry. Tales of forest ghosts. A very dull trade dispute from eighty years ago.” He ran a hand through his curls, leaving a faint smudge of ink near his temple. “Nothing about stacking dead men like firewood. It’s… theatrical.”
“It’s efficient,” Astrid countered. “It tells anyone who finds them not to bother searching for survivors. That the fight is over. That the winners had time.” She adjusted Lyra in her arms. “It’s about control.”
Caius watched her, that perceptive light in his blue eyes. “You’ve been thinking about it.”
“I have nothing else to do but think about the way my men were arranged after they died for me.” The words came out colder than she intended. She saw him flinch, just a little, and wasn’t sorry.
He sat on the edge of the chair, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “The road is progressing. It’s loud, it’s messy, and your father’s masons threatened to bury my foreman in his own drainage ditch today. It’s the most productive conflict I’ve ever witnessed.”
A flicker of something almost like a smile touched her lips. Gone in a second. “Good.”
“Astrid.” His voice softened. “I need to ask you about the attack again. Not the aftermath. The moment it began.”
“I’ve told you.”
“Tell me the sounds right before. Not the shouts. The other sounds.”
She closed her eyes. The memory was a wound she kept poking. The cool air of the pass. The creak of saddle leather. Kael’s low laugh at something someone said. Then…
“The birds stopped,” she whispered. “We were in a patch where the trees were thinner. There were crows arguing over something upstream. They went silent mid-squawk. Not a fly-off-in-a-panic silence. A cut-off silence.”
Caius was utterly still. “And then?”
“A whistle. Two notes. High, then low. Like a blackbird, but not quite right. The last note was flat.” She opened her eyes, finding his gaze locked on her. “Then the first arrow took Rurik in the throat. It came from the east. The next three came from the west. They were already flanking us.”
He absorbed this, his mind visibly working. “A signal. From where?”
“Impossible to tell. The sound bent in that mist.” She studied his face, the ink smudge, the new lines at his eyes. “You think it was personal. Not just an ambush on a rich party.”
“I think stacking bodies is personal. I think a coordinated, crossfire ambush with bird-call signals is professional. The combination is… concerning.” He stood abruptly, gathering his papers. “I have to go meet with the captain of the guard. We’re adjusting the patrol patterns along the forest border.”
He paused at the foot of the bed, looking at her legs under the blanket. “The physician says passive movement is critical. To keep the joints from seizing.”
“I know what he says.”
“Will you let them do it?”
She didn’t answer. He gave a single, slight nod and turned to leave.
“Caius.”
He stopped, hand on the door.
“The road,” she said. “When you’re out there… listen for the birds.”