Seek and Ye Shall Find
Torsten's chambers were warm, the grates opened fully to allow Eysa's volcanic heat to seep in. Beneath the keep, a labyrinth of vents and tunnels carried the island's lifeblood, spreading warmth without the need for fire. The air held a faint mineral tang, a quiet reminder of the molten depths flowing far below-restless, enduring, and always present.
Torsten stood barefoot by a low table where a simple meal had been set. He looked up, his gaze landing on Ingbord as she entered, his smile was one of quick bright welcome-and something else - a quick flash of relief and a flush of heat softening the planes of his face.
Ingbord lifted her chin, meeting his gaze, bold but playful. "You wanted me?"
Torsten's mouth curled, just slightly, equally playful. "I do."
It might have been the wind, or the volcano's breath moving about the keep. Or perhaps Eoin didn't quite stifle a sigh as he shut the door behind them. The latch clicked quietly into place, sealing them inside.
Torsten smiled quickly as the heavy door clicked shut behind Eoin's smirking presence. "I do hope the escort made some effort to behave himself."
She shook her head in amusement, eyeing the table. "I hope you have something nice for me, Torsten. I was just about to have lunch when I was pulled away, and magic is rather hungry work."
Torsten's smile deepened. "Cranky magicians are a menace only a fool would entertain. I think I understand the importance of keeping my Magician satisfied. Perhaps I can persuade you to forget lunch and have an early supper with me instead? It's not my intent for you to go wanting."
Ingbord lips quirked at the double meaning but sat, accepting the offering. A light meal had been laid out-bread, cheese, slices of cured fish. He poured her a cup of weak ale and took a seat beside her, tearing off a piece of bread more to keep her company than out of real hunger.
They spoke of small things-news from the harbor, the latest foolishness at court-conversation easy between them, laced with familiarity and affection. But she did not miss the way his fingers tapped idly against the table, the way his eyes flicked over the room, always coming back to her face. There was a purpose to this visit, and the space between them was growing thick with it. The room was growing warmer, and Torsten was growing restless.
"You had Eoin fetch me to your chambers with instructions to tell me you wanted a Seeking," she said, setting her cup aside. "Let's not dally further." She stood, shrugging off her cloak and fixing Torsten with a level gaze.
"You know my price. Are you prepared to pay it?"
Torsten closed his eyes for a moment. "I do."
A beat later, softer, "I am."
It was not reluctance. He wanted the Seeking, yes, but he wanted her too, always had, always would. He was not unfamiliar with how a Seeking worked. The ritual stripped away the tenderness he craved, but not the desire. His body responded before she even touched him, before she stepped close and pressed against him, before she tugged at the laces of his tunic and slid her fingers over his belt. By the time he cupped the curve of her waist and pulled her tighter, he was more than ready to pay her price.
She did not tease. This was not for love, whispered endearments or lingering caresses. This was for the Seeking, and she took him to his bed without hesitation, taking from him what was needed.
He let her press him down, let her strip him bare. He lay back, arms above his head as she shed her own garments and straddled his hips. Her palms pressed flat against his chest as she murmured words in the old language-words of offering, of binding, of agreement. The same words she had asked of him moments before, spoken now in ritual. A gift of himself, freely given, in exchange for her Seeking. He nodded once, then felt her-hot and wet as she guided him inside. She breathed in sharply, adjusting, settling over him with a slow, deliberate motion.
Torsten gritted his teeth, fingers flexing against her hips. He wanted to drag this out, to roll her beneath him and take his time, but she set the pace, and he let her. He closed his eyes, surrendering to it. To her. The rhythm she set was steady, unhurried, each roll of her hips drawing him closer, pulling him under. He gripped her thighs, his fingers pressing firm into her skin, but he did not try to control her. He let himself be taken, let himself give. And when she flexed around him, working him with that subtle, knowing pressure, it was too much. He gasped, his body tightening, and then pleasure overtook him, spilling through him in waves.
Afterward, they lay together, the afternoon light slanting through the high windows. His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek, his skin hot where she rested, cooling rapidly everywhere else. She traced idle patterns against his ribs before murmuring, "Tell me what it is you seek."
Torsten exhaled slowly. "It's a map."
She lifted her head to look at him.
"A map of Eysa and the waters around it, drawn in great detail. It marks the city of Vardvik, the smaller towns, the volcano, the best vents. About an arm's length wide and half as tall." He gestured the dimensions with his hands. "In the lower left-hand corner, southwest on the map, there is a blazing sun, inscribed in real gold. My grandfather, King Rolly, commissioned it from his Magician. Both he and the map have been missing for decades."
Ingbord nodded. "Sverri," she said, being well-acquainted with the sequence of Eysa's magicians. "Hmm. His magic allowed him to see details hidden from view. Do you know why Rolly would have commissioned such a thing?"
"Rolly never told me his reasons," Torsten admitted. "I was only a boy when he told me the story of it. Both Sverri and the map had been missing for decades by then. But he was not a man who did things without purpose." His fingers trailed absently over Ingbord's bare shoulder. "Eysa is poor. It has always been poor. I think he hoped the map would show him the way to change that."
He let that hang between them. "Perhaps he wanted to open new trade routes," Torsten continued, keeping his voice even. "Or maybe he just wanted to see Eysa as it truly is. A king should know the shape of his own land, shouldn't he?"
He turned his head to meet her gaze, hoping it was enough truth to satisfy her.
"Do you have anything that belonged to Rolly? Something personal, that was his?" asked Ingbord.
In answer, Torsten pulled a ring off his finger and gave it to Ingbord. "This was Rolly's before it came to me."
Ingbord brought the ring to her lips, tasting the bright gold with a quick flick of her tongue, then slipped it onto her own finger.
She closed her eyes, focusing, drawing her awareness into the band.
But the ring held nothing of Rolly. Only Torsten. A driving pulse. Echoes of longing, simmering, but never truly gone. A restless and frustrated energy pushing him forward. She caught recent flickers of his day- a sea breeze there, a moment of boredom there, the touch of her hand on his bare skin. But nothing older than him, nothing of the man who had worn the ring before.
She opened her eyes. "I need something closer to him. More personal."
Torsten hesitated, just for a moment. Then nodded. The furs shifted as he rose, unhurried and unselfconscious. The chamber was warm from the vents, and his skin still held the heat of their joining, gold in the afternoon light slanting through the high windows. He stretched briefly-just a shift of his shoulders, a flex of his back-and crossed the room with shameless ease.
At his desk, he opened a carved wooden box and withdrew something small, dark, and smooth. He turned the polished stone over in his fingers as he carried it back to her, slipping back under the covers beside her once more.
He pressed it into her palm. "Rolly carried it everywhere."
She weighed it in her hand, feeling the dense, polished surface. Cool, despite the warmth of the room. Hematite. She brought it to her lips, the iron-slick taste of it spreading across her tongue before she closed her fingers around it and let herself sink into its echoes.
The impression came quickly this time. Rolly. Sharp-minded, supicious and cagey. Thoughts like a locked chest, heavy and secretive. Ambition and thirst pressed hard into the weight of the stone. A longing for more, always more. A sense of discontent, flavoured with bitterness and desire for power.
"Do you know what Sverri's price was?"
"Allegedly, a hundred gold pieces."
Both Ingbord's brows rose in rare surprise. "A hundred gold pieces. That's...staggering. Could Rolly have paid it?
Torsten exhaled; tone dry. "Doubtful. I'd be hard-pressed to scrape together a hundred gold from the treasury today. I can't see how Rolly could have made good on the deal. And since I didn't inherit an empty treasury, I suspect Sverri never saw a single coin."
"One last thing," Ingbord said, slipping from the bed in a liquid motion. She stretched her arms high above her head, preparing. Torsten watched her, still sprawled on the bed, his body heavy with satisfaction, but his pulse quickening again at the sight of her. She glowed with heat, standing tall in the aftermath of what she had taken-what he had given. Her magic was rising within her, poised to turn heat into power. She let out a centering breath, flexing her fingers slightly.
"What makes you think your luck will be any better than Rolly's with this missing map of yours?"
Torsten's lips curled. He exhaled, slow and knowing. "Unlike Rolly," he murmured, "I pay my magician."
Ingbord reached for her knife resting on the bedside table and moved to the center of the chamber. She shut her eyes, letting the details of the map settle in her mind. Then, with slow, practiced movements, she knelt and traced an imaginary circle on the ground with the tip of the blade. She murmured more words in the old tongue, tracing graceful symbols in the air with her fingers.
With the edge of her knife, Ingbord pressed a shallow cut into her thumb, just enough to bring a drop of bright and glistening blood to the surface. She brought her hand to her lips and licked the drop of blood away, swallowing the taste of iron, the final piece of fuel for the ritual.
A hush fell over the chamber. The temperature dropped, subtle at first, then sharper, like a creeping frost. Torsten shivered but did not move. He had seen Ingbord Seek before. He trusted her, but it never failed to unsettle him, the way the air seemed to pull inward, the way the heat in the room was sucked away, leaving his fingers chilled and making frosty puffs of his breath.
Ingbord breathed in deeply, feeling the power coil through her, wrapping around her limbs like an unseen current. Her breath slowed, her pupils blown wide as her vision blurred, then sharpened into something more. She was not in the room anymore. Not really. Her mind drifted outward, casting into the cold vastness of elsewhere.
She sought.
She drifted through ice-cold channels between waking and dream, her breath shallow, her mind unmoored. The Seeking pulled at her, fueled by the heat she had drawn into herself, stretching her thoughts across the island, over the sea, across leagues unknown, to a place she had never stood but now somehow knew.
A sense of imagined heat pressing against her skin, thick and cloying, so unlike the bracing winds of Eysa. The air was rich with the scent of spice and sweat, roasted meats and perfumed oils. Around her, voices rose in a dozen tongues, bargaining, laughing, arguing.
A market.
A crush of bodies moved through the narrow, sun-drenched streets, bright silks catching the light, headwraps shielding faces from the almost painful brilliance of the sky. The sun here was sharp, relentless, its reflection bouncing off pale stone walls and gilded rooftops. Above it all, a banner fluttered-deep blue, scattered with stars.
She turned. Within her rotating gaze she saw the span of a bridge arched high and graceful over a wide, sluggish river. Beyond that, a vast cathedral, towering, its spires stabbing skyward beyond the market where her Seeking was focused.
She moved-was moved-like a zephyr through the stalls, past hanging tapestries, cages of shrieking birds, baskets of golden fruit.
She cast her vision about, recording details of the unknown city she found herself in. The angle of the sun. A sign above a door. A graceful tree shading a fountain.
Creeping tendrils of cold began to wind along her arms and cheeks. She clenched her fists to hold what heat she could in her hands, moving faster now, seeking within the alien marketplace.
The scent of ink and old parchment curled into her lungs. A bookstall, half-shaded, its wares stacked in careless towers, scrolls tucked between thick, leather-bound tomes.
"Unseen," she whispered, her breath a plume of frost. "Hidden? Lost?"
There.
A single roll of parchment, tightly bound, tucked behind a cracked wooden case.
Gooseflesh bloomed on her arms and chest. "I know where it is," she whispered.
And then, like the tide pulling back from shore, the vision faded and she plunged back into her achingly cold body in an ice-cold room in Torsten's rocky keep.
Ingbord came back to herself in Torsten's bed. She lay there quietly, unmoving, with her eyes closed, feeling cold to her very bones, aware of Torsten's arms around her, wrapping her against the heat of his chest. The heat of his bare flesh pressed against her chilled back almost made the icy aftermath of a Seeking worthwhile. She pressed in closer, winding her legs around his to warm her thighs.
"A sunny mainland city with spires and bridges. Blue banners and a wide, slow river pouring into the sea. That can only be Ilroya," she said, her eyes closed, still holding the bright, vivid picture in her mind's eye.
She felt him nod against her shoulder.
"How long would it take to get there?" she asked quietly.
Torsten let out a slow, whistling breath. "There isn't a boat in Eysa capable of making the trip. I haven't got anything seaworthy enough to make that voyage. It would be a case of taking a rakkar to Othmark and from there hiring passage to Ilroya. Ten days to get to Othmark by rakkar, probably. Maybe another dozen to get to Ilroya by ship. A little longer coming back."
"How much," she asked, still unmoving, "would it cost to hire passage from Othmark to Ilroya?"
Torsten paused. "Perhaps seventy or eighty gold pieces," he said finally.
She exhaled softly. "You haven't got a great deal more than that in all the treasury," she said softly.
"I don't," he admitted.
"It's an outrageous gamble, Torsten," she said. "It would be wagering everything you've got on Rolly's magical scrap of sheepskin." She rolled over and pressed her lips against the hollow of his throat. "Even so. You do need me to go and get that map for you, don't you?"
His grip on her tightened. "Yes." His voice was low, reluctant. "I do."
For a long moment, they just lay there.
She cinched her arms tighter around him and pressed her face more deeply against his neck. "Do you remember the day I left Eysa for the mainland to go to study away?"
Torsten let out a slow breath, his hand stilling against her back. "I do."
"You were watching." It wasn't a question.
"I was." His voice had a quiet, unreadable weight to it. "I saw you from the keep and watched you walk along the quay to the ship." He paused. "It was windy."
"Windy? You remember that it was windy that day?"
He chuckled. "Your hair was untied. You hadn't pulled it back or put on a hat. You looked up, and your hair whipped around your face like tendrils of kelp." He waggled his finger to demonstrate. "You looked like you only decided that you would go at the very last minute, then ran to harbour only half-set. I recall you stopped to turn around three times, bent down to pick something up from the ground. Then you turned three times the other way, flew up the plank in a rush and were gone. "
She smiled faintly against his skin. "You really did watch. It's an old superstition. You turn three times to the left to say goodbye to the home you're leaving. You take a handful of dirt or gravel"—she flexed her fingers slightly, as if feeling phantom stones in her palm—"so you always carry some of Eysa with you. Then you turn three times to the right, to you memorize the home you'll return to."
Torsten was silent for a long time. Then he said, very quietly, "I watched until your ship was over the horizon and I couldn't see it anymore. I counted every day you were gone."
He swallowed.
"One thousand four hundred and fifty-four days."
She closed her eyes, remembering. She had known. She had felt his eyes on her as she boarded the ship, as she left Eysa behind. She had looked back, squinting up at the keep's high balcony, and she had seen a dark figure standing there, barely more than a shadow against the stone.
"I saw you," she admitted. "You waved goodbye."
Torsten shifted, lifting his hand between them. He kissed his palm, then turned it toward her, fingers slowly curling into a fist as he brought his hand back to his chest.
Ingbord swallowed hard.
She knew that gesture too.
Come back, come back safe, and return my kiss to me.
She took his hand and pressed her lips against his knuckles, sealing the promise between them.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Then, quietly, Torsten asked, "Did you hate it?"
She didn't need to ask what he meant.
She exhaled, fingers flexing against his ribs.
"I hated it."
A small, pained noise caught in his throat. Not surprise. Just confirmation.
"I was like a duck away from water. I was homesick every day. I missed home horribly. I missed you more. I counted the days backward—the days until I could come home. They say the mainland is all sunshine and flowers, but I hardly got to see it. Students at the university live like monks. We got up early, ate cold food in the dark, worked like churls at chores, studied until after dark, then dropped into bed hungry. I slept in a cold, hard little bed with no heat and no room for company. Not that many were even willing, anyway. I was a lumbering barbarian in a sturdy wool dress, while the other girls had silks and pink ribbons. They made fun of my accent. My boots. My lack of... culture. They mocked me for being too quiet. They mocked me for not being quiet enough. I never fit in. I was never quite right."
Torsten's arms tightened around her. He didn't quite laugh, but something close to it. "Ingbord," he murmured. "Pretty feathers they may have had, but those silly little mainland girls could never be more than a clutch of waddling, quacking ducks."
His fingers brushed her cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"A cygnet," he said, voice quiet, reverent. "That's what you were."
She stilled.
Her throat tightened.
Even when she had felt lowest and loneliest, even when she had been across the sea, she had always known Torsten was thinking of her, and that he had always thought the best of her.
Ingbord pressed closer, pressing her lips against his collarbone, against his pulse, against anything she could reach.
Fifty days or more away. A trifle compared to the thousand and a half she had already endured.
Torsten stood barefoot by a low table where a simple meal had been set. He looked up, his gaze landing on Ingbord as she entered, his smile was one of quick bright welcome-and something else - a quick flash of relief and a flush of heat softening the planes of his face.
Ingbord lifted her chin, meeting his gaze, bold but playful. "You wanted me?"
Torsten's mouth curled, just slightly, equally playful. "I do."
It might have been the wind, or the volcano's breath moving about the keep. Or perhaps Eoin didn't quite stifle a sigh as he shut the door behind them. The latch clicked quietly into place, sealing them inside.
Torsten smiled quickly as the heavy door clicked shut behind Eoin's smirking presence. "I do hope the escort made some effort to behave himself."
She shook her head in amusement, eyeing the table. "I hope you have something nice for me, Torsten. I was just about to have lunch when I was pulled away, and magic is rather hungry work."
Torsten's smile deepened. "Cranky magicians are a menace only a fool would entertain. I think I understand the importance of keeping my Magician satisfied. Perhaps I can persuade you to forget lunch and have an early supper with me instead? It's not my intent for you to go wanting."
Ingbord lips quirked at the double meaning but sat, accepting the offering. A light meal had been laid out-bread, cheese, slices of cured fish. He poured her a cup of weak ale and took a seat beside her, tearing off a piece of bread more to keep her company than out of real hunger.
They spoke of small things-news from the harbor, the latest foolishness at court-conversation easy between them, laced with familiarity and affection. But she did not miss the way his fingers tapped idly against the table, the way his eyes flicked over the room, always coming back to her face. There was a purpose to this visit, and the space between them was growing thick with it. The room was growing warmer, and Torsten was growing restless.
"You had Eoin fetch me to your chambers with instructions to tell me you wanted a Seeking," she said, setting her cup aside. "Let's not dally further." She stood, shrugging off her cloak and fixing Torsten with a level gaze.
"You know my price. Are you prepared to pay it?"
Torsten closed his eyes for a moment. "I do."
A beat later, softer, "I am."
It was not reluctance. He wanted the Seeking, yes, but he wanted her too, always had, always would. He was not unfamiliar with how a Seeking worked. The ritual stripped away the tenderness he craved, but not the desire. His body responded before she even touched him, before she stepped close and pressed against him, before she tugged at the laces of his tunic and slid her fingers over his belt. By the time he cupped the curve of her waist and pulled her tighter, he was more than ready to pay her price.
She did not tease. This was not for love, whispered endearments or lingering caresses. This was for the Seeking, and she took him to his bed without hesitation, taking from him what was needed.
He let her press him down, let her strip him bare. He lay back, arms above his head as she shed her own garments and straddled his hips. Her palms pressed flat against his chest as she murmured words in the old language-words of offering, of binding, of agreement. The same words she had asked of him moments before, spoken now in ritual. A gift of himself, freely given, in exchange for her Seeking. He nodded once, then felt her-hot and wet as she guided him inside. She breathed in sharply, adjusting, settling over him with a slow, deliberate motion.
Torsten gritted his teeth, fingers flexing against her hips. He wanted to drag this out, to roll her beneath him and take his time, but she set the pace, and he let her. He closed his eyes, surrendering to it. To her. The rhythm she set was steady, unhurried, each roll of her hips drawing him closer, pulling him under. He gripped her thighs, his fingers pressing firm into her skin, but he did not try to control her. He let himself be taken, let himself give. And when she flexed around him, working him with that subtle, knowing pressure, it was too much. He gasped, his body tightening, and then pleasure overtook him, spilling through him in waves.
Afterward, they lay together, the afternoon light slanting through the high windows. His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek, his skin hot where she rested, cooling rapidly everywhere else. She traced idle patterns against his ribs before murmuring, "Tell me what it is you seek."
Torsten exhaled slowly. "It's a map."
She lifted her head to look at him.
"A map of Eysa and the waters around it, drawn in great detail. It marks the city of Vardvik, the smaller towns, the volcano, the best vents. About an arm's length wide and half as tall." He gestured the dimensions with his hands. "In the lower left-hand corner, southwest on the map, there is a blazing sun, inscribed in real gold. My grandfather, King Rolly, commissioned it from his Magician. Both he and the map have been missing for decades."
Ingbord nodded. "Sverri," she said, being well-acquainted with the sequence of Eysa's magicians. "Hmm. His magic allowed him to see details hidden from view. Do you know why Rolly would have commissioned such a thing?"
"Rolly never told me his reasons," Torsten admitted. "I was only a boy when he told me the story of it. Both Sverri and the map had been missing for decades by then. But he was not a man who did things without purpose." His fingers trailed absently over Ingbord's bare shoulder. "Eysa is poor. It has always been poor. I think he hoped the map would show him the way to change that."
He let that hang between them. "Perhaps he wanted to open new trade routes," Torsten continued, keeping his voice even. "Or maybe he just wanted to see Eysa as it truly is. A king should know the shape of his own land, shouldn't he?"
He turned his head to meet her gaze, hoping it was enough truth to satisfy her.
"Do you have anything that belonged to Rolly? Something personal, that was his?" asked Ingbord.
In answer, Torsten pulled a ring off his finger and gave it to Ingbord. "This was Rolly's before it came to me."
Ingbord brought the ring to her lips, tasting the bright gold with a quick flick of her tongue, then slipped it onto her own finger.
She closed her eyes, focusing, drawing her awareness into the band.
But the ring held nothing of Rolly. Only Torsten. A driving pulse. Echoes of longing, simmering, but never truly gone. A restless and frustrated energy pushing him forward. She caught recent flickers of his day- a sea breeze there, a moment of boredom there, the touch of her hand on his bare skin. But nothing older than him, nothing of the man who had worn the ring before.
She opened her eyes. "I need something closer to him. More personal."
Torsten hesitated, just for a moment. Then nodded. The furs shifted as he rose, unhurried and unselfconscious. The chamber was warm from the vents, and his skin still held the heat of their joining, gold in the afternoon light slanting through the high windows. He stretched briefly-just a shift of his shoulders, a flex of his back-and crossed the room with shameless ease.
At his desk, he opened a carved wooden box and withdrew something small, dark, and smooth. He turned the polished stone over in his fingers as he carried it back to her, slipping back under the covers beside her once more.
He pressed it into her palm. "Rolly carried it everywhere."
She weighed it in her hand, feeling the dense, polished surface. Cool, despite the warmth of the room. Hematite. She brought it to her lips, the iron-slick taste of it spreading across her tongue before she closed her fingers around it and let herself sink into its echoes.
The impression came quickly this time. Rolly. Sharp-minded, supicious and cagey. Thoughts like a locked chest, heavy and secretive. Ambition and thirst pressed hard into the weight of the stone. A longing for more, always more. A sense of discontent, flavoured with bitterness and desire for power.
"Do you know what Sverri's price was?"
"Allegedly, a hundred gold pieces."
Both Ingbord's brows rose in rare surprise. "A hundred gold pieces. That's...staggering. Could Rolly have paid it?
Torsten exhaled; tone dry. "Doubtful. I'd be hard-pressed to scrape together a hundred gold from the treasury today. I can't see how Rolly could have made good on the deal. And since I didn't inherit an empty treasury, I suspect Sverri never saw a single coin."
"One last thing," Ingbord said, slipping from the bed in a liquid motion. She stretched her arms high above her head, preparing. Torsten watched her, still sprawled on the bed, his body heavy with satisfaction, but his pulse quickening again at the sight of her. She glowed with heat, standing tall in the aftermath of what she had taken-what he had given. Her magic was rising within her, poised to turn heat into power. She let out a centering breath, flexing her fingers slightly.
"What makes you think your luck will be any better than Rolly's with this missing map of yours?"
Torsten's lips curled. He exhaled, slow and knowing. "Unlike Rolly," he murmured, "I pay my magician."
Ingbord reached for her knife resting on the bedside table and moved to the center of the chamber. She shut her eyes, letting the details of the map settle in her mind. Then, with slow, practiced movements, she knelt and traced an imaginary circle on the ground with the tip of the blade. She murmured more words in the old tongue, tracing graceful symbols in the air with her fingers.
With the edge of her knife, Ingbord pressed a shallow cut into her thumb, just enough to bring a drop of bright and glistening blood to the surface. She brought her hand to her lips and licked the drop of blood away, swallowing the taste of iron, the final piece of fuel for the ritual.
A hush fell over the chamber. The temperature dropped, subtle at first, then sharper, like a creeping frost. Torsten shivered but did not move. He had seen Ingbord Seek before. He trusted her, but it never failed to unsettle him, the way the air seemed to pull inward, the way the heat in the room was sucked away, leaving his fingers chilled and making frosty puffs of his breath.
Ingbord breathed in deeply, feeling the power coil through her, wrapping around her limbs like an unseen current. Her breath slowed, her pupils blown wide as her vision blurred, then sharpened into something more. She was not in the room anymore. Not really. Her mind drifted outward, casting into the cold vastness of elsewhere.
She sought.
She drifted through ice-cold channels between waking and dream, her breath shallow, her mind unmoored. The Seeking pulled at her, fueled by the heat she had drawn into herself, stretching her thoughts across the island, over the sea, across leagues unknown, to a place she had never stood but now somehow knew.
A sense of imagined heat pressing against her skin, thick and cloying, so unlike the bracing winds of Eysa. The air was rich with the scent of spice and sweat, roasted meats and perfumed oils. Around her, voices rose in a dozen tongues, bargaining, laughing, arguing.
A market.
A crush of bodies moved through the narrow, sun-drenched streets, bright silks catching the light, headwraps shielding faces from the almost painful brilliance of the sky. The sun here was sharp, relentless, its reflection bouncing off pale stone walls and gilded rooftops. Above it all, a banner fluttered-deep blue, scattered with stars.
She turned. Within her rotating gaze she saw the span of a bridge arched high and graceful over a wide, sluggish river. Beyond that, a vast cathedral, towering, its spires stabbing skyward beyond the market where her Seeking was focused.
She moved-was moved-like a zephyr through the stalls, past hanging tapestries, cages of shrieking birds, baskets of golden fruit.
She cast her vision about, recording details of the unknown city she found herself in. The angle of the sun. A sign above a door. A graceful tree shading a fountain.
Creeping tendrils of cold began to wind along her arms and cheeks. She clenched her fists to hold what heat she could in her hands, moving faster now, seeking within the alien marketplace.
The scent of ink and old parchment curled into her lungs. A bookstall, half-shaded, its wares stacked in careless towers, scrolls tucked between thick, leather-bound tomes.
"Unseen," she whispered, her breath a plume of frost. "Hidden? Lost?"
There.
A single roll of parchment, tightly bound, tucked behind a cracked wooden case.
Gooseflesh bloomed on her arms and chest. "I know where it is," she whispered.
And then, like the tide pulling back from shore, the vision faded and she plunged back into her achingly cold body in an ice-cold room in Torsten's rocky keep.
Ingbord came back to herself in Torsten's bed. She lay there quietly, unmoving, with her eyes closed, feeling cold to her very bones, aware of Torsten's arms around her, wrapping her against the heat of his chest. The heat of his bare flesh pressed against her chilled back almost made the icy aftermath of a Seeking worthwhile. She pressed in closer, winding her legs around his to warm her thighs.
"A sunny mainland city with spires and bridges. Blue banners and a wide, slow river pouring into the sea. That can only be Ilroya," she said, her eyes closed, still holding the bright, vivid picture in her mind's eye.
She felt him nod against her shoulder.
"How long would it take to get there?" she asked quietly.
Torsten let out a slow, whistling breath. "There isn't a boat in Eysa capable of making the trip. I haven't got anything seaworthy enough to make that voyage. It would be a case of taking a rakkar to Othmark and from there hiring passage to Ilroya. Ten days to get to Othmark by rakkar, probably. Maybe another dozen to get to Ilroya by ship. A little longer coming back."
"How much," she asked, still unmoving, "would it cost to hire passage from Othmark to Ilroya?"
Torsten paused. "Perhaps seventy or eighty gold pieces," he said finally.
She exhaled softly. "You haven't got a great deal more than that in all the treasury," she said softly.
"I don't," he admitted.
"It's an outrageous gamble, Torsten," she said. "It would be wagering everything you've got on Rolly's magical scrap of sheepskin." She rolled over and pressed her lips against the hollow of his throat. "Even so. You do need me to go and get that map for you, don't you?"
His grip on her tightened. "Yes." His voice was low, reluctant. "I do."
For a long moment, they just lay there.
She cinched her arms tighter around him and pressed her face more deeply against his neck. "Do you remember the day I left Eysa for the mainland to go to study away?"
Torsten let out a slow breath, his hand stilling against her back. "I do."
"You were watching." It wasn't a question.
"I was." His voice had a quiet, unreadable weight to it. "I saw you from the keep and watched you walk along the quay to the ship." He paused. "It was windy."
"Windy? You remember that it was windy that day?"
He chuckled. "Your hair was untied. You hadn't pulled it back or put on a hat. You looked up, and your hair whipped around your face like tendrils of kelp." He waggled his finger to demonstrate. "You looked like you only decided that you would go at the very last minute, then ran to harbour only half-set. I recall you stopped to turn around three times, bent down to pick something up from the ground. Then you turned three times the other way, flew up the plank in a rush and were gone. "
She smiled faintly against his skin. "You really did watch. It's an old superstition. You turn three times to the left to say goodbye to the home you're leaving. You take a handful of dirt or gravel"—she flexed her fingers slightly, as if feeling phantom stones in her palm—"so you always carry some of Eysa with you. Then you turn three times to the right, to you memorize the home you'll return to."
Torsten was silent for a long time. Then he said, very quietly, "I watched until your ship was over the horizon and I couldn't see it anymore. I counted every day you were gone."
He swallowed.
"One thousand four hundred and fifty-four days."
She closed her eyes, remembering. She had known. She had felt his eyes on her as she boarded the ship, as she left Eysa behind. She had looked back, squinting up at the keep's high balcony, and she had seen a dark figure standing there, barely more than a shadow against the stone.
"I saw you," she admitted. "You waved goodbye."
Torsten shifted, lifting his hand between them. He kissed his palm, then turned it toward her, fingers slowly curling into a fist as he brought his hand back to his chest.
Ingbord swallowed hard.
She knew that gesture too.
Come back, come back safe, and return my kiss to me.
She took his hand and pressed her lips against his knuckles, sealing the promise between them.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Then, quietly, Torsten asked, "Did you hate it?"
She didn't need to ask what he meant.
She exhaled, fingers flexing against his ribs.
"I hated it."
A small, pained noise caught in his throat. Not surprise. Just confirmation.
"I was like a duck away from water. I was homesick every day. I missed home horribly. I missed you more. I counted the days backward—the days until I could come home. They say the mainland is all sunshine and flowers, but I hardly got to see it. Students at the university live like monks. We got up early, ate cold food in the dark, worked like churls at chores, studied until after dark, then dropped into bed hungry. I slept in a cold, hard little bed with no heat and no room for company. Not that many were even willing, anyway. I was a lumbering barbarian in a sturdy wool dress, while the other girls had silks and pink ribbons. They made fun of my accent. My boots. My lack of... culture. They mocked me for being too quiet. They mocked me for not being quiet enough. I never fit in. I was never quite right."
Torsten's arms tightened around her. He didn't quite laugh, but something close to it. "Ingbord," he murmured. "Pretty feathers they may have had, but those silly little mainland girls could never be more than a clutch of waddling, quacking ducks."
His fingers brushed her cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"A cygnet," he said, voice quiet, reverent. "That's what you were."
She stilled.
Her throat tightened.
Even when she had felt lowest and loneliest, even when she had been across the sea, she had always known Torsten was thinking of her, and that he had always thought the best of her.
Ingbord pressed closer, pressing her lips against his collarbone, against his pulse, against anything she could reach.
Fifty days or more away. A trifle compared to the thousand and a half she had already endured.