The name Siren followed Freya Helvar around like a curse from the moment her powers first manifested in a raid on her village. With the image of her father's charred corpse and her brother's disgusted face on her mind, she is hauled to the Little Pa...
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FREYA HAD BEEN placed into a tent with a few female First Army soldiers. When she requested it, Leanne was brought to that tent as well. The military camp was gritty and morbid on the best day, and Leanne was already uncomfortable around all the new people. Freya was the only one she knew besides Harshaw, but the Inferni was bedridden, and Leanne wouldn't have been allowed to sleep in the medical tent anyway.
When Freya woke on the third day of their stay in the military camp, it was raining outside. The chill from the northern rain had seeped in through the tent canvas. It left Freya shivering even beneath the blankets she had. She quickly dressed in warmer clothes and through her kefta over her shoulder.
The other soldiers and Leanne were still sleeping. It must've been far earlier in the morning than Freya thought. Still, the camp was already alive when she left the tent. Military encampments never truly slept. Freya knew that as well as any other soldier. How many times had she not slept for days? Held the night's watch or returned from a mission so early that going to sleep was pointless? More times than she cared to recall.
Rain instantly matted Freya's hair to her head, turning the pale blonde to a dark grey. She inhaled deeply, taking in the fresh air. Breakfast was first on her agenda. Her stomach was growling at her as if she hadn't eaten in three weeks.
The small run-down building where they served food used to be the town hall of whatever small town had stood here before the war razed it to the ground. Its bleak stone walls were crumbling, and the roof barely held together. But it was still the driest place in the entirety of the camp and the largest structure still standing. It made for the perfect place for the soldiers to convene for food. Or to receive orders, if need be.
There were plenty of soldiers already sitting around the makeshift tables. As always, they were laughing joyously, as if a war was not being fought just outside. It was good, Freya thought, that they could relax like this. At least a little bit.
She received her food quickly – a strange bland mesh of mashed potatoes and something she would rather not know about. There were no other Second Army soldiers at this camp. Freya felt out of place whenever she entered situations such as this. She stood in the centre of the room and. She did not know where to sit. She did not want to impose on the First Army soldiers. Many of them disliked Grisha at best and despised them at worst.
At times like this, she felt like a child again. Where will I sit? It was a question she had asked herself many times when she first arrived at the Little Palace. She didn't know anyone back then, just as she did not know anyone here now. Nikolai and a few of his friends from the Twenty-Second regiment were the only ones that had bothered to converse with her. But with the awkward situation with Nikolai in the medical tent three days back, Freya did not know if she wanted to talk to him.
It was embarrassing how flustered she got whenever her thoughts drifted to it. The memory of his hot breath on her face and his arms on the skin of her abdomen. His body pressed so close to hers that she felt every movement of his muscles. He had gotten stronger and taller since she had seen him last at the royal hunt she had known that. But she hadn't realised how much until he was there so close to her. Again, she could feel heat blooming across her cheeks and neck at the thought of his broad shoulders, his muscular chest and the tight and firm feel of his arms.
