Queen of Ashes │ Season 1 │The Journey

4 │The lake experience

All the honey milk in the world couldn't help Freya's fast-beating heart. Giselle, seeing her mistress's uneasiness, tried to calm her down with a hot drink.

It did not help.

So now, sweaty and disheveled, Freya anxiously got out of bed, wondering what to do with herself. She couldn't sleep, but she couldn't quite afford a brief ride with Frida. It was still the middle of the night.

Without thinking, she grabbed a robe and left the chamber while putting it on. The corridors were dark and empty. She was sure she wouldn't meet anyone except guards on her way at that hour, so she didn't have to worry about her appearance. Besides, not as if it mattered anymore. Not when she was about to leave this place, supposedly forever.

The thought made her sick.

As she walked forward, she tried to steady her breathing.

There was no time to panic.

On the other hand, though, when was it supposed to be? On her way to a new home? When she finally met the man she was going to marry? Or when a heavy crown that should never be hers was put on her head? Maybe, given that, a moment of perturbation didn't sound so reprehensible after all?

She turned toward the palace gardens.

What she had heard from her father mercilessly scared her. She would never have found out, but these special circumstances in which they were placed made him confess something that in this kingdom only a few people knew about.

She recalled all of her bedtime stories—the stories about creatures and lands so very different from the world she was raised in. Back then, she considered them mesmerizing, fascinating, and enviable. Even the scary ones, which somehow she was enjoying the most just like the curious and bold child she was. Now, she got to know that probably all of them carried some sort of truth. Who knows, maybe they were even real in the majority.

Vampires existed.

And not only them. Other creatures as well.

Her father had told her that he had only met a couple of them in his lifetime. Back then, as a future king, he traveled a lot meeting varied sorts of people and creatures on the way. Some of them were hostile, some were amicable, but they all had one thing in common.

They were living in hiding.

Freya was curious. Why live this way when you have so much power over other species? With all those special powers and magic around them, it was humans who should live as their subordinates. Somehow though, the world looked different. Humans thrived. Why?

Her father had an answer. One she didn't like at first.

No dominance was worth so much bloodshed, and so many lives lost during war. It was indeed, human inadequacy to almost worship all that made life cruel and filled with constant sorrow. From what she had learned from her father, most of the other creatures despised humans so much, that they preferred to live more plainly than risk all that was most precious for just a fragile promise of prosperity. They lived in small groups hidden in thick woods, islands, or lands no human wanted to colonize. Freya had to admit, she admired it in a way.

What made her confused, though, was the very situation she found herself in. Wasn't it strange to demand a human woman as a bride when simultaneously despising her kind so much? Her father couldn't give her an answer to that question but they both knew, that, whatever the reason, she was probably going to meet a very unpleasant future.

As a vampire queen.

Now, a jittery Freya had to deal somehow with the emotions that were swirling inside her. She had never been so scared. She had never felt so much resentment toward someone she had never met. Freya felt disappointed in her grandfather's attitude and she truly couldn't understand what must have had happened for him to make such a deal.