Queen of Ashes │ Season 1 │The Journey

25 │The Ivy Forest

Freya felt numb and null of any emotions. At first, she was furious at Leander for hiding this crucial information from her for so long. The sting of betrayal was there—a painful reminder of a trust put in the wrong hands. After a moment though, it was like her mind decided to cut off her feelings completely, as a way of self-preservation, perhaps.

She knew something was wrong with her. Any other person would get angry, fall into the abyss of violence and despair, maybe break some things, or yell at people. Let themselves grieve... Why wasn't she like that? Why all she could feel was the emptiness?

Freya wanted to be angry. She wanted to feel frustrated. She wanted to yell at Leander, and she wanted to cry in silence. Why wasn't she able to do that, though? Because she was a princess? Because she was her father's daughter? Deep inside, Freya felt it wasn't that simple. No matter the way she was raised, who she was exactly—in the end, it didn't matter. Princess or not, she was a human being, capable of various emotions, and the right emotion right now was any emotion. Not—not feeling at all.

They were now deep into the Ivy Forest. For the past two days, they were traveling in silence. Giselle made some attempts at trying to talk to her, but Freya refused to speak. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Giselle's worried glances and her brief conversations with the Vampire Prince. Freya didn't act on that fact, though. Whatever they talked about, she wasn't interested.

She held Frida's reins and looked straight ahead. By now, she had used to night travels—her vision already sharper and ears more sensitive to the sounds of life playing in the dark. It was interesting—this state of enhanced senses. Marvelous how her body tuned to the different rhythm. Never in her life Freya would've predicted that her body could tune with nature even more.

Alone with her thoughts, she compared her knowledge with her own observations of the eerie land they were riding through. People used to say the Ivy Forest was impenetrable. So thick and dark that nobody could explore it. So far, though, they didn't have any problems. They rode through it like through any forest and they didn't meet any of the strange creatures some people talked about. Freya felt that most of the things said about that land were just some work of people's imagination. She noticed the vampires' quietness and watchful eye, but she didn't feel being in any danger.

Her eyelids were close to droop just as Leander called for a camp. Finally. She wanted nothing more than to dismount and stretch her sore muscles. This journey had started to take its toll on her. She was used to long travels, but that so far was the longest in her whole twenty-five years of life. She was tired, and she missed her family.

Oh, gods. Her family.

The dark emptiness of her soul was long forgotten. At that very moment, Freya felt a sharp pain in her chest, like her heart stopped beating all of a sudden.

Her family.

She was never going to see her family again, wasn't she? There would be no time to persuade her spouse. There would be no time to travel this enormous distance between their courts again, even if she somehow managed to do so. She'd be probably long gone then, leaving only blood and a single, motherless child behind her.

Their goodbye was indeed, their forever goodbye... And just like that, the mere realization broke her.

The motion of dismounting and reaching for the saddlebags came in a blur. It felt like her body wasn't her own, being possessed by sorrow. She needed to be alone now. Freya couldn't allow the rest of them to see her like that. She aimed for the bushes without a word, hoping that her company assumed she was going to relieve herself.,

There wasn't any path that could lead her through the thick flora, but she felt like the forest knew well what she needed and helped her find the most optimal routes. Her knees were threatening to bow at any moment, so Freya had to help herself with the support of the surrounding branches and tree trucks. Finally, a small lake came into view with an aura so eerie that a person in their right mind should become vary in an instant and turn back. Freya couldn't see that blinded by her grief and the need to let her emotions go.