He looked cute, very boyish and even younger than his eleven (I’d learned) years.

I was giving him distance and time so he could concentrate.

I was also trying not to think of my husband and his men off on their adventure, something I didn’t even try to talk Frey into allowing me to participate in. I was okay on a horse and now wasn’t a total amateur with a bow and knife but I’d had not that first lesson in being stealthy or participating in a raid and was in no way experienced enough with the limited skills I had to try them out on a mission as important as this.

So, three nights ago we set anchor and without delay, under the moonlight, the men lowered a boat into the water and rowed ashore.

Frey said the operation, if it went well, would take five or six days. One would be spent on travel, three or four would be spent on gathering updated intel and reconnaissance, then they’d do the deed (hopefully) and it would take a day to come back.

Then we were again away, back to Lunwyn so that Frey could meet with Ruben to hear his report on how his business went. And after that, Frey gave me the choice of seeing his lodge, his chalet, his fishing cottage, travelling to one of his foreign properties or returning to his hunting cabin.

I was still considering this choice and about every other minute I settled on a different location.

But I had time to think about it.

And hopefully I would have a lifetime to experience them all.

Before he left, Frey had decided how I would work through Skylar’s discomfort and I thought his decision was excellent.

That was for me to teach Skylar reading and math.

Kell had taken an interest in the boy but Kell, being Kell, had not devoted his days to these endeavors. Therefore, whenever the fancy struck him, he would work with Skylar.

I had learned in short order after Frey called Skylar to his cabin and told him he would begin tutorials with me that the fancy hadn’t struck Kell often. I also learned that if Skylar was uncomfortable around me normally, the thought of me teaching him anything terrified him and, even though he fought to hide it, especially in front of Frey, he didn’t succeed. Lastly, upon gently instigating some simple exercises, I found his skills were rudimentary at best. But at least we weren’t starting from the drawing board.

The first two tutorials began with Frey in attendance but he didn’t stay long, leaving the boy with me after Skylar’s attention was turned from his fear to his work. The ensuing days without Frey it took me longer to settle him in. But today he was settled and I was giving him space to work through his assignment without me hovering.

And I was thinking about Frey, where he was, what he was doing, if he was safe and lastly, the two days we shared before he and his men rowed away.

To say the adela tea heightened our awareness of each other was a vast understatement.

And it didn’t only succeed in this sexually but in every way.

In our short time together, I’d attuned to Frey’s moods, tones and learned his expressions. Now I read him easily just with a glance at the line of his frame, the set of his jaw or the look in his eye.

And there was something so superbly intimate about this it was hard to take in, the immense beauty of it, the intense feeling of connection with the man you loved. Not only being so attuned to Frey but knowing he was just that attuned to me. It did not make me feel exposed, it made me feel safe, protected, like I belonged somewhere and to someone and, since my parents died, throughout all my roaming, I had not felt either.

It was a beautiful thing to have back, a treasure, the best gift I’d ever received.

For Frey, post-adela tea meant something more. He was the kind of man who was not afraid of showing gentleness and affection but he was also the kind of man who had things to do and he did them. But after our afternoon in his cabin, more often than not he wanted to do these things with me close.

Therefore, his last day aboard, as we stood behind the wheel on the bridge deck, his hands on the spiked handles, me in front of him, we sailed the emerald waters of the Green Sea, our eyes on the horizon. As we did, Frey often bent to speak to me, his mouth at my ear, or, if I had something to say, I turned to him, my mouth at his and we whispered to each other for hours.

It was magnificent, not what we said so much as how we did it.

And I’d learned why he received his salutes from men of fist to chin and from women of chin to neck. The fist to chin was the salute of The Drakkar, a manly salute. The chin to neck was the salute of The Frey, considered a feminine salute. These were his due, as if he was king, and if anyone caught his eye, they were obligated to give it to him.

I’d also learned that he didn’t get these salutes from the people of Houllebec because the first adela tree, the most sacred one in all of Lunwyn, was in the forest close to the village and thus why he had his hunting cabin there and often where he met with the elves. He was there regularly, if not often. Because of this, most of his men had cottages there. And he had long since communicated to the villagers that they did not have to salute. This was something he found tedious for if they saluted, he’d have to return a nod and he did not enjoy walking through the village or having a horn of ale at a pub and constantly needing to meet eyes and tip his chin.

I could totally see that. At the Winter Palace practically everyone bobbed a curtsy to me. I was cool with smiling and saying “hi” but those curtsies felt weird, seeing as I was not born a princess and did not grow up being entitled to them. And acknowledging required more effort than a smile or a passing “hello”. It didn’t actually require it, but it seemed to and I guessed (and shared this with Frey, who concurred) that it was the constant reminder of my responsibilities as princess and the fact that their show of respect was required, not earned, that made it so.

During our talk Frey had asked (and I’d answered) about what Princess Sjofn had shared with me in her letter. We’d also discussed why she did not relate the information that he was The Frey or The Drakkar or various other tidbits that would have been extremely helpful to know such as, say, someone had tried to assassinate her.

Although we discussed this (at length) neither of us came up with an answer and eventually I gently closed the conversation. This was because it was clear Sjofn was not Frey’s favorite person. It was not that he wasn’t pleased with the outcome of her play but because he was seriously displeased that in making it, she committed what was considered an act of treason against the realm and he was not a big fan of how and when she’d maneuvered my entry into their world.