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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
FREYA HELVAR HAD just turned seventeen when yet another heartbreak had been delivered to her on a silver platter. It was mere days after she had finally earned her colours and received her first kefta. Finally, she had a kefta that meant more than simply symbolism. Something that was meant for more than pleasing the King.
She was led to the General's war room by Ivan, who had recently become one of the General's favourites – the bear claw amplifier hung around his neck was proof of that. His stern face remained as grim as ever, and he did not speak a single word the entire way.
Freya wasn't entirely sure why the General was calling her to him. She was not in command of the regiment she had been assigned to, and would not be for years if she ever actually reached such a rank. She did not know what he needed to tell her. All she knew from Ivan was that it was regarding the place where she was to be sent. The dark wood door at the end of the hall came to view faster than Freya had thought it would. She barely had time to sort her own thoughts before Ivan knocked on it and the General's voice called for her to come in.
She did so, turning back to the door for only a short moment to watch as Ivan shut it behind her. A deep inhale was enough to steel her for the moment, and she stepped further into the room. Her hands folded behind her back and she straightened her spine.
The General sat in a chair behind his mahogany desk.
"Moi soverenyi, you asked for me?" The General looked up from a piece of paper in his hand. There was a deep furrow between his brows, a show of his concentration. He set the document down and stood from his seat. He walked around the desk and towards her, eventually stopping a few feet in front of her.
"Yes, I did," he began, looking her up and down. For a moment, she thought she saw sympathy flash through his eyes. A cold hand gripped Freya's heart. "Your regiment is being sent to the Fjerdan front. I trust this won't be an issue."
Her breath caught in her throat when he said the words. The Fjerdan front. The battleground that separated from her home. From the burned-down village where she had grown up in. From the last of her family. The place that was forever marked in her memory by her father's death. They wanted her to go fight there now, to use her powers to help Ravka by killing her own people. Tears gathered in her eyes as she stared at the General.
Was Fjerda even her home anymore? She had spent a greater portion of her life in the Little Palace, the accent she had once had was almost gone, and she rarely followed any Fjerdan traditions. She had few Fjerdan friends here too, and most of them had forgotten about their homeland because of the way they would have ended up if they had stayed there. How she would have ended up if her powers had manifested in any other moment.
Freya had never realized her luck until now. She would have been dead, burned for being a witch. And her father might've shed a tear or two, but he wouldn't have stopped it.
