Queen Eira’s face contorted into an expression of pure fury. When she finally collected herself enough to speak her voice shook, “You betray me too, Erik? You’re family has served mine for centuries. I would have never guessed you for a turncoat.”

“Well that makes you a fool,” Erik’s voice was bitter, “I turned on you the moment you had your own daughter executed. There was unrest before that. You ruled graciously at first, and as you grew more tyrannical there were more and more who wished to stop you. When you had Amora killed I started the uprising. You’re so blind to what goes on around you, it wasn’t hard. You’ve made a lot of enemies among your own people, your majesty. And you sealed your fate the moment you killed my Amora.”

Her voice was flat, “So that’s it? You doom yourself over a fling with my daughter? I tolerated that, Erik. You both knew you had no future. You’re a common guard and she’s a princess.”

“And you still talk about her as if she’s alive,” Erik snarled, “you’re crazy. But you know that, don’t you?”

The Queen straightened up and called out to Erik’s men, ignoring him, “If you all come with me now, I will grant you pardons. We will speak no more of this.”

There was only laughter from the rebels, and a few men shouted at her,

“Well thanks, your majesty!
                “Oh! A pardon, really? You mean I can go back to serving? How gracious!”

More laughter and cat calls. The Queen had begun to turn a light shade of red.

Erik grinned, “You see? My men want nothing to do with you! Anger does not become you, your majesty.”

Again she ignored him, turning to me with an imploring look, “Amora, my love. Avoid bloodshed and come with me.”

After all she had done, after openly admitting to killing her daughter. After threatening to kill my friends, how could she have the nerve to stand here and call me “my love”? All of my anger was rising to the surface as I stared at her. Finally it came flooding out, “Stop calling me that!”

The rebel’s cat calls died away. The Queen actually flinched back, and I realized that I’d pretty much just screamed in her face. Anger still fueled me though, making me bold.

“I am not your dead daughter! So stop projecting your guilt onto me! I am not Amora! My name is Megan. I’m seventeen years old, and I never knew my real mother. All I wanted to do is graduate soon, maybe go to prom, where I’ll sit on the wall, ‘cause I can’t dance. I didn’t expect this! I didn’t ask for this! I don’t want it! I don’t want to be your princess. I don’t want to lead anyone into war. I want nothing to do with you, because I think you’re evil!” The last word came out high and strained, and I was aware that I sounded slightly hysterical. So much for a powerful speech.

The Queen actually looked hurt, and before it could change to anger Erik stepped in, “We have even forces here,” he said loudly, “so be sensible Eira. You can waste your soldiers on us, and have considerably less for the ridiculous battle you plan to go ahead with, or you can leave unscathed. We just want to be left alone, and so does Megan.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, then looked straight ahead at the rebels, “Fine,” she spat, “Go then traitors. All of you are deemed traitors to the crown, every last one! If my soldiers see any of you around the palace, they will have orders to kill on sight. You are all dead to me. Amora too. I will lead the army myself." She looked down at me, " You’re right. You’re not my daughter. She would have never done this to me.”

I stood there open mouthed, chest tight with anger as she wheeled her horse around abruptly and called out to her men, “back to the palace!”

Everyone seemed to remain still until they were out of sight, and then I jumped when a great cheer went up behind me. Turning, I was surprised to see all the rebels coming for me at once, leaping off their horses and charging over. Instinctively I braced myself, but the first one to approach, a lean blonde man with a severe nose, merely shook my hand vigorously, eyes shining with excitement, “What a blow to the Queen!” he cried, “what a loss! Thank you!”

More rebels crowded up behind him, apparently all eager to shake my hand and slap my back and tell me what a great job I’d done. It was confusing and overwhelming, and I just sort of nodded and smiled at everyone, not sure what to say.

Erik laughed, calling down from his horse, “come on men, they’ve had an exhausting day. Let’s show them how we live!”

More cheers, and I was startled when Erik reached down and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me up, apparently effortlessly, into the saddle in front of him. I shot a look over my shoulder as the horse began to move through the trees. Loki was still on the ground, arms crossed over his chest, ignoring the fact that rebels were passing him on either side. He was glaring at Erik’s back. I had to hold back a snort of amusement when one of the women, a huge, strong looking blonde with her hair done in braids, leaned over and hoisted Loki up onto her saddle with her.  She shot a coy look at him, or…at the back of his head to be more precise. Loki, for his part, looked terrified.

Charlotte squeaked when she was picked up, but the dismay quickly turned to delight, and as her horse drew even with mine she gave me a little wave, “Isn’t this exciting?”

I rolled my eyes at her. Trust Charlotte to treat it like a ride in the country. Personally I had never ridden a horse, and I hated it right away. It was lumpy and bumpy and hurt my backside. If Erik hadn’t been right behind me, with his arms on either side of my waist, I’d probably have toppled off the thing by now.

“Sorry we took so long to get to you,” Erik’s voice was low in my ear, making me jump in the saddle, “I tracked your progress from the palace to the woods, but then I had to run and give my men the signal.”

I turned my head so he could hear me properly, “Hey, we’re not complaining. Thanks for the rescue. How long have you been leading a rebel force?” The thought that came after that was: And why didn’t you tell me?

Erik seemed to guess the question without me actually saying it, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I had to be sure you were solidly against the Queen. I couldn’t risk giving my men away until I knew for sure that you were trustworthy. I was going to tell you, that night…” he trailed off, but I knew what he meant. The night we were supposed to go on the walk together, the night he had found Loki in my room.

For a moment there was silence, and I found myself annoyed at how much I was being jostled around. I was trying to think of something to say and the stupid horse was distracting me, “Loki’s okay,” I said, trying to make my voice firm, “he isn’t trying to hurt me.”

Erik’s voice was grim, “We don’t know that yet. We have to be sure.”

My fingers tightened on the horse's main, “What do you mean you have to be sure? What are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” Erik said, and he sounded sort of hurt, “we’ll just ask him questions. We’re not like the Queen, Megan. We’d never torture or kill anyone just because we wanted information or because we didn’t like someone. That’s exactly why I created the rebellion in the first place. To stop those things from happening,” his voice became stronger, he was obviously passionate about his cause, “I was lying when I told her we just wanted to be left alone. That’s not our goal. Our goal is to stop her. To put an end to her reign. We have to stop this stupid war she’s so determined to have. She’s going to destroy herself, and everyone else with her. There are more joining us from the palace every day!”

He fell silent, and we both rode without talking for quite some time. My brain was busy trying to process all of this. What now? Did I stay with the rebels now? Did I ally myself with them and try to bring the Queen down?  It was a good cause, there was no arguing that. But did I have the ability to go into battle against her and her men? I glanced down at my katana. Erik had tied the sheath to the side of the horse, probably fearing that I’d accidently poke his eye out if he let me hold it. Could I kill people if I had to? Swallowing hard, I turned to look straight ahead again. Don’t think about it.

After what felt like hours we emerged from the trees into a little clearing. The snow was suddenly more shallow here, and I realized that someone had been shoveling it into huge drifts around the edge of the woods, almost making it look like the grove was surrounded by a gate of snow. In the center of the clearing was a city of brown tents, all skillfully constructed from animal hides and held up on structures of criss -crossed poles.

Erik’s voice said in my ear, “look up.”

I tilted my head back and gasped. The sun was just starting to come up, and it illuminated everything, casting an almost ethereal light on the woods. They had built a city in the trees. Wooden planking ran from tree to tree, a walkway with railings that allowed you to move from one to the next. Here and there, where the tree branches naturally clustered together, they had constructed more tents on wooden platforms. There was even a slick looking silver rope that ran from one side of the grove to the next, and I gasped in shock as one of the men in the trees stepped up onto a platform and grabbed a handle on the rope, flinging himself off the platform. There was a metallic whizzing sound, and he flew across the opening, his feet pin wheeling in the air, whooping excitedly. When the handle reached the end he let go, tumbling onto a wide wooden platform covered in furs. I watched in astonishment as he stood up and brushed himself off, then walked over the planks from one tree into the next, stopping to chat along the way, as if he hadn’t just flung himself into space.

“This is incredible,” I said, “you guys built all of this?”

There was pride in Erik’s voice, “It took a while. We started off as a couple of measly huts. Now we have a blacksmith and even a bakery. Of course, we have a share and share alike rule, so the bakery is free…”

“What?” My eyes were probably the size of dinner plates, “that’s incredible.”

Erik laughed, “sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. We smuggle lots of food from the palace and hunt our own game out here, but sometimes food gets scarce. We work hard for what we have. It’s not cushy like living in the palace.”

“This is better,” I said it without hesitation. It was true, in spite of all the palace’s luxury, in spite of the silk sheets and marble soaker tubs and roast duck…this rebel camp, with its skin tents and city in the trees, was still a happier, more vibrant place. As we passed through I could hear laughter, men and women walked by smiling and teasing one another, or sitting around cheerful crackling fires strumming instruments. Singing, and telling stories as they roasted bits of meat. I had thought of the frost jotun as a ridged, stern people, just as cold as their name would seem to imply. Clearly I was mistaken. Apparently when they weren’t under the rule of a tyrant they lightened up considerably.

We passed a large tent, where the sound of metal ringing on metal filled the surrounding area. Inside the ten was a tall man with enormous arms who stood over a black anvil banging away at a warped piece of silver. Behind him, orange coals glowed brightly in the darkness. Obviously the blacksmith. He gave Erik a wave and a hearty greeting,

“You’re back, you old dog! I see you’ve got the Princess, as promised! Hail!” He gave me a mocking half bow, and I wasn’t sure what to think. When he straightened up again he had a huge grin on his face. It was sort of contagious, and I gave him a grin and waved back.

“Nice to meet you!”

We continued on, a long line of rebels following us as we rode through camp. As they passed by, men and women emerged from the tents and waved or called out greetings. Many waved happily at Erik and called out to him by name, and nearly all of them looked excited when they saw me.

I turned to Erik, “did they know I was coming back with you?”

“I had sort of hoped you would. I told them that was my goal.”

We arrived at the other end of the camp. A number of jotun were waiting by a wooden tethering post. They grabbed the rebels reigns, tying the horses to the post. Erik shifted behind me, supporting me with his hands on my hips as he climbed down. Then he waited until I’d hooked one foot in the stirrup and helped me off the horse. It was a relief to climb down, and as soon as I was off and back on the ground, I could feel my entire body start to ache. Horseback riding was not going to become a hobby anytime soon.

The rest of the rebels were dismounting. I turned to see Loki on the ground once again. He had his hands shoved in his pockets, and he looked uncomfortable. Charlotte on the other hand, was looking around  in awe.

“Wow,” she was saying, “this place is amazing!”

I went over to them, reaching out hesitantly to touch Loki’s arm, “Are you okay?”

He straightened up and attempted to give me a cocky grin, “Fine. Just from one enemy camp to another, if you know what I mean. Out of the frying pan, so to speak.”

Frowning, I shook my head, “I think…I think they’re different here. I don’t think they want war.”

Erik approached us, several of the rebels were walking behind him, laughing and punching one another playfully. “All right you three, let’s go sit down by the fire and have a chat. We have much to discuss.”