Chapter 45. No Matter the Cost

VESTA

I hadn’t expected anyone in the palace to recognize me, but that bloody Viking did. How she could have possibly seen through me, even with all the changes to my appearance, is a query I could not answer in a thousand years.

I had lost a lot of weight due to scarce feeding and my time in prison, even the orbs that stared back at me when I looked into a mirror were empty and blue, hence, the puzzle grows more difficult. I even looked ten years younger than I was when I was in the north, and could barely even recognize myself, yet that maiden did at one glance.

Perhaps she was a sorceress, or some fellow with devilishly apt superpowers. What to do now. I trudged about restlessly, unable to shake off the paranoia that followed. Maybe she didn’t recognize me. Maybe was just overthinking it because she seemed scared, like everyone else. After all, even myself, am not alien to the gossip flying around the royal household bearing stories of me being a monster,