A Soul Like Glass (Kingdom of Betrayal #4)

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

V argo carries me into the deep north, his crimson wings and body casting a daunting shadow across the mountains, forests, and plains we pass over.

Before we left the city, we stopped briefly in the forest in the west to retrieve my warm clothing since I’d need it where we’re going.

As for Catalina, she didn’t seem fazed by being without Vargo. When we left, she and the other riders were already escorting prisoners through the western gate. Each of them was in chains, and even from a distance, I recognized Braddock, the human who once looked out for my brother and me but came to hate me.

Within seconds, they were mere specks behind me, as tiny as the treetops we pass over.

By the time we reach the edge of Einherjar territory, the sun is setting, and the freezing wind plucks at my hair and chills my face. I can’t feel my nose. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced cold like this, but it’s the least of my concerns.

Arriving at night should be to my advantage since my eyesight is even sharper in the dark, but the Einherjar guards will be more suspicious of strangers arriving in the night, and as such, more inclined to kill me on sight.

We approach the first village, nearest to the south, where Vargo finally descends to a clearing within a rocky outcrop. The strongest clan always lives closest to the border. They can experience more attacks, fight more battles, and grow stronger in their deep light that way.

A vast plain stretches out in front of me with a gentle incline to a slightly higher plateau in the distance. The village sits on that plateau, surrounded by a wooden wall. The wall is high but still only half the height of the wall that surrounds the human city, which was built by Blacksmiths and reinforced with metal.

This was my father’s old clan. The most powerful clan.

If I can persuade them to join the humans, the other clans will follow.

My father described this place to me, and it doesn’t appear to have changed since he was here.

Barren fields stretch out on either side of a well-trodden path that is lined with spikes. Every spike has a head on it, some of them now skeletal.

In the distance is a high wall made of wood, with wooden spikes jutting from it. Neither the wall nor the spikes will be a problem for me, but the men patrolling the wall will be.

From this distance, I count at least twenty. The urgency of their movements tells me they’ve already spotted the dragon, although they can’t possibly attack him from this distance.

If I kill even a single one of them, any alliance with the humans will be impossible.

I have to subdue, not kill.

“You will either emerge from behind that wall or you won’t,” Vargo says to me, his voice a soft rumble. “You’re on your own now, wolf. If I get close, they will see the chance for a glorious death, and Catalina wants them alive.”

I give a soft snort. “Understood.”

If I appear weak, they will try to kill me out of contempt. If I appear strong, they will try to kill me for the sheer glory of it.

Pulling up my hood, I step out from behind the rocky outcrop and proceed along the wide path, ignoring the gruesome spikes along the way.

It doesn’t take me long to identify every weapon the men on the ramparts are carrying or how much of a threat they pose to me. Each of them has a bow and arrows with multiple daggers at their waists and a sword at their backs. They’re all dressed in furs, but not all of the furs are from wolves.

The man standing front and center wears the pelt of a bear.

He won’t be the one with ultimate power in the clan, but he will have the most power of the men on the wall.

I raise my hands out from my sides, leaving my sword at my back, and continue along the path with my arms raised.

It will be no fun to shoot me with an arrow this way. Too easy to kill me, which would be shameful.

I can tell how much it annoys them from the snarls on their lips, easily audible to me even across the distance.

From within the village, I make out the sounds of life: crackling fires, laughter, a faint cheer every now and then.

According to my father, an Einherjar village works during the day but comes alive at night.

“Identify yourself!”

The shout comes from the central man wearing the bearskin. He isn’t the tallest of the men guarding the wall, and he certainly isn’t the oldest, but the scar down the side of his face tells me he’s seen serious battle.

Also, the others wouldn’t let him speak first if he didn’t have status among them.

I stop in the middle of the path, now thirty paces from the gate. I leave my hood up, concealing most of my face while I keep my arms raised from my sides.

“I am Erik, son of Bjarne Haakonsson,” I call, keeping any hint of a wolf’s growl from my voice. “I request an audience with your chieftain.”

The man laughs. “You are Bjarnesson ? You do not look like the son of a bear .” He peers at me. “You look more like a stray dog.”

He looks to his men, who all snort and guffaw.

I let them laugh, maintaining a steady focus on the central man beneath the shadow of my hood. “You will tell your chieftain that I have returned.”

“Returned?” The central man’s mirth vanishes, and his eyes narrow. “Returning implies that you were once here. But that could not be true. A runt such as yourself would not have been allowed in here.”

“Friend,” I say, lifting my hands a little higher, a little closer to my hood, “you would be wise to do as I ask.”

“Why, stray ?” he asks, smiling down at me.

He isn’t being thickheaded. He was never going to let me simply wander inside.

He’s keeping me talking.

I sense movement behind the wall. At some point, one of the men on the wall must have signaled for reinforcements. I’m impressed I didn’t notice them do it. But this isn’t the dominant clan for no reason.

I slowly slide back my hood. “I’ve come for what’s mine.”

The central man’s smile grows, and his eyes become brighter. The barest hint of sapphire light—undoubtedly his deep light—gleams around his fingertips as he forms a fist and thumps it to his heart. “So you have, wolf.”

At that, the gate creaks open, both doors opening inward.

A hush has fallen over the village. In the distance, multiple fires still crackle, but there’s no longer any laughter.

When the gates open all the way, it becomes apparent that there’s a line of men standing on either side of the path leading into the heart of the village. Each line has twenty men.

I will have to walk between them—and survive whatever beating they give me along the way.

From the ramparts, the central man shrugs down at me. “Of course, you will have to survive first.”

With that, he takes a step backward, moving right off the back of the rampart before he drops from view.

A moment later, I hear the soft thud as he lands. He reappears, shrugging off his fur as he heads all the way to the end of the two rows, where he takes up position, blocking the gap between them.

It’s fucking freezing, but they’ll see it as a weakness if I don’t remove my own fur, so I carefully slip off my coat before repositioning my sword at my back.

I take a breath.

Exhale it.

As the moment extends, a sapphire haze builds around the warriors standing between me and the rest of the village. They’re all calling on their deep light.

If any of them can take me down, they will be revered.

As far as they know, I’m here to kill them, too.

Draw blood , I tell myself. Don’t kill .

Cut, don’t maim.

Dominate, don’t destroy.

I take a careful step forward. Then another, keeping my eye on all the men—including the ones who remained on the wall—as I continue forward, conscious of the arrows that could fly my way any second now.

I count my footsteps, all thirty of them, before I reach the gates, and then I count my heartbeats, taking a long, deep breath.

An arrow slices through the silence. My reflexes fire, and my fist wraps around it.

Plucking it from the air, I break it in half one-handed.

Snap!

The inertia breaks.