Chapter 44
Seren
The Vangar that surrounded us in the tunnel beneath Emberstone were entirely from my tribe. Every last one of them. Including Seth.
Turned against me.
I cradled Ciaran’s head in my arms, my hands shaking as he struggled to breathe, blood flowing freely from the wound from Darya’s blade. My hands were pressed against it tightly, but blood seeped between my fingers, not slowing despite my pressure.
The only thing keeping me alive right now were Tara and Amahle’s bodies, standing shoulder to shoulder in front of Ciaran, Esme, and me. They didn’t have swords—they’d lost them when Haldron had waved them away—so they didn’t have a way of defending us. But I knew they’d give their lives trying.
“S-S-Seren,” Ciaran breathed, blood trailing from his lips.
“Shhhh,” I whispered, leaning down and pressing my lips against his. As if I could just breathe the air he needed back into his mouth. My tears fell onto his cheeks, leaving a trail on the dust there. “You’re not allowed to leave me, Ciaran.”
“Just surrender now, Seren. No one else you care about has to die,” Darya taunted with a smirk. “You’re trapped.”
She was right—the gate behind us held us in … and beyond that, fire and smoke consumed the Havamal. Smoke that was creeping slowly into the tunnel, making it harder to breathe.
And the only way farther into the tunnel was through Seth and the Vangar who had swords at the ready.
“I-I lov-ve you, Ser,” Ciaran whispered.
“I love you, too.” I kissed his mouth again, my voice breaking. “Don’t go. Please!”
But Ciaran’s breathing was shallower, his body growing limp. Ciaran tried to lift his hand to my face, but it fell back to his chest, as a wet, rattling breath wheezed from his lips. His mouth moved, forming words I couldn’t hear. His fingers curled slightly, as if reaching for me.
Then his face went slack, his eyes growing still.
“No!” I screamed. “No, Ciaran.”
“You didn’t care about him. You mocked him. Shamed him. Took advantage of his love,” Darya hissed. “You think you’re special, Seren? You’re just a little girl playing games you’re not strong enough for, and everyone you love will die for it.”
My shoulders squared as I glared at her. “Shut up, you stupid bitch.”
“Stupid, am I? Somehow I managed to get to you, didn’t I?
Got you to trust me, to come to me in your hour of need.
” Darya’s eyes glittered with triumph. “Poor, unloved Seren. Unwilling to fight for what she wanted and so easy to predict. All the Ragnalls are. So that’s exactly what I did, just as my lord Haldron had commanded.
Go to your tribe. Watch. Wait. Learn. And strike. ”
Her words collided into my gut with ferocity. Beside me Esme trembled in her cold, wet clothes.
My Esme, who Haldron and his men snatched, who’d known exactly where to find us.
Because he’d had help from inside our tribe. A spy reporting to him. Telling him how to manipulate the Ragnalls.
“You’re nothing but Haldron’s puppet.”
She arched her brow. “I’m the puppet? That’s naive, even for you. Not a single person in your tribe was free from my influence. Do you really think the council would have condemned you to the Skorn if not for my suggestion? They all did whatever I wanted.”
“Are you hearing this, Seth?” I called out, my voice echoing down the tunnel. “You’re just a pawn in Darya’s—and Haldron’s—game.”
Seth didn’t move though, his face like flint. Lethal.
The side of Seth I’d come to know after Darya.
“It wasn’t hard to get him to cast you aside for me. An alliance with the daughter of the Vangar’s vice command … and a woman who knew how to actually take care of him in bed?” Darya tilted her head, her eyes cruel. “He fell easily.”
The way Darya spoke now, though, it was as though Seth wasn’t even here. Like she could say anything she wanted, and he was just a brainless, soulless skinwraith who would …
I inhaled sharply, and pain flared in my chest.
The skinwraith.
The yellow glowing eyes.
The vuk.
“He’s bewitched, isn’t he?” I set Ciaran’s limp body down carefully, then struggled to my feet.
“You bewitched him today, just like you did Giulia, after you turned her into a skinwraith. And the vuk that attacked me in the forest. Seth was going to help us today and you bewitched him. You probably even had all those skinwraiths attack us in the encampment to turn everyone against us, and it didn’t work. People still stood up for me.”
Darya’s lips pursed. “Even Ciaran. Who you’d betrayed.” Her face was cruel. “Yes, Seren, that’s true. But you’re only as strong as your friends. You wouldn’t have survived the Skorn without them. And you’re about to lose them all.”
Seth didn’t stir … and neither did the men and women at his side. They stood eerily still, their swords raised, their breathing in perfect rhythm.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose.
“They’re all bewitched,” I whispered.
Darya flinched, then gritted through her teeth. “Step aside, Tara. Amahle.”
They only stood straighter.
With a smirk, Darya flicked her hand out in a gesture spell and yellow magic flowed from her fingertips.
“Tara, duck!” I called out.
But it was too late. The glow descended on them both, then sank into their skin.
“Seren!” Esme cried out behind me, terror in her voice.
My heart hammered, my vision growing blearier. I sank beside Esme once again, hugging her into my arms.
“Step aside,” Darya commanded again.
This time, Tara and Amahle moved out of the way without hesitating.
“You see? It’s that easy. Now let go of Esme or she’ll get hurt next.”
“No, Seren. Don’t,” Esme begged. “Don’t let them take me again.”
“Why not just bewitch me like everyone else?” My eyes narrowed at her. “Why make this more difficult on yourself?”
Her face hardened. “Gods, you pretend to be Ibarran and know something of spellcraft. You’re such a disgrace in every way. You can’t be bewitched, Seren. Or I would have done it long before now.”
Her goads could do nothing to me now.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I looked over at Ciaran’s dead body. He’d died for me without hesitation. I was already dying, but I wouldn’t leave Esme in her power.
If I could kill Darya, her spell on the bewitched would break. They would all be free.
The sounds of running footsteps provided a momentary distraction, then Thorne roared into the tunnel, a torch in one hand, a sword in the other. “Stay the hell away from my queen,” he growled, running straight toward the Vangar.
The poison in my body had overpowered me, and my arms and legs trembled uncontrollably.
Without blinking, Darya turned toward the Vangar, then pulled a sword from the sheath at her side. Rykr’s sword.
A sword that would kill when used.
I had no doubt Thorne was a superior fighter—stronger and better—but he was going to die, too.
“Rykr.” I reached out to him through our bond, almost as an instinct. Is he still alive?
I squeezed my eyes shut as the pain grew, my shivering so intense now that I couldn’t prevent my body from twitching.
“Rykr.”
Amid my pain, I revisited that moment after I’d met Rykr when he’d been dying and I’d stared at that handsome face, trying to decide whether my damnation was worth the trouble of dragging him back to the territory.
Fate had brought him to me.
And now I would be damned if I didn’t do everything to save him once again.
I drew a deep breath, seeking the wisps of gold in my mind that were Rykr’s spirit. My mother hadn’t taught me how to block or access my power—or his—but he’d been in my mind enough that I recognized where I ended and he began.
Sucking in a shallow breath, I noticed the frost on the floor below me.
As though it had come from my fingertips. Like I’d seen fire shoot from Rykr’s hands, except this was my power with his strength.
I sat straighter, my shaking gone, my heartbeat strangely slow. The clash of swords sounded as Thorne fought his way through the Vangar, not knowing that even if he reached me, he would die.
Esme trembled in my arms.
I had to save us.
Spreading my palm in front of my lips, I blew a cold, icy chill from my fingertips toward Seth. Not the type that would freeze a form, but something that would go deeper inside him. If the ice could wrap around his heart, maybe it would be enough to sever the connection Darya had placed on him.
It might also kill him.
Much as I didn’t want that to happen, it was a risk I wasn’t willing to take on anyone else.
Desperation filled me as Seth stood straighter, a cry of pain leaving his lips. “Seth, please. Darya bewitched you. Everyone here. Please. I need your help, Seth.”
His face clouded with disbelief as he braced himself on the wall of the tunnel beside him. “Why would Darya bewitch me?”
“Because she doesn’t love you. She never has. Her one and only goal here has been to serve Haldron.”
“Stop this!” Darya whirled to face me. “What did you do?”
I held my breath, my gut churning.
Darya turned back toward Seth, sending another bewitching spell over him. “Tie her up, Seth. We’ll take her to Haldron and see what he does to her.”
If she hadn’t turned her back to Seth, she might not have seen it, but I did.
The flicker in Seth’s face. The lack of the yellow glow in his pupils.
Her spell hadn’t worked.
Seth rolled his shoulders, straightening, his eyes clearing. He flexed his grip around his sword. He turned to Darya, voice cold. “You’ve been using me this whole time, haven’t you?”
Seth took two steps toward us, then spun, swinging his fist against Darya’s face. A bright spurt of blood erupted from her nose as she screamed, drawing back.
“Seren, run!” Seth cried out as Darya plunged the sword into his shoulder.
She was going to kill him.
He rasped a breath and stood as Darya approached. She held Rykr’s sword in her hands, her face burning with fury, blood streaked from her nostrils to her ear where she’d wiped it back.
Seth unsheathed his own sword.
“Seth, no!” I screamed as he lunged toward Darya.
Their swords clashed with a sharp, metallic crash. Seth was a stronger fighter. A better one.
One of the best in the Vangar.
But Darya had Rykr’s sword.
That’s why Rykr had refused to fight Seth.
No matter how quickly Seth lunged, Darya seemed to move with a speed and ability that I’d never witnessed in her before.
Seth feinted left, swinging with brutal force, only for Darya to pivot, impossibly fast. She wasn’t just dodging, she was moving like something more than human, her body unnaturally fluid, her strikes too perfect.
“No, Seth!” I released Esme, then ran straight toward them.
Seth’s eyes locked with mine. “Seren …” he whispered.
A sob left me, an inexplicable pain enclosing around my heart.
I had to end this.
For Rykr.
For my family.
For my terrified people. Even if they’d never accept me again.
I steeled myself to calm, this time reaching for what remained of my own power. As the iciness drifted through my fingertips, I thought of how Rykr had started that fire with his hands.
He was fire.
I am ice.
So I let the iciness flow through my palms. I drew to my full height as I stalked closer to Darya. “You will not harm another person in this territory while I draw breath.”
Darya whirled toward me. “Then I’ll just kill you.”
“But you can’t,” I lied, coming closer, still.
If she swung that sword at me, it might kill me before I could get any nearer.
“You couldn’t kill me with dragon’s blood because I’m blood bound to the King of Lirien.
And the gods have favored him. It’s his power that I wield.
And his sword answers to him and him alone. ”
Fear sparked in her eyes.
I extended my palms and let the full force of the icy power flow through my hands, like a conduit from my mind to my fingertips.
A blast of blue spiraled forward, cascading over Darya.
My power flowed through me—not just my fingertips, but my arms, my torso, spiraling, searing, cutting like a knife at the very fabric of my soul. A flood of images tore across my mind … of Esme, curled against me as a toddler, Ciaran, splashing in a brook with me, Amahle, laughing.
I saw Tara teaching me to throw a dagger, over and over, patience in her brow. Madoc, hoisting me onto his shoulders when I was a girl and carrying me across a wobbly tree branch, while my mother waved below us. My father, his kind, patient smile, as he taught me to hunt.
And Rykr. My love. Holding me in his arms. Kissing me.
Loving me for who I am.
The world around me blurred, the moment holding as I saw frost creeping into Darya’s cheeks, spreading with a crackle into the whites of her eyes, turning her dark irises blue.
Darya gasped, her lips trembling, the ice creeping up her throat. She raised a shaking hand, fingers sparking with golden magic. “No,” she rasped. “No, I—”
But the words never finished. Her magic fizzled out, and the ice swallowed her whole, a scream freezing in her throat, a wisp of cold mist hanging from her lips.
The power that flowed through me was relentless, unstoppable, out of my control.
When it ended, Darya stood frozen solid, like ice, the sword still firmly in her hand.
I took a step to wrest the sword away, but a sharp sting filled my mind, splitting through my ears. I’ve spent too much of my power. Used the last of my reserve.
Dizziness overtook me, and I collapsed, my face smacking against the ground.
A gentle set of hands tugged at my shoulders. Seth turned me onto my back, and I blinked into his face, riddled with grief. “Seren! Oh gods, Seren!”
In the background, distant now, I heard the clang of a sword. Thorne continued fighting toward us.
“Help my sisters and tell the Vangar to stand down. Please,” I rasped.
“Rykr,” I called out again in my mind. A tear slipped from the corner of my eye and slipped down my cheek. “Rykr, I love you.”
Then the world slowly slipped into a deep shadow.