Chapter 20
Rykr
Fighting in irons had its advantages, it turned out.
“You have to stop doing that.” Tara glowered down at me as I sat at the base of a tree, sipping from a waterskin.
I cocked my eyebrow at her. “And why’s that?”
“You’ve put five members of my squadron in the infirmary. We’re having to call up extra healers to the training field. You nearly crushed two of their windpipes, Rykr.” Her eyes narrowed. “Keep it up and no one will want to fight you and then where will we be?”
I stood slowly, not even slightly exerted.
“You want me to train for this damned trial, where I may or may not have irons on while I fight the best warriors your people have to offer? Then this is part of what I plan to do. I can barely move my feet the way I want them to. Disarming them with my chains and strangling them is a good next move.”
“You’re an arrogant show-off,” she growled, crossing her arms. “And the Skorn aren’t going to fight like my squadron. They won’t let you get that close. I’m trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help with fighting techniques,” I snapped.
“You of all people should know what I can do—you’re Brogan Ragnall’s daughter.
What I need help with is blocking the bond between your sister and me, for both our sakes.
Sure, maybe talking to her with mind speak can be helpful, but feeling each other’s pain is not. You can’t help me with that.”
Tara scowled. “I know that,” she said, at last. “Which is why I sent for my mother.” Worry flashed across her face.
“Seren isn’t a strong fighter, though. She did—does—need all the training she can get.
She won’t last two minutes in the arena with the Skorn, Rykr.
She’s smart and she’s fast, but she’s not skilled or strong enough to take on the best Vangar warriors in our territory.
And she’s young. Darya is screwing her over by making her sit in the watchtowers all day. ”
Her honesty was refreshing. In that way, Tara and Seren were similar. But her words also confirmed what I already suspected: Seren needed to learn more.
“I’ll train her myself at night if I can. It’d be good to have a proper duel with her so I can assess her weakness for myself. One where I’m not wearing chains.”
Tara’s lips pursed, her gaze distant as she stared past me. “Agreed. That would be helpful for Seren.” She paused, thinking. “There might be a way I can get Seth to agree to training you untethered, but it’ll be exhausting for you.”
“What’s that?”
“I could challenge the other squadrons to a sparring championship. It’ll pit the squadrons against each other in the ring, where the champion of each round keeps fighting until none remain.”
She flicked her eyes at me and caught the hint of a smile on my lips.
“Wipe that grin off, Rykr. I already know you’re capable of winning.
That’s not the point. The point is that Darya’s squadron will be challenged and Seren will have a chance to fight you.
By now, Seth’s probably heard about your tendency to crush throats with chains.
He won’t let you do that in a sparring championship, since we’re not supposed to kill each other. ”
“Just tell me when and where and I’ll fight.”
“Was Father this annoying when he was young?” Tara asked, looking past me and deeper into the woods.
I swiveled my head to see Lucia approaching, a light blue hooded cloak drawn over her head.
Lucia gave a gentle smile, holding out a jar of healing honey toward her daughter. “Most of the Sealed are arrogant. They’ve earned their arrogance, though. Your father was uniquely humble among them, which was why I fell in love with him.”
I nearly rolled my eyes. If I had to hear anyone else extolling that hagspawn, I might actually hurt someone. “Yes, he very meekly slit the queen’s throat, right?”
Lucia averted her gaze, and Tara cleared her throat. “Good luck, Mother. He’s a real joy to work with.” She turned and strode off toward her squadron.
Gesturing deeper into the forest, Lucia glanced back toward me. Her voice was a low murmur, “Your mother was the kindest, loveliest woman in all Suomelin. And she loved you dearly.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. The pounding was all I could hear, deafening.
She knows …
“Yes, I know who you really are.”
Fuck.
My hand shifted to the hilt of the dagger Tara had given me. I didn’t want to kill Seren’s mother. Seren would never forgive me.
But my secrets were unraveling, slipping free like a loose thread. Seren had figured out I didn’t have a Bloodbinding mark. And now her mother …
“How long have you known?” I rasped.
“Since the moment I saw that scar you carry on your back, just above your left hip. When I was treating your lashes.” Her eyes gave nothing away. She started forward again and I followed, helpless to do anything else, her answer only provoking more questions.
“How do you know about that scar?”
“I put it there, when you were an infant. Your mother came to me in a moment of panic and desperation, and I masked a birthmark with a rune, so that it would never be discovered.”
What in Solric’s name?
“Why?” I demanded. “What birthmark?”
“There’s a great deal we must discuss. The farther we are from others, the safer you will be.”
I clamped my mouth shut, despite my burning curiosity, following her into denser woods.
She didn’t take a path and I stepped through brush, thorns snagging my clothes while she simply parted them with effortless gesture spells. I missed those days—when magic had been at my fingertips.
Adjusting to life without the powers I’d been born with had been hell.
I’d spent the first few months in Pendara hating my father. Imagining the day I’d return, not to win his approval, but to prove I no longer wanted it. That his exile had cured me of any desire to be what he expected.
But had I been fooling myself?
Now that he was gone, robbed from me forever, something raw and hollow gaped inside my chest.
“The only one of my sons in whom I can find nothing to be proud.”
Some of his last words to me.
He had died still believing the worst of me.
Lucia and I reached an enormous fallen tree, its hollowed, moss-covered trunk large enough for us to both stand inside. What had seemed like aimless wandering now revealed itself as deliberate—the small altar and tools within the hollow told me differently.
This was her altar. A natural, woodland sanctuary for a priestess without a temple.
Lucia slowed as she approached the altar and pushed back her hood. “No one has followed us, right?”
I furrowed my brow. “Am I supposed to—”
“You can smell them. Hear them.” With a quick turn, a knife flew from her grasp, straight toward my chest.
I knocked it away with ease, the clang of steel on wood echoing around us, then stared at her, wide-eyed. “What the fuck?”
She didn’t smile as she retrieved the knife. “You have new skills. Powers granted by the oath. But they aren’t from Seren. She’s more powerful as a sorceress than a fighter, but she always wanted to be like her father.”
I didn’t move, still staring at her, unblinking.
She unpinned her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders. She looked every inch the legendary Ibarran priestess I’d heard about. “You owe some powers to the blood of another present when Seren took that oath.”
What the fuck is she saying?
“I’m not following.”
Lucia produced a leather pouch and withdrew a gleaming amulet with a long chain, then came closer to me. Too close. I flinched as she raised her arms, slipping the chain over my head, before fastening the remainder of the chain around her own, facing me.
Her finger lifted to my temples.
The world around me shattered.
I lay on the ground, dying. A faint, ice-blue light shimmered around me.
Seren hovered over me, cutting a rune into her wrist.
Dark blood oozed as she pulled a cloth away from my neck and pressed her bleeding wrist to the open wound there—a wound slick with the vuk’s black blood.
“I take the Blood Oath of Bryndis,” she said.
“May my soul be bound to his. I offer him my blade and my protection. I bind myself to his fate. I will not raise my hand to strike him, and my blood is his. Let the blood of this oath join our souls forever and let us never be separated, as Bryndis is bound to Varik.”
The vision faded as Lucia pulled away, the hollow strangely, eerily quiet.
“How the fuck did you do that?” I gaped at her, astonished by her power.
“This amulet allowed it. You saw my memory. And you allowed me in. You don’t know how to block me yet.”
Her memory? That explained why I’d seen it from the outside, watching my own body, covered in black blood—
Oh fuck.
I gave Lucia a hard look, understanding dawning. The healing. The insatiable hunger. The restless energy.
“The vuk,” I said at last.
“Seren was careless.” Lucia’s mouth drew to a thin line.
“Let the blood of this oath join our souls forever.”
The blood of the oath. Mine. Seren’s.
… and the vuk’s. All over me.
A staggered step back was all I managed, my mind reeling. I yanked the chain from my head. The vuk’s blood had bound itself to my soul?
“What about her?” I scanned Lucia’s face.
“No. The blood of the slain vuk was inside you, not her. She’s not bound to it.” She left the amulet on and returned to the altar.
I tried to breathe, but my chest had drawn tight. All this time, I’d though my hair had darkened because of Seren … but had it been the vuk? “What does it mean? What did the vuk’s blood do?”
She studied me. “You have been gifted with its extraordinary powers, on top of the ones you already possessed. I do not know the full extent, but there is no doubt you will discover new abilities for some time.”
She lit a candle with another gesture spell. “Why were you in the forest?”
I hesitated. Something in her powers unsettled me—a chilling, formidable presence. Seren had inherited her power—enough to perform that oath—but in Ederyn, Lucia had been infamous.
But before I could answer, she set her palm on my forehead.
A dark shadow crept into my mind, intruding without mercy.
A sea of memories filtered through … my father Sealing me …
sparring with Dalric in the Rookery … taking comfort in a woman’s arms in the Regulation barracks …
laughing with Thorne during training … the prick of a whistler quill as Dalric was dragged into the forest …
No. I wrenched myself free and shoved her away. She stumbled, hitting the altar, but a satisfied gleam shone in her eyes. “Good. You sensed me that time, didn’t you?”
The thought of every memory and emotion laid bare for her perusal made my stomach churn, a sick feeling ripping through me.
“Outraged?” She jutted her chin. “You should be. The ability to read minds is dangerous. The Bloodbinding was meant to control such things—limit them to a select few. It’s also why the Oath of Bryndis should never be made without complete trust. If you don’t learn to control the bond, you’ll have unlimited access to each other’s minds.
Even for those deeply in love, that’s a terrifying prospect.
Imagine never being able to hide jealousy, criticism, frustrations—or momentary, misplaced lust.”
My voice came out raw. “You saw—”
“I saw what I wanted to see.” Lucia drew a sharp breath. “It appears you’ve been on quite a journey—”
“Don’t. You don’t get to talk about what you saw. Those were my thoughts. My memories.”
Sorrow crossed her features. “Yes, they are. And it is a violation to have them viewed by another. That’s why you must learn to block it.
We don’t have much time. It will be important for the trial, but we both know what you hide in your mind is a greater threat than that.
There may be others in Emberstone who can read minds.
And your identity is dangerous to Seren.
She can never know the truth while you remain in the territory. ”
“Then I can learn to block you?” I narrowed my eyes at her.
“You can learn to make your mind a steel trap, impenetrable to anyone.”
“Why would you help me?” I stepped toward her, using the significant height difference between us to my advantage. “Why do you care if I’m caught or not? Your people are my enemy. Your husband is my enemy. You know who I am.”
She blinked slowly, expression solemn. “Your mother was my friend. In exchange for her help in fleeing Lirien, I swore an oath to safeguard your life. And even if that didn’t matter to me, your life is tied to my daughter’s.
There is nothing I won’t do for my children, Your Grace.
That alone should be reason enough for me to want your survival. ”
Everything I’d ever heard of Brogan Ragnall told me differently. He’d murdered my mother in cold blood then fled—or so I’d been told.
But like every situation I’d found myself in since stepping into this godsdamned forest, I didn’t have a choice. Lucia knowing my identity was a threat. Trusting her might be foolish but not trusting her could mean my death. Or worse.
“What about Seren?” I asked. “Doesn’t she need to know these things too?”
“Yes, but Seth has made it impossible for me to work with her by calling the squadrons to training. For now, I need to work with you, before he makes that impossible too.”
I considered her words.
Lucia might be the most dangerous person here.
But right now, she was offering me an olive branch. More than that. Help. Outside of Thorne and Seren, my allies here were thin.
I grunted, still unsettled by the option. “Fine. But this doesn’t mean I trust you.”
She gave me an enigmatic smile, stepping closer to me. “If you’re wise, you won’t trust anyone in the forest. Including Seren.” Then her palm pressed to my forehead and a sea of black flooded my vision again.