Chapter 46
“Did you eat my entire stash of pine nuts and dried blueberries?” I ask Saga when I emerge from my bathing chamber, rubbing at a small ink stain on the side of my thumb.
When Nika’s gaze lowers to my hands, I plunge both into my dress pockets.
“What with all the excitement, I didn’t have time to eat. I’ll pick you a whole bushel of both in the morning.” Her eyes spark as she tips a cup of mead to her mouth and downs its contents. “He’s dead, Zas. You realize what this means, right?”
I glance at the other two.
Saga flaps one hand. “Oh, they both know what you are.”
“They do? I mean…” Since speaking in the third person is rude, I reword my question. “You do?”
“Yeah,” Vanoo says, while Nika nods.
“Do a lot of people know?” I ask.
“No. A few have suspected since Myrknótt, but outside of our family and the Council, only Vanoo and Nika know for sure.”
“And Tyron,” Nika adds, while I wonder: How do you know, Nika? Who told you?
Could Mor or Ulf have let it slip when they interrogated her about my poisoned beverage?
“And him.” Saga gives her head a slight shake. “I still can’t believe he dared to do that. I mean, the male has always had balls of fucking steel, but heading into vampyr territory with trimmed hair is crazy brave.”
“Or plain crazy,” Vanoo says, echoing my thoughts.
“He’s uncannily skilled with a bow and arrow,” Nika points out, setting her cup of liquor down on my worktable. “He gave me a demonstration a while back when he was still trying to worm his way into my bed.”
The news startles me.
Nika picks up one of the opals I’ve polished to such a high shine that the veins of color pop like fossilized lightning. “Where do you find these? They’re stunning.”
“In a grotto near the pass. I can show you tomorrow,” Saga suggests, making my heart miss a few beats.
I don’t want Saga showing anyone our cave, especially Nika.
“I have to warn you that they look like chunks of nondescript rock before Zas introduces them to her chisel and polishing wheel.” Saga sucks down a swallow of her drink, then swings her legs over the arm of the leather armchair she’s been warming since entering my bedchamber.
“Perhaps she could teach you. She tried to teach me, but it was a disaster. Remember, Zas? How many stones did I crack again? Was it twelve?” Saga laughs.
I don’t so much as chuckle, even though, at the time, I had.
Nika sets the veined stone down with a scrunch of her nose. “I’m so clumsy that it’d be a complete waste of time.” She shoots me a smile so sheepish it smooths my hackles.
“Do you think the valkyries will start opening portals all over the Wilds and knock on our wards now that Skarnir’s dead?” Saga asks.
“What does one have to do with the other?” Vanoo asks.
“Well, the way I see it, now that the Vampyr King is dead—”
“—possibly dead,” I amend.
“I saw his head.” She tilts her chin low to drive her point across. “He’s dead.”
“Except you never actually saw his head when he was alive,” I say, “so it could be someone else’s head.”
Saga’s chin dips lower. “One of his eyes was white, Zas, and he had thorny tats all over his face. Definitely him.”
“Many vampyrs have facial tattoos,” Vanoo points out.
Saga slings one arm around the back of her chair and peers at Vanoo, who’s leaning against the wall beside my door.
“If Ty killed a random vamp and poked his eyeball to make him look like Skarnir, then he’ll be as dead as the bloodsucker.
He might be crazy, but he’s not suicidal.
Not to mention, Far and Klovir have met with Skarnir.
They’ve seen him without all his headgear. It’s him.”
Saga seizes the mead jug and replenishes her cup. It takes a lot to get my friend sloshed, considering her sheer size, but with only nuts and dried fruit in her stomach, one or two more gulps and she’ll be singing bawdy songs in no time.
“By the way, Nika’s throwing me a surprise birthday party the day after next, and I want you both there. Nordin too. No excuses.”
Nika’s lips curl at the corners. “I don’t think you can qualify it as a surprise anything since you know about it, Saga.”
“All I know is that it’s to celebrate the end of my twenty-second year around the sun and the start of my twenty-third.”
“Fine.” Nika laughs. “You can keep calling it your surprise birthday party.”
I’m the one supposed to be throwing Saga birthday parties. Not some random Fjord shifter who popped into her life mere months ago. Me.
I square my shoulders. “I was going to throw you a birthday party here.”
“You know me and my love for being the center of attention.” Saga grins. “Two parties, twice the merrier.”
Vanoo snorts. “Twice the merrier? Nika, relieve Saga of the mead, will you?”
“Don’t you dare.” Saga hugs the pewter jug as though it were her babe.
Which reminds me of Thyra’s newborn. To think I’d been anticipating the moment when I could tell Saga about my impromptu midwifery. And that I had sex with her brother.
The words still press against my tongue, but I don’t let them out. Not with Nika and Vanoo here. And not when most of the fluid in her veins comes from a bottle.
“…valkyries,” Nika is saying.
The mention of the people I hail from makes me turn my focus outward again.
Nika eases out my desk chair and sits. “I know you keep expecting them to appear in the North, but the rest of Skarnir’s people are alive, and so are their dragons.”
“I have to agree with Nika.” Vanoo reties his black braids. “Until the Sons of Odin and their pets vacate Isrike, I doubt valkyries will be stepping out of their wards.”
“Can the Sons of Odin create wards?” I ask.
Saga shakes her head. “Only Odin’s direct descendants, which means their wards are gone, thus my theory about valkyries traveling out of Ljosam?r.”
“Did Taeric put up wards around his segment of the Wilds?” I ask, an idea gyrating in my head.
“Not that I know of,” Saga says. “Vanoo?”
“They didn’t. From what I heard, the curse made Skarnir too weak to create new wards.”
“A shame,” I murmur, “for their porousness would’ve been a good indicator of whether the head belongs to Taeric.”
“Far said that the ones around Hasam?r have as many holes as Herrg?rdsost,” Nika adds. “Which is how Tyron slipped past them.”
“Ugh…” Saga rubs her stomach. “Why did you have to bring up cheese. Now I want cheese.” She swings her legs off the arm of the chair and all but lurches to her feet. “Let’s go hunt some down. Also, this bottle is empty.”
Nika hikes up a brow. “Yes, to cheese. No, to any more alcohol. I believe Zas and Vanoo will agree?”
I nod, swallowing back the urge to ask that she not use my nickname. Vanoo doesn’t weigh in. Then again, his eyes are glazed.
I wait until they clear to ask, “What did Nordin say?”
“That Vaelen Blaka has brought his whole vampyric army with him and is yelling for Tyron’s head.”
“That means Taeric is truly dead…” My voice lilts as though it were a question.
“Taeric is truly dead,” Vanoo echoes.