Chapter 49 #2
She snuggles in closer to Dov and tells him that he smells better than Vanoo—like thyme and honey. And he tells her that he ran through his mother’s herb garden earlier, so that’s probably where he picked up the scent.
Their conversation is so odd that my heartbeats clatter as I stride back toward Nika. “Where’s my mother?”
“She left with Ulf and Sigrid to have a chat.” Nika sweeps crumbs off an empty plate onto the grass, then stacks it over another tin disk.
“Where? Where did they go to have this conversation?” When Nika nods to the tree line, my heart slams into my ribs. “They went into the forest?”
She nods. “They were probably hoping the leafy canopy would hinder the vampyrs’ line of sight—and hearing?”
I glance up at the onyx, sketching slow figure eights above our heads. “They can hear us from up there?”
Nika shrugs. “Probably not, what with the wards, but one can never be too careful.” After a beat, she asks, “Is Nordin not coming in the end?”
Could he already be here? Could our parents have left to meet with him or find him before he found Tyron? Did he already find Tyron?
“He’ll come.” Each one of my heartbeats slams into the next, intensifying my nausea. I scrutinize Nika’s expression, hunting for signs of discomfort—or worse, a vested interest in mine.
She cants her head. “Are you all right, Zaskja?”
I reach into my dress pocket for my stinger, my rib cage slackening its grip on my lungs when my fingers close around it.
“Just the girl I was looking for…” comes a masculine voice I haven’t heard in a long while.
I whirl to find Tyron strolling out of the woods, bow and arrow strapped to his chest, green eyes torching a path toward me.
Nika pushes a few slices of cake back together on the platter, murmuring to me, “I warn you…he’s become insufferable.”
“Aw, Nika”—Tyron palms his heart with both hands—“you wound me.”
“Your head barely fits atop your shoulders anymore,” Nika says.
“At least I still have a head, right?” Tyron winks. “Did you ladies see Skarnir’s?”
Bile stings the back of my throat. “No. And I’ve no interest in viewing a severed head.”
“Those thorny runes are really something.” He steps closer. Closer. Too close. “Maybe if you touch them, they’ll sink back under your skin?”
My stomach stops folding itself up into tiny cubes.
“It’s on display in the longhouse. I can take you there.”
My skin tingles as though rain were needling it, but the sky is clear tonight.
“I just crossed paths with your mother, who was heading there with Ulf. Come, Zas. Let’s go pay our disrespects to the man who wanted you dead.” His pupils shrink, giving way to more smoldering green. It seems to spill from his lashes and slick down his cheeks like verdant sap.
I blink hard to dispel the sight, then shake my head. “Not interested.”
“Where’s your favorite big bad wolf?” Tyron asks as a shadow stirs behind him.
I forget I’m holding my stinger and discharge a needle. Thankfully, it doesn’t penetrate my skin. Not that silver harms me.
As I struggle to plant a new thorn inside and reengage the trigger, my aunt bursts from the tree line like a swinging rope. She calls out my name, saying something about Nordin having lost his mind, threatening his father, and Eira being in on it.
The stinger slips, settling back at the bottom of my pocket. “Where are they?” I ask, adrenaline spiking my veins.
“At the longhouse. He’s not acting like himself.” My aunt cuts me a look that screams, This is all your fault, Zas! “You’re convened too, Tyron.”
“No offense, Lady Stormsson, but I prefer not being scalped this fine evening.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She rolls her eyes. “My son won’t scalp you.”
Yes, Sigrid, he would. Since I don’t want to deter Tyron from crossing paths with Nordin, I turn my attention toward my friend, who’s now making out with Dov, oblivious to the surrounding world. May whatever’s happening between the rest of her family not touch her, not tonight, not ever.
When I turn back toward Sigrid, her eyes are glazed. I assume my uncle must be relaying a message through their mind link.
Sure enough, she says, “Nordin just tossed Skarnir’s head into the fire.” She grinds her teeth and looses a short growl.
I suck in air, because what if it could have restored my magic?
“Perhaps you shouldn’t come after all, Tyron,” she mutters, shoving her long braid behind her peaked ear, the one bearing Ulf’s name.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Tyron chirrups, reaching for a piece of cake.
Before he can take a bite, Sigrid snaps his name, making him jump and lose half his slice to the grass.
“If I were you, I’d keep to the shadows until my son leaves the valley,” she says, the vein at the base of her neck bopping at an alarming pace.
Tyron holds her stare a beat too long. And then he throws the dessert aside and retreats into the forest.
Sigrid turns. “Let’s go, Zaskja.”
Her words jangle against my eardrums like the bells she hooks to the Júl tree. The whole of her jangles, wobbles.
I tug my lashes up and up like a deer caught mid-run by a ravenous wolf. “What did you put inside the cake?”
She raises an eyebrow. “The usual. Sugar, eggs, oat flour, and goat milk. Why?”
“What…substance?” I mop my perspiring brow on my arm while desperately trying to fit a needle back into the stinger using the other.
“Substance?” Sigrid repeats.
“Herb. Drug. Metal. What did you put inside the fucking cake?!” The words pop off my tongue like a broken strand of opals, clattering against the blades of grass.
“Watch your tone,” she hisses. “And how dare you accuse me of dosing my daughter’s cake!”
“Well, someone did.” The needle clicks. Finally!
Sigrid’s tawny irises seem incandescent in the fire-laced obscurity. “We’ll investigate later. Right now, you need to come with me.”
“No.”
“No?” Her lids twitch. And twitch.
I dare her to burst into her wolf and try to carry me to the longhouse against my will. “I trust Nordin and I trust Mor.” My thumb paces round and round the trigger. “If they want me there, then they can come to fetch me.”
The night air presses against my lids. I must list, because suddenly Nika’s arm is around my rib cage.
“Are you all right?” she asks me, wearing a frown that tells me she mustn’t be in on whatever the Hel is happening.
What if it’s an act, though? What if I’m misreading her confusion? I push away from her and start toward the only person I can trust—Saga. I weave as I walk. I have to stop several times on the way.
The whole sky suddenly flares as though the moon had slipped from its berth and struck the wards. Except it’s not an astral collision; it’s a burst of dragon-fire that spreads like bubbling jam against the magical barrier before vaporizing.
As I crane my neck, I lose my balance. When I open my eyes, grass is tickling my ears, and Taeric’s dragon is roaring out more flames that make the air grow muggy. A screech echoes from above as more dragons paint the gloom with their anger.
Why did I eat the cake? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I roll onto my stomach just as squeals erupt around the bonfire. Squeals and laughter, as though the raging dragons were part of tonight’s entertainment.
“Holy shit!” Saga’s shout stops my heart. “Did you feel that? I think his breath penetrated the wards! Run!” Saga lurches to her feet but then loses her balance and bangs down hard into the ground, the ends of her long hair flipping.
Falling.
Right into the bonfire.
The flames skip up her white locks.
“Saga!” I screech, clawing at the earth to drag myself closer.
A foot clips the side of my head as people scatter. I force my elbows to lock, managing to climb onto my palms and knees just as Sigrid flashes past me in fur, knocking me over again. She yanks her daughter away from harm before pawing out the flames.
What is happening right now?
“What…did you put…in the cake?” I croak.
Sigrid’s long throat jostles, and her eyes cut to the side. I think she’s avoiding my stare, until I catch a pair of gleaming black boots next to my head.
My stinger.
I need my stinger.
Pulse blaring, I jam my fingers into my dress’s pocket.
The world lurches before slamming into chilling focus on a pair of blazing ruby eyes.