12. Maddy
Chapter 12
Maddy
W hen I come around, the first thing I'm aware of is the pounding in my head. I groan and force my eyes open.
It's been a while since I've hurt myself falling, and the growing pain in my head is confirmation that that run has come to an end.
I'm slumped on my side, and I roll slowly onto my back. My breath catches.
There's somebody here, behind the waterfall with me, and I'm positive it's not Thyrvi.
Adrenaline bolts through my body as I hear a voice.
"The poor princess has passed out again." It's Orgid.
I try to shout for Thyrvi, but my voice comes out as a croak and a pulse of pain smacks through my skull.
I push myself up onto my backside fast, scooting back toward the rock as my blurred vision clears.
Orgid is standing before me, and he appears to be alone. I hear a roar, a clash, and a thud—the noises of a fight.
"Thyrvi!" I call, panicking, scrambling to my feet. I feel a swoop of disorientation and another pulse of pain through my skull. Shit, I've hit my head hard .
But when I hear Thyrvi roar again, I don't care. I run, moving fast enough that I take Orgid by surprise and shunt him out of the way as I burst out from behind the frozen waterfall, which is now shining with water. The ice under my feet doesn't feel solid as I pound toward where I last saw my bear, and my feet slide as I skid to a stop.
Inga is standing on the edge of the frozen pool, her eyes alight with bloodthirsty rage as she watches her bear fight Thyrvi.
"Thyrvi!" I shout again, but she's too busy to look at me.
She's locked in an embrace with a bear who is literally flaming at the ends of its fur, like Kain's wolf. They're similarly matched in size, and my mouth falls open as Inga's bear's paw collides with Thyrvi's face. She goes with the momentum, spins, and Inga's bear stumbles on the ice. There's a loud crack , and Inga looks down at her feet. She takes five or six hesitant steps backward as a crack spreads across the ice.
I waste no time. I run across the ice until I hit solid ground. Orgid's right behind me—I can hear him running.
My mind is racing. I don't know how to help Thyrvi. I don't have a bow. I don't have anything that could hit Inga's bear from a distance.
I don't know if taking Inga out would take her bear out, but it's certainly the best shot I've got. She's still walking backward, unable to take her eyes from the fight between the two enormous creatures, but she is now on solid ground.
I run at her, and I'm only a foot away when Orgid's shadows snake around my middle and jerk me backward. I land hard on my backside again, and he laughs.
"Inga, come on," he calls out. Reluctantly, she tears her gaze from the bears' battle, which has moved onto the bank now, off the ice. Their roars ring through the air.
I struggle against the shadows, trying to get to my feet. Could Kain be nearby?
He would be here already if he was.
Last time I saw him, I made him angry, flustered. He stormed off.
Cold trickles down my spine. These two must have been watching. Waiting for Kain to leave.
This was another ambush.
"Cowards," I spit.
Orgid's shadows yank me to my feet as Inga closes in on me. "All day we waited for that fucking fire-fae to be out of the way. I don't know what you said to him to make him stalk off like that, but without your guard hound here, we can do whatever we want."
"Only as long as you keep Thyrvi distracted," I say.
"Thyrvi is a ridiculous name."
Shit. I told them my bear's name.
I struggle against the shadows, and Inga lashes out, hitting me hard across the face. Combined with the pain already enveloping my skull from where I hit it on the ice, the shock is too much. Stars dance in front of my eyes, and for a moment I'm sure I'm going to be sick, my eyes losing focus completely.
"Huh," Inga says quietly. "You are soft. You are soft and you are weak."
I hear an ursine roar. I try to focus my eyes over her shoulder. Thyrvi's huge white form rears up, the black, flaming bear opposite her. Fear for her is engulfing me.
Can she be hurt? I have no idea. If anything can hurt her, surely it is a bear that matches her size? But I saw her take down a Frost Giant much larger than her, ripping a chunk from its neck.
She'll be okay. Surely she'll be okay. I want to hear her voice in my mind, but I also don't want to distract her and give Inga's bear an advantage.
Orgid's shadows tighten around me, and I hear a screaming in my head that isn't real. I try to lock my mind against his power, to force it out.
"Are you here to kill me?" I ask. They won't. Thyrvi will win. She will come and help me. And if she can't, I'll get out of this somehow. I'm not weak anymore.
"Sadly not," Orgid says, putting his hands on his hips, his staff clutched tightly in one of them and shadows flowing from it.
"No, they'd know it was us," Inga says. "But we made a little present for you. In the forge."
My stomach twists. I don't know what they've got planned, but I already know it's going to hurt.
Inga pulls something from her side, in a sheath where a staff would normally go. It's a poker, and the iron end has been molded into a specific shape. She holds it an inch from my face, and I shake my head, thrashing, trying to move backward. She retracts it slowly, and when it comes into focus I see that the end of the poker has been fashioned into a rune a couple of inches across. It's the ancient rune for the word "alone."
"You're a loner, princess, and you need to be marked as one, just like we've been marked as cowards."
My eyes move to the mark on her shoulder. Theirs are magical marks that will leave their bodies as soon as their punishment is over, but that's not what they've got in store for me.
Fear makes my stomach churn, but I won't show weakness in front of them. I can't let them see the fear.
"I'm not alone," I say.
Orgid scoffs. "You have no friends here other than a little human girl."
Now fear for Sarra burns through me. I didn't know they knew about her, and I don't want them to. There's another clash and a roar, but the bears have moved out of my field of vision.
Inga closes her eyes, holds up the poker, and tilts her head back. She's concentrating. As I watch, the poker starts to glow hot in her hand.
Thyrvi, Thyrvi, Thyrvi! I send thoughts at her by accident. My limbs are trembling with adrenaline, and I try to force it into another dedicated effort to get free of the shadow bonds. For a moment it works, and I feel them loosen, but then Orgid moves behind me, one arm around my throat, the other tightening around my middle. I kick out backward at his broken leg, which I realize he's walking fine on.
How did he get it healed? Did Erik fix him?
Inga steps toward me, and I stop caring about Orgid's leg. All I care about is getting out of his grip. I try to remember everything Kain ever taught me in glima .
I drop to the ground—the best way to startle an opponent. But Orgid goes with me and tightens his not-broken leg across my hips. I'm completely pinned.
Inga bends over and rips my shirt from my shoulder in one move, her nails scratching my skin.
"Hold still. You don't want this to be blurry. We need everybody to be able to read it."
And then she presses the white-hot poker to my skin.
I scream. I would love not to give them the satisfaction, but the sound is torn from my lips by the sheer agony it causes.
I don't command it to, I'm barely even aware of what is happening, but every part of me is abruptly covered in solid ice. They leap back, the ice jarring the poker off my skin, but it's too late. The wound is there, the pain is there, and the searing agony is still burning through me. And now the ice is spreading.
Orgid's shadows fall away from me. I can't think straight, can't see straight. I feel sick, but I'm on my feet.
Rage and fear blurs everything, and without a moment's thought, I turn and I fire every single ounce of it at Orgid, who is scrambling backward on the ground. Shards of ice fly at him in a fierce blizzard, and he shrieks as more than fifty pierce his flesh. I fire my other hand at Inga, but she's already moving, already running.
"The enemy flees!" I hear Thyrvi roar in my mind. Orgid can't run as fast as Inga with his new wounds, but he's limping after her. I hold out both hands and shoot out as much power and force and hatred and rage as I can at their backs. An explosive snowstorm, whirling with lethally sharp shards of ice, flies at them, and I hear shouts again, but then they're into the thickened foliage and I can't see them anymore.
Thyrvi's massive form lumbers toward me, but as I look at her, pain sears hot and sharp in my head, and my legs buckle.
My vision swims in and out of focus, and my stomach finally gives up its fight and I retch.
I fall to the ground.
I'm aware that my body is still frozen solid, and that Thyrvi is still here, but all I want to do is make the pain stop.
"You are not bleeding," Thyrvi says, each of her words making my skull throb. "Yet you appear injured."
"My head," I whisper. "And my arm." I can smell burned flesh, and I heave again, turning on my side.
"You need help that I cannot give you," she says, her voice serious.
"Are you hurt?" I choke out.
"Of course not," she huffs, and then she's gone.
The world moves in and out of focus for an indeterminate amount of time. Then I hear Erik's voice. I can't open my eyes, though. I can see rainbows in shards of glass on the backs of my eyelids, and huge birds flying between them, bright turquoise and made of glistening gems.
I know they aren't real, but I don't care. They're beautiful.
"Open your eyes, Madivia."
"No. The birds are too pretty."
"Is she… covered in ice?"
I know the voice. It's the silver-winged Valkyrie with the bows. I can't remember her name right now, but I know I like her. "Thanks for the hair tie," I tell her, then my stomach flips, and I roll over, throwing up again. My eyes are still closed but there's an explosion of light, colors flying, distracting me from the acid taste.
"Shit, she's concussed."
"Let's hope that a concussion is all it is."
"Where's her bear gone?"
I force my eyelids open a crack, sitting back on my heels. Disorientation makes me instantly slump sideways. "Where's Thyrvi?" I ask, but I don't think the words come out as I mean them. Warm hands grip my shoulders, stopping me sliding all the way to the ground.
"Can you sedate her?"
"Yes."
I feel a cold slither on my hands, a sharp sting, and the world fades away.