Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
NEVE
His skin felt too tight.
If Neve had known it was going to be like this once Dahlia was back within his reach, he would have wished for her to stay gone forever. All his carefully laid out plans of vengeance went up in smoke the moment he saw her standing in the snow with an ugly bite on her neck.
Kill him.
Neve ground his molars. He wanted to destroy whoever had branded his wife. It would be a terrible scar that would be on display at all times. It made him sick. Such practices had been abolished by his great grandfather years prior.
“You’re growling again,” Olwen remarked, sitting down in one of his sturdy chairs, a small round table between them with a dirty parcel on top.
Odd. Olwen was messy but not dirty.
Neve sat in the other chair and hung his head. “She has me . . . on edge.”
“Clearly.” A pause. “What are you going to do?”
“I do not know.” He shook his head. “Enough about the traitor.” That’s what he needed to start thinking of her as, so he would not lose his mind.
There were more important things like the fact that the sun would rise soon and with it, another battle.
“Your efforts in the mountains could be felt all the way in the camp,” he said gravely. “What happened?”
“Dahlia was not lying.” Olwen cleared his throat and traced the long, puckered scar along his cheek. A nervous habit. “There were Northerners in the mountains. At least two hundred warriors.”
“Two hundred?” Neve’s pulse roared in his ears.
That was no small band of miscreants making trouble.
“There have been no missives from Warrin about the northern warriors joining us.” He frowned, dread pooling in his gut.
“No one comes through the mountains in the winter. It’s too dangerous.
If they were here to help, they would have come through Blanche. ”
His commander’s lips thinned, and he leaned forward in his chair to the wrapped parcel sitting on the small table between them. “Brace yourself.” He opened it, revealing the old general’s head.
Neve stared at Warrin’s face, and bile burned the back of his throat. “Where did you find this?”
Olwen covered the head and stood, his hands flexing as he began to pace. “It was waiting for us at the top of the mountain on a pike.”
Neve hung his head and battled back tears.
He had known Warrin since he was a little boy.
The gruff general had always been around.
After his parents had died, the old general had been the one to train Neve in the art of war.
He had always given Neve good advice. Warrin had made him a better king, and Neve had sent him to his death.
“So, we will have a war on two fronts,” he rasped. One with Astera and one waged on his own people. Everything was falling apart, but he could not give up. Too much was at stake. “What is being done to keep them from leaving the mountains?”
Olwen completely stilled, and the expression melted from his face. “We dealt with them.”
“What were our casualties?”
“Five.”
Neve blinked slowly. “I do not believe I heard you right.”
“You heard me. We first tried to treat with them to save as many lives as possible.” Olwen sneered, his pace speeding up.
“But only received a volley of flaming arrows in reply. It was a clear act of war.” Olwen’s eyes glimmered with white along the edges, the berserker coming to the front.
“We had the high ground, and Abeo had an idea.” A pause. “We buried them in snow.”
Neve blinked slowly. “The explosions.” He ran a hand over his mouth. “You brought an avalanche down upon them.”
“We did.”
It was a horrid way to die. “Any survivors?” he rasped. They had attacked his own people.
People who were intending your destruction.
“I doubt it, but I have men stationed at the top of the mountain. I will not send them down into the valley to search until the snow settles.”
Standing, he exited the tent, feeling too warm—a side effect of the bond and his grief. The brisk air cooled his heated skin, and he watched as the sky began to turn pink, signaling the rise of the sun. Olwen stepped outside and stood beside him.
“It had to be done, Reillov.”
“I know.” But the loss of life was too great. He glanced at his best friend, who could not stop fidgeting. “Are you alright?”
“No, but I can’t think about it right now.” Olwen swallowed hard. “If I look too closely at the last few weeks, I’ll go mad.”
Neve felt the same way. War left its mark. “I need a missive sent to Eyri. The palace needs to be fortified.”
“I’ve already sent two with different couriers in case of spies amongst our ranks.
” He huffed, his breath puffing out in a cloud.
“They knew you were here. That is why they left their little gift. You need to be vigilant with your security.” Olwen eyed Neve from the corner of his eye. “Where is Flyka?”
“I asked the nonnae to drug her last night so she would get some proper rest and healing.”
His friend whistled. “She’s not going to be happy with you.”
“She’s never happy with me.” The sun rose a little higher, the sky turning a soft orange. The next battle with the saloes would soon rage on. No rest for the wicked.
“You should know that we found bodies on the southern side of the mountain.” Olwen chuckled. “Your wife and whoever her companion was killed seven northern giants. Dahlia’s scent and blood was all over the snow.”
Neve smothered the growl that wanted to escape at the mention of Dahlia’s—no, the traitor’s—blood. He could not afford to think of her in any other way. “The one who bit her?”
“Dead.”
It did not feel like enough. Neve wanted to bring the male back to life just so he could kill him again. “Good.”
“One had been beaten to a pulp. The amount of force that would have been needed . . .” His commander whistled. “We have a berserker on our hands or someone who was so lost to rage they didn’t even know what was happening.”
There was something in Olwen’s tone that had Neve arching a brow. “Which is it?”
His commander pursed his lips. “I’m not sure.”
“But you have your suspicions.” Neve frowned at Olwen. He was never this vague. That was Flyka’s realm.
“I think there is a good chance it was a berserker.”
Neve faced Olwen and crossed his arms. “Then why the hesitancy to say so?”
“Because the only one I’ve come across in Mizar is a giant named Felix.”
Felix. The irrational part of the bond hyperfixated on the male name.
Olwen eyed Neve like he was a bomb about to explode.
“What was the traitor doing in the mountains with another giant?” Neve gritted out. His mind conjured all sorts of scandalous scenarios.
“I don’t know.” The battle horn pierced the air. “But we will have to ask your wife after we survive this day,” Olwen stated. “She has much to explain.”