Chapter six
Eisa
Casualties? I asked Kindra as we settled into our rooms for the night.
My hair was still damp from the bath. I sat before the fire to dry it, braiding it into its usual plait as I glanced at the door to the adjoining bathing room.
The castle was outfitted like Ironholm, with pipes that carried hot water from a cistern heated by stoves all over the building. I could hear Arik splashing around, and it took far more willpower than I cared to admit not to position myself near the door to watch.
A few injuries, Drekadrottning, Kindra’s silky voice replied. Revna wishes you to know that the paperwork will likely kill her before the odemarksdyr do.
I smiled, wishing I could hear Revna’s voice through her dragon. I had a feeling that Kindra had omitted several choice expletives that Revna would want me to know.
There was a pause on the other end of our connection, and I felt her energy hesitate before she finally added, My human wishes for you and the Dragehersker to return to us quickly. The attack today came from the Scar. It is growing.
I sat up straighter as my heart thumped in panic, remembering the darkness that had tried to leak into the world through the Rift. The vision of millions being swept away by an unnamed darkness so terrible that Idunn still refused to speak to me about it.
The voice, one of inky night and terror, that had entered my mind as I pressed my hand to the healed crack in the Rift: You will not stop me.
Idunn growled. I realized that Arik and I hadn’t discussed the vision, though I’d sent it to him. I wasn’t even sure if it was a true vision or just a trick of the Chaos.
But Idunn’s icy fear made me suspect it was the former.
How much? I asked, pushing the vision aside, at least for now.
At least seven dragon-lengths. Perhaps more after today. We will measure again tomorrow.
It had been too much to hope that the Rift growing was a one-time phenomenon. Now we had to deal with the monsters that already roamed the Odemark, as well as new ones bursting up from the bowels of the earth.
What came through? Anything…unusual? I wasn’t sure what I expected Kindra to tell me, and I didn’t know how to explain that something else was waiting just out of sight within the Rift.
The darkness, Idunn rumbled darkly.
Several garmr. Huleskygge. The usual. Kindra flickered, her energy uncertain. Revna wishes to know exactly how long before you return?
I frowned. Revna was more than capable. The fact that she was so worried made my anxiety spike. Hopefully we will be back within the fortnight. How is Revna otherwise?
Bored, Kindra replied immediately. And also rather lonely, although she wishes me not to tell you this.
I felt a pang, at these words, and at the hollow emotion at the end of Kindra’s golden thread.
Unlike Branka and me, Revna didn’t have a mate to keep her company, and while she had always seemed rather disparaging of the whole idea, I knew that she had been disappointed that he or she had not appeared in this last Rifting.
Tell her we miss her too. Truly.
Kindra nodded her golden head. What are your orders, Drekadrottning?
I blinked, unsure what to reply. Baldur was Drakonungr—essentially the king of the dragons—and as far as I knew, the other dragons had always defaulted to his orders, a fact which had rankled Einar to no end.
I was still getting used to the idea that the dragons saw Idunn, and by extension, me, as their leader now.
Kindra’s golden light pulsed. Can I suggest we continue patrols at one hour intervals for the next several hours? And monitor the Scar for changes over the next week?
Idunn responded with a draconic shrug. Whatever Baldur says.
Such a mighty queen, I teased, giving her eye ridges a mental scratch.
If you have forgotten, I flew several hundred miles over the last two days, Idunn replied irritably. I am tired.
I shall ask Baldur, Kindra replied solemnly, her head bowing respectfully in my mind’s eyes. Rest well, Drekadrottning.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I let Kindra’s golden thread of connection fall away. Maintaining a conversation from such a great distance was harder than I’d realized, and I felt a warm trickle of something wet slip over my lip before I tasted the iron.
“You’re bleeding again.”
I looked over my shoulder to see Arik leaning against the door to the bathing room, a towel slung low around his hips.
My mouth dried out a little at the sight of him, all scarred skin and runic tattoos across a muscular expanse of chest. He was beautiful. Deadly.
Mine. The thought came to me unbidden, and I wasn’t sure if the words were mine or Idunn’s.
Definitely yours, yawned Idunn. But I concur.
“I’m fine,” I replied aloud, lifting my hand to my nose.
The linen nightgown that had been left out by the palace servants was a gaudy, frilly mess of lace and ruffles, and I didn’t think they’d appreciate me leaving bloodstains all over the white fabric.
“Just speaking to Kindra. The Scar is growing.”
“I heard.” Arik dropped down naked beside me and held his towel up to my face. “Speaking to her hasn’t made you bleed before.”
“You’re more worried about my nosebleed than the growing Rift between worlds?” I asked incredulously.
“I am. There’s nothing I can do about the Rift while I’m stuck in this godsforsaken castle,” he grumbled, wiping the blood from my face with a gentle hand. “But I can take care of you.”
His eyes met mine, and Idunn raised her head in keen interest.
“What do you think it means?” I took the towel from him, averting my gaze.
He sat back on his heels and sighed. “Nothing good. We need to talk to Sigrid about that necklace. Perhaps she knows what the mark it left on you means, too.” His eyes trailed down over my breasts where the diamond-shaped scar lay hidden beneath the frilly nightgown.
The next time I met his eyes, they were pure silver with desire, and I had to get a firm grip on Idunn as her power tried to surge out of me. “Are you planning to get dressed, or will you be sleeping like that?”
Arik chuckled, his eyes flashing back to their usual gray as he gestured to his naked body. “I rather hoped we would both sleep like this, Kjaere.“ He flicked the ties that held the nightgown together at my collarbone. “Not that I’m not enjoying seeing you in whatever this is.”
“And scandalize the castle?” I gasped dramatically, placing a hand against my heart. “But we are not wed!”
Arik rolled his eyes and scooped me up, towel and ruffles and all. I yelped as he pressed me to his damp chest, which was warmed by Baldur’s heat. “If I truly thought you cared about such things, we would already be handfasted.”
“I thought drage didn’t bother with such human notions.
” I still held the towel to my face and felt rather ridiculous as he carried me to the bed, a huge four-postered monstrosity of carved wooden wolves covered in woven blankets and soft furs.
It was almost laughable, especially considering I used to sleep on a narrow pallet in a closet shared with two other people.
“We don’t.” Arik lowered me gently onto the bed, and leaned over me.
He lifted the towel away from my face, gently tilting my chin this way and that with his warm hand.
He felt like my own personal hearth, and the chill that had settled into my bones finally began to lift.
“But for you, I will gladly make an exception.”
I swallowed, the confession making something stick in my throat as his large hand continued to cradle my chin.
“Looks like it’s stopped,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss the place where my jaw met my neck. The place he knew made me shiver. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” My breath hitched as his lips moved to the lobe of my ear, and Idunn burned with need as his scent of leather and smoke enveloped me. “You never told me how you are. If you’re alright after that scene in the hall downstairs.”
Arik pulled back, and Idunn growled in protest in my chest. His stony mask had fallen into place, and I had the absurd urge to lean up and kiss away his composure. “I’m fine.”
“Liar.” I scrambled to sit up, ignoring Idunn’s whine of protest and my own traitorous body, and tucked my feet under my body. I reached up to cup his face, which had drawn into a frown as he sat next to me, still distractingly nude. “You were furious. I could feel Baldur.”
His frown smoothed as he took my hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. “My father usually has that effect on me.”
“Because of the word he used?”
“Among other things. Calling you a whore while openly being unfaithful to my mother doesn’t exactly raise him in my esteem.”
“I meant the other word.”
Thrall.
It wasn’t a nice word, but it had been thrown at me more times than I could count at Henrik’s tavern. Sigrid had always said that being indentured to a man like Henrik required growing a thick skin. Mine had never been quite thick enough.
Arik stilled, his eyes going steely as they met mine. “If he ever calls you that again, I’ll let Baldur rip his heart from his body.”
“Why?” I asked, genuinely baffled. Surely Arik had heard that word used his whole life, just as I had. I thought of the servant girl who had come to prepare our rooms. If his father was willing to shackle his indentures to stop them from running, surely he called them worse than thralls.
Arik’s jaw was tight. “Because he knows how I feel about it. He used it to get a reaction out of me.”
I frowned. There was something that Arik was keeping from me, but I wasn’t sure how far to push him on it.
He’d already skirted the topic once, and our relationship was still so new.
We’d only recently gotten to a place where I felt safe enough to open up about my own past. Was it fair to hold him to a higher expectation?
He will tell you when he is ready, Idunn assured me. He is ours. He is not hiding it to hurt you, but to protect himself.
You know? I asked, a little wounded that my dragon knew more about my mate than I did.