Chapter 38 #2
I don’t allow my voice to tremble. I don’t allow any more tears to fall as I say, “So now you know. You know and you never won’t.
I hate you just as much as you hate me. And if for any moment, any second, I forget”—I slide my fingers across the raised markings, the names—“I have all these scars to remind me.”
I don’t even look at him as I gather my dress to my chest and leave his room.
That night, lying in my bed in the shreds of my dress, my mind replays those memories long buried.
The laughs echo through my mind. The men jeering as I screamed, like every letter carved into my skin was an accomplishment.
They cheered as they branded me, claimed me.
As they planned to claim me further. I remember when the pain became too much and I lost consciousness, face against the dirt my blood had turned to mud.
He’s the reason I was sent there in the first place. Even if he didn’t mean for it to happen, it did.
If by any miracle this does not kill me, I will find those men, I think. I never saw their faces … but I have their names.
Carved right into my skin.
Midnight arrives, and I shed the tatters of my dress, replacing them with simple black pants and a long-sleeved shirt from the wardrobe. Then I open my door carefully, bones bracing as it creaks. I wait. But Raker’s room is silent. Good.
I slip into the hallway. The castle is empty. With every step down the stairs, anticipation builds in my bones. What will I learn? What is this great sword that decided to save me?
I know it doesn’t matter. Stellaris will not be mine for long. But part of me wonders at what I was able to claim.
Part of me wants to know that during this brief and brutal time in this world, maybe I have been more than my all-encompassing rage.
The iron door swings open at my approach, as if the blacksmith was listening for my steps. He looks behind me. “Are you alone?”
I nod.
He opens the door a sliver. The moment I’m inside, it clicks closed behind me.
And I see that he is not.
Traitorous asshole.
The forge is full of knights, wearing the crest of House Rodin. In the center of them stands their lord.
He smiles good-naturedly, as if we’re meeting in the middle of a ballroom.
“I thought you were at Heartfall,” I say smoothly, not willing to let him see anything but calm and confidence, though inside panic surges through me.
“And miss this? Never.”
My eyes roam across the warriors. “Miss what?” I ask, my tone casual, my heart hammering.
His smile only grows. He looks at me like I’m a caged animal that hasn’t realized it will never see the sun again.
“Did you really think I would betray the gods for you? When they’ve been so good to me?
” He shakes his head. “Oh, no. I’ve already alerted my patron god.
He’s on his way. I’ll be looking forward to being rewarded. ”
My jaw locks. Vander was wrong. It seems House Rodin hasn’t abandoned its god after all.
The blood drains from my face, and with it, any desire to pretend. “The God of Death … is coming here?”
“For you,” he says. “He seems quite interested in you … perhaps more than the other gods.” He smiles. “I’m sure he’ll make great use of you.”
Use. I don’t plan to be used by anyone.
The blacksmith bows before his lord and—with a regretful look at me—exits the room. He leaves the door behind me open. The snake. The Great Betrayer. He’s certainly fucking earned that name. Why did I think he would help me? Why did I trust him at all?
A shred of empathy breaks through the fury, though. He’s protecting his son. Stellan would have done the same for me.
And maybe he’s allowed me a chance at an exit.
I stare at the open door with a flint of hope. I could make a run for it … but they’ll just follow.
No, I won’t run. And I won’t sit around and wait for the God of Death to arrive.
This is what I’ve been training for. Why I’ve been strengthening my muscles and working on my form and practicing with Raker. I unsheathe my sword in a flash of sparkling silver. Lord Rodin’s eyes glimmer with greed as he studies it.
“An unmatched blade. Perhaps he’ll let me keep it.”
I don’t even waste my breath on a response as I swing my metal at his head, using another position I’ve practiced countless times before.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t reach with immortal speed toward his own weapon. He just … smiles.
And my steel stops just short of his neck.
What? It froze, without my order. I lurch forward, arms straining, hands gripping the hilt, trying to move, groaning with the effort—
But my blade doesn’t give an inch.
Lord Rodin’s laugh echoes through the forge. His voice is dripping in superiority. “You took an oath on your sword, stupid human. You can’t kill me.” He turns to motion toward his knights. “You can’t hurt any of my men. Not while you’re a guest.”
It doesn’t seem like that safety measure extends in the opposite direction.
Those knights inch forward, blades drawn. Lord Rodin’s own freshly sharpened sword glimmers beside him.
My arms tremble, trying to break free from the oath’s iron hold. But they can’t.
And that’s when I realize how fucked I am.
I’m deep below an ancient Great House on Starside.
I’m standing in front of an heir, surrounded by a dozen immortal warriors, each outfitted with massive swords that I can’t even attempt to deflect.
The God of Death is on his way here, to collect my head himself.
There’s nowhere to run. No escape. No getting out of this.
The immortal warriors have me cornered. I’m surrounded.
And I might as well be weaponless.
“Your sword is useless here,” the immortal lord confirms, eyes lit with nothing short of smug delight as a dozen blades close in around me. Then—
“Mine isn’t.”
That voice, dark and unyielding as this castle’s obsidian walls, comes from right behind me. The immortal’s eyes widen. His army turns with their immortal speed toward a new target.
They’re too late.
As if time has slowed to a crawl, I watch as Raker hurls his glorious sword into the air.
And that blade spins, starting at the first guard that has me surrounded, then cutting off immortal head after immortal head, body after body dropping at my feet. One after the other, in rapid succession, they fall. They all fall.
He kills every single one of them.
I turn in a circle, eyes wide, watching as a dozen immortal warriors are cut down in seconds, until I face Raker himself.
His eyes are sharpened steel. His body is taut with rage. Gaze locked on mine, his arm juts out—and his sword slams back into his palm with a force I feel in my bones.
I swallow.
“Nice trick,” I say, breathless.
He gives me a look that says, Idiot.
I give him one that says, I fucking know it.
Then, eyes still on mine, he throws his sword right at my neck.
No. Not my neck. His blade misses the side of my throat by less than a quarter of an inch, striking right behind me, where Lord Rodin is standing, his blade nearly to my pulse.
Raker takes a step forward. Another. I feel the whisper of his sword as he retrieves it, quick as lightning. I hear the body collapse behind me.
Raker has just killed an heir. He’s just killed everyone in this room except for me, with half a thought. I look around at the bodies surrounding us in a circle, their heads lying next to them.
Then I fall to my knees and retch.
Raker watches me. He waits. When I’m done, he offers his hand. I spit at his feet, still angry. He frowns.
But the next time he offers his hand, I take it.