47. Divided Soul
Divided Soul
Halla
So much pain.
Halla hardly noticed the jarring impact as her body slammed to the ground or the feel of blood rushing down her stomach. The gunshot wound in her chest made it hard to breathe. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think of anything besides the pain and her sister’s name.
Vaguely, she recognized the sound of the door closing and of footsteps trailing away from her.
Then an engine roared to life before it faded into the distance.
Halla’s harsh breathing evened out as the pain vanished from her chest. Was this death, then?
If she could feel her parents’ threads, would she be able to follow them to wherever they’d gone?
She could still feel Aagen’s wooden floor beneath her body and the stickiness of the blood from Aagen’s wound.
Yet from her own wound, she felt nothing.
Maybe this was her body’s way of defending itself in her last moments, by granting her peaceful numbness.
Halla waited for the darkness to take her, but if anything, her senses sharpened to everything around her.
Footsteps thundered up the porch steps. The door flung open, but Halla didn’t open her eyes. Perhaps they’d come back to make sure she was truly dead.
“Halla.” Kai’s urgent voice rang like an alarm in her ears. His hands were on her arms. “Halla, you’re okay. Open your eyes; you’re not dead.”
At his touch, Halla’s eyelids sprang open.
She jerked herself out of his grasp, scrambling away until her back hit the kitchen’s cabinets.
Halla’s hands scrambled to her chest, searching for the wound she had felt so vividly.
Though her arms and shirt were still speckled with Aagen’s blood, they were clean of her own.
Her skin was unblemished. Where had the hole gone?
“What? How—”
“Halla, it wasn’t real.” Kai leaned forward as if to steady Halla’s hands that tore at her clothes.
“Don’t touch me!” she screeched.
Utter pain flashed in Kai’s face. “I deserve that.”
But Halla wasn’t paying attention to his words or even the regret that settled deep in his eyes.
She stared at the ring shining ostentatiously from his middle left finger.
The band was black, yet it shimmered. A thick golden line ran through the middle and within the golden line were dozens of small dark gems.
“Kings and Queens . . .” Halla whispered, her hands shaking at her sides. “Are those—”
Kai followed her gaze but did not move to hide the ring. “They’re black diamonds.”
“But, why? How? I’ve never seen it before today—” Halla stopped, clasping her hand over her mouth to smother a gasp. Kai said nothing, letting Halla’s mind fill in the blanks. She lowered her shaking hand. “The Diamantians’ galdr is illusion.”
“It is.”
Horror and understanding battled for prominence in Halla’s mind. “Someone with that power could hide a ring.”
“Or make it look like I’d shot someone. Someone with galdr powerful enough could even make the person that I shot believe it was real.” Sadness weighed down Kai’s voice. “I’m so sorry, Halla, I needed you to believe that I’d shot you. Otherwise he would have done it himself.”
“Like he killed Aagen,” Halla snapped, taking small pleasure in the way Kai flinched from her words, his eyes unable to look at Aagen’s body.
He’d lied to her. Over and over again. She’d thought he was normal, ordinary, just like her, but he wasn’t.
He’d used galdr against her every day to hide the truth.
“He told me he wouldn’t hurt you. He said we could go home.” Kai mumbled the words as if reassuring himself. He lifted his eyes to Halla. “I just didn’t want them to kill him. What if it was Larissa, Halla? Wouldn’t you have done whatever you could to save her?”
Halla rose to her knees. “Larissa never would have needed me to save her because Larissa wouldn’t be a monster!”
Fire burned in Kai’s eyes as he rose in response. “You don’t know what my mother did to him! He didn’t deserve it, any of it, but he was kind to me, even when no one else was—”
“Your mother?” Halla whispered.
Kai’s head dropped into his hands; his fingers wove into his ink-black hair, pulling at the strands.
“Is your mother the Empress?”
“She’s hardly a mother,” he muttered into his hands.
The kitchen spun around Halla. Aagen still lay only inches away from her, and the boy in front of her, whom she’d trusted with her very life, was the son of the Empress.
“But she sold you! Why would you help her by telling Calder where we were? She made you a slave!”
Kai shook his head in his hands. “I was never a slave. Talk of the Vienám was becoming more common, but she couldn’t get the information she needed. She figured if anyone knew how to find the Vienám, it would be the ones who were the most desperate.”
Bile rose in Halla’s throat. Kai had never been abused in the barracks. Fenris may not have known who he was, but he knew enough to never lay a hand on him. There was a reason no one ever bought Kai: because Kai was exactly where he was meant to be.
Halla hadn’t felt this sick since she’d lost her parents.
She buried her face in her knees and bit down on her knuckles, determined to not be sick or cry or scream or any of the things that she wanted so desperately to do.
But what should she do? Anara would’ve killed Kai the instant he betrayed them.
Darien would’ve tried to reason with him.
Larissa would’ve—well, she probably would’ve killed him too.
Larissa!
“Kai,” she croaked. “Where did Calder go?”
His eyes shifted away from her again. “He took Masai’s motorcycle. He’s heading for Safír.”
“What?” Halla leapt to her feet, clinging to the kitchen counter as the world tilted on its side. Kai stood, reaching out to steady her, but Halla’s daggered expression stopped his hands.
“I swear on the Norn, Halla. I didn’t go to free him.
I just wanted to talk to him, but he told me they’d kill him and it would be my fault if he died when I had the power to save him.
He promised we could go home and regroup there.
He said Safír was already lost. I wouldn’t have let him go if I’d known he would kill Aagen or try and hurt you! ”
“How could you not know?” she shouted. “After everything we’ve told you he’s done. After the way he hunted us down? How can you stand there and act like you’re surprised?”
Kai’s fingers twitched at his side, his ring glaringly obvious now that he wasn’t shielding it from Halla’s view.
“He’s the only one who ever protected me.
He is the only one who has ever loved me.
I know what he is, but he gave me his word.
” Kai’s voice rose. “He’s never lied to me before. How could I know he would now?”
“They trusted you,” Halla spat. “They protected you!”
“I know,” Kai’s voice cracked. “I’m sorry. I regretted telling Calder where you were going even before he found us, but I couldn’t undo what I’d already done.”
Halla chewed her lip. She had so many questions, but there was only one thing that mattered now. “Take me to Safír.”
“Hel’s bells, Halla, you can’t be serious.”
“He’s going after my sister and Darien and Anara and Masai! We have to warn them. There has to be a way to get there. Or maybe you really don’t care if your psycho brother kills them after all!”
“That’s not true!” Kai shouted.
“Then help me find a way to get there!”
“What about Aagen?”
Halla clenched her fists, resisting the violent urge to slap Kai across the face as she forced herself to look at Aagen. “We’ll come back,” she promised Kai and Aagen and herself, “but he would want us to find Darien if there’s even a chance of warning him.”
Kai snatched the keys that hung near the door. “It won’t be nearly as fast as Masai’s bike, but we could take Aagen’s truck.”
Instead of joining Kai, Halla kneeled down, placing her hand on Aagen’s head. Tears slid down her face. She tried to remember the words Larissa had spoken over their parents, but all she could muster was, “If you see your wife, I hope you’re happy with her again.”
Halla sniffed, consumed by anger and hurt, and wondered if Calder had been right. Did Halla hate Kai after all? She stalked past him and toward the barn, which Aagen’s truck sat inside. She pulled herself up into the passenger side as Kai took the driver’s seat.
“Do you even know how to drive?” she asked.
“Well enough.” He slid the keys into the ignition, and Aagen’s truck rumbled to life. It even smelled like him.
“So what, Calder just let you stay behind?”
Kai’s fingers fidgeted against the wheel. “No. Though the illusion I gave him of me riding on the back of the motorcycle has probably worn off by now.”
Halla shivered at the thought of Calder’s anger upon realizing Kai had lied to him, but she pushed away the thought as the truck rolled down the dirt drive.
She glared at Kai, crossing her arms against her chest as if the pressure alone could stop her heart from splintering.
Her mind pulled at the memories, questioning the integrity of each one as it passed.
Had any of it been real? Kai’s kindness in the barracks?
His protection of her on the road? Had it all been an illusion?
Was this now just another illusion? Why hadn’t the Norn known?
Halla chewed her cheek. Who was to say the Norn hadn’t known?
Why hadn’t they said anything, unless . . .
“What did the Norn actually say to you?”
Kai’s foot slammed on the brake. “Sorry, sorry.”
He eased his foot back onto the gas, taking the truck onto the main road, but Halla only waited for the answer to her question.
He sighed, not looking at her. “ Double-edged heart; divided soul. Betrayed or betrayer? Decide your role. That was my part of the prophecy.”
Halla shook her head, lifting her eyes to the roof of the truck, failing to stop the tears as they fell from her eyes and the breaking of her heart.
She reached for the threads Aagen had shown her.
Four strings pulled her to Havsiden, but a fifth still connected her to the boy beside her.
It was an infinitesimal sensation, but Halla was certain; the thread between her and Kai had frayed. One strong gust and it would snap.
“Well, I guess we know which role you chose.”