Chapter 24 #2
Screams joined the wind, and my hand flew to my mouth at the smell of burning flesh and of people trying to escape but having nowhere to go as the wall of fire surrounded them, driving the ones who’d left their homes toward the steep drop.
A primordial scream split the air, filling it with more torment than I could stand.
My hands covered my ears as I spun to the frozen sea behind me, and I pressed my palms harder against my head when the ice shattered, cleaving in two as the god Njord cried out his agony while his people died in the flames.
Fire to take out Vikings who worshipped the water. That was a rare kind of cruelty.
People started falling down the drop, their bodies hitting the mountain with thuds I shouldn’t be able to hear from here. The pain of their screams beat into me until my body began trembling.
“Don’t look.” Darcke came to my side. His face was pale, his dark eyes hard, and snow glittered as it covered his pale hair. If I’d thought he was dangerous before, what rolled off him now made me slip on the ice as I shuffled backward.
“Is that…” I trailed off when the warrior turned his back to the slaughter.
“It happened a long time ago. This isn’t real.”
It felt real. It smelled real.
Cold crept up through my bare feet, an aching, painful chill weaving up my body.
I swallowed as Darcke stared out over the snow-covered landscape, at the ice, which was split in two but still didn’t reveal what the sea hid in its depths.
“Did you do that?” I regretted the question as soon as his hands clenched.
“What do you think?” Darcke asked, the muscle in his jaw working.
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.
His eyes slid my way. “Why would you choose me as your second if you weren’t sure if I killed my people?”
Because I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to save mine.
I shrugged. “I don’t plan on dying before you.”
“And how have your plans worked out so far?”
My wince made him shake his head. Darcke got off the ice, his head turned to the ground as he walked up to the chalice.
“I didn’t do it,” Darcke said as he studied the contents of the golden cup.
“Then why do people think so?” My teeth started chattering.
“People think a lot of things that are wrong.”
There was something in his tone that made goose bumps rush across my skin, and not from the snow peppering it.
“Why do you say that?” I asked cautiously as I picked up the clothes I’d thrown from the snow. I groaned when I found them soaked. The trembling in my teeth moved to my limbs, and I almost fell over as I slipped my freezing feet into my boots.
“We’re all hiding things.” Darcke cleared his throat. “For when you’re ready.”
“What?” I asked.
“The chalice says, ‘For when you’re ready.’” He tried to grip it, but his fingers closed, exactly like mine had. “Strange.”
As I stumbled to his side, jacket and trousers in hand, he frowned. “You look miserable.”
“Th-thanks,” I muttered while I lost feeling in my fingers.
Darcke’s eyes bounced between mine before moving up toward the sky with a sigh.
“Here.” He got out of his jacket and waved it my way.
I wanted nothing more than to tell him to fuck off, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to take this, and while I agreed with Darcke that this wasn’t real—this couldn’t be real—it still felt very real.
And I had no intention of testing whether it was possible to freeze to death wherever we were.
As I accepted the jacket, my fingers brushed the back of Darcke’s hand.
It was like being struck by lightning. I sucked in air when a jolt ran through me, starting in my feet and running up my spine until my shoulders shook so violently I nearly dropped his jacket as well.
I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Darcke’s eyes widened before he flew backward a step to get some space between us. But it didn’t matter. My hand slid up the back of his until my fingers wrapped around his wrist, and while I could feel him trying to shake me off, he couldn’t.
The world tilted again, and nausea ripped through my gut as we went between day and night, flickering so quickly years must have passed.
Images flashed before my eyes.
Our ships going down near an island with a tall mountain, waves almost as high drowning them.
Darcke falling to his knees before the shaman and King Gustief, the world stilling as magic died while the rune for water on his chest went red, then white, until it was only a scar—exactly like mine.
Darcke and the king standing on a ship in the night, their faces strained as they spoke.
Fire. So much fire.
Then Darcke on his ship, a wild storm surrounding him. Drenched, he screamed into the wind. While I couldn’t hear what he was saying, I could feel his despair, a haunting guilt that climbed down my throat like the sticky honey we collected in the summer.
“Stop,” Darcke ordered. “Let me go.”
I didn’t want to see any more, but it wasn’t my choice. My fingers held on to his arm as if the wind whipping around us would take me with it if I didn’t, and more images flashed before my eyes.
The village without all the destruction, with a river winding up the mountain.
Children screamed in excitement as they swam and played while it brought them up to the homes nestled into the side of the steep drop.
Ships traveling freely beside them. A dock full of bustling trade in furs and pelts, amber and ivory and weapons of all kinds.
My eyes caught on a white longship, and my lips parted.
Then I was on the ground. My eyes stung as stars glittered above me, peeking through the crowns of the tall trees of Nordoen. Darcke’s chest heaved where he lay on the ground a few feet away, his hair in his eyes as he pressed his hands into the forest bed.
“What was that?” I asked, out of breath.
“What do you think?” Darcke asked.
“I’m asking you.” I rolled my shoulders as the forest around us woke up with the sounds of night, a howl somewhere in the distance weaving over my shoulders.
Darcke got to his feet, turning his back on me. “And I’ve told you I’m not here to answer all your questions, heir. You’ll have to figure out some things yourself.”
So we were back to that.
“That was my father’s ship,” I said slowly.
I was sure of it. It was the same longship Viljan and I had traveled here in.
I’d never heard of my father going anywhere near Darcke’s nation. And in his longship, not one of his warships? It didn’t make sense.
“‘For when you’re ready.’”
“What?” I asked, irritation heating my cheeks. “Did you hear me?”
“I think we’re supposed to take it together.”
“What are you talking about?”
This man was infuriating. Why could he not answer a single fucking question I asked of him?
“Come,” he demanded.
“You are so fucking—”
Darcke stormed over and grabbed my arm. As soon as he touched me, the world heeled once more.
We were on the dock where I’d said goodbye to my people, and fear chilled my veins worse than the snow had before when their hands lifted in our goodbye, tears glistening on every cheek.
Viljan’s hard face turned our way from the longship he already sat in, and when he opened his mouth, I gasped.
Somehow I knew whatever would come out of his mouth would be damning—that Darcke with his terrifying perception would understand what I’d fought so hard to hide.
“I’m ready,” I screamed. “I’m ready.”
Dark eyes found mine, and for the first time there was a strange kinship in them when Darcke replied, “So am I.”
We spun toward the chalice, and my hand slipped into Darcke’s on its own. We reached for the cup with our other hands and touched it at the same moment. It instantly split into two, and I nodded when Darcke ordered, “Together.”
Whatever was in it had no taste, but heat exploded within me as the liquid trickled down my throat.
My fingers locked with Darcke’s, and I couldn’t look away from his eyes as the world spun, images I couldn’t make out reflecting in what looked like a wind tunnel made of water surrounding us.
The mirrored surface turned faster and faster and faster, until the only things that were still were the eyes of the man I clung to, his hostile gaze somehow anchoring me and unsettling me at the same time.
An arm of water escaped the wall of memories—because it was memories that whirled around us—and it reached for our interlocked fingers, twining around our hands like the rope Darcke had tied around my and Kilia’s wrists in the first challenge.
I jerked as something tugged deep in my chest, and the chalice I’d held clattered to the ground when Darcke took my other hand, his eyes darkening as he steadied me.
My mouth opened, but he shook his head when a presence filled the walls of water—someone ancient spinning around us, his laugh rattling my spine.
“Don’t look,” he whispered as he moved closer.
I didn’t even breathe as whoever the god was chuckled again before the bond building within me made my entire body convulse, sending me right into Darcke’s hard chest. A shuddering breath went through him as he wrapped an arm around me, the other moving my chin, keeping my focus on him, not on the primordial presence that hummed a song that made my feet twitch, wishing to join him in the water.
“Who is that?” I asked shakily, able to stand still only because Darcke held on to me.
“It’s who you think it is,” he replied.
“But…”
I didn’t dare finish the question. Njord. The Lord of the Ocean—the one we were warned of as children because he would drown us if we listened to his song—was here.
He wasn’t one of our gods. He wasn’t an Aesir but one of the Vanir—the lower-tier gods.
And he wasn’t the one who should bless our bond.
Tears shrouded my vision when Darcke’s grip on me tightened. It was his god. Not mine.
My mind went to the day of the choosing, my stomach dropping.