Gods Beneath the Ice (Blood & Souls Duology #2)

Prologue

S?ren

The northern wastes of Bhorglid were the last place I wanted to be, but I hadn’t exactly given myself much of a choice in the matter.

Our feet crunched as we arrived and Mira took her hand from my arm.

In the three weeks since the battle here, the snow had melted slightly in the afternoon sun and frozen again as night descended.

The endless cycle created a preserved graveyard of Kryllian soldiers, their blood smeared across the white.

I slid my helmet on, latching it into place, and saw the scene through the eyes of a monster.

Mira frowned. “There’s no one here.” As if concealing my identity was the only reason to wear the wolf skull’s visage over my own. As if showing any minute expression, any beginnings of emotion would not lead to my downfall.

My carelessness had already destroyed me once. I would not allow it to do so again.

But Mira was not privy to the swirls of my dark thoughts. She did not—could not—understand what it all meant for me. So instead, I quipped back, the voice distortion taking hold of my words, “You’re here.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and I know what you look like already.”

I ignored her. Mostly because I didn’t feel like talking, especially considering what I had come here to do. But also because she was unaware of the truth.

We were not alone.

“General.”

The word was half whisper, half plea. It sent a shudder down my spine, the way the voices always did.

I forced myself not to turn my head—if I did, I would be face-to-face with…

him? Her? Them? Whichever soldier was still here, clinging desperately to the last vestiges of life.

The spirit of a Kryllian fighter who had died under my command mere days ago.

A ghost here to haunt me.

It didn’t matter if they knew my face. After all, there was no one for them to tell. No one else who heard or saw them.

But at least this way I could pretend not to hear them. Avoid looking directly into their eyes while they begged me to acknowledge them. The mask was another layer to hide behind.

The first whispered word multiplied until a chorus sounded.

It took every effort not to flinch. This was not a lone soldier waiting here in their death-place for a familiar sight.

It was a contingent of them, their number impossible to discern without acknowledging the secret I held so tight to my chest—that I could see the souls of those who had passed on before they departed for the next life.

Mira was still complaining, and I forced every taut muscle to relax and focus on her words. “—is out doesn’t mean she won’t return and find us gone. What’s your plan for that?”

The Queen of Kryllian was away on an errand today. It was the only reason we were able to sneak away to the wastes for a few hours. She had been venturing out for longer and longer periods of time ever since the Trials. Even Mira wasn’t sure where she was going.

“She’s leaving at other times, too,” Mira had reported, her fingers fidgeting nervously. “I know it. There’s at least one other teleporter working with her, and she hasn’t mentioned it.”

“Where is she going?” I’d asked, frustrated. “Where is she having you take her?”

“The wastes, mostly.”

“Bhorglid?” I’d wracked my mind but was unable to find an answer to the puzzle placed before me. We had some of the pieces, but not enough to form a picture.

I was certain the queen was up to something, though I wasn’t sure what.

I turned my thoughts back to the matter at hand. “You’re not staying. You’ll go back and then come retrieve me in two hours.”

Mira scuffed her boot in the snow. It hit me suddenly how young she was—barely eighteen. War had changed us both, and I tended to forget just how little she’d experienced outside the confines of the front lines and the Kryllian palace. “I don’t want to leave.”

I softened slightly. “I know. But someone needs to be on guard back at the palace. In case the queen returns early.”

“Do you think you’re clever?” Mira’s retort had bite, and I frowned. “I know exactly what you’re doing. Exactly who you’re looking for. You know you won’t get redemption from her, right?”

“Yes.” The word tore from me, harsher than I intended.

Mira’s reaction was immediate, her nonchalant expression twisting into annoyance.

She glared at me—at the Hellbringer. Anyone with eyes could recognize she hated Revna, though I didn’t understand why.

Maybe because Mira and I had both been punished for leaving the Trials early.

The Queen of Kryllian had not appreciated her general—her obedient pet—cutting corners. But she’d said to watch the Trials, said to go without my mask and sit right in the front, said to ensure Revna knew she was watching.

I did what I was asked. Held my tongue while her prick of a brother used his knife to slice into Revna’s face. Sat still and unmoving as he prepared to kill her. Watched with a satisfied smirk as the last brother died at my princess’s hands.

Even in the face of death, even as I watched her struggle for survival, she was beautiful. She was everything. And thinking of her expression when she’d locked eyes with me after her win killed me a bit inside. She hated me for what I’d done.

I didn’t blame her.

“I am not here to try and be redeemed,” I told Mira. “Whether or not Revna could possibly forgive me doesn’t change the fact that this is the right thing to do.”

The teleporter stood quietly at my side for a long moment.

She’d been assigned to my regiment, a small number of elite Lurae soldiers, three years ago.

I’d taken one look at her and seen my younger self shining in her defiant eyes.

Despite her youth, Mira fought for her country with a quiet aptitude most would never realize she possessed.

She was an asset I used often, one I couldn’t afford to lose—neither to death nor lack of trust. I thought of her like a younger sister, and taking her loyalty for granted would be a mistake.

“You love her.” Mira said it so softly I almost didn’t hear.

I didn’t answer. Perhaps she would think I missed the declaration, lost in my thoughts. “Keep watch. Notify me if the queen returns early.”

She was gone in the next instant.

The spirits here were not happy with me.

As I scoured the landscape for any trace of a head of red hair, they followed.

Their demands were incessant, their insults worse.

“You’re the reason we’re dead,” they hissed, paying no mind to my personal space.

I was grateful spirits didn’t keep their death wounds in their ghostly forms; they all appeared as human as they were when they’d served under my command.

“You knew the royals were coming and you didn’t warn us adequately. ”

And something about the voices of the dead pierced straight through my flesh to chill my bones. Listening to them was almost painful. It was another reminder of my loneliness, my cursed Lurae.

“Don’t you know I have a family back home? Don’t you know that my children will never see their mother again, that my spouse will spend an eternity grieving me?”

Everything about this place was unrecognizable now.

I nudged bodies with my boot, wondering if maybe a Kryllian soldier had fallen over him, covering him from view.

And the whole time, I thought of Revna—the way she’d looked as she pushed to her feet, bloody knife in hand, and turned to the audience with a scream that resonated from deep within.

This was for her. Dealing with every one of these loud spirits would be worth it if I could just—

“You’re the reason we’re stuck here, on the plains of a foreign land for eternity, not even granted peace in our deaths—”

“Enough!”

I whirled on the crowd of spirits amassing behind me, my shout echoing across the wasteland.

There had to be at least fifty now, all astonished to discover I could see them.

I stepped to the closest one and got directly in her face.

“There are hundreds—thousands—of deaths on my hands. Yours isn’t one of them.

The Bhorglid royals who wielded their blades and their Lurae killed you. Not me.”

She blinked at me. It was a common enough scene, one I was all too familiar with. No one else even knew spirits existed, so why would the dead think anyone could see them? For all they followed me around, they often didn’t truly realize I was paying attention. Until my control snapped.

But I saw them all.

“The only reason you’re still here is because you’ve chosen not to pass on,” I continued.

“Don’t pretend. I know how this works far better than most. If you really want your peace, you’ll head through the archway you see, the one you’re all ignoring, the one you’re all afraid of, instead of harassing your former general. ”

I sighed and stepped back from the soldier’s spirit.

If my mask were off, I would run a hand over my face.

Instead, I curled my hand into a fist, hoping it would soothe my restless impatience.

It was nearly impossible to reason with the dead, especially the ones who stuck around—their fear encompassed them like shrouds.

They didn’t want to venture down the path some had described to me before.

They wanted someone to blame. They wanted their lives back.

Even I couldn’t give them that.

Relishing their stunned silence, I turned back to the endless expanse of snow in front of me.

Perhaps this entire endeavor was futile.

If I couldn’t find a single dead body with bright red hair against a backdrop of pure white, then maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

Maybe there was no way to atone for my sins, no way to cut the leash the queen held wrapped around my throat.

Maybe I was destined to remain a monster after all.

When the spirits didn’t return to their clamoring, I glanced back.

They were gone.

With a frown, I looked around for them. Surely they hadn’t—