Chapter 10 Torben
Torben
“I should kill Inkletter for this,” Arctos growled when Torben entered his cavernous home. The words were thick with outrage and disbelief.
He’d found his cousin pacing in front of the hearth. Firelight raked over Arctos’s scars, throwing them into hard relief. The lord of shields clenched his hands so hard that blood beaded on his fists.
Torben instinctively scented the air upon entering. The vampire—that incense-reeked little parasite—was tucked somewhere nearby in one of the cave chambers that made up Arctos’s den. His home resembled Arctos himself: stone-hard, pared down to essentials, spare as a war forge.
Her steady breathing suggested the princess’s sleep was slow and deep, untouched by her machinations.
“You would be well within your right to kill him,” Torben said, just as outraged. “Sounds like the incubus got played by a conniver.” Bloodthieves and deceit, hand in hand eternally.
“And now I’m wed to one,” Arctos bit out. “One who fainted in the court and now sleeps in my godsdamned bed.” He crossed to a stone shelf and reached for the liquor service. He poured a measure of vodka—Umber-distilled, clear as bladesong—into a bermetal cup.
Torben almost warned him to conserve it—the shifters in Umber had predicted a lean season—but the set of Arctos’s hard jaw silenced him.
Torben’s own fists clenched, his Berserkerage primed. He could think of no worse scenario for this man. Disfavored by his beloved queen in front of everyone? Wed to one of the ilk who’d annihilated nearly their entire family?
Decades ago, when young Arctos had staggered back to the court with news of a vampire attack, Torben’s parents had led the hunt for them. His father and mother had killed many before falling to the leeches.
Queen Yrsa herself had been the one to wipe out the rest of that gang. Another reason his cousin remained so loyal to her.
Arctos knocked the liquor back in one practiced motion, throat flexing, and set the cup down too hard. The room smelled of woodsmoke and vodka and the iron tang of plans gone wrong.
“Why are you not already blind drunk?” Torben said.
His cousin’s behavior was puzzling. And I know him better than anyone.
The two had been inseparable as children.
Orphaned young, they’d run wild in the queendom, staying out of trouble because Yrsa favored her gods-sons.
No longer. “You seem relatively…calm about your fate. Why are you not breaking things?”
“When Emilia wakes, I’ll break her. That vampire will taste every hardship I’ve ever wished upon her kind.”
The vow grounded Torben. His Berserkerage ebbed from near eruption to something he could contain.
When Arctos offered the bottle of vodka, Torben shook his head. “None for me. As long as Dagny abstains, I gladly do the same.” His cherished mate was due in just weeks!
Dagny had been raised in an outpost on the border of the vampire Badlands, tasked with defending Ravinelun against strigoi and other grotesque creatures. Those lands were where vampires grew bat-like, the winged monsters of legend.
Though just twenty-five, his fierce female had earned ohalla even before Torben had. Yet she was also as warm as a summer glow. He often caught her murmuring to her rounded belly with utter love.
Despite Arctos’s turmoil and the events at court, Torben found his lips curled just to picture her.
His cousin studied him. “You and Dagny are forged perfectly. Stop trying to hide how wondrous matehood is for you. I can handle it.”
“And what about matehood for you? You’ve craved it more than anyone I know.
Now that you are wed, you’ll be expected to give up the search for your mate.
Though it’s an Accession.” Could Arctos’s fated one still stumble into his life?
Yes. But unlikely. Moving outside of one’s day-to-day sphere brought the best chances.
“An Accession may yet shift the stars.” Arctos’s voice dropped.
“Once I show Emilia a bear’s life, her day walking will embolden her just enough to flee me.
When she crosses the border into Craigdúr, those wolves will tear her apart.
If not them, then the witches. So it’s only a matter of time, cousin, until I’m a widower. ”
“And if she doesn’t run?”
Arctos’s lips drew back from his teeth. “Then she’ll be even more fun to break.”
“I see. So all is not gloom.” Torben had no concern for the princess who’d engineered this situation in the first place. But he blamed Yrsa most. “Why do you think our queen did this to you?” he asked.
For centuries, she’d ruled with wisdom and strength, but in the last few decades, her behavior had made little sense. Torben couldn’t shake the feeling that the future boded ill for Berserkers—and that she knew it. Still, he’d shared his suspicions with no one. Not even Arctos. Not even Dagny.
“Why does any monarch weaken a second-in-command?” Arctos said absently. “Perhaps I haven’t shown enough allegiance.”
“Nonsense, cousin.” Arctos had demonstrated utter loyalty to the queen. “She must fear how others look up to you.” Many Berserkers, tantalizingly close to ohalla themselves, whispered of a stalwart new rule under Shieldchief Arctos. “They support you for a reason.”
“Change the topic. We tread near sedition, and you know it.”
The cavern seemed to lean closer, listening.
Torben clenched his jaw, then said, “I’d hoped you would earn immortality tonight. It eats at me how close you are.”
“There was scant valor to harvest. Enfeebled leeches scurried at the sight of us, like creeping things beneath a lifted stone. Only a handful of guards had warrior spines, and Inkletter allowed me every kill.”
Arctos’s Berserkerage would have leveled the field between him and immortal vampires. “You could have hunted deeper. Yrsa was right: the barracks—”
“The princess was there for the taking, and I had orders.”
How had he kept himself from going Berserk and slaughtering them all? To linger so close to immortality…
Arctos stared into the fire. “I’m glad that you’ve earned ohalla at least. Our line will continue in more than one way.”
Torben was now immune to illness and would regenerate from every injury except a beheading. “Yes, but I earned it by chance!” he said, glancing around with caution.
Last year, he’d taken over a friend’s guard shift at the maze’s mouth on the very night a pack of wendigos had somehow reached Ravinelun’s outskirts.
Most suspected the Valkyries had delivered them as a prank—or an ohalla blessing.
After all, undead creatures didn’t simply escape from the Helter. A river of fire encircled that land.
Torben continued, “Yrsa could unleash warriors like you into the Helter or the Badlands, and ohalla would flow like mead. She’s protected us all our lives. Why forsake us now?”
“It’s not for the two of us to question our ruler. She must have a reason.”
The reason? As an immortal, her shieldchief would be nearly as powerful as she was.
Seeing Arctos would speak no more about the subject, Torben said, “Did you scent other Berserkers in the castle?” Rumors said vampires bred their kind as blood bags, yet Yrsa forbade an investigation.
“I couldn’t scent anything. Incense seared my nose until my senses reeled. But I will find out from my new captive.”
“Your wife. She’s a full member of the clan, remember?” Torben raked his fingers through his hair. “By Wóden, this can’t stand.”
“Now you want to revolt against our laws?” Arctos’s laugh was low and bitter. “The vampire outplayed us. It’s done.” He glanced toward the sleeping chamber again, the third time since they’d begun speaking.
Suspicion flared. Was Arctos secretly relieved to possess any spouse? Torben asked, “Is there nothing attractive about her?”
Arctos laughed low. “Are you jesting? Emilia Vl?descu is a parasite of such weakness, she defies belief. Do you remember my mother’s last words?
Before she led vampires away from me, she told me she would live on if I did—if my line did.
Do you think she meant through a vampire’s womb?
” His grip tightened around the cup until it buckled in surrender.
“And even if I wanted a spoiled princess like Emilia, she looks at me with horror. None I saw in the castle tonight bore scars. Not even the guards. Emilia fainted when she gazed upon mine.”
“So Yrsa paired a pampered royal with a scarred warrior in a match doomed on both sides.” Why? The queen could have chosen any number of charming Berserkers for the vampire. “Another slight to punish you for your popularity? Or is our ruler felling trees to prepare for a fire?”
In Arctos’s bedchamber, furs rustled once, a sleepy adjustment, then the room went quiet again.
“It matters naught,” Arctos said, straightening. “I’ve vengeance on my mind. When I get through with Emilia, she’ll wish she’d been sealed in that crypt—just to be safe from me.”