Chapter 12 #3
Help, I thought. Help me. The railing only gave a hollow, mocking shudder, the wooden bars pushing against me like a cage.
A darkness swept over Darcke’s features, and I got the feeling he understood more than he let on.
“This is honorable, no?” he said. “You people always talk of your honor. Fight to the death and all that.” Whatever his lips lifted into, I wouldn’t call it a smile. It was more of a threatening flash of sharp white teeth. “So what are you waiting for? Are you not going to kill the little girl?”
Kilia scoffed while I let out an angry strangled sound.
“She is no girl. She has the strength of the two of us, warrior,” the twin snapped.
My insides twisted in worry as Darcke’s laugh slithered up my spine. “I doubt that.”
“This is the Sweengard heir.” Kilia released his grip, and I coughed when air rushed down my throat. “Show him,” he ordered. “Show him I’m not about to kill some defenseless little girl.”
I shook my head. “N-no.” I coughed again. “I don’t th-think so.”
Fuck, my voice sounded exactly how my throat felt.
“Why?” Kilia demanded. “Are you scared you’re not strong enough?”
Yes.
“D-Darcke is right,” I said in my thick voice. “It is more honorable to fight… to fight to the death.” I cleared my throat. “This—this would be no fight. It’d be too easy.”
The warrior’s scoff hit right where it intended. More people turned our way, and I struggled to force the tears from my eyes—both from the pain still lingering around my bruised neck and from the disgrace I was once again draping over my family’s name.
“Coward,” Kilia hissed. “You’re as scared as your brother. Why don’t you run as well? Save us all the headache of having to kill you.”
“Lika isn’t scared. And he wouldn’t run from you.
” I tried to mimic Darcke’s disrespectful tone and was quite happy with it until the warrior started laughing.
A low laugh that sent shivers across my skin.
Still, I refused to back down. “I am an heir. I won’t let some karl with a temper tantrum risk that. ”
I couldn’t look Viljan’s way when the words left my mouth, even if it was unlikely he heard me over the waves crashing against the steerboard. The rope around my arm twisted further, breaking my skin. I bit down hard not to show it.
“Nobody is going to weep when I kill you, you little bitch,” Kilia growled.
“You talk so much. I thought the Viking way was kill first, talk later.” Darcke waved for another warrior. “I am not watching over this group. They bore me.”
The warrior nodded, but as he was about to step forward from the wall of men who sealed us off from the others, Guner spun. “Darcke, you’re to stay with them. It’s an order.”
I’m not sure why I was relieved when the wall of men broke and the other heirs were guided to where Kilia and I stood, but that relief quickly faded when Viljan was shouldered from reaching us—a coordinated maneuver forcing my guard and Rakkel’s away that left me certain that had been the intent from the beginning.
“I wish not to,” Darcke challenged his leader. “The heirs are spoiled, and the men only talk. No real fight in them.”
“It does not matter what you wish,” Guner growled. “It’s the king’s order. You are to oversee the heirs during this practice and report back.”
Darcke stared off in the distance. “And if I refuse?”
Guner laughed once. “You know what happens.”
Darcke’s nostrils flared, and for a second a strange scent filled the wind—one that made my heart ache in a way I’d never experienced before. Only a heartbeat later, the wind died down, became the gentle breeze from before, and I blinked, trying to scour the fog layering my mind.
“Fine,” he snapped.
“We’re nearly there, so get ready,” Guner called over his shoulder.
I was too busy staring at the furious warrior, who was cursing in a language I’d never heard before, that I didn’t have time to react as Kilia grabbed my neck once more, forcing my face down until my bones protested.
“Did you hear that?” Kilia snarled. “He won’t save you. No one will save you.”
“Stay away from her,” Ivren shouted from somewhere to my side. “Lika might not be here, but I am.”
“So sweet,” Kilia cooed. “Is that your plan, then, Ivren? Marry and merge with the most powerful chiefdom to make your own stronger? Does her brother know?”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” Ivren snarled.
Just as I tried to whip my head up, I was shoved forward.
I reached for the railing, but my hands found only air. Terror flushed my veins as the railing caved in on itself, leaving a steep drop behind me. The wood quivered and shook as if in laughter, and my entire body went rigid when the planks lifted, sending me into the air.
My arm jerked when Kilia tried to remain on the ship, and I screamed even before his body was flung off the deck as well, his head slamming into mine so hard I blacked out for a second.
Kilia’s cries echoed in my ears as we tumbled toward the cold, dark water in a jumble of limbs and rope and fear. The last thing I saw before we cut the surface was Darcke’s equally cold dark eyes as the ship rebuilt itself, and the final thing I heard was his drawl: “So. Fucking. Boring.”