Chapter 30
Thirty
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed,” Darcke said as he sat down on the ground opposite me after making sure the mare had food and was tied down properly so she wouldn’t wander off in the night. “It’s not your fault. Everyone thinks I’m handsome.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” I squinted into the night, searching for the few stars that burned bright enough to peek through the canopy.
Pulling my legs to my chest, I rested my back against a wide root of the tree we’d taken shelter beneath.
“Also you’ve got it all wrong. You’re mistaking admiration for terror. ”
“I doubt that. Either way…” He chuckled darkly. “I make hearts race.”
My eyes rolled to the moon, which made a short appearance before leaving us in darkness once more. We hadn’t tried lighting a fire. Even the thought of it had made the woods seem more threatening, the branches reaching farther down in warning.
After the huldra, I wasn’t taking any more risks.
The root I rested against thudded, beating like a steady heart pounding against my back, like Darcke’s chest had on the horse. The pulse continued up into the tree, into the heart that sat somewhere where the towering roots tethered to the trunk, thirty or so feet above the ground.
“Your refusal to yield isn’t as infuriating when it works in our favor.” Darcke leaned his head back so that his face was hidden in the shadows of the roots weaving above us. “You did better than I expected.”
My spine snapped straight. “Than you expected?”
I couldn’t see them, but I felt his lips twitch. “One of us had to pass her test.”
“You knew?” I hissed softly.
“Not immediately, but when you started snoring, I realized we were riding in circles—that she wouldn’t let us go on without a test.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“So I followed her, and then you started acting all confused, forgetting who you were. That’s when I knew she was trying to see if you’d go where she wanted you to. ”
“You made the decision without consulting me?” I asked, my arms wrapping hard around my legs so that I wouldn’t launch myself at him. My fingers twitched as I laced them together.
“You’re angry.”
“Great fucking observation,” I snarled. “What if something had gone wrong?”
What if I’d said something I shouldn’t?
“I wouldn’t have let it,” Darcke drawled.
My teeth slammed together, and I balled my hands where they rested around my knees. “We are supposed to collaborate.”
“And we did,” he responded calmly. “I kept you safe while you passed her test so we were allowed out of her part of the woods.”
I felt his smirk when my urge to punch him in the throat found him.
A pulse of energy went through the dark.
“Should we fight?” Darcke asked innocently.
“Fight?” I whisper-screamed. “No, we shouldn’t fight.”
“But I think it would be so much fun.”
“You’re such a b—”
A loud crack echoed through the night, and my words faded with the wind when several of the tree’s roots lifted from the ground, slicing through the air like whips before coming down around Darcke.
“Fuck,” the warrior cursed as he rolled, barely getting out of the way of a large root trying to crush him. Muffled sounds of struggle followed, and I sprang to my feet when more roots lifted, ripping through the rich soil and forming a tight cage around him.
Darcke’s eyes were wild as his hands wrapped around the bars.
“This wasn’t exactly what I meant with fighting,” he drawled.
“I’m not the one doing this,” I said.
“I didn’t say you were.” His head went from side to side. “Now get me out.”
The bond roiled when I hesitated.
I pursed my lips. He didn’t like me pretending to debate whether to help him. Probably because he could feel there was a small part of me that actually did.
“Do I need to remind you that if I die, so do you, heir?”
“No,” I replied. “It’s the only reason I haven’t killed you yet.”
“Liar.” His laugh was cut short when the bars tightened, folding in closer around him.
“No,” Darcke barked as if the tree towering above us would listen. “Get the fuck off me.”
Horror slithered along my skin when smaller roots came up from the ground, winding up Darcke’s legs and torso until he was held firmly in place, unable to move even an inch.
If he could have killed me with his glare, he would have. “This is your fucking fault.”
“How is it my fault?” I asked as I tried to approach him.
A branch snapped down, and I yelped when it slashed across my cheek.
Fuck, that hurt.
Looking up, I tried again. More branches came down, and each one whipped at me, leaving red marks across my hands and arms as I used them to protect my face.
Our mare neighed, her feet stomping against the ground.
Thankfully, we’d tied her far enough away that the branches aiming for me weren’t a danger for her.
“If not for you, I wouldn’t have been in here,” Darcke growled. “And I would have had my fucking axe so I could chop this asshole into firewood.”
The tree roared, and the ground shook so violently I threw my arms out not to fall over.
“Maybe don’t threaten the forest when they have you captured?” I snarled.
“Get. Me. Out,” Darcke growled. “Or I swear…”
I was going to tease him until I felt a tiny seed of something glacial build in my chest.
“Are you worried?” I asked as I ducked for another branch coming for me.
“Of course I’m fucking worried,” Darcke hissed as the roots twisted farther up, capturing his arms and folding them tight against his body. “This tree is about to either bury me alive or rip me apart, and you’re not doing anything about it!”
“I’m trying!” I had to roll to escape another branch coming down.
“No, you’re not!” The cage crept closer to Darcke, the bars weaving over his head. “Why is it getting smaller?” He tilted his head up. “What the fuck do you want from me?”
Another roar split the night. Then the wind picked up, howling through the forest and blowing leaves and dust into my face until I had to shield my eyes from it.
“Use your fucking magic,” Darcke growled. “Rip it apart!”
More gusts whirled, racing between the roots and branches until dust layered everywhere, the air so full of pine needles and leaves that it was becoming hard to make out Darcke and the cage that squeezed around him.
“There must be another way.” I tried to swallow the panic, but it continued to claw up my throat until it clogged.
“I know you’re pissed.” The roots wove up Darcke’s neck, and I could feel them taunting him—closing in so that he struggled to draw breaths. “But I had your back. I was protecting you! This… you’re going to have me killed!”
A wave of terror consumed me—closed in on me like the cage crushing my second.
“Why are you so fucking scared?” Darcke screamed. “Just do it! Use your magic and get us out of here!”
“I’m not scared!” I cried back as I threw myself to the side to avoid another branch aiming for my face.
The cage creaked as the roots crept closer to Darcke, and I winced when he growled, trying with raw fury to shove off the roots weaving around his body. My own muscles strained as he fought for his life, and another jolt of fear pressed against my chest.
“Liar,” Darcke said slowly. His head whirled my way. “Did you think I was handsome when you were under the huldra’s spell?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I screamed as I zigzagged to avoid the branches. I wasn’t getting any closer to the cage, especially half blind from dust and everything else finding its way into my eyes.
“Just fucking answer!”
“No! It was your tattoos!” I cried.
The cage howled again and the roots drew into the ground, leaving barely any space left for Darcke’s body.
“You’re lying,” he growled. “It’s reacting to you lying!”
“What?” I took a shuddering breath in a moment of respite. “No!”
“Yes!” he snarled. “It does! Answer the question again, and Don’t. Fucking. Lie. Did you think I was handsome when you were under the huldra’s spell?”
“Yes!” I snarled as a branch caught my shoulder, sending me right into another, which struck me in the eye so hard I saw stars. “Fuck!”
I didn’t even need to look with the one eye I could use. Darcke’s satisfied arrogance weaving through me was enough.
“The cage didn’t move,” he taunted. “Apparently it wants you to tell me the truth. What are you hiding from me, little heir?”
“Noth—”
“No lies,” he snarled.
“Fine.” I pushed up against the side of the tree to avoid more of its branches vying for me. “Something I can’t tell you!”
“Why?” he demanded.
Pressure mounted behind my eyes as I struggled with what to say.
“Because it could risk everything for the people I love,” I finally decided.
“Me dying today will kill you too.” Darcke’s voice lowered, and there was a flicker of soothing filling it that did nothing for the sheer terror within me. “Is whatever you’re hiding worth both our lives?”
“Yes.”
It was the easiest truth I’d told so far.
A spark of surprise went through him.
“Do you want me to die?” he asked. “Do you want to die?”
“No! Of course not,” I replied.
“But you will risk it?”
“I have to!” I cried.
“No, you don’t.” Darcke fought the roots coiling around his neck. “You have a choice. You can use your magic or answer my question.”
“Don’t ask me,” I begged. “Please, don’t ask me.”
“I have to unless you’re going to use that Sweengard strength to help me.” There was a note of struggle behind Darcke’s words, but I didn’t care when I felt his determination, which would damn us both. “We’ll die if I don’t. Whatever it is, I’m sure we can figure it out.”
I’ll die if you do.
“Please!” I covered my face with my hands. “Please, don’t do this!”
“Tell me exactly what you’re hiding.”
When his demand rumbled through me, the air went still. The branches that had kept whipping the ground stiffened in their places, and the breeze died down, making the leaves dance as they trickled over the ground.
Sorrow crawled through me, twisting my insides. Dropping my hands from my face, I forced myself to look at him. If I was going to be responsible for his death today, then he at least deserved that—me watching as the tree crushed him.
“No,” I said quietly.
I expected hatred. Fury. Rage. But while his face hardened, Darcke couldn’t hide the seed of respect that took root within him, and something in his eyes flickered—only for a second, but long enough that I realized I’d proved him wrong about something.
“I’m sorry,” I got out as the roots began moving again.
One of his brows arched slowly, as if it had all the time in the world.
“Are you?” Then his head was forced forward, his neck bending until I could feel his bones protesting, ready to snap. His back followed, the roots around him making him bow until his knees hit the dirt.
Anyone but him would have felt fear at that moment.
I did. A furious terror seized my chest, crushing it against my heart.
I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want this to be the end.
I didn’t want to prove my mother right. But Darcke only growled, a loud and fierce defiance spreading within him, making my limbs twitch.
My fingers flexed.
I couldn’t just stand here. Even though what would happen now was my fault, I couldn’t just watch. Even if it was Helheim that waited for me, I’d fight to the end like I’d earn a feast in Valhalla for it.
A cry tore from my throat as I sprang forward.
I groaned as a branch slammed into my gut, sending me flying into another, which pummeled me into the ground.
The branch pinned me there on my back, my neck twisted so I could watch as the roots pulled Darcke with them toward the ground, as if they would take him right down to Hel themselves.
He didn’t scream. Even his growl was silenced. But that unyielding sense continued to tear through Darcke. I cried out as I fought the tree, iron tinging the air from where the branches ripped into my skin, cutting into my flesh until I bled like the crimson oaks surrounding us.
Then a shadow flew over one of the roots.
My shout was cut off as someone jumped off a horse and threw a branch sharpened into a spear with perfect precision up into the darkness of the trunk above.
The world stuttered for a second before all roots lifted, and a screech that made my ears ring shattered the night.
“Get up!” someone screamed.
Darcke didn’t hesitate, and the speed with which he sprinted to our mare ignited the same urgency within me. I grabbed the hand that wrapped around my wrist, allowing the person to pull me onto my legs, then help me onto their horse.
“Go,” the man bellowed, leaning forward and forcing my chest over the horse’s neck.
Branches whipped and slashed and fought all around us, and I closed my eyes, begging Odin or Tyr or whichever god was watching to help us as well, when I felt Darcke and our mare escape the tree.
I could almost hear Darcke’s scoff. Your gods will be of no help today.
“Faster,” the man behind me shouted, and the horse neighed as it lengthened its strides.
A crack that must have been heard all over Nordoen sliced the dark. I gasped when I turned my head and saw the tree itself detached from the ground, its roots like the many legs of a spider, starting a sprint toward us.
“This way!” a woman called.
I don’t think I’d ever been so grateful for a makeshift torch as when our horse passed her and she threw it at the tree chasing us.
It hesitated for long enough that we reached what looked like a border of gilded rowan trees standing guard, with metal leaves formed like arrowheads and berries the color of blood.
The ash screeched again as it slid to a halt, its branches whipping out but never reaching past the golden row of trunks, and I took a shallow breath as the horse came to a halt beside Darcke and our mare.
Sweat stung my eyes as I turned, and whatever I’d been in the process of saying evaded me as the man pulled off his hood, an infuriating smirk pulling at his pale features.
“Why?” I said instead.
“It looked like you needed some help,” Ottoh said smugly. “And my rune gives me perfect aim.”