Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
“Again,” Darcke ordered.
After pushing up to sitting, I rubbed my aching shoulder, the part of me that had taken the brunt of it when Kilia slammed me into the ground for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Maybe you can be the one he attacks this time?” I asked as I slapped away Kilia’s hand, jumping onto legs that would be blue and green by the time I wrangled out of my leathers tonight.
We’d been out here for three days practicing fighting, all four of us: mostly me and Darcke against the other two, especially Kilia, but also different constellations, although Darcke put me in each one, refusing me a break.
“So are you giving in?” Darcke came up behind me, hovering as close as possible without touching me.
Not that he needed to do that to turn me on.
I’d learned quickly the past days that I couldn’t even look his way if he was in this mood.
Heat blasted along the tether between us, as unnerving and intense as the first time he figured out how to do it, and I was pretty damn close to falling back down when he followed it with the feeling of a dark promise—one no one should make but which I’d fall for every time.
“No,” I replied. “But I would like to have some function of my limbs during the next trial.”
His deep laugh made my toes curl in my boots. Ilse threw me a strange look, and I bent over to adjust the leather thongs around my ankles.
When Darcke spoke of “giving in,” he wasn’t referring to the fighting.
I hadn’t believed him that we weren’t affected by the drug. Not until we walked onto his ship and everywhere I looked people were shedding their leathers and fucking out in the open, their eyes glazed, not a single care for anyone seeing them.
I’d sprinted to my ship and gotten out of there before he could call me back.
It had taken Envis throwing me off the ship the next morning to be able to face him, but Darcke had acted like nothing happened as he fetched Ilse and Kilia from the longhouse, dragging us all to the clearing where we had practiced after the bonding.
At least until we started fighting. He now teased and tempted me whenever he could, but as soon as we wrapped up for the evening, he disappeared onto his ship.
I still felt him, of course, but it was as if he waited for something.
Or someone. Darcke’s hoarse, foreign voice trickled down my spine. The one I’d started imagining whenever I could read his emotions too clearly, which was far more often than I was comfortable with.
“Are you ever going to take us to those pools you promised on the first day? I’m exhausted and warm and sticky and everything hurts,” Ilse complained.
“When you deserve it,” Darcke responded. “None of you have performed to my expectations today.”
“You need to get yourself a woman,” Kilia said as he wiped sweat from his neck. “Then you won’t be so fucking prickly.”
“As if you should speak about being prickly,” I mumbled, making Ilse giggle.
Kilia kicked some dust up from the ground as he moved closer. “What did you say?”
“That I could use some shade,” I replied, waving along his tall frame. “Thanks so much.”
Ilse’s giggle turned into full-blown laughter, and I hid a smile while lifting my hair and letting some air cool my neck.
“You should watch it.” Kilia moved in closer. “I’ve beaten you every time the past days.”
I lifted my chin to say something back when Kilia’s face was no longer above me. His mouth rounded in surprise as he was lifted into the air, and I winced with him when he hit the ground with a sharp crack that made the trees around us shake.
“You watch your tone,” Darcke snarled.
“I was”—Kilia wheezed before he could continue—“joking.”
Darcke shoved at my third with his boot. “You need to fucking practice because you’re not funny.”
When Ilse’s giggle died in the wind, I shook my head. “It’s fine.”
My fourth jumped to the side when Darcke whirled our way. “You realize the steel trial is happening any moment now? We all need to survive it. We all need to come out with weapons. We don’t have time for laziness or stupid jokes.”
Gods, he was prickly today.
I waited for him to send some warmth through the bond, perhaps something along the lines of I do need a woman in my bed, and the only one I want is you, but there was nothing. Only cold rejection as he turned his back on us.
As Kilia struggled to his feet, footsteps sounded behind us. My stomach did a sickening roll when Darcke slowed to a stop as Borje and Torden broke into the clearing, their steps hurried and faces pale.
“What’s happened?” Darcke demanded.
“Another attack.” Borje’s voice was low and rough, as jagged as his face. “They killed the female heir’s third, and her fourth was badly injured. They’ve been relieved of their duties, and she’s had to select two new ones.”
Darcke tilted his head arrogantly. “And?”
“The king wants you all to leave for the trial of steel,” Torden interjected. “It’s too risky to wait.”
“Now?” Darcke repeated. “It’s too soon.”
“Now,” Borje confirmed.
“Fuck,” Darcke cursed.
“It’s fine,” I said, trying to calm the bond, which twisted in ways I wished it couldn’t. “We’ve trained more than the others have.”
Definitely more than Rakkel’s new iron-bound. My heart ached for the heir. She hadn’t been doing well before this, so I couldn’t even imagine how she was doing now. Urgency crushed my chest, and I headed toward the path behind Darcke’s men.
When Darcke didn’t fall in step with us, I turned my head over my shoulder. My second gave me a long look while Torden placed a hand at the top of his back.
“I’ll take them to the ship. You and Borje need to speak,” Torden said, ignoring Darcke’s scowl.
I narrowed my eyes, but it was like Darcke hadn’t only figured out how to drive me crazy but had also cut me off, the tether between us resounding with nothing but empty space and haziness when I reached out through it.
“Come on.” Ilse pulled at my jacket. “He doesn’t look like he’ll take well to arguing.”
I hadn’t been about to argue, only question, but when Torden shook his head, I swallowed the words on my tongue. Kilia took the lead through the forest with Ilse and me close behind, and Torden last.
We walked in silence for a while through the dry heat. I rolled my shoulders when my leathers grated against my collarbone, the soft fabric sticking to my damp skin.
As we came closer to the Hird, I waited for the sounds that always surrounded it: the clattering of plates and glasses and weapons, loud conversations, the opening and closing of tent flaps and sparks of fires.
But the clearing was subdued, people walking quietly—cautiously—through it, their ears perked and eyes darting around them.
I slowed my strides until the warrior caught up with me. “How do these attacks keep happening?” I asked Torden.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean…” I threw out an arm toward the tents and the longhouse.
“The king has his best men and women here. All initiates and heirs are here. Some of our parents and chiefs are here. It shouldn’t be possible, and if it was, our enemies shouldn’t be able to harm any of us—they should be taken down instantly. ”
Torden’s silence made my hands twitch for my sword even though it had been weeks since I’d last had it.
Ilse threw worried looks around the trees towering over us, and even though the shadows were calm, the woods quiet, a static charge trailed over my skin—a reminder of the day before the choosing, when I’d come up from the water and our enemies had found me.
“You think someone is letting them in,” I said slowly, bile rising in my throat. “That someone at the Hird is a traitor. That they’re telling them where to go.”
It wasn’t a question, but Torden nodded anyway.
Pressure built within my chest. “Why are they doing it?”
“Why indeed,” the warrior replied. “That is the question, isn’t it? Until we figure it out, you need to be careful.”
My pulse started racing. I didn’t like the emphasis Torden made on the you. Or the way he looked at me—the apprehension as he cupped his neck.
Our enemies had attacked heirs first. Now they were going after the iron-bound: Vero; Rakkel’s third and fourth.
Ilse looked everywhere but at me and the warrior, and even though we hadn’t bonded yet, it wasn’t too difficult to understand what made her shudder as her head turned back the way we’d come from.
There was one amongst us who wasn’t from here—who defied all orders he could. Someone who didn’t believe in the heirs and the iron-bound and the Hird. Someone who’d commanded the king’s most vicious soldiers and had spent more time on the front lines than any other person.
When Torden lengthened his strides to catch up with Kilia, I grabbed Ilse’s arm.
“It’s not him,” I said.
I would know. I would.
Ilse chewed her lip for several long moments. “You know I was chosen for the Hird for my skills in watching people?” she finally asked. “Both my parents are spies for the king, and I learned everything from them.”
“Ivren told me.”
That day felt so long ago. I was a different person from the heartbroken eldest daughter who’d taken her first trembling steps up the dock to Nordoen.
Better or worse, I wasn’t sure, but different? Yes.
Ilse lowered her voice. “You don’t need my skills to see there is something going on between you and Darcke.”
My nerves buzzed. “We’re heir and second. Of course something is going on.”
“There is more than that,” she said quietly. “The way he looks at you… I can’t tell if he wants to fuck or kill you half the time, but whatever it is, it’s intense, and I’m sure it’s a lot, sharing his emotions. I don’t know if you’re the best at understanding his intentions.”
We reached the docks where the other heirs and their iron-bound stood, and I kept my head tilted to the ground, avoiding Ottoh’s and Ivren’s searching eyes and Torden’s rigid back.