Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
“There was an attack again last night.” Guner walked back and forth on the dock, his shadow playing across the damp planks.
“The king is in a meeting with Chief Rafenskol, Chief Solsken, and Chief Leskog to see what can be done about this threat. In the meantime he wants you all to earn your weapons. It’s more important than ever that you are equipped to protect our people. ”
Ivren shot me a look, and my jaw locked as I returned it.
Thoughts I wouldn’t have dared to let surface a few weeks ago swirled in my mind, and when Darcke raked a hand through his hair, messing up the waves framing his sharp face, I remembered that pain—the crushing grief and chaos that was his mind—and my nostrils flared.
Whoever was behind the attacks, greed was causing it. Greed for more land and people under our rule, which had resulted in us being surrounded by enemies.
Darcke shifted his weight as my emotions slammed into him. The intensity of the sensations within me didn’t cool when he bored his eyes into mine as if he read every thought and suspicion, then shared a long look with Torden and Borje that made them fall into a whispered conversation.
“The trial of steel will test each one of you as individuals and as a group,” Guner continued.
“You, and you alone, will travel to Gravsgard—the battlefield where our ancestors claimed the North. Return alive, and you will bring back steel blessed by Odin—a sword already wetted by the blood of those who dared stand against us, heroically wielded by one of your forefathers. It’s the highest honor to be blessed by a blade from Gravsgard, but the path to hold one in your hand is brutal. ”
Kilia flexed his fingers while Ilse closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. Hot nerves flitted over my skin as I watched them, making sweat trickle over my neck and down my chest.
Gravsgard was where the epic battle of the North had happened, when we claimed these islands as our own. We’d lost many men and women in that war, and they all still lay there on our most northern island—one shrouded in mist and glory—frozen in time.
Growing up, our elders told us horror stories of the island, mostly to scare us from talking ill of the dead, although after Morkskog I was becoming more open to all the tales being real.
I wiped at my neck when more sweat formed there. What if… just if I was wrong, and Darcke was the one behind the attacks? We’d be alone out there, heirs and iron-bound.
It would be a perfect opportunity.
Darcke’s gaze was heavy when it slid my way, and even though I kept my face forward, trying everything I could not to let my emotions reach for him, the slow curl of his lips was impossible to miss.
“Do we have to earn a sword?” Darcke drawled. “My axes work perfectly fine.”
My stance wavered as Ivren and Geord drew a sharp breath at the same time.
Did he always need to remind everyone how little he wanted to be a second?
Does he have to remind me?
Guner glared at me as if it were I who had spoken, and I reached around Kilia to smack the back of Darcke’s head. Unfortunately he anticipated it, catching my hand and dragging me to him instead.
“I am in the mood to play,” Darcke purred.
I lowered my chin, tiredness weighing down my shoulders.
Even if I was wrong, it wasn’t like I could do anything about it now.
“I know that you don’t want this,” I whispered, waving between my group of iron-bound. “And trust me, I am beginning to see why. But they’re watching me—us—so please, just for now, shut up.”
A stillness came over him.
“That was wrong in so many ways,” Darcke responded quietly. “And if that is what you’re beginning to see, your eyes are failing you.” He shook his head. “But I’ll be quiet if that’s what you wish.”
“Are you done?” Guner asked.
“Yes,” I replied, as Darcke hissed, “Far from it.”
Thankfully no one else heard him.
“You will share two ships,” Guner continued.
“The waters are as dangerous as the island out there, and five vessels will draw too much attention. Set sail north, take the upstream path, and then the gods will guide you. Follow the lights in the sky. You may breach the shore together or separately. It doesn’t matter. The dead will test you either way.”
I wasn’t the only one who crossed my arms at the northern breeze that brought small drops of sea with it, the sound of war drums long gone echoing as it blew past.
“We’ll take the Briggen heir and his iron-bound on our ship,” Darcke declared when Guner was finished.
Ilse shook her head while I scoffed. “Maybe we should discuss this as a group?”
“No.” Darcke was already walking.
Kilia shrugged before he followed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked Darcke as he passed Envis.
“To my ship.”
“No,” I said slowly. “We’re taking my ship.”
“No.”
“I don’t know what you’ve been drinking, second,” I snarled. “But we are taking my ship.”
Ottoh and Vero—and his third and fourth, who looked like two brothers, both with equally dark braided hair and pale blue eyes—hovered behind me as Darcke spun on his heel. I had to fold my hands tightly behind me when Darcke clapped Kilia on the back, then waved for the Ottoh, Ilse, and the others.
“Go on,” he said. “My heir and I need to settle a dispute.”
A dis—
“What do you think you’re doing?” I hissed when the others did as he ordered.
His face turned to stone as he crowded me against Envis, one of his hands resting on the hull and the other tapping my temple. “I’m not planning an attack to kill you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I didn’t say you were,” I snapped.
“No, but you thought it, and that’s fucking worse.”
I tilted my head back when he stepped closer, forcing my back against the ship. “How is that?”
“People may think what they wish of me,” he said quietly as his body hovered before mine, too close and too far away at the same time.
“I’ve been called every name under the northern sky and accused of horrors that would make a brave man bolt at the mere whisper of them.
I’m used to the world’s judgment. But you…
I thought you were different. I thought you’d demand the truth before condemning me. ”
His disappointment was a physical weight, and I averted my eyes.
Darcke used a finger to lift my chin.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said. “Tell me that you were going to ask me.”
I pressed my palms against Envis, savoring her slow vibration—a soothing rhythm beating its way into my blood.
I could hear Darcke’s heart thrum against his ribs, feel the heat from his body—feel his life and feelings and thoughts.
His face was so close that it would be so easy to lean in.
Completely effortless to risk everything to feel that heart race.
My body tensed like a bowstring, inching closer. He licked his lips, and when my breath shuddered between us, his eyes heated. The air filled with that same need that had consumed us three nights ago.
But as voices broke through the haze, feet finding wooden decks, I curled my fingers.
“I wasn’t going to ask,” I whispered.
“Why?” Darcke demanded.
“Because it doesn’t matter,” I said.
His scoff cracked through my chest. “Because of the bond?”
I nodded. Because of everything.
“Who is hot and cold now?” Darcke asked.
The air around us crackled with unspoken tension when his eyes burned into mine, and the charge that raced through me caught him as well, because his hand twitched toward me before he could stop it.
“I won’t apologize for not asking,” I said.
“I wasn’t expecting you to.” His other hand pressed against the wood beside my head, his arms blocking me from view. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t wish it was different.”
Again we were having a different conversation from the words we actually spoke.
But as I searched his tired face, traced the dark circles beneath his eyes, I knew it was one we needed to have. Whatever had happened on my ship that day couldn’t happen again. Ilse had caught on, and that meant others could too.
“Maybe in another life,” I said.
It came out sadder than I’d planned, and Darcke’s face hardened again when whatever heat was left between us died, falling into the sea and hiding in its depths where it should extinguish forever.
“We’ll see about that,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if it was a threat or a promise.
“So.” I cleared my throat. “The heir and the ship.”
Darcke’s hand fell to his sides, and I could have sworn fall had come early, bringing its icy mountain winds and the first taste of snow with it.
“I only asked for Ottoh because we know from the last trial that we can trust him,” Darcke said, his voice void of any emotion. “And my ship is larger, with several bedrooms, so we don’t have to live so cramped.”
I’d been prepared to fight, so when his arguments made sense, my mouth opened and then closed again.
“We good, heir?” Darcke asked as he turned to head onto the ship.
No. No, we aren’t good at all.
But that’s how it had to be. My loyalty belonged to my people, not to a six-foot-five Viking warrior who smelled like the adventures I’d dreamed of growing up, and who made me want to scream and crawl into his bed in the same breath.
My father’s voice echoed in my head as I watched Darcke disappear up the brow.
We protect our people against everyone. Even against family. Even against ourselves.
Turns out, my thoughts of fall hadn’t been too far fetched.
A freezing wind whipped through my clothes as I squinted into the night, and my fingers had long since lost their feeling as I leaned over the railing and watched the frothing sea crash around the port.
“You’ve been out here all day.” Ottoh came up beside me, a thick fur coat wrapped around his shoulders.
After giving him a quick smile, I turned to the dark horizon again. “Someone needs to make sure we don’t fall behind the other ship. What if there aren’t enough weapons for all of us?”
Ottoh cursed. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”
I sent my elbow into his side. “I’m joking.”