Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
“Are you all right?” Darcke still shielded me with his body, and while his voice rumbled through me like it always did, making my body react before my mind did, he couldn’t hide the tremor of pain that whirred along the bond.
“How hurt are you?” I demanded as I slipped my hands up his chest, cautiously trailing along his body until I reached his back. It was wet, and even though I couldn’t see it in the dark, I knew my hands were covered in blood.
“Darcke,” I said softly when he only jerked his head.
“You saying my name like that makes it all worth it,” he drawled.
“You shouldn’t—”
“Just thank me, heir.”
My hands fell from his back when his straightened, and I wiped them on my trousers before clearing my throat. “Thank you.”
He was quiet for long seconds, and something like frustration rolled off him. “I would have asked you for something else if I knew you were going to oblige.”
I rolled my eyes. He couldn’t be that hurt then.
“I can feel you doing that,” he said. “Makes me want to do bad things to you. Really bad things.”
Perhaps my cheeks could light up the space if we didn’t find another way.
I groaned to myself when Darcke chuckled.
“We should find the others,” I said as I shoved him back a step.
My voice was too loud for the stillness.
Even the echoes that had resounded as we walked through the cave had died, and the air, which had been stale and smelling of wet stone, seemed to seep more slowly through the space.
My heart leaped at the thought, but I forced myself to breathe normally, filling my lungs with whatever was left.
“Briggens,” Darcke called. “Are you alive, or can we leave you behind?”
“Darcke!” I snapped.
“What?” he asked. “It’s a valid question.”
“W-will you do… bad things to us, too, if we are?” Ottoh’s voice came somewhere to our right, followed by his sister’s choked “That’s not funny!”
Warmth spread in my chest.
“No, but my heir might. She is far too fucking happy you’re alive.”
Darcke was joking, but there was a trace of jealousy in there that made me smile in the darkness.
“Felt that too,” Darcke rasped.
Ignoring him, I asked. “Are you able to get out?”
I felt for the wall behind me and started walking around the cramped space, trying to figure out our bearings. The stone had covered both exits, but a freezing breeze whistled softly as it fought to blow through the cracks in the rubble.
“I don’t think so.” Ottoh sounded even more breathless. “There… there is a stone on my back.”
“And your stupid ass is on top of me,” Vero added, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“We’re going to have to dig them out,” I said to Darcke, my pulse pounding. “It doesn’t seem like there’s much stone between us and the outside, but we need to be careful so we don’t make it worse.”
“Sh-shouldn’t take you long, right?” Ottoh said. “I think we’re running out of air.”
“Good thing we’re with a Sweengard,” Vero whispered hoarsely. “I-I knew—”
“Save your breaths,” Ottoh ordered. “But seriously, if… you can hurry, Elvara, please do.”
My rib cage felt like it might splinter under the fierce beatings of my heart.
“Over here.” Darcke found my jacket and tugged me backward. “They’re beneath this.”
He guided my hands over a pile of boulders that were stacked higher than I could reach, each one heavier than I would be able to lift myself. If I’d had my magic, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but now…
I closed my eyes to an even more suffocating darkness. What was I supposed to do?
Lika’s face flashed before my eyes. Leave them.
That’s what my brother would have done. This was when his ruthlessness—his training—would have kicked in. I wasn’t here to make friends. I wasn’t here to save anyone else.
“Elvara,” Darcke said. “This would be a great time to use that rune of yours.”
Time slowed as my second lifted a hand and trailed it up my arm until he reached the rune that was supposed to flicker with life on my chest. As Darcke tapped it, my heart hammered furiously, hopelessness and fear and guilt tangling within me.
“Any… any day now,” Vero called weakly, and I wondered if this wasn’t Hel after all.
I didn’t want to leave them. I didn’t want to have to make this choice.
A thickness crawled up from my chest, clogging my throat.
“Elvara,” Darcke said again.
My limbs became heavy, but it was the crushing weight on my mind that made me shut my eyes. I didn’t want to disappoint more people. I didn’t want to disappoint him.
“Elvara!”
“I can’t!” I hissed under my breath, the words bursting from my lips before I could stop them. But I didn’t want to take them back. “I can’t, all right?”
“You can’t what?” Darcke asked, his fingers still tapping a steady rhythm that made the dried fish I’d eaten before leaving the ship start to make its way up again.
“I can’t use my magic.” My voice wasn’t my own anymore. It was empty, cold, distant, and I tried to swallow it. I did. But I couldn’t anymore. I was done.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have any,” I whispered.
His palm flattened against my chest, and my heart tried to escape, to find its way into that hand and hide from the aftermath of what I’d just done.
“I know,” Darcke replied, his other hand finding the back of my neck.
“You know?” I echoed.
“I just needed you to say it.”
My lips parted. “Why?”
“So that you’d see that you and I… we’re not so different after all.” Darcke pulled me to him, lifting my hand and placing it over the scarred rune on his own chest. “That we’re doing what we’re doing because we have to, and not because we want to.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, even as the understanding that had begun to mount within me continued to spread, things I’d wanted to pretend weren’t true forcing their way into my mind.
I felt his smile in the darkness. “You’re clever, heir. I have no doubt that you will figure it out.”
“Are… are you still alive?” Ottoh’s panting made my fingers twitch.
“Yes,” I got out. “We’re getting you out.”
“G-good, th-that’s… g-good.” Ottoh sounded as if he was drifting off, and fear crushed my heart like a fist.
“You have to help me,” I whispered to Darcke. “I can’t… I can’t do this alone.”
“I will,” he said. “As long as you answer my call when I need it.”
“I promise,” I replied, and his lips hiked higher.
Darcke’s resolve was a warm drink on a cold day, and even though neither of us could see anything, when he found a boulder, searching it to ensure it wouldn’t cause others to fall, I knew where to place my hands so that we could remove it together.
We worked in silence, taking care to ensure each stone fit somewhere in the cave where it wouldn’t disturb the other rubble caging us in like walls. Sweat streamed down my back by the time Ottoh’s and Vero’s breaths sounded louder, their presences growing stronger in the dark.
“Are you okay?” I asked as Darcke moved another large stone.
“G-great,” Vero got out.
Fuck, she didn’t sound good at all, and the way she and Ottoh struggled for breath made my own come more panicked. Darcke’s gaze was on me as I closed my eyes, begging to whoever was listening to get us out of there.
Finally something lighter split the dark, although it took several long minutes to finally get all the rocks off the Briggen siblings. Darcke lifted Ottoh’s body off his sister, and when he cautiously set him down, I dropped to my knees beside the heir.
Ottoh’s chest rose and fell slowly—too fucking slowly. I felt for his pulse, and though it was there, it was weak, barely fluttering when I pressed two fingers against his neck.
“Is he alive?” Darcke asked as he helped Vero to her feet.
“He needs air,” I said as my own throat tightened. “We… we all do.”
“Where is the exit?” Vero asked, fear making her voice high pitched. “I need to get him out! He tried… he tried to save me. The stones were so heavy, and I couldn’t do anything.”
“Over there.” I gestured even though she wouldn’t be able to see it in the dark.
Vero fell into me as she got onto all fours, leaning over her brother’s body as if to listen to every struggling breath going through him. “Y-you get us out. I’ll stay with him.”
“I—”
Tears sprung in my eyes as I felt Vero’s hope, her conviction that I could do this.
Gods, I was so fucking tired of feeling powerless. Ever since the day our ships had gone quiet, it felt like I’d been fighting a battle where the enemies kept bringing in fresh armies that I had to fend off with a dull sword.
“Elvara.”
I fucking hated the way Darcke said my name because I knew what would come next.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“The rocks covering the entrance are too large,” he said furiously. “We won’t be able to move them. Not alone.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?” Vero cried. “You’re a Sweengard. Get us out!”
Every sip of air became more of a battle, like trying to gather water from a dried-up well, and the tears swimming in my eyes spilled over, roaring rivers in summer rolling down my cheeks.
“Elvara!” Vero screamed. “He’s barely breathing!”
I wanted nothing more than to claw at my throat. I wasn’t struggling only with my own breaths. Darcke and I felt each other’s need for air, and all the fury in the realm couldn’t stop the fear as I thought of the Viking warrior’s chest no longer moving.
Darcke growled as he fought to shift one of the rocks, and I jerked at the pain radiating through him as he slammed a fist into one and violently kicked another.
Darkness pressed in like it couldn’t wait to swallow us—add us to the bodies that already littered this cursed island.
For every breath that didn’t fulfill our need for air, I felt it come closer, our wyrds knitting a final ending of the two heirs and their seconds, one that would turn into a warning for future generations.
Vero started laughing, and I guessed the same strange euphoria clawing at my mind had started in hers. It would be so easy to give in. A giggle rocked my chest. No one would find us here—no one would know what I’d failed to do.
“Fuck!” Darcke screamed, and the scent of iron that already clung to him grew stronger as his knuckles split from the force with which he punched the boulders. “This is not how we’re going to go! I fucking refuse!”
I pressed my hands into the floor, where puddles had begun to form, when more of that delirium set in. My fingers whispered over the water, and reality started to go in and out, the dark cave replaced by a towering, snow-covered mountain.
My mind snapped to a burning village—to Darcke standing in the water, screaming out his pain.
Then it went to the shaman, severing his rune and tying down his magic, ripping out a piece of his soul.
I placed more weight on my hands, the ice-cold water covering them, as Darcke’s pain tried to consume me, keeping my eyes closed while I allowed his memories to battle the darkness surrounding me.
How had he not given up? How was he still here?
Alone and broken and forced to submit to the king who’d killed everyone he loved—who’d killed the person Darcke had been.
My nostrils flared as my mind showed me Darcke falling to his knees in the sea, calling for a god who couldn’t stand up to the stronger Aesir—who had to leave his people to die.
I felt his pain like it was my own. And perhaps it was. My reflection sitting atop the cliffs at Oenskan came next—me washing away the image of the young, naive girl, replacing her with the version of me today.
The king had done this to me too. If not for his war hunger, my father would be alive, and getting out of this cave wouldn’t be an issue.
My teeth slammed together. If not for the king’s greed, Lika would be alive, and I wouldn’t be here at all.
I wouldn’t have collared a man already leashed to the monarch, dragging him into a bond that made him a traitor to his own blood.
I wouldn’t have tricked an heir and his second to trust me, and I wouldn’t be the reason they wouldn’t make it out to lead their people.
It all went back to the king.
“Elvara,” Vero pleaded. “Help us. Please.”
A snarl pulled my lips back from my teeth as I dug my nails into the frozen ground, a familiar feeling of rage making me rise on shaking legs. Perhaps this was why Darcke was so angry all the time. It was easier to focus on one emotion to keep moving.
I pictured the king at the first feast, sitting on his dais as the initiates fought for their lives on the ground beneath him. That’s where he sat when we waged every war he asked of us. That’s probably where he was right now.
My hands shook by my side as I walked blindly to where Darcke was still fighting his losing battle with the stone.
Maybe it was time to do something about all this.
Maybe what I was fighting for shouldn’t only be my people, but all our people—and all the people out there in the world whom King Gustief had forced beneath his rule.
“I’m not giving up on us,” I said.
I would claw us out of this mountain if I had to. I hadn’t survived this far for it to end here. None of us had.
“I know.” Darcke’s low voice fueled the fire within me.
I pressed my palms against one of the boulders before me. Something deep inside me—the memory of the power that used to flow within my blood—had expected my rage to maybe find that strength again. But the rock didn’t move. Something else did, though.
A metallic sound made the first echo since the cave ruptured, and I knew what I’d find as I trailed my fingers down the stone. As my fingers wrapped around a cool hilt, my body went rigid.
I was running up the hill. The men on my heels were closing in, their breath so close I could smell the bloodlust on it. I pushed myself until I thought my heart might shatter from exertion. I didn’t expect to survive this, but I needed to warn the others.
That was the purpose of my short life.
I’d seen the ships and I’d taken off immediately, but they’d still noticed me, and now there were only heartbeats left until their blades found my neck.
My feet trampled down frosted grass, and I could hear him now—my commander doling out orders.
Just a little bit longer.
The first arrow found my shoulder as I crested the hill, but I jumped, and then I was over. “They’re here! They’re coming for us!” I screamed with everything in me.
My commander’s eyes found mine, and I watched his grim calm splinter into brutal pain.
But I’d done it. I’d warned them.
The next arrow found my heart.
My hand flew to my chest and the heart beating so vigorously there.
“You okay?” Darcke was beside me, and somehow I knew no time had passed.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Get back.”
“What—”
“Get back,” I screamed.
For the first time, Darcke listened to me, and as I lifted the sword, which had grown hot in my hand, I knew he felt my smile.
Sparks flew through the air when I cleaved the stone, and I continued striking the wall once, twice, five times until the air rumbled and it collapsed, bright, pale light spilling in.
“Help Ottoh.” I spun, getting hold of the neck of Vero’s jacket. After kicking more of the rubble aside, I dragged her into the winter sun.