Chapter 45
Forty-Five
“Elvara!”
My head was being used as a drum, each beat echoing in the void behind my eyes. But I couldn’t move—my body wouldn’t listen to my pleas of escape.
“Wake the fuck up! Elvara!”
A jab of pain went through me even though the hands whispering over my skin were soft, gentle even, but I couldn’t respond to that either. I was lost in some in-between, walking the border of light and dark, and I wasn’t sure how to pick a side.
“No. I don’t fucking accept this.”
The deep voice was loud and demanding, but it was still soothing, and it lulled me into a sense of safety, allowing me to drift atop waves of calm seas, going up and down with the water.
Something thudded into the water beside me.
No, not water. I felt something hard beneath my legs first. Then my back. Then my head.
Ground. We were on the ground.
“I thought she’d kill them!” someone else shouted, the voice grating through me. “I thought she’d use her rune.”
“If she dies, I’m not going to stop with killing you.
” The deeper voice again—the one I could listen to forever.
“First I’m going to break every fucking bone in your body.
Then I will cut you open and take them out.
Slowly. One by one, until you’re begging me to die.
I’ll only go slower then, let you feel each bone and drop of blood leaving your body.
And when you take that final breath, I’ll cut you into such small pieces not even your fucking Odin can put you together again. ”
“Is she breathing?” A third voice joined the others, this one out of breath.
“Fucking barely!”
I tried to focus on the last voice—the one that felt like it wrapped around my pain and soothed it, joining his touch, which was so gentle I wanted nothing more than to feel it all over, have him cover me entirely as I drifted into nothingness.
I think he read my mind, because hot air fanned over my face and it was like someone draped a warm blanket over me, the pressure so beautifully perfect as lips brushed my ear.
“You don’t get to fucking die, heir,” he whispered furiously. “Do you hear that? You made me feel like this. You fucking took my heart—stole it without me even noticing. You invaded my mind and claimed me for yours. So you don’t get to leave. You don’t get to leave me.”
I felt the truth of his words in my chest, my heart—my everything. It was a warmth that clawed itself through every vessel and vein, driving that pain even farther away. His jagged breath followed, a hot mouth kissing its way over my neck, my jaw, whispering over my lips.
“I don’t think that’s wise.” Worry filled the third voice, the one that belonged to an heir with blond hair.
Ottoh. Ottoh was his name.
“You don’t get to fucking tell me what you think,” my second—because it was my second, my Darcke—snarled. “She’s not responding.”
“Why are you not responding to me?” That heated whisper again. It wove up my back, sending thrills of comfort along my skin as his voice bled into nearly nothing. “You can’t do this to me, Elvara. I can’t lose you too.”
His desperation made it a struggle to breathe.
Sparks of shock shot up my neck. I could breathe. I was alive.
I was hurt, but I was alive. The two paths before me became clearer.
One was easier—I could fall into that darkness and let the weight of it crush every lingering concern. The other was harder—would be harder. But down it, far, far, down it, was him.
My eyelids twitched.
I will not be a coward.
“No! You don’t get to die,” he hissed. “You don’t!”
Speak more. Give me more to hold on to.
“Elvara!”
Even like this—even broken and scared and demanding—I loved hearing my name on his lips. I clung to that feeling as I pulled myself toward the light, fighting for every inch I gained on that outreached hand at the end of it.
“Elvara!”
Finally, I felt my body again. And with that came the pain. Explosive, intrusive, overwhelming pain. A low cry tore through my throat, and I felt Darcke stiffen, the panic within him clogging my own throat.
“Elvara?” he whispered.
“I’m n-not… dead,” I rasped.
Someone’s low laughter made me open an eye.
Ottoh stared down at me. Darcke was on his knees, his body covering most of mine.
On the other side was Geord, and while he looked halfway to Valhalla already, I tried to bare my teeth at him. I only succeeded in making Ottoh laugh harder.
“You sure look like you’ve already been buried,” the heir teased.
I coughed. “Th-thanks.”
Darcke stared at me like he’d never seen me before.
His hands covered my cheeks as he pulled my face to his, turning it from side to side as he took in every inch and line and curve.
I wanted to say something, tease him or thank him, but the way he stared had my words fade into the nothingness I’d left behind.
“We should go,” Geord said.
“Th-the others?” I asked, my rib cage cramping where the blade must have struck it.
“They’re fine.” Darcke helped me sit up. “They’re heading to the ship. We got all of them.”
“You got all of them?” I parroted, wiping blood that wasn’t mine off my face.
My eyes shut when I remembered the girl. I didn’t want to see her broken body. Not now. Not when Darcke looked at me like this. Not when he’d feel every second of my hurt.
I winced when his hand moved to my side. There was a makeshift bandage wrapped around my waist. Part of Darcke’s jacket, I guessed, since he was only in his tunic.
“Darcke did,” Geord said. “Are you going to try to kill him for it too? Or does he get a pass because you’re fucking?”
There was no pride in my second’s body. Only shame. Dark, ruthless shame that would live within us both forever.
I lifted my hand to his cheek.
Never again, I promised.
Never again would we make others bleed for a king who kept his own hands clean.
Darcke’s face clouded, and his eyes were everywhere but on mine when he pulled me to my feet and shoved my sword into my shaking hands. “Come on. We’ll talk on the ship. The king is already here.”
I didn’t want to think about how he knew that Gustief had arrived, so when Geord took the lead, limping onto a narrow path between the tallest birches I’d ever seen, and Darcke helped me start moving as well, I gave Ottoh a weak smile. “Wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”
He gave me a slow arch of his brows. “Were you going to miss me?”
I lifted my eyes to the lush tree crowns, holding back a choked sound of pain as the movement stretched my ribs. “Not even if Odin forced me.”
His laugh was low. “It’s good to see you, too, Elvara.”
When I gave him a grimace, Ottoh’s louder laugh somehow shook the tree to my right. I blinked a few times, but it wasn’t until a shadow flew from one of the branches that I understood it wasn’t a sound but one of the cloaked men that made the leaves shift.
The scene before me sharpened against my will, every detail cutting through the haze with agonizing slowness. The man landed behind Ottoh, and the smile the heir had given me was still on his face when the enemy slit his throat.
My cry made birds leave the surrounding trees, and somehow my sword was in the air, piercing the man’s chest so hard he flew backward, his hood sliding off his face.
A gurgling sound left Ottoh when he fell. I threw myself after him, another cry leaving me at the pain splitting my own body as I caught him, pulling half his body into my lap.
I could barely see for the tears filling my eyes as the heir pressed his hands against his throat, trying to quell the blood.
“Shh,” I hushed when another horrible, wet sound left him. “Don’t speak.”
My pain was stark in Darcke’s face as he stood frozen above us. I didn’t even fucking care that Geord gave Ottoh one look, then turned and started sprinting through the woods, unwilling to risk his own neck if there were more enemies we’d missed.
I could barely stand the fear in Ottoh’s eyes, the pain racking his body, making his limbs convulse. My hands hovered over him, unsure where to press—how to help.
“You’re going to be all right,” I said, my voice cracking. “You’ll be… you’ll be okay.”
“Don’t lie to him.” Darcke crouched down on the other side of the heir. “Not now.”
Ottoh fucking dipped his chin, making more blood pool beneath him.
I felt my control slip, more tears threatening to overwhelm me, and I was about to let the sob in my throat free when Darcke’s fingers wrapped around my shoulder.
He held my eyes as he sent his own calm through me.
I took a sip of air. Then a little bit more.
This wasn’t about me. This wasn’t about my anger over another wasteful death caused by our king, nor about me not being able to repay the blood debt that I owed the heir bleeding out before me.
This was Ottoh’s last moment in this realm, and he deserved it to be honorable.
My hand shook when I took his. “You were so brave. A true Viking. An honorable heir and brother and friend. The gods will welcome you with open arms to Valhalla.”
Darcke bowed his head. “Thank you for saving her.”
The crooked smile on Ottoh’s face nearly took me with him. His eyes shut more frequently, his grip on my fingers so loose it almost felt like he’d already left us.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fucking fair that he would die and someone like Geord would live. It wasn’t fair.
“If I’m…” I choked down another sob. “If I’m welcomed into Valhalla… save me a seat?”
The press of his hand made a single tear sneak down my cheek.
I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, Ottoh was gone.
I released him when a burst of anger wound through me, and I pushed to my feet, more fury clawing through me at the agony blinding me. As I stormed over to the foreigner I’d killed, I was unsure what I was trying to do, since he’d died instantly when my blade cleaved his heart.
Ripping my sword from his chest, I wiped at my face.
So fucking useless. So fucking wasteful.
All of this—so fucking dishonorable.
“Elvara.”