Chapter 46
Forty-Six
Vero looked so small where she stood in the bow of Darcke’s ship, the rainbow of colors in the sky reflecting in her pale hair. Rakkel hovered by her side, and I wasn’t certain which of them was the most fragile when the Rafenskol heir turned my way.
I touched Rakkel’s war-dusted cheek first, then Vero’s.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Vero stared into the dark water. “I know.”
“So am I.” Rakkel wiped at her cheeks. “I… He didn’t talk to me much after last summer, but I never wanted this.”
“You broke his heart, you know.” Vero’s jaw worked as she turned to Rakkel. “He fell in love with you, and you just left him.”
“It was complicated,” Rakkel said. “I—”
“How can it be complicated?” Vero’s features tensed. “He waited for you! All year he waited! And then you sneak around with your guard instead.” When Rakkel stumbled back, Vero’s eyes flashed. “You didn’t think we missed it? You’re as naive as Elvara here.”
“It’ll be of help to no one if we argue,” I said, keeping my voice low as the king’s ship sailed next to ours.
The dragon figurehead in its bow was an inch ahead of Darcke’s ship to show that it didn’t matter which wood it was made up of, the king would always be one step ahead. “We are not each other’s enemies.”
“You’re right.” Rakkel inclined her head to the deck, her teeth dragging along her bottom lip. “There are others we should worry about.”
“Like who?” Vero blinked into the wind. “I thought we got all of them.”
“Like the one responsible for all of this.” Ivren came up beside Vero, winding an arm around her waist. “Like the one who started all these wars, and made all these people hate us.”
I hadn’t said anything about the boy who’d killed Ottoh, and as I went to open my mouth now, I hesitated.
What did it matter? Darcke was right. The karls had been after us since we set foot on Nordoen. And that was the king’s fault too.
“I don’t know if we should be speaking of this,” Vero said, her thin fingers gripping the railing.
“We probably shouldn’t,” I said, watching Darcke steer the ship toward the aurora’s bends and curves as it wound across the sky. “But if not us, then who?”
Geord came up as well, and as the wind picked up, he cleared his throat. “If I knew I’d risk my life every fucking day in the Hird, I wouldn’t have put myself forward as heir.”
“It won’t stop at the Hird,” Ivren said.
“The king is training us to go out and conquer more land—to continue expanding our borders. We’ll risk our lives every day for the rest of our lives under Gustief and his greed.
These attacks are not contained to Nordoen, and it’s not ending with the people we just killed. Not if we don’t do anything.”
I felt my father’s and brother’s eyes on me as I nodded.
Touching the inside of Darcke’s ship, I sensed her purr to life beneath my fingers.
Do you think they’re proud of me?
Do you think they’re walking with their heads held high in Valhalla?
The ship didn’t answer, but there was comfort in the way she hummed a melody that was so familiar that I had to close my eyes—like we were only going out on a regular scouting tour instead of heading to the gods’ reckoning.
“What are we supposed to do?” Vero asked. “What can we do?”
There was a sharpness in her tone that hadn’t been there before, one I felt inside me as well. Something happens when one breaks so viciously—a permanent change to the soul that forever chafes beneath your skin.
“The king has ruled long and hard,” Ivren said into the wind. “And he’s trading Viking lives for a crown that’ll never be heavy enough for him.”
Five heartbeats hammered as one when Ivren stopped speaking. I felt each one as if it were my own. There was a silent understanding binding us together, a weight on our shoulders that we, and we alone, had to carry. A responsibility for our five fylkis and each person making them up.
“We need to stop him,” I whispered.
Every pair of eyes drew my way, but I didn’t cower. I stared straight at them, anchoring my words until each chin dipped. Even Geord’s.
“How?” Geord asked.
“In the Great Halls, magic is suppressed,” Ivren continued. “We will be equals.”
Geord’s eyes narrowed. “They have more men.”
Ivren turned to the king’s ship, where more than a dozen of his men strolled about. “For now.”
A chill snaked along my neck at the familiar faces on the king’s ship.
But victory demanded its share of the dead. My father always reminded me that we could not win without bleeding, and sometimes that spilled blood would hurt more than we expected, but we had to do it for our people anyway.
Geord bowed his head while Rakkel and Vero straightened.
There wasn’t a sense of camaraderie.
There never would be amongst heirs and chiefs who would walk on the other’s cold bodies to get ahead—to protect their people. But there was an agreement, one we couldn’t speak out loud but that was heard over the waves all the same.
Darcke’s presence made my skin tingle, and I shot Ivren a look. My brother’s friend’s posture remained relaxed as he angled his head toward the sea, his words nearly lost. “There might come a time today when we must pick a side. I hope we all choose the right one.”
I will not be a coward.
I repeated the words to myself as Darcke reached us, something disapproving weaving on his features—a sense I had no doubt he’d feel a thousandfold if he knew what we were thinking, what we were planning.
“We’re almost there,” Darcke said, his attention on me.
“How do you know?” Geord asked, far too snarkily for someone who could barely see out of the two black eyes Darcke had gifted him.
My second waved his hand toward the horizon.
As I turned in the direction he’d indicated, my eyes widened.
A veil spun from the northern lights whispered over the sea, shimmering like the most beautiful of fabrics as it swayed with the northern breeze. The waves beneath it didn’t reflect the colors. Instead it was a pure cerulean, breaking away from the dark, brackish water of our world.
An island rose from the depths of the sea, but it was impossible to make out anything atop it; it was shrouded in a mist so heavy I could smell the saltwater making it up all the way from here.
Darcke’s ship came to a sudden halt. He had to grip me so I didn’t fall overboard.
“We swim from here,” the shaman called from the king’s ship. “No ships are allowed in the Great Halls.”
The quiet returned, sharp enough to cut. Each heir took long, steadying breaths, making the air around us thick with nerves and pressure and hope.
This was it. This was the moment we’d each become the leader of our people and commander of a section at the academy. Or it was the end of our journey.
No one returned from the gods if they didn’t earn their runes.
When the others strapped their swords tightly to their backs and made their way over the railing, diving into the sea like silent warriors, Darcke slipped his hand into mine. I tried to pull myself free, but he didn’t let me, only dragged me away until the wind hitting the sails hid his words.
“Whatever happens now. Whatever your fucking gods decide,” Darcke said. “You are worthy. You deserve your magic. You’ve proved that again and again, and if they don’t see it, fuck them.”
My laugh was more like a nervous, hacking cough.
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one being sent straight to Hel if they disagree.
” I looked down at my leathers, smoothing out the small patches of fur at my wrists and along the jacket’s opening.
“I didn’t think to bring anything warm enough for a realm of ice and snow. ”
Darcke’s fingers wrapped around my chin. “If you think that there is a place in this world I will not follow you, then you have not listened. You have still not heard me.”
I traced my hand up his chest, settling over his heart. “You’ve suffered enough. I plan to change that, not bring more upon you.”
A flinch ripped across his face. “An eternity with you, even if that might be in Hel?” He whipped his head around, then crashed his lips against mine in one too-short, too-delicious kiss. “That sounds like my Valhalla.”
My cheeks reddened at the fierceness of those words.
Darcke reached out and touched the back of his hand to my face, a weak smile trying to soften his harsh features.
“Promise me,” he whispered as he took my elbow and led me back to the bow, where Rakkel was the last to dive into the water.
“Promise me that whatever happens, you will fight like Hel to survive? Whatever happens?”
“Of course,” I said, goose bumps racing over my arms. “Why?”
Darcke’s gaze went between me and the other heirs.
“You heard us,” I said slowly.
He didn’t respond, but there were far too many conflicting emotions within him as he pressed my hand before he launched himself backward, his body coiling into a tight arc before breaking through the surface with almost no splash.
For a moment I was the only one left on the ship, the evening quiet as the stars peeked through the aurora.
Looking up at the beautiful sky, I paused. I wasn’t sure what I’d face in there—what would happen as I dove into that sea—but I’d made it here.
Viljan was swimming beside Ivren, Vero to his left. Geord and Rakkel and their seconds followed close behind. The king and the shaman were transported atop a dugout, Torden and Borje and several other of his men pulling it and some protecting them from the waves around it.
Darcke treaded water, his blond hair pushed back from his face.
We’d made it here.
Somehow my guard was safe, even if not with me.
And the man I’d rather have seen eaten by sea monsters a few weeks ago was waiting for me, fear and worry shadowing his face, but also something else.
Something we hadn’t said out loud but which was beginning to spread into every nerve of my body—something that kept my pounding heart from escaping my rib cage as I raised my hands over my head and dove into the water.