Chapter 47
Forty-Seven
“What are you doing here?” I asked as she pulled herself up from the water.
She wasn’t alone. Ivren’s mother followed. Then Adrion’s father. Rakkel’s mother. Warriors I’d never seen but who must be their iron-bound, for how they hovered behind their chiefs.
Seindra Sweengard gave me a smile. “You didn’t think I’d leave the fate of our people—the fate of my children—in your hands?”
An eerie silence stretched out across the path, and I felt Darcke’s heart pound along our tether, but something was holding him back—that leash that no one could see but that was definitely there, tightening.
“What is this?” Vero asked, her head whipping back and forth from the king, who remained standing leisurely by the shaman, to his men, who stood frozen behind us.
“I believe some would call it a coup,” my mother replied.
In the next moment the chiefs’ iron-bound moved.
Two came up before me, and I reacted instinctively, stepping in front of Torden and Darcke with my sword lifted, forcing them to a stop.
Borje and two others of the king’s warriors were being driven backward, several men using their axes to keep them away from the rest of us. The king and the shaman had three men protecting them, their shoulders locking against each other as they held the line.
“Move aside, Elvara,” my mother demanded when two more iron-bound came up before me.
I didn’t understand what was happening, but I did know that I would not get out of the way until I found out. Especially not when Darcke stood so terrifyingly still, even as Torden shoved at him.
“What is this?” I snarled, sidestepping when the iron-bound did, shadowing their movements.
“It’s all right, Vara.”
I stuttered when Ivren stepped forward, his voice calm.
“They’re here to help,” he continued. “They’re here to make sure we win.”
Something deep within me coiled and twisted, spinning such hard knots I was grateful I hadn’t eaten in almost a day.
“What do you mean?” I didn’t dare turn around as Ivren came to my side.
“I called for aid,” he said. “To make sure we lived. Nothing more.”
Darcke’s scoff rattled my bones.
“That’s funny to you?” my brother’s best friend asked. “Tell me… could you save her right now? If they came for her, could you move?”
Darcke’s wild eyes slid to mine, but his body remained frozen.
It was Ivren’s turn to expel air as he gestured to a rigid Viljan.
“Like Viljan, you’re not strong enough to keep her alive.
I, on the other hand, am.” He spun my way.
“Your mother reached out to me, Elvara. She told me everything. How those men killed Lika. How they stabbed your father with his own sword.”
Sharp inhales came from the heirs. Tears glistened on Vero’s cheeks, and Geord blinked—understanding first filling his features, then a strange respect darkening his eyes as they swept over me. Rakkel stood entirely still, her face turned to the ground.
“She’s helped me protect you,” Ivren continued. “And now we’re going to protect our people too. By unseating the king, Skagerik will return to its former glory—we’ll start the trade again, give back some land, live in peace.”
Despite his words, caution knitted in my gut. One fueled by the strange hot fury rolling off Darcke, making me tremble as I continued to face the iron-bound holding their blades with a white-knuckle grip.
“How long?” I asked to buy myself time.
Something didn’t make sense. I felt Darcke’s warmth behind me, and I didn’t think before I stepped back into it, letting his chest align with my back, his breaths fuel mine.
“Ever since I found out our enemies murdered your father and Lika,” Ivren said, and Viljan shifted behind him—the only sign he hadn’t known.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you outright, but you had enough going on.
It’s the king’s fault, Elvara. He’s the reason they’re dead.
” Ivren’s eyes misted. “I wasn’t going to let them take you too. Lika would never have forgiven me.”
“Now, can you step aside?” my mother asked.
“I—”
Again the iron-bound moved, bloodthirst in their war-painted faces. I moved when they did, feeling Darcke’s fingers twitch against my lower back.
You’re not asking the right questions.
The hilt of my sword grew hot with how hard I held it. “What do you plan to do?”
Ivren’s mother joined mine. “Kill the king and everyone loyal to him.”
“And what about those who are forced to be?” I gestured to Darcke, Torden, and the warriors held back from coming any closer—from helping us. “These men would not die for him unless they had to.”
At least not Darcke. I didn’t know his men well, but I doubted that if Darcke took our side, they’d stand against him.
My mother sighed as if I were an unruly child. “Yes, they would, Elvara.”
“They wouldn’t.” I shook my head. “Darcke is leashed by him.” I jerked my head toward the shaman. “Because of him.”
Why wasn’t the king saying anything? Why wasn’t Darcke saying anything?
Vero looked as confused as I did. Geord moved closer to his second, his face turning from the silent king to the stiff warriors to the smug chiefs. Viljan stared blankly at me, but I didn’t like what pulled at his shoulders.
“Darcke is loyal to the king,” Ivren’s mother said. “There are no exceptions in war. Your father must have taught you that sometimes blood we wished wasn’t spilled would be anyway.”
I slipped a step backward, until Darcke’s rigid body pressed against my back.
The Solsken chief meant that that unfortunate blood today would be mine.
“Mother.” Ivren moved until he came to my side. “If you kill Darcke, she dies too.”
“And it shall be very sad, but this little crush of yours would have gone nowhere anyway.”
My former guard froze beside Vero, the fear in his face opening an eye within me.
“There is no crush.” Ivren’s face darkened, and I couldn’t look at him as he took a half step in front of me. “I am doing this for Lika.” He spun to my mother. “Lika would never forgive you if you harmed her, much less killed her. It would be the ultimate dishonor to his memory.”
“For gods’ sake! This was Lika’s idea!” my mother shouted.
A deathly silence spread across the path, and my blood stilled in my veins.
My mother’s low voice echoed across the water where more warriors—some of whom I recognized from home, although none were my father’s close men—spilled onto the white.
Their axes and blades were already in their hands, as if they were facing a much larger army than a dozen king’s men.
“All of this could have been so much easier if your fucking father hadn’t found out what we were planning. ”
Ivren and Viljan and the rest of the heirs and their seconds stood as frozen as I was when my mother continued.
“Stabbing himself to stop his only son.” She shook her head. “I knew Fritiof was loyal to the king, but I thought even he had some honor left.”
“What?” I asked, my mind unwilling to comprehend what she was saying.
“The spy your father’s men suspected?” My mother scoffed. “It was the very one they reported to.”
“No,” I said. “That can’t be, because…”
Darcke’s fingers brushed my back again, and I knew it was true before my mother spoke.
“Your father killed your brother.” The smile on my mother’s face was frenzied.
“He killed my son but left his bastard girl alive. Fritiof found out what we’d been planning Lika’s entire life, and he killed him to stop it.
” A furious sob rushed from my mother’s lips.
“At least Lika was able to take him down with him. I take comfort in that.”
She was insane. My mother or stepmother or whatever she was had lost her mind.
There was no way. My father would never have laid a hand on any of us. Lika was his legacy—his heir.
My bottom lip trembled. “I don’t believe you.”
“Lika was coming to kill the king,” my mother said, something smug washing over her features. “And your father decided to end his own name—his own bloodline—because of his misplaced loyalties. When Lika fought back, your father stabbed himself to death—to ensure Lika couldn’t use his rune.”
“No,” I said.
“Ask your dear second,” my mother taunted. “Ask him! He knows all of it. He was in on it.”
I didn’t dare fully turn, but I moved my face enough that I could see over my shoulder. Why, I didn’t know, because I could already feel the truth vibrating from Darcke, the cold, brutal truth that burned behind my eyes.
“You knew?” I whispered. “This whole time, you knew?”
The way he’d looked at me in the beginning. Like he hated me. Like he wanted to kill me. Now it made more sense that he’d hated me more than any other heir.
I pulled a breath.
His response when I admitted to not having magic. I know. I just needed you to say it.
“You thought I was coming to kill you? You thought I’d… what? Taken over after Lika?”
He didn’t respond, and I knew it was because the shaman had his tongue locked.
Fury ignited like a wildfire within me. I wasn’t even sure who deserved it more. The king? My brother? My father? My mother? Me for not understanding earlier?
Darcke’s eyes pleaded with me, and I didn’t know what to do—what to say. What to believe. Lika had wanted this, and my father… my father was on the king’s side? How could he side with the man he and my mother had spent so many evenings complaining about?
“Why?” It was the only word I could get out.
“Why?” my mother asked, and her tone was so foul Vero and Geord winced.
“Greed? Power?” She threw out her hands.
“Take your pick, little girl.” As Adrion’s father came up on her other side, she grinned coldly.
“We were getting tired of fighting beneath a king who had too little ambition. We can conquer the world! We have the ships and the people and the magic, but Gustief here thinks we should use it… sparingly.” She spat out the last word.
Sparingly? We’d almost taken over the entire fucking world already.
“Chief Leskog,” Geord demanded. “What is this?”