by Bec McMaster
Fuck. The key. Elin. His mother. Marduk pinched the bridge of his nose. His first instinct should have been to alert the others, but the second he’d hauled Solveig’s unconscious body into his arms, the dreki had overtaken him and all it had cared about was getting her to safety.
Maybe there was some truth to Árdís’s words.
The words spilled from him as he slumped on the edge of the bed.
“Elin,” Árdís whispered a little sadly. “It will break Malin’s heart.” She cursed under her breath. “I should have foreseen it. Do you think mother poisoned their father, Sigmund? He’s been so ill of late, and Rurik was so grateful that Elin could take over his duties.”
He hadn’t even thought of that.
“If she poisoned Sigmund….” He looked into Árdís’s eyes. “Then she wanted to come here from the start. She planned this. She needed to get her hands on either Ishtar or the key, and now we’ve led her straight to it.”
“I’ll tell the king the entire truth. If the elves have the key, then they’re going to try to open the portal at World’s End. We’ll need to gather all our warriors and surround it. Word shall have to be sent to every dreki court in the lands. We don’t know how many of them there are.” She hesitated. “They found Andri’s body.”
Jesus. He’d almost forgotten. “Is he—?”
“Alive.” Árdís bit her lip. “Though that is the best that can be said of him. Mother stabbed him with the kunuk la’atzu, and hid his body in one of the tunnels. There’s no sign of the soulstone, or the knife.”
“She has it. How bad is he?”
“He won’t wake,” she admitted. “His body is there, he’s breathing, but… his soul is gone. Sirius is sitting with him. We need to find the kunuk la’atzu and hope his soul is still trapped within the stone.”
“Mother never casts away a weapon she can use.”
“Thankfully.”
Marduk sighed and dropped his head into his hands.
A hand came to rest upon his shoulder. “Are you all right? You’ve barely lifted your head.”
He looked up sharply—and nearly fell off the bed as a wave of blazing pain went through him. But there was sincerity in her face.
Árdís cared.
She truly cared.
And he laughed under his breath as he realized that his mother had wrought more damage upon him than he’d ever realized.
For months he’d resided at Hekla, doing what he could to assist his family in repairing the fractured court. But Solveig had been right. Maybe her walls were cold steel, but his heart was just as guarded.
Because even though he’d been there physically, he hadn’t let them in.
“I’m fine. Just dabbling with magic I shouldn’t touch. I missed you,” he said. “I wish I’d taken you with me when I fled the court all those years ago.”
Sorrow darkened her eyes. “I wasn’t ready.”
“I shouldn’t have given you a choice.”
“But then I would never have met Haakon. Then I wouldn’t be carrying his child within me.” She pressed her hands to her abdomen, her smile beatific. “Without rainy days, one wouldn’t appreciate the sunny ones as much as one should. I survived. We all survived. And maybe that bitch isn’t quite finished yet, but I don’t doubt the four of us can destroy her.”
“Whoever thought you would turn out to be the pragmatic one?”
Árdís ran her hands through his hair with a smile. “Whoever would have thought you would turn out to be the rescuing-dreki-princesses one?”
“Oh, I’ve rescued more than a few dreki princesses in my time.” He glanced down at the still figure on the bed. “Though never one who doesn’t want to be rescued.”“She means something to you, doesn’t she?”
He took one of Solveig’s hands in his. “Do you ever feel like your life keeps circling back to one dreki?”
“Not a dreki, no, but one man? Yes.” She brushed the hair off his temples. “Haakon has always been the eye of my storm. Even when I was fighting against my fate, I couldn’t escape him.”
“She’s always been the eye of my storm, but I don’t feel… anything else.”
It was a confession that soured his soul.
And Árdís knew exactly what he was talking about.
“Some true matings take time,” she said hesitantly.
“Sirius knew. Rurik knew. But it’s been ten years, and while I’m drawn to her, there’s nothing… more.”
He’d heard others speak of the blaze of lightning that ignited within them when their dreki knew they’d found their other half.
Árdís knelt in front of him. “Do you want her, Marduk?”
“There’s always been lust and longing, but it wasn’t until I was in that cave, listening to her scream, that I realized I would do anything—give my own life—to make sure she survived.” He took a shuddering breath. “Do I want her? Yes. Desperately.”
And he wanted there to be more to it than mere need.
He wanted what his brother and sister had.
Árdís sighed under her breath. “Then be with her, Marduk. There doesn’t have to be anything more to it than that.”
But for the first time in his life, he yearned for it.
“You were right,” Marduk told his brother, staring into the flames in the hearth. “Mother’s still here.”
And then he explained everything that had happened at the abyss to Rurik and the Zini delegation who had gathered in his room.
There was a solemn silence once he’d finished.
Sirius broke it. “Fuck,” he snarled, kicking the chair he’d been resting his hand upon. “Fuck.” And then he turned to Malin. “You’re—”
“Don’t you even dare,” Malin said, pushing to her feet with her eyes blazing. “That is my sister. I am not going to tuck tail and run, just because the queen bears you a vendetta and will probably do her best to kill me. Elin has been there for me at every moment of my life.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I knew something was wrong with her. I knew it. But the queen… she played such a good part. Elin always longed to fly, and after I became dreki I couldn’t help but feel guilty that she had not. I thought it was just that.”
Árdís wrapped an arm around Malin’s shoulders. “My mother is evil,” she said, squeezing the shorter woman. “But she is also cunning and she knows how to twist another dreki in knots of guilt. It’s not your fault. A great many things have happened to you over the past six months, and along with your transformation, it made sense for there to be resentments.”
Malin’s brown eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “I cannot believe how selfish I’ve been….”
Árdís shot Sirius a hug-her-you-idiot-and-stop-being-an-overprotective-Neanderthal kind of look and then pushed the pretty young dreki into his arms.
Marduk turned back to the fire, where he could just make out his brother’s amber eyes in the flames. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m thinking,” Rurik sighed, and then he turned his attention upon Sirius. “If she’s working with the alfar, then you need to get that key back and get those gates closed. Now.” He swore under his breath, “Marduk?”
“Yes?” Marduk straightened.
“This is no longer a single dreki court’s problems. Harald needs to know. And you need to alert Draco. I’m coming to Norway.”
“That is a terrible idea,” Árdís exploded. “The Zilittu are playing games with us.”
“The Zilittu are always playing games,” Rurik replied grimly. “But unless Draco wants to be curtsying to the king of Álfheimr, then he needs to set aside any past grievances and work with me. Organize it.”
Marduk scrubbed at his jaw. “I may not be the best dreki for this job. Draco and I….”
“Then become the best dreki for this job,” Rurik snarled. “Freyja and I arrive in two days. Make sure our path is cleared.”
Marduk found the king atop the tower.
Draco rested both hands on the battlements and stared
down into the evening dusk. He was so absorbed in whatever he was watching that he flinched slightly when Marduk came within reach of him.
“If I was a different sort of dreki, then you would be dead, Your Highness,” Marduk noted, leaning on the battlements and trying to see what had caught the king’s attention.
Andromeda and Viveka were shooting at targets in the bailey. Viveka—as entrancing as she was—wasn’t what had caught the dreki king’s attention. Andromeda threw her head back and laughed, and even from here the sound of it floated.
Ah. Marduk’s eyebrows rose. A great many things suddenly made sense. “I see I’m not the only one you’re trying to stir jealousy within.”
Draco cut him a scathing look. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching you pine over the one woman you can’t have.”
His arrow found its target. The king’s nostrils flared, and he turned toward Marduk, his knuckles flexing.
“If Solveig thinks you were playing games with her in order to spite another woman, she’ll kill you,” Marduk pointed out. “I’ll even hold her coat.”
“What makes you think they were games? Solveig’s a powerful dreki queen with an incredibly formidable nature.”
“On that we agree. But she’s mine. And if you try to take her again, I will kill you myself.”
“Is there a point to this?”
“You wanted to know why we were truly here,” he said simply.
“Tell me.”
Draco was a typical dreki king. He’d never believe that he could be made to kneel before one of the alfar until it was too late. It had been so long since the gates to Álfheimr were open that few dreki who still lived in this world believed in the danger of their existence. They were a myth. An old war between their ancestors. And the tales were terrible, but truly, that sort of thing wouldn’t happen here, in this lifetime.
“My mother’s spirit is still on this place of existence,” he said instead. “She’s currently riding Elin’s body and she has the reins. She’s plotting to overthrow our king, but to do that she needs allies. And she’s found them. Yesterday, Tyndyr—the alfar king’s general—nearly killed Solveig and trapped me in the Abyss.”
“A terrible problem for your king.”
“Alas for you, the problem is not contained to one court. You wanted to know who’s been killing your Chaos-wielders, but have you thought of the consequences now we know who it is?” He gestured toward the courtyard below them. “Elin has no magic for my mother to work with. She wants a new dreki to inhabit. One who does have Chaos magic. My sisters are protected, but I wonder… who will she choose? Viveka? Or Andromeda? One of your other Chaos-wielders?” He shook his head. “No. I think the biggest target is Andromeda. She’s the most powerful Chaos-wielder in your clan. She sleeps alone. And while this castle might be protected, my mother was born here. She knows every inch of stone in this place, and how to creep through it unseen. If she comes back, she will take Andromeda, and none of us can stop her.”
His earlier assessment had been correct, for a dark fire came into the king’s eyes. “How do we kill her? For good?”
After he’d seen the king, he ventured toward Andri’s room.
A sharp rap brought a low-voiced, “Enter.”
The room was dark, the single candle burning low. Sirius sat by the bed, his hands clasped between his knees, and his long dark hair tangled over his shoulders. He wasn’t bothering with the eyepatch in here, and the scar where his left eye used to be was thick and gnarled.
It was a stark reminder: Sirius had turned on his father and his queen in a crucial moment, and according to Árdís, he was the only reason Rurik sat on his throne.
“How is he?” Marduk murmured as he approached the bed.
The other male sat back in his chair, looking exhausted. “Empty. He’s empty. The spark that makes him my brother is gone.”
Marduk sat on the other side of the bed.
Andri lay between them, still and pale.
“We’ll get him back,” he whispered. “My mother will have his soul, which means we can get him back.”
Sirius scrubbed a hand over his stubble. “Yes. But at what cost?”
Silence bloomed, tense and wary.
And then Sirius broke it.
“Andri is everything that I am not,” he said. “He was always my heart. My conscience. He was the one thing that kept me from becoming a monster all those years.”
“I don’t think you were ever a monster.” They were difficult words to conjure. “You claim it is Malin and Andri who held your honor, but you were never…. You were never like them.”
“I killed your father.” There was a dark, bottomless pit of horror in the other dreki’s eyes. “I see his blood on my hands every night.”
And fuck, it was like a knife twisting in Marduk’s chest. “I see it too. I see his blood on the floor. Drenching the rug.” He forced himself to blink out of those memories. “But you never killed my father. You were merely the instrument my mother wielded.”
Silence fell again, but this time….
Sirius gave him a curt nod. “Thank you.”
“She’s the true enemy,” he murmured. “And we will end her. Together.”
24
Solveig woke sometime early in the morning.
Marduk slipped onto the bed behind her, easing her shoulders up against his chest.
“Here.” He lifted a cup of broth to her lips, and she grabbed at the small cup and tried to drain it.
Her throat was so dry the thin soup burned. But she wanted more. Every inch of her clamored for food. She needed to regain her strength.
A gentle hand soothed her hair. “Don’t ever do that again,” Marduk whispered.
Solveig surrendered to his embrace. She was too tired to fight him. “Do what?”
“Risk yourself for me.”
She tilted her head back. He looked down, his amber eyes filled with some sort of emotion she didn’t think she could name.
“I didn’t risk myself for you. I risked myself for this world. That smirking elf—” She managed to sling her legs over the side of the bed, and then clapped a hand to her ribs. “What happened? How did we get here?”
“I carried you.” His voice roughened. “And you can lie as much as you want to, but I was there, Solveig. You came for me, and I’ll never forget it.”
“Let me get out of bed,” she said with a wince.
“You’re injured.”
And there were some bodily functions that simply couldn’t be contained. “I need to use the water closet.”
Marduk found her dark green silk robe. “Here.” He slid it over her shoulders, and then she was directed toward the wash chamber. “Let me—”
She stopped him with one hand. “The day I need someone to help me to the water closet is the day they bury me. You’re not entering.”
Frustration etched notches between his brows. “You’re going to fall flat on your face.”
“No,” she said, “I won’t.”
“So fucking stubborn.”
“So fucking arrogant,” she retorted.
But he let her shut the door in his face.
It hurt more than she’d thought it would to walk, and every movement was slower than she’d have liked.
By the time she finally eased the door open, she was panting.
Marduk growled, and slid under her arm. “Sit before you fall flat on your face.”
Solveig bared her teeth at him. “I am not going to—”
“I know.” He rolled his eyes. “You are Solveig the Fierce, and no mere elf is going to be your undoing. You’ll maintain your feet through sheer willpower, if necessary.”
He eased her into a seat.
“I won’t tell anyone that your knees are shaking.” There was a smile on his lips in the mirror as he brushed her hair out.
“You summoned Chaos,” she said.
Marduk’s hands paused, then he resumed his brushing, laying her
hair out over the back of the chair like a silken waterfall. “I don’t even want to think about that moment. My mind still hasn’t recovered.” He shuddered. “My dreki magics were trapped within me, and I was desperate—”
“Desperate?”
Marduk met her gaze in the mirror. “Yes. Desperate. I could hear you screaming, and there’s not a single sound in the world that has ever chilled me so. I needed to get to you. And so I found a way to do so.” He shuddered again. “Though I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Solveig curled in on herself a little. What was he saying? That he’d been worried about her?
Desperate.
She didn’t know what to do with that word.
Marduk gathered her hair in a sheaf and then ran his fingers through it. There was something infinitely gentle about the gesture. “I can almost sense you trying to pick my words apart, so I’ll state it plainly. You nearly died, and it scared me so badly I can’t keep pretending. I would have given my life in that moment, if you were safe. I would have done anything to rescue you.”
A little shiver worked its way through her. “Marduk—”
“No.” He captured her chin and turned her head, bending down to kiss her. “You will listen to me this time so that none of my intentions can be misconstrued. This may have begun in enmity, this may have become nothing more than passion, but it is not going to end that way.” Soft lips brushed against her cheek, her ear. “You are mine, Solveig. Mine. And I’m not going to let you go without a fight. If someone tries to hurt you, I will kill them. If someone stands in your way, then I will remove them. And once this is all done and you are absolved of your debt to the Zini court, then I will fight for you. I know you want this handfasting to be over, but I’m not done, Solveig.”
Her heart started thumping. “That’s not your decision.”
