by Bec McMaster
Solveig allowed the princess to bring her a robe and seat her in a chair near the hearth. The first few strokes of the brush through her tangle of wild hair soothed her in a way she’d not expected.
“I always missed my brothers,” Árdís admitted, as she brushed. “But I worried about them more. Especially Marduk. He just… vanished. And when he came back, it was like nothing had ever happened at all. He still laughs. He still smiles. But his eyes always return to the horizon, and until I met you, I worried he would disappear again. The Zini court is not his home. Not the way it is for me.”
“Until you met me?”
“He’s not looking for the horizon,” Árdís admitted. “He looks at you as if you are the whole of his world. And when he carried you back here in his arms, he looked like you’d torn his heart out of his chest just by fainting. He worries about you. He cares for you.”
Solveig slowly closed her eyes.
“And you care for him,” the princess insisted.
“While I may admit to certain… feelings, it will never work between us.”
“Won’t it?”
She curled her fingers into a fist. “I am a queen. I was not made to surrender to—"
“Sometimes surrender is the greatest power we have,” Árdís said.
Solveig’s heart hardened. “Surrender means that one wins. And one loses.”
“I’m not talking about surrendering to him.” Árdís reached out and pressed two fingers to Solveig’s heart. “I speak of surrendering to yourself. I’ve felt it, you know. I tried not to love my husband. I tried so hard it felt like I was cutting my own heart out of my chest. To love him meant to face my mother’s wrath, and I didn’t want to risk his life. Until he was dying, right in front of me, and the only way to save Haakon’s life was to accept what I felt for him and bond with him. The truth is I was hiding from myself. I wasn’t truly whole until I accepted that what I felt was worth fighting for. Worth risking everything for. And so I surrendered.”
What a breathless concept.
To be at one with herself, to give into the desires of her heart meant submitting to a piece of herself she’d spent her entire life fighting.
She had been born into a male world, and she’d spent the first cycle of her life fighting to find her place in it. Every inch of the way she’d had her father’s throne in her sights—not as conqueror, but as successor—and the beat of the words I will be worthy echoed in time with her heartbeat.
Losing her mother had forged that dream into an unbreakable vow. It was her mother’s dream, and she would honor it. She would be a queen that the world would bow before. She would take her throne, and she would hold it.
But it was only now she realized what that dream could cost her.
Because, in her mind’s eye, she had always sat alone on that throne.
And… would the loneliness be worth it?
“I don’t know if I can take your advice,” she whispered. “The very thought of submitting to such a thing makes my dreki rage.”
“I understand.” Árdís gave her a rueful smile. “They’ll never know what we fight for. They’ll never understand the lives we’ve led.”
“He… hurt me.” It was the first time she’d said those words out loud. “And I’ve been carrying that hurt for so long that it feels like this bonfire in my chest.” Solveig raked her hair out of her face. “I’m so tired of fighting myself. Every time I look at him, my dreki goes wild. He is both threat and… something else. I don’t know what to do.”
There was a certain glint in Árdís’s eyes, and Solveig couldn’t read it.
“What?” Solveig demanded, still seething with the mess Marduk had made of her. Her heart was going to rupture her ribs, she swore it.
Árdís looked back toward her brother’s shirt. “Nothing. I just….”
“What?”
“They say males always know first,” Árdís said slowly, “though that was not the case for me and Haakon. He was human, you see, so he couldn’t feel it. And I feared I never would.”
The world grew very still.
Solveig stopped breathing.
The mating bond.
The princess was talking about finding one’s true flame. It was myth. It was legend. It was what every dreki secretly yearned for in the depths of their heart—the other piece of their soul.
Her jaw dropped open.
“We are not….” She couldn’t even speak the word.
“I don’t know what my brother is feeling. But I do know that before I discovered I was mating with my husband, I was wildly irrational and territorial, and angry over the smallest things.... I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me until Rurik pointed out I was acting like a mating dreki.”
Solveig’s heart kicked hard. “You think I am… mating with him?”
Again that pause. “I don’t think I’m the one who has to answer that question.”
Solveig pushed forward in the chair, suddenly desperate to move. Her thoughts spiraled like a whirlwind.
Oh, goddess, no.
Marduk couldn’t be the other half of her heart. He couldn’t be.
But the pieces began rearranging themselves together in a way that fit only too well.
Her dreki had tried to tear itself free the second she saw him. It had been frightening. Overwhelming. A caged feeling that left her trapped and breathless and desperate to escape the only way she knew how—by lashing out.
She’d thought she’d hated him, but what if it was the feeling she hated?
She hadn’t understood the primal forces trying to tear her apart, and so she’d tried to reject them.
To reject him.
“Perhaps it is possible female dreki do acknowledge some aspect of the driving urge to mate, but because it is such an overwhelming instinct, males usually sense it first?” Árdís pointed out. “You’re naturally a very dominant, aggressive female. Perhaps you’re more aware of it than most.”
It made sense.
It made far too much sense.
Marduk had been a roguish young dreki male newly arrived at her court, but there’d been dozens like him in the past, and her senses had never been set off like that with them. No, the moment she saw him, it had sent a shiver down her spine, like claws scratching over slate.
A feeling that something was wrong—something profoundly upsetting for her equilibrium that she’d never been able to slake. She’d wanted him out of her territory. Out of her life. And yet, the second he’d done so, some part of her had been screaming on the inside.
And that feeling hadn’t let up until several months ago, when rumors surfaced of a golden dreki prince skirting the edges of her territory.
Despite every single logical thought telling her to let the past go, she hadn’t been able to curb the instinct to set Bryn Brightfeather hunting him. She’d needed to get her hands on him again.
Somehow.
And in her head, she’d called it revenge.
But what if it wasn’t?
Oh, gods. Solveig buried her face in her hands. This was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. “No, it’s not possible. I’d know. And I don’t—I don’t wish for a true flame. Ever. No.”
“Solveig?” Árdís asked. “Are you all right?”
“Don’t tell him.” The words burst from her lips. “Please don’t tell him.”
“I won’t tell him. I promise. If he hasn’t figured it out yet, then he’s an idiot and he only has himself to blame. But….” Ardís sat on the edge of the chair, rubbing her back. “It’s not as bad as you might think. Actually, it’s quite delightful.”
“No.”
It was such an emphatic denial that the other woman reared back a little before sighing.
Solveig slowly toppled back onto the chair, running her hands through her hair.
Are you there? she whispered to her dreki. Is that what you’ve been trying to tell me?
There was no answer, but she could sense the unease within
her.
Because there was one little problem with that scenario.
Perhaps it was true. Perhaps her dreki was recognizing its mate.
But if so, then it was very clear that Marduk did not feel the same.
The rest of the group was plotting war in the throne room.
And so Ardís helped Solveig down the stairs before pausing in front of the doors to brush her skirts down. It wasn’t her preferred style, but she couldn’t wear her armored corset yet, and so they’d reached a compromise with the green gown.
“Perfect,” Ardís said. “You look like a queen.”
“I feel like I’m going to fall flat on my face.” This weakness was infuriating. She needed a minute to catch her breath after taking the damned stairs.
“Then take my arm,” Ardís replied. “We’ll enter together. If your knees start to shake, I’ll pretend to swoon.”
It felt strange to have a fellow conspirator. It was almost like having another sister.
And as Ardís strode forward and shoved the throne room doors open, Solveig realized that if anyone tried to harm her sister-in-law during the coming fight, then they were going to have to go through her.
If she could bloody well fight herself.
Draco and Andromeda sat at the head of the table, the Zilittu king clad in harsh black leather, while his queen wore a white silk gown that Solveig approved of. His brother, Rune, and sister, Viveka, sat to either side of them, and their warlord, Talon, loomed behind them, one hand resting on his sword hilt as he leaned against the wall.
Across from Draco sat Rurik and his wife. Rurik watched Draco like one would watch a poisonous snake.
Ardís took a seat between Haakon and Ishtar, and the Blackfrost leaned back in his chair, his boot kicked up on the table as he smiled at Talon. Malin kept shooting him small looks as if she wanted to kick his foot under the table and tell him to stop provoking the other warlord, but Sirius looked like he was having too much fun doing so.
There was an ancient dreki saying about something like this; one dreki king in a room is a bracing wind that sweeps away all in his path; two is a clash of storms; and three is a hurricane that devastates everything in the vicinity.
Her arrival seemed to break some kind of tension.
“Your Highness,” Draco greeted, tilting his head to her.
“Solveig,” Rurik said, his eyes flat and neutral, even as his tone and choice of greeting indicated an intimacy between courts that Draco didn’t own.
So it was going to be like this.
“Your Highnesses,” she replied, stalking toward the only remaining chair left in the room—the one right next to Marduk.
The last time they’d met, Rurik had promised Solveig the dissolution of her mating alliance, so when Marduk’s head whipped toward her, she saw Rurik’s attention lock upon them. It stalled her a little, for she couldn’t fight the feeling that every move she made would be analyzed.
“What are you doing down here?” Marduk whispered furiously, shooting Ardís a scathing look.
“Plotting war,” she replied.
The flash of his amber eyes told her this discussion wasn’t over, even as he held her chair out for her.
Solveig sank into it gratefully, even as his mind brushed against hers.
“You should be in bed. I bloody knew I shouldn’t have left Ardís in charge—”
“War waits for no king. Or queen. And how did you think she was going to stop me?”
Marduk growled under his breath and cut the connection between them.
She was far too aware of the hard body at her side, his thigh pressed to hers. Even as Marduk’s attention locked on Draco, she couldn’t resist examining his profile.
Her true flame? Her heart skipped a beat.
Goddess, what was she going to do?
She couldn’t have him and her throne.
To choose him meant giving up everything.
You can never go back there. Not without killing him.
You can never return home.
How can you be your father’s successor if you can’t even walk the halls of your court?
Why is he not fighting for me?
Marduk gave her a strange look, as if he was curious as to why she was staring at him. “What’s wrong?” he whispered, sliding his fingers through hers.
“Nothing.” She jerked her attention back to Draco, who appeared to be speaking.
“Liar.” Marduk sent the thought to her. “You haven’t heard a word Draco’s been saying, and since he’s talking about objects with world-shattering consequences, I know you’re distracted.”
“I’m tired,” she replied curtly, before unlacing both her thoughts and her fingers from his.
This time it was Marduk’s turn to watch her.
She could almost feel his gaze as a caress on her skin.
“I don’t see what the problem is,” Draco snapped. “We capture this Elin. We take the key off her. We destroy it—”
“Easier said than done,” Andromeda cut in angrily. “You speak of what you know nothing of. The Key of Chaos was never meant to be used, except for an absolute emergency. With it, Elin is almost… impossible to confront. With it, a Chaos-wielder of average abilities could tear apart a portal between the stars, but to do so requires enormous amounts of Chaos. And once activated, it will suck the magic out of anything that has even a hint of Chaos magic within its diameter in order to fuel itself. There’s a reason my people have never wielded it. If we confront her and she activates it, then she will simply suck the magic out of us. If your father had just left it in my country, in the safety of my people’s hands, then we would not be dealing with this situation right now.”
Draco’s eyelids lowered sleepily, a sure sign that he was thinking. “How wide is the circumference of its reach?”
Andromeda pushed to her feet to pace. “We don’t know. We only have hypotheses, and data from the original prototype—and it was barely a quarter as powerful. The circle around it will grow with every ounce of magic it absorbs. It’s like… a voracious maelstrom that will slowly pull entire countries into its orbit and bleed them dry of Chaos magic. Grass will wither, trees will die, and humans will stop and clutch at their chests as if they experience a sharp pain there. But it shall be the dreki who suffer the most. It will kill entire courts. Stop them dead in their tracks. Every dreki needs a spark of Chaos to survive, and the key will bleed them dry. Once activated, it’s almost impossible to stop. I would estimate that the entirety of Europe will be affected.”
Every set of lungs in the room arrested.
Rurik broke the terse silence. “We need to find my mother before she activates it.”
“And kill her,” Draco agreed. “Once and for all.”
Malin sucked in a sharp gasp. “Elin’s still in there.”
Sirius clasped her hand, shooting the two kings a hard look.
Rurik shot Malin an anguished look. “We know.” His voice broke. “We know. And if there was anything we could do to save her…. But we’re speaking about thousands of dreki being robbed of their lives. I cannot justify that.”
“Almost impossible to stop,” Andromeda said quietly. “There is something we can try.”
“Anything,” Sirius demanded. “What do we do?”
“To deactivate the key, we need a soul to sacrifice,” she said, meeting Malin’s eyes. “One aligned with Chaos. It was built into the spell work as a failsafe.”
Silence filled the room.
To sacrifice one’s life in battle was a gift; one’s spirit was almost certainly bound to ride the horizon forever with the ancestors, in those flickering, beautiful displays of light that lit the northern skies on certain nights.
But to sacrifice one’s soul….
There would be no forever. There would be no eternal flight.
Nothing but… being trapped forever inside the key.
Marduk slowly pushed to his feet.
“Don’t you even dare offer,” So
lveig snarled, slamming upright.
“I’m touched, my love, but truly… do I seem like the self-sacrificial type?”
The entire room was looking at her. She ignored them. “Then who?”
“Not who….” He quirked a brow and turned to Andromeda. “You said ‘a soul.’ Any soul?”
“One tied to Chaos,” Andromeda reminded him.
It hit her as suddenly as Marduk’s smile.
“It’s brilliant,” Solveig whispered.
Marduk gave her a courtly bow. “I do try.”
“Would someone like to enlighten the rest of us?” Draco demanded.
Marduk turned toward the king. “We want Elin back. And we want my mother gone. Who better to sacrifice to the key than the bitch who’s caused all our woes?”
“Would it work?” Draco cast Andromeda a cool look.
Andromeda’s shoulders straightened. “Using the queen as sacrifice might work. The problem is whether we can separate Elin’s soul from hers.”
Marduk shot them all a dangerous smile. “The first I can manage. The second…?” He tilted his head toward Draco. “That’s on you. After all, you’re the one with a blade that can separate a soul from a mortal body, are you not?”
Rurik’s attention locked upon the Zilittu king. “A blade that can separate a soul from a body?”
Andromeda silently immolated Draco with her eyes. Clearly matters between them had not been resolved.
“Yes,” Draco snapped, pushing his chair back with a snarl. “I have such a blade. But it is currently in use, so the answer is no. No, I will not give you the blade. No, you cannot use it to draw your mother’s soul from the girl’s body. No. No. No.”
And then he stalked from the hall, even as Andromeda cut his retreating figure a sharp look.
26
Draco’s “no” still echoed through the keep.
Both courts had disbanded, each to their own chambers—no doubt to plot a way to convince the other to accept their terms—and Marduk had seen Solveig back to their rooms.
And then he went in search of wine.
The great hall seemed a promising start. He was halfway across it when he saw a shadow seated near the head of the banquet table. A single solitary male, resting his forehead in one hand as the fingers of his other hand toyed with an ornate goblet.
