by Bec McMaster
The second Harald sensed Marduk, he looked for a companion. A little crease formed between his brows when he found none. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Prince Marduk?”
“Your Highness.” Marduk bowed his head as he stepped inside the solar. Sunlight poured through the glass. The view up here stretched from horizon to horizon. It was like floating in the clouds. “I bring news of your daughter. But first, I thought I’d start with an apology.”
Siv straightened, and even though he’d thought her mannerisms akin to a startled deer every time they’d met, a steely glint came into her eyes. “Where is my sister? Why are you here? What have you done to her?”
“Done to her?” He held his hands up in surrender, then tugged the furled missive free from his shirt pocket. “I’m here on Solveig’s behalf.”
“On her behalf?” Siv strode toward him, snatching the letter from his hands and swiftly unfurling it. “She hates you.”
“We may have come to a new understanding.”
And then she read the letter, and her eyebrows climbed to new heights. “Mmmm. I think you should see this, Father.”
What the hell had Solveig written about him?
Harald slipped his spectacles further up his nose and held the letter out a good three feet from his face, his lips silently moving. Then those piercing dark eyes locked on Marduk. “You mentioned an apology?”
He gestured to the seat opposite the king. “Do you mind if I sit?”
Harald inclined his head.
There was no point prevaricating. “Twice now, you have granted me the honor of a choice of one of your daughters, and both times I have not been as respectful of such an honor as I should have been.”
“True,” Harald said.
There were a thousand excuses, but none of them mattered. “I know I do not have the right to ask, but I will ask it. I wish for your blessing to court your daughter.”
Harald leaned back in his chair as if preparing for a lengthy chess battle. “You are already mated.”
“And you’re not fit to kiss the hem of her skirt,” Siv growled.
Marduk couldn’t help glancing at her again. Where had this fierce tiger come from? She’d barely been able to meet his eyes the last three times they spoke.
“I daresay I’m not,” he drawled, before returning his attention to Harald. “The court lines have been struck. We were bound together before your people. But the mating is a technicality only. And I wish to make it a formal one.”
“Why?”
Harald was taking no mercy upon him.
“Because… I love her.” There. It was the first time he’d been able to say the words—and maybe they should have been to her—but he wasn’t entirely certain whether she’d be able to accept them just yet. And her family meant the world to her. He needed to earn back their respect, for her sake. “And I wish to be able to support her, and protect her, and—”
“Protect her?” Siv snorted. “It’s almost as if you don’t know my sister.”
“She’s not invulnerable. She’s vicious and powerful and dangerous, but she has one weakness.”
“What?” Siv demanded.
“You,” he said simply. “And your sister and father. Solveig doesn’t love easily, but when she does, it is as fiercely as she lives the rest of her life. And she would sacrifice herself without even thinking of the consequences if she saw you at risk. I would never stop her from fighting—to do so would be to try to deny who she was— but perhaps I can be her shield. Perhaps I can watch her back while she’s hovering protectively over everyone she loves.”
“You speak as if you have seen her protectiveness in action,” Harald murmured.
Marduk chewed his lip, wondering how much he should say. “She took two arrows for me. She would have taken more. And I don’t ever want to see that happen again.”
“She is well?”
“She is still healing,” he replied. “Though she tries to hide it from me.”
“Always so stubborn.” Harald nodded toward Marduk. “You have my blessing to court her, this third and final time. But be warned, Marduk…, my patience thins. I have raised my daughters to be warriors in their own right, and they will make their own choices, but I will not tolerate further insult to any of them.”
“And I will not give it. I have been a fool twice. Never again.”
Harald arched a brow.
It was the exact expression Solveig wore at times.
Then he looked down at the missive. “She wants you to lead the warband north.”
Thank the goddess. “The alfar intend to attack through World’s End,” he said, then swiftly explained everything that had happened. “We need to be able to stop them.”
“Why you?” Siv demanded. “Why would she send them north with you?”
“She told me she couldn’t come herself.”
She’d been intending to wait outside the court, she’d admitted, and send a messenger, until he’d forced her into sending him.
There was no emotion on the king’s face.
“Did she tell you why she couldn’t come herself?” Harald finally asked.
“She swore to kill me, or else she cannot return to these halls.” He winced. “A difficult obstacle to surmount, but I will fix this mess. I swear I will fix it. This is her home.”
Harald leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He tapped the missive against his lips. “She doesn’t need to kill you to be able to return.”
What? “But she said—”
“Ask her,” Harald interrupted. “Ask what the precise words she pledged to the goddess were.” And then he pushed to his feet. “There are always loopholes, Marduk. And perhaps once she tells you the exact wording, you might be able to figure out a way to bring my daughter home, hmm? Take the warband. Join my daughter. You haven’t yet earned my complete forgiveness, but it’s possible you can. If you do, then you have not only my permission—but my blessing—to court my daughter’s heart.”
27
Marduk pinwheeled through the sky, an entire battalion of Sadu Windriders flanking him.
Solveig waited for him, standing on an outcropping of stone halfway up the mountain. Above her, storm clouds swirled in a circle around the top of World’s End—and the heart of the storm was green.
“You’re late,” she called as he circled her.
“Did you miss me?” he demanded, as he landed and shimmered into mortal form.
“Get dressed. Draco’s scouts reported back half an hour ago. Your mother is on top of the mountain, and she’s doing something up there. Andromeda said she can feel Chaos magic in the air. They’re worried that she’s started the spell that will channel power into the key.”
He hauled his clothes on. Not even a kiss. Solveig looked like she was ready to cut throats and wade through an ocean of blood. Resting her hand on the hilt of her knife, she turned toward the mountain path as if he hadn’t just flown fifty miles in the time it took to fly forty, just to bring her a squadron of armed dreki warriors.
A little frustrating, to be sure, but then he had chosen to fall in love with a female who took duty as seriously as—
She suddenly turned around, stalking toward him as he tugged at the laces on his leather trousers. Grabbing his shirt, she hauled him down toward her for a molten kiss.
This was more like it.
Marduk seized her face in both hands, capturing her mouth and growling deep in his throat. He’d missed her. All he wanted was a damned moment to throw her over his shoulder, haul her into his bedchambers and discuss—after a not-so-brief interlude of lovemaking—what the hell her father had meant when he’d said to ask her the exact words she’d used to pledge her vengeance.
But his trousers started sliding down, and Solveig caught them. “Goddess,” she hissed, drawing back from the kiss.
“I was trying to get dressed. You were the one who distracted me.” He couldn’t help grinning at her again. “Because you missed me so much you
just kissed me in front of your entire warband.”
Her cheeks pinkened as she glanced over his shoulder at the transforming warriors.
“Yes,” she said, her voice as steady as it had ever been, “I missed you. Now haul your trousers up. You’re baring your ass to my warriors.”
“The second they see this ass, they’ll know why you finally gave in to me.”
Solveig rolled her eyes. “Right now, I’m starting to wonder myself.” She paused. “Don’t get yourself killed up there.”
“Wouldn’t want to steal your opportunity from you,” he countered, as he slid his buckle into place.
And once again, she hesitated, as if she wanted to say something.
But she only nodded, expression sliding off her face once more as if Solveig had just put on the crown that said “conqueror”. “You’re right. Your life belongs to me now. See that you take good care of it.”
It was a steep climb.
Marduk found his brother and two sisters waiting just below the top of the mountain with their entire court. Haakon, Tormund, and Bryn were all in chainmail; Sirius looked like he was about to board a pirate ship with his usual black leather body armor; and Malin was armed with a book, her face pale. Of them all, she had the most to lose today, and Marduk took a moment to bend low and kiss her cheek as he arrived.
“We’ll get her back,” he promised.
Malin swallowed. “If there’s no other way….”
“Hey.” He squeezed her hand. “I promise I will make sure we take every chance we have to rescue your sister. My mother doesn’t get to win this one. I won’t let her.”
Tears gleamed in her dark eyes. “Thank you.”
He nodded to Sirius. They’d always been at odds, but for the first time, the Blackfrost returned his nod with one just as respectful.
“Thank you,” his cousin mouthed, and Marduk finally had to admit the truth: Sweet little Malin truly had tamed the evil dragon.
“Any sign of mother’s little elvish companions?”
“She’s alone,” Árdís replied grimly.
“What is she waiting for?”
“Us to present her with the means to open the portal,” came a cold voice behind him. “This is a trap.”
Draco appeared on the other rocky path that came from the other side of the mountain, with his sister and wife at his side. Several fierce Zilittu warriors fell into step behind them.
“We knew that,” Sirius replied. “The entire point of this exercise is to spring it.”
“Oh, good.” Marduk rubbed his hands together. “The bait has arrived. Do you have the dagger?”
Draco shot him a scathing look, and then reached inside his shirt. A blade appeared, the emerald in its hilt winking dangerously in the sunlight. “Here.”
He tossed the knife.
Marduk snatched it out of the air. The bronze blade was polished to within an inch of its life, and serpent-like dreki crawled up the hilt to surround the emerald. Such a fine piece of work, but even touching it made him shiver. The sensation of pure malevolence seemed to crawl up his skin from where he held it. “Thank you.”
A muscle ticked in the king’s jaw.
Marduk offered the blade, hilt first, to Andromeda. “I believe you should do the honors. You’re the reason we have a chance to save Elin today. Your king gives this up for you.”
Andromeda withdrew her hand sharply, but there was a hint of heat in her cheeks. “I can’t touch it. Even if I wished to. It’s dangerous for a Chaos-wielder to use.”
Marduk flipped the blade, staring down at it. If that was true, then neither Árdís or Ishtar could wield it either.
He finally looked at his brother.
Rurik was clad in gilded armor, his blond hair sweeping back from his brow and his face grim.
“She hurt all four of us,” Marduk finally said, offering the knife to his brother. “But she hurt you the most, I think. This should be yours. Your moment of vengeance.”
Rurik accepted the knife. The pained yearning in his eyes was both ancient and fierce, but it was the love there that struck him the hardest. “Sometimes the ones who seemingly bear no scars are the ones who hurt the most. But I will take this and I will do what needs to be done. Not for vengeance. For Elin’s sake. For Andri’s. For you, and Árdís, and Ishtar, and even Sirius.”
There was almost a bittersweet taste in his mouth. His brother understood.
Marduk could barely even reply for the hard lump in his throat. What a fool he had been. Instead, he merely nodded and fell in beside his brother—his king. “Let’s go kill this bitch once and for all.”
Marduk went first.
By the time he reached the top of the mountain, the storm of Chaos magic that swirled at the top had reached cyclonic proportions. Eerie green light painted the runestones, and in the midst of them, her face tilted to the sky, stood Amadea.
Her green eyes blinked open when he appeared, locking upon him.
“Hello. Mother.”
“If it isn’t my biggest disappointment. I thought you’d crawled off into some little hole somewhere and died.”
“Alas, I seem to be very good at resurrecting myself.” He gestured toward her. “Not as good as you, perhaps. Tell me, how does it feel to betray your entire race?”
“Wonderful,” she spat.
He stared at her, trapped in her bitterness and rage. “Where’s the stone that houses Andri’s soul?”
“Where you’ll never find it. I’m the only one who knows where it is, and I won’t give up that secret.”
“You’re not the only one who knows,” he pointed out. “Elin knows too. She’s still in there, Mother.”
And all they had to do was rescue her.
“She’s buried so deep she’ll never surface again.”
We’ll see about that. “Were you truly that desperate that you got into bed with the alfar? What did the elvish king promise you?”
Her smile was beautific. “Everything.”
“He’ll betray you,” he promised, taking a predatory step toward her so she wouldn’t notice Árdís and Andromeda circling the runestones. “It’s almost embarrassing to realize you’re foolish enough to believe he’ll actually repay you for your assistance. Once the elves pour into this realm, why would they let you survive? You may be able to open the portal, but once it’s open, you become a liability, because you can also close it.”
“Because I have a bargaining chip,” his mother replied. “A little secret I’ve been keeping up my sleeve about my precious son, the king, and his mortal bride.”
Marduk paused. That sounded like a threat against Freyja and Rurik. “No. You don’t get to do this anymore. You don’t get to hurt us.”
“Us?” she sneered. “Did your brother ever give a damn about you when he vanished for thirty years?”
Even now, she could cut him straight through the heart.
But he wasn’t that lonely little boy anymore.
“Us,” he repeated. “Because no matter how hard you tried to destroy the four of us, we are stronger together. Us. Because no matter what you did to twist our minds, we no longer believe your lies. Us. Because together, the four of us will finally bring an end to you and your bitter, twisted reign. It’s over, Mother.”
“It’s over when I say it’s over!” she hissed. “Do you think you can defeat this?”
A whirlwind of Chaos energy soared into the skies around her.
“No. But they can,” he said.
Haakon and Árdís stepped forward from the left, hand in hand.
“Hello, Mother,” Árdís said quietly, her hair streaming down her spine in loose blonde waves.
Amadea’s eyes locked upon Haakon, and rage smoldered within them as her gaze dropped to where their hands were linked. “Still defiling yourself with that human, I see. What will you do if you’ve bred a drekling upon yourself?”
“I will love them regardless, because to be drekling is not a weakness. It is a gift,” Árdí
s replied fiercely, her other hand caressing her abdomen. “I will do what you never could. I will love this child and protect it, and see that the world’s concept of dreki and drekling is forcibly changed forever.”
Andromeda appeared to the right, side by side with Ishtar.
His heart ached when he saw how his twin couldn’t look toward the figure in the circle. Her gaze was lowered, her shoulders hunched.
“I love you,” he sent toward her in a thought-thread. “Be brave. She never deserved you.”
Ishtar found him, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.
“She fears you because your magic is stronger,” he told her. “But she couldn’t love you, because she lacks the ability to truly love anyone. She never loved any of us. But we love you. We’re your family. Not her.”
“Oh, look,” Amadea sneered. “We’re all here.” She searched for Rurik. “Where’s my eldest little traitor?”
“Here,” Rurik replied, stepping forth with Freyja. And then he ignored her and turn to look at all of them in turn. “Are we ready to do this?”
“Oh, please do,” Amadea said.
“Can we cross the circle?” Marduk asked Andromeda.
“One way to find out,” Haakon said and stepped across the line.
The second he crossed it, a raw cry of pain echoed in his throat, and his knees buckled. He hit the grass, the lower half of his body spasming where it lay in the circle.
Árdís screamed.
“Goddess’s mercy!” Marduk grabbed the dragon-slayer by the shoulders and hauled him backward until he was free of the circle. “How about we discuss such heroics first? You’re linked to my sister.”
Tormund helped him haul the enormous dragon-slayer out of the way.
“Haakon?” Árdís demanded. “Are you all right?”
Haakon tried to roll onto his side, and couldn’t make it. “Jesus.” His face was pale.
“What happened to him?” Marduk demanded.
Andromeda placed a hand to his forehead. “The queen has created a vortex. Essentially, it’s a trap. Anyone who enters that circle will find their energy sucked from them. He has no Chaos magic of his own, but the spell attacked the link between he and Árdís.”
