by Bec McMaster
So why then, was it wrong to touch the Goddess’s magic?
“I’m only trying to protect you,” Zorja told her, having followed her. “There are dreki who would kill you for your magic.”
“I know.” Illarion had told her that too.
The only one who understood how it felt to see the world through a veil of magic was the voice she heard when she looked at the full moon.
“If you help me,” he had whispered in her head, “then I will help you. Free me, and I will show you a world that no longer fears your magic. They will no longer fear you.”
But if she tried to tell her foster mother that again, Zorja would only grow angry. She didn’t like to hear about the moon.
“Ishtar.”
She just had to wait a little longer. She could hear the whisper of distant feet echoing through the earth, even down here. One. Two. Three sets of footsteps. It wouldn’t be long now. Friend Tormund was coming to rescue her.
And then she could free the moon.
“Ishtar.”
She heard a soft sigh behind her.
“I will see you on the morrow then,” Zorja said, turning to walk away.
Ishtar didn’t bother telling her foster mother that she wouldn’t be here. Instead, she closed her eyes as she sank into the magic. Soon.
“Make sure you eat,” Zorja called. “Illarion will stay with you while you do.”
Tormund crept along the dark tunnel, guided by the magical compass Bryn had provided. The needle quivered, jerking sharply to the right as they reached an intersection. Only the faintest glow surrounded it.
“This way,” he breathed, gesturing with two fingers as he felt the faint stir of wind on his face. Thank god. It was hot as blazes in here, and sweat crept down his spine.
“Are you sure?” Bryn whispered, her body almost pressing against his.
“It’s your magical compass.”
“This seems too easy,” she admitted. A firefly flicker of light glowed at the tip of the sword. “Where are the guards?”
I don’t know.
The thought had been plaguing him too. “Maybe the gods guard our journey.”
“The gods give little thought to mortal men,” she muttered. “Something about this entire mountain bothers me.”
An enormous pit gaped before him, the darkness plunging into nothingness.
Tormund glanced over the railing from a respectful distance, resting his hand on the spine of a stone dreki that leered into the darkness. He couldn’t see the bottom of the cavern. Just… darkness. Closing his eyes, he swallowed hard. Life could have been so much pleasanter if he’d just stayed home instead of following Haakon. He might be married with a dozen children by now. He could have thirteen cows. Maybe a goat or two.
Instead, he was facing the Staircase of Doom, which seemed to lead directly to his death.
“Are you all right?” Bryn whispered.
“He doesn’t like heights,” Haakon replied, giving him a prod in the middle of the back. “Or stairs.”
Bastard. “Stairs are the ultimate evil. Going up them is just a curse against your ass and thighs. And going down is like, ‘Welcome to Hel, foolish mortal.’”
Bryn arched a brow. “Scared? Of heights? You?”
“Not scared, so much as… respectful. You lead the way. And I will follow at a nice, safe distance.”
“You don’t seem bothered when you’re on Sirius’s back.”
“You didn’t hear him scream the first time we took off,” Haakon muttered.
“I didn’t scream. I said, ‘Jesus fucking Christ’ very loudly. And Sirius isn’t going to let me die,” Tormund ground out. “His mate likes me. Malin will ask questions if I am nothing more than a smear on some rocks somewhere.”
“Is that what you believe?” Bryn asked with a snort.
“It’s what I tell myself every second we’re in the air.”
Down, and down, and down they went.
Every now and then a torch hung in a sconce, but the light was meagre, and every time he looked over the edge of those stairs, the world dropped away into a nothingness so absolute, his balls tried to climb into his throat.
Just think, you could be sitting in your bed at home, with your arm curled around a buxom—
His brain stalled.
And his gaze shot unerringly toward the red-gold braid dancing in front of him, as Bryn loped down the stairs like a hungry wolf, her sword held low.
Fuck.
His heart wanted nothing to do with any plump blondes or buxom brunettes. No. It had taken one look at her—all surly, snarling grace—and decided she was the woman for him.
“I could have died in my bed as an old man,” he muttered sadly, “but instead you’re going to lead me to my doom, and I’m going to go willingly, fool that I am.”
Bryn shot a glare over her shoulder, but her eyebrow quirked as if to ask him what the hell he was talking about.
“Nothing,” he mouthed.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, they reached the enormous cavern at the bottom. Dozens of smaller caves branched off from it. Tormund glanced at the compass. Its needle trembled, spinning sharply several times before it settled upon the darkest hole of all.
Of course.
The floor within the tunnel seemed rougher-hewn than the others. It was too narrow for a dreki to traverse unless they were in human form, and every now and then there were heavy gates built across the tunnel.
The heavy tread of footsteps echoed ahead of them.
Tormund whirled around, shoving Haakon back the way they’d come, as torchlight leered in the distance. Dreki. Dreki guards who could no doubt see better than they could.
Bryn whispered under her breath, and the glowing tip of her sword faded into nothingness.
“This way,” Tormund said, ducking into the shadows of a tunnel he’d seen on the way past. Light beckoned ahead of them.
He turned and darted around a corner, skidding to a halt when he came face-to-face with another startled guard.
The warrior’s face hardened and he drew his sword with a steely rasp. “What are you doing down here? How did you get in? Who are you?”
“Well,” Tormund’s grip closed around his axe handle, “this is awkward. And a little difficult to explain. We’re looking for a missing prince, you see, and we think—”
The guard suddenly sucked in a startled gasp, clapping a hand to his neck, where a small golden dart appeared.
Eyes rolling back in his head, he fell with a clatter of steel.
“We’re not here to have a conversation with him,” Bryn snapped.
Tormund splayed his hands wide. “Killing the guards is probably going to stir this entire court like a kicked anthill.”
“He’s not dead. He’s merely paralysed. It’s lindwurm blood. It will keep him down for half an hour.”
“Can you two be quiet?” Haakon whispered.
“They’ve already heard us. Come on,” Bryn snarled, grabbing Tormund’s arm. “I’ve only got another five darts.”
Footsteps ran toward them, shadows painted large on the tunnel walls. Clearly, they’d heard their comrade fall.
“Ladies with poisonous darts first,” he said, gesturing Bryn forward.
She lifted a small hollow tube to her lips as the dreki guards ran at them, spears low. Though the guards towered over her, she didn’t so much as flinch. Hell of a woman.
Both guards hit the floor, and then Bryn was leaping over them, the glowing tip of her sword surging to light. “This way!” she yelled.
“I’m definitely in love,” Tormund told Haakon as he ran after her.
Haakon shook his head. “She’s going to eat you alive.”
They found the bowels of the mountain.
“Marduk has to be down here,” Bryn whispered, stepping over the fallen form of the last guard—and her last dart. She walked past six cells until the compass needle started quivering wildly.
This one.
; The prince was in this one.
And with him, both her freedom and her vengeance.
“Do you know the worst bit about this?” Tormund grumbled behind her.
“What?” Bryn knelt and examined the lock. Magical, by the look of it. Little runes were carved into the metal and even as she touched it, the runes flared golden.
“We have to climb all those stairs to get out of here.”
“If we’re lucky, we’re going to have a dreki prince who can fly,” Haakon replied tersely.
“Anyone know how to pick a lock?” Tormund squinted over her shoulder.
“I don’t need to pick it,” she replied, searching through the leather pouch at her hip. Her fingers closed around a golden key. “Here.”
Slipping the key inside the lock, she gave a twist and the lock clicked open.
Tormund blinked. “Where did you find the key?”
“It’s not the key to this lock, you idiot. It’s the Skeleton Key. The one Loki created that can open any door.”
Tormund looked impressed, but a hint of suspicion darkened Haakon’s eyes. “You have a Valkyrie’s sword, a dwarven compass, and Loki’s key?”
Bryn faltered, then forged ahead with bravado. “Girls like pretty things. In my case, I like flaming swords and immortal gifts. The pair of you hunt legendary beasts. I steal from the gods.”
“One day, we’re going to have a little discussion about your past,” Tormund muttered. “You’re an intriguing woman.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “I assure you, I’m not. I’m just a mercenary who’s fallen in with the odd rogue in my time.”
“Are you referring to us?”
Bryn rolled her eyes as she jerked the cell door open. The hinges squealed, which made her wince. “The pair of you are star-kissed fools who challenge fate on a daily basis, but no, you’re not the usual sort of rogue I share a job with. I don’t usually dare shut my eyes when I’m working with others.”
And she usually slept with a knife under her pillow.
“Marduk?” she whispered loudly.
Silence.
“Marduk?” Tormund echoed, a little too loudly for her liking.
“Who are you?” demanded a sharp voice.
Bryn looked down as the path ahead vanished into a pit of such darkness that some instinctual part of her cringed. Drawing her sword, she whispered a brief prayer under her breath and the tip began to glow. Despite its brightness, its rays barely penetrated the absolute blackness.
“Marduk? Prince Marduk?” she whispered.
A face swam out of the darkness below.
Tall, golden-haired, handsome bastard. But unmistakably inhuman. Those dragon-slit golden eyes gleamed with an inner magic, and muscle flexed beneath his bare shoulders like a cat’s.
“I am he,” the prince replied, his eyes narrowing. “Though I don’t know you.”
Haakon pushed past, bending to squat by the edge of the small ledge. “Your sister sent us to find you. I am Haakon Dragonsbane, her husband.”
That seemed to take the prince by surprise. “Husband?”
“Long story,” Tormund muttered over Bryn’s shoulder. “And not enough time to tell it. We have to break you out of here before someone finds those guards.”
A rumble groaned through the walls.
It had been happening for some time now, though this was the first shiver that made the ground beneath her heels vibrate.
Marduk looked up as though sensing something they couldn’t. “The Earth is angry,” he murmured. “I can feel the Fire swirling in her belly as though she longs to belch it.”
Dreki could sense the elements in a way other preternaturals couldn’t.
“Sounds like it’s well and truly time to get out of here.” Haakon hauled the pack from his back and dragged a thin rope from it. “Can you climb?”
Marduk snorted as Haakon tossed the rope into the pit. “The day I need such mortal help is the day they sing my spirits into the wind.”
“Oh, he’s definitely related to King Rurik,” Tormund muttered.
Marduk took two steps and launched himself at the sheer walls of the pit. Finding a tiny crevice in the rockwork, he hauled himself up, shoulders straining.
“If you could have climbed that,” Tormund said as Marduk hauled himself over the lip, “then why the hell were you sitting down there, waiting to be rescued like some damsel?”
“Damsel?” Bryn’s head snapped up. “Do you think women sit around waiting to be rescued?”
“Poor choice of words.”
She scowled at Tormund.
Marduk looked back into the pit. “Because its closer to her. I can sense her through the rock walls and communicate with her through the bars, and I think she very desperately needed me to be close to her last night.”
Bryn exchanged a glance with Tormund. “Her?”
Tormund grinned as if he’d noticed her gaze sliding over the half-naked prince. “Taken,” he mouthed back.
She rolled her eyes.
“Besides”—Marduk strode toward the cell door—“the lock is warded against my kind. I cannot even touch the iron of the door without searing off my flesh. So there was no point trying to wrench it open. And I could hear the three of you arguing through the mountain. I was curious as to why a trio of foolish mortals would dare enter Zorja Ravenspire’s territories.”
Another groan echoed through the stone walls. She could hear gravel shivering down rock walls as the earth shifted again. “As lovely as it is to finally meet you, my prince, is there any chance we can get out of here before these mountains collapse on our head?”
“An excellent suggestion,” Haakon said grimly, gesturing her to lead. “Is there any chance you can shift forms and carry us out of here, my prince?”
“I can,” Marduk replied, “but I’m not going anywhere. I can’t leave. Not whilst my sister is trapped inside these cells.”
“Your sister?” Haakon demanded sharply.
“Not Árdís.” Marduk turned back into the darkness. “My other sister, Ishtar.”
Tormund met Haakon’s eyes. “I’m beginning to wonder if your wife has fully explained her family tree. I thought there was only the three of them?”
“There are only three of them.”
“Long story,” the prince called. “I’ll tell you on the way. Bring your magical key, my lady love. We’re going to rescue the princess.”
The tunnel walls were shaking.
“We have no time!” Haakon snapped.
“I’m not going anywhere without her,” Marduk shot back, vanishing into the darkness.
Bryn shrugged at Tormund. “Unless you want to climb a few thousand stairs with an unconscious dreki prince thrown over our shoulders, we don’t have much of a choice.”
His eyes narrowed. “How heavy do you think he is?”
“Too heavy. Fucking dreki,” Haakon growled, shouldering his way through the open cell door.
“You’re the one who married one of them!” Tormund called.
“A decision I currently regret.”
“She’s in here.” Marduk rested his hand and forehead against the stone wall, closing his eyes and breathing slowly. His fingers flexed on the stone as though he was soothing it.
A rock skittered past. The entire tunnel shook.
Clearly it wasn’t working.
Bryn stepped forward and jammed the key in the lock. The second it clicked, she shoved the heavy iron door open, the hinges squealing loudly. Rust shivered from the thick bars as if the door hadn’t been opened in some time.
“This sister….” She crept forward into the darkness, willing her sword to shine brighter. “Precisely why is she locked away in here? How long has she been down here?”
“Since she was ten and her powers began to overwhelm her,” Marduk replied, peering desperately ahead. He paused at the edge of the pit. “Ishtar?”
There was no sound from within.
Bryn exchanged an uncomfortable look with Tormu
nd. What if the prince was mad? And were they even certain he was the prince? None of them had seen Marduk in the flesh. What if this golden-haired dreki was leading them into a trap?
“I’ll fetch her,” Marduk said, stepping off the ledge and simply vanishing into the darkness.
“Shit.” Tormund snatched at him, nearly overbalancing.
Bryn grabbed a fistful of his sleeve and jerked him back off the edge of the ledge. Tormund wrapped his arms around her, but from the way his heart was thundering, she didn’t think it some ploy.
“I’ve got you, princess,” she whispered, as he slowly released a thick breath.
He didn’t even joke about it, which meant he must have been aware of how close to the edge he stood. His fingers dug into her elbows a little.
Together, they peered down into the darkness.
“It could be a trap,” she whispered.
Tormund looked at her sharply.
“None of us have seen this Marduk,” she continued. “How do we know it’s him?”
“It’s him,” Haakon replied in a quiet voice behind her. “I’ve been communicating with Árdís. She can see him through my eyes and she assures me this is a typical Marduk ploy.”
See him through my eyes?
Tormund offered her a faint smile. “’Tis a strange world he’s dragged me into. When Árdís saved Haakon from death, she bonded him, and he tells me they can talk at any moment, even if miles separate them. No thought remains unguarded.”
That sounded horrible. She’d thought marriage enough of a shackle as it were, let alone not even owning the privacy of ones thoughts.
But she had other concerns.
“He’s not telling us something. Why would this Ishtar be down here?” she whispered. “Marduk said Queen Zorja stole her from the Zini clan at birth and brought her here, but why keep her in the cells?”
If the queen had stolen the child in order to save her life, then why lock her away like this? What kind of overwhelming power did she have?
Bryn’s gaze tracked toward the darkness. “What does your wife say about this Ishtar?”
Silence stretched out.
“Árdís never knew she existed until today,” Haakon finally admitted. “Marduk’s birth was traumatic for the queen and she was locked away for weeks with the baby. That’s all Árdís remembers. She was young when he was born.”
