by Bec McMaster
"Good luck." Malin hugged her. "I hope you find your husband, and live a happy life with him."
Árdís's smile waned.
"If I run to him, then they will follow. And they will find him. I dare not stay with him."
Malin took a deep breath and stepped back, presenting Árdís with the ropes. "Please don't put me in the trunk. I don't like the dark."
"You are my only friend," she said, kissing the drekling woman's cheek. "I will never forget you. I will never—"
She slammed a psychic assault through Malin's mind, knocking her unconscious in an instant. Malin slumped into her arms, but she'd wake within the hour. Árdís set to work, making sure she tied Malin's hands and feet tightly before gagging her, and leaving her in the middle of the bed.
Time to leave.
There was one dreki who could help her, and demand not a thing from her. One dreki whose territory the others would not dare enter. She'd be safe there. She'd have her freedom, even if she dared not have her heart.
Rurik had spoken of debts.
Well, now he owed her one himself. If he'd kept his mouth shut, then she'd never be in this predicament.
She was finally going to see her brother again, after all these years.
But first, she needed to track down a certain husband of hers and get this bloody manacle off her wrist so she could fly.
In for a penny, in for a pound...
If she was going to betray her mother, then she might as well do some good while she was at it.
With the manacle still locked around her wrist, Árdís had little choice but to make her way to the lower levels of the court, using the passages the servant drekling used. There was a portal down here, available for those drekling like Malin, who couldn't manage the shift to dreki form. One step through, and she'd be within walking distance to Reykjavik. Nobody from the higher echelons of the court would see her go—she'd be surprised if any of them even knew the portal existed—and the servants dared not rouse the wrath of the queen.
Her heart hammered even as her boots slapped lightly against the rough, rock-hewn steps that tunneled down into the mountain. Haakon's bracelet made her vulnerable, but she couldn't remove it, so she might as well use it.
Nobody would expect her to flee in human form.
And nobody would expect her to break prisoners out of the dungeon while she was at it.
She kept smelling the stink of burning flesh. Tomorrow night, they would burn the drekling, Marek, on a bonfire for the sheer audacity in backing his prince. Árdís's heart beat fiercely. She didn't have time for this side excursion, but she knew she'd never be able to look herself in the mirror if she didn't try to do something to save him. And then there was Andri, her favorite cousin, who had been involved in Magnus's death. While she didn't think Stellan would kill him for his betrayal, there was a small part of her that wasn't entirely certain.
Her footsteps slowed as she reached the dungeons. There were only two prisoners at the moment and so she hoped the guard detail was light.
Her luck held. A swift glance around the corner of the hallway revealed a single dreki guard slumped in a chair as he picked at his fingernails.
Now or never. Her breath caught. If she was captured here, before she could even escape the court....
You can do this.
Summoning every inch of hauteur, Árdís dipped her gloved hand into the leather pouch at her belt and withdrew a small glass vial. She'd been thinking of how to disarm the guard for the last hour, but Malin had been the one to provide her with the means. All she had to do was get close enough. Árdís strode out into the hallway as if she owned every right to be there.
The guard noticed her instantly. A trickle of sweat dripped down her spine as she approached and he eased to his feet, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. His gaze flickered behind her, and then back.
"Are you going to apprehend me?" she mocked.
He blinked at her.
"The sword," she said. "Do you intend to draw it upon me?"
"No." He ripped his hand off the hilt.
"No?"
"Princess." A faint begrudging nod.
Árdís stopped directly in front of him, arching a brow. He stared at her for a moment, then realized she intended for him to step out of the way.
"May I ask—"
"Am I not allowed to visit my cousin?" she demanded. Her mother had insisted she stay away from Andri, but what guard would know that? She vaguely recognized him as one of her mother's lickspittles. There were more than a few dreki who'd joined the court only in recent years, outcast from their own clans, but welcomed by the queen.
"The queen's orders, princess." His gaze turned flinty. "Nobody may enter without her permission."
"Do you think I am here without her blessing?" Árdís laced her tone with pure petulant incredulity. She stepped right up to him, her gloved hand curling around her prize. "I'm her daughter. Her own blood. How dare you question my boundaries."
"I was told—"
"To turn away the court heir?" she sneered.
"No, but—"
"What is your name?" Árdís raked him with an arrogant glare. "I will be sure to mention it to her the next time I see her."
His lips thinned. "Claus, your highness."
"Now get out of my way so I might visit my cousin."
Claus's eyes slowly narrowed. "If her highness would allow me the opportunity to speak... then she would know her cousin is not held within the dungeons. Perhaps the queen failed to mention this when she granted you permission to visit?"
Sweet goddess. Árdís's bravado faltered for a single moment. "Andri's not in the dungeons?"
"He's been contained elsewhere."
What was she going to do? Rescuing her cousin was out of the question. Suspicion already gleamed in Claus's eyes, though he most likely thought her merely up to some mischief. She could hardly demand to know where Andri was.
But she could still save Marek.
So be it.
Árdís sighed a little petulantly. "A shame, really."
Then she threw the contents of the small vial in her hand into Claus's face.
The blood of a leviathan. Rare and extremely dangerous to dreki. She didn't have time to wonder how Malin had gotten her hands on it. He screamed and clapped a hand to his face, as if burned by acid, and Árdís spun past him and slammed the hilt of her dagger into the base of his skull.
Claus slumped to the floor, and Árdís glanced around, panting hard. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.
Nothing moved.
The door to the dungeons was locked, but she found the key on the ring at Claus's belt. By the time she'd opened it, he was starting to stir. Dreki males were incredibly difficult to injure. Grabbing him under the armpits, she hauled him through into the hallway beyond, and shut the door.
Whipping her leather belt loose from her waist, she bound his hands behind him, then opened one of the empty cells and hauled him inside.
Claus wheezed as she dropped him in the moldy straw. "P-princess?"
Árdís slammed the cell door shut and locked it, before she dared breathe easy. Nobody would hear him calling for help. The dungeons had been designed to stifle all noise. But who knew when the next guard rotation was planned?
Time to find Marek. All she had to do was follow her nose.
He was in the third cell down the hallway.
"Marek?" she called softly.
No answer, but she could hear someone shifting inside.
Árdís unlocked the door, and Marek scrambled to his feet, his hands bound to the wall as he squinted at her.
"Princess?" His brown eyes widened in shock.
"Hush." She hurried to his side, rifling through the keys for one small enough to fit the lock on his steel manacles. They hadn't even bothered with spell work, as if assured a mere drekling could not escape.
"What are you doing?" He slumped against his chains again, as if she presented no threat to him, and he
no longer had to maintain any pretense at good health. The brand in the middle of his forehead looked angry and swollen, and he'd been beaten good and proper, by the way he held himself so stiffly.
She finally found the right key, and freed him from the manacles. "I'm getting you out of here."
"You're... what?" Marek rubbed at his wrists, but the first step he took ended in a limp. He stopped short, firelight gleaming in his eyes. "I can barely walk. If they catch you—"
"They're not going to catch me," she replied, with false bravado, as she slipped beneath his shoulder. "We're using the servant's portal."
"You're coming with me? Why are you doing this?"
Árdís flinched. Perhaps she'd played her part too well over the years. "Because I can no longer stand to watch my mother torment her people." Their eyes met. "You're not the only one who remembers what it was like when my father ruled this court. I'm not brave. I'm not strong enough to defy her—not openly. But perhaps there is another who can."
"The prince," he whispered, and hope flared to life in his eyes.
"Prince Rurik," she agreed, "but we need to hurry if we're going to have a chance to flee to his side."
They took a step and Marek's weight sagged against her.
"I'm sorry. Someone hit me in the shin with an iron bar." He was trying not to limp as they staggered out into the hallway, but it was clear he wouldn't be moving fast.
Árdís bit her lip. "I doubt anyone will see us."
She hoped.
Claus slammed against his cell door as they passed it, and Árdís stifled a small scream. Dust shivered around the doorframe. She hadn't counted on that. Dreki males were difficult to contain at the best of times, what with their inhuman strength and magic.
So she locked the main door to the dungeons behind them, just in case he did get free. Marek stared. "The cell won't hold him for long."
"I know. This way," Árdís said, and backtracked to the servant's passages, where it was dark and dreki would be few and far between. She found the bag and sword she'd left down here, and then paused by the healer's storeroom to steal a makeshift crutch for Marek and some healing balm for his burn.
"Thank you," he breathed, looking at her as if he'd never seen her before.
They could risk a little light here. Whispering in old Norse under her breath, she released the small spell Malin had taught her, and the emerald the girl had given her began to glow as she reached the darkest bowels of the catacombs. Purebred dreki like she had no need of spell craft when they could channel pure Fire, but those like Malin made do with spells. She'd never before had to consider what it would be like to live like the drekling.
Shunned by the purebreds. Considered less.
Made to serve the dreki and the court, or be ostracized forever.
Or worse, killed to keep the bloodlines pure.
Marek's fear ate away at her as they scuttled down the dark stairs. If they were captured, he'd be granted a particularly gruesome death, while she might escape such a sentence.
Almost there. The passage delivered her into the first of several wide cellars. Hurrying past barrels of wine and hanging slabs of dried meat, she ducked through another small passage, and found herself in the dark. Marek hopped along behind her, painstakingly slow. Her pulse hammered. The walls were rough-hewn here, as if carved by a pickaxe and not magic. The portal hummed somewhere ahead of her, but it felt like miles with Marek's hobbling gait. She couldn't resist slipping ahead, trying to scout for danger.
A shift of leather on stone alerted her to the fact she wasn't alone as she entered the next cellar. Árdís muted the light with a whisper.
"Don't move," she told Marek on a thought-thread. "I can hear someone."
Instantly she was plunged into darkness.
She wasn't alone, however. She could sense someone moving through the oppressive dark with whisper-silent feet. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she pressed her back to the wall, barely daring to breathe.
Fingers clicked.
Light suddenly burst into being as one by one the torches on the wall burst into flame.
"Who's there?" Árdís whispered, putting her hand to the hilt of her sword and blinking.
A mocking drawl lit through the cellar. "Well, if it isn't my sweet betrothed. Wherever can you be going, Árdís? Especially with a sword that doesn't belong to you, and a pack full of clothes."
Sirius dissolved from the shadows.
6
Árdís's hand went instantly to the hilt of the sword. "Creeping around in the dark again, Sirius? It suits you."
He ignored her, and made a small gesture with his hand. The fire in the muted lantern in his hand flared higher, highlighting the stark planes of his face. A villain like him should have showed some outward sign of his black heart, but the face the lamplight lovingly caressed was blessed by the gods.
"Creeping around in the dark doesn't suit you," he said, in that rough-velvet voice. "People might notice."
"What?" she scoffed, turning her entire body to face him so she'd have room to move. "That I was using the back tunnels? Perhaps it's the quickest way to the jousting rooms. I do have a sparring appointment with Master Innick most days, even after that debacle in the throne room. And the main cavern is awash with your father's louts. I was trying to avoid them."
"Avoid them? Or me?"
"Why differentiate?"
He smiled faintly. There had never been any love lost between the pair of them, and they both knew it.
Sirius set the lantern down, his long hair streaming down his back. He'd bound some of it back with a leather thong. "You're running away."
"Why ever would I do such a thing?" She mustered all of the haughtiness she could, and turned away from him. "What I am is late. Master Innick might be waiting for me. I'll leave you to your musty cellars."
A hand grasped her forearm. "You're lying."
Árdís found herself turned and shoved back against the wall. A gasp escaped her. She'd never been manhandled in her life—unless one counted the time her husband tried to kidnap her.
"Princess?" Marek.
"Don't show yourself," she sent back, surprised at the strength of his telepathy. "He doesn't know you're here. Yet."
Sirius glanced around, and then looked down at her. A new fear began to lick through her as she realized how little space existed between them. He didn't know Marek was there, but even if he did, what did it matter? It wouldn't take the Blackfrost long to dispatch an injured drekling. Nobody else would hear her scream, nobody would know to come looking for her.... He could do anything he desired, and though she'd fight, she knew she couldn't overwhelm him. Sirius had been training for battle since birth, and his sheer size dwarfed her, even if she could access her elemental magic. Curse Haakon for weakening her so.
The knife at the small of her back felt like it grew hot. She'd have to take him by surprise.
And make it hurt.
"I swear, if you think to touch me," she hissed, "then I'll do my best to geld you."
It took a second to get the knife, and another to drive it forward, angled down toward his groin. Sirius's eyes flared wide, then he caught her wrist and twisted. The knife scored flesh; she smelled the hot coppery scent of it. And then he brought his other hand down in a sharp chop.
Pain echoed up her arm, but she didn't dare let go of the weapon. It was her only hope. She'd never get the sword free in time, and with her back to the corner, she'd be hampered by both walls. Not enough room to swing it.
His shoulder drove into her chest, and Árdís slammed against the wall, the breath in her chest escaping as though her lungs were a set of fireplace bellows someone had compressed. Strong thumbs drove into the tendon in her hand, and she caught a flash of Sirius's face up close, the meager light turning his irises to hot lumps of coal.
Tiamat's breath, it hurt.
It hurt. She twisted her head, trying to find some space, but he had her pinned. The pressure on her fingers increased,
and Árdís felt him take the knife from her. No.
But there was nothing she could do about it.
Sirius tossed the knife behind him with a clatter, and held his hands up, showing her his empty palms. "I don't intend to hurt you," he said in that deep voice.
Árdís's breath caught. She wiped her mouth, and pushed herself upright. In what world did he think she'd believe him? Her gaze flickered to the knife.
"You'd know if I were lying," he told her. "The same way I knew you were. Dreki cannot lie, Princess. Our very words are power, made to shape the world. You should be more careful with them."
"What part of 'I was trying to geld you' sounded like a lie?"
He grunted, and she saw him shift his weight onto his right leg. Blood trickled down his left thigh. "That, at least, was the truth. You came remarkably closer than anyone else."
"A shame I missed. You might have had to forgo the pleasures of our bonding night. Oh, bit it seems you'll have to somehow convince me to agree to the mating bond first, and let me assure you these words are the truth: I would rather rot in Helheim than ever mate with you."
"No offense, Princess," he growled, "but I'm as eager to mate with you as you are to mate with me."
What?
"You expect me to believe that?" She was one of the paths to being named heir of the Zini court. The other was to confront her elder brother, Rurik, and battle him for the right. Many dreki had tried the second route in the past thirty years, and none had returned.
Magnus included, it seemed.
Her eyes narrowed. "You're your father's son, Sirius. What's the motto of the Zilittu clan again? To take and to hold? My mother's about to name you her heir, and I won't believe you're going to allow someone else the chance to use me to get to that throne. Roar would see this move and swoop in before either of us could blink. So what are you really doing here?"
"Let me assure you of this truth: I don't want to mate with you. I don't even like you very much."
Árdís's heart kicked a little faster. There were ways to twist words—to sculpt them so carefully one had to really follow the twist to see what a dreki was truly saying. But I don't want to mate with you left no margin for mistakes.
