by A. E. Rayne
Last time they’d seen each other, Gudrum had been one of her father’s finest warriors. And she had been a girl.
The girl who had killed his bastard son.
And now there was going to be a reckoning.
Osbert had no love for his cousin.
That wasn’t true.
Osbert had nothing but love for his cousin. He saw her in his dreams. And in his dreams she was naked, writhing on top of him, lying beneath him, bent over before him.
But she was so arrogant. Reckless. Brash.
The first female born in the Furyck’s long and noble line.
She thought that made her better than anyone.
Furia’s daughter, they called her. Furia, the Goddess of War.
Osbert’s hand slipped off the door handle. Lothar had been so pleased to see Gudrum that he’d ordered his best wine brought to the high table, which had surprised Osbert, who’d greedily helped himself to cup after cup until his bleary-eyed father had somehow gathered his senses and sent his steward to return the barrel to his locked storage room.
Turning at the sound of a panicked squeak, Osbert saw Lothar, head buried in the bosom of the pretty servant he’d planned to take to his own bed. Myra. Such soft lips. Like warm cream. He felt a stab of jealousy. Anger too. His mother was barely dead. His father had not even made a show of mourning her. Though, in truth, he’d behaved no differently while the poor woman was alive.
Osbert gripped the door handle firmly now as his father dragged Myra towards his chamber, his generous girth jiggling in anticipation of the pleasures that awaited within.
‘You!’ Lothar bellowed, shuddering to a stop, his head swinging around. ‘My son! You will meet me in the square in the morning. Gudrum and I have planned something you’ll want to see, I’m sure. Best you get some rest now. I don’t want you to miss it!’
Osbert frowned, too angry and jealous, and far too drunk to feel curious. His father was his king, and one day, he knew, the Brekkan throne would be his. At twenty-four years old, Osbert was hungry for power, ready to escape from under his father’s oppressive thumb.
Ambitious and impatient too.
He was small and wiry, no great warrior admittedly, though his mind was sharper than most and he was a Furyck, born to rule. And he would, when his father died.
If not before.
Osbert puckered his lips, feeling the sway of his body as thoughts turned away from his father, and the loss of the desirable Myra, to the comfortable bed that awaited him in his chamber.
And his mind wandered straight back to Jael.
Their bed was narrow. Narrower than anything a servant would sleep in, at least when Ranuf had been the King of Brekka.
Their noses almost touched as they worked to keep their voices low, not wanting Biddy to hear. They weren’t trying to keep secrets, not from Biddy who had raised Jael since she was a baby, and Aleksander since he was ten. Secrets were impossible in the close confines of the tiny cottage, but neither of them wanted to worry her.
There was already enough to worry about.
‘Gudrum said there would be a reckoning. When I killed Ronal, he said there would be a reckoning,’ Jael whispered, feeling around her aching chin, her cold legs wrapped around Aleksander’s warm ones. ‘And here it is.’
Despite the pleasurable feeling of those familiar cold legs rubbing against his, Aleksander felt tense. ‘We don’t know for certain that that’s why he’s come.’
‘We do. I do. We need to be prepared.’
‘Prepared for what?’
‘For what Lothar will do when I kill Gudrum.’
‘Jael.’ Aleksander squeezed her free hand.
‘Go to sleep,’ she whispered, kissing him quickly, untangling her legs. ‘Go to sleep.’ And then, seemingly changing her mind, her lips lingered on his. ‘I know what he wants,’ she murmured, moving closer, pressing her body against Aleksander’s. ‘He wants revenge.’
Aleksander ran a hand over her sharp cheekbone, smoothing her newly braided hair away from her face. The glow from the banked fire was dull, but he knew that face better than anyone’s. It was a beautiful face, scowls and scars and all. Mesmerising green eyes, moody lips that hadn’t curled into a smile much since Ranuf’s death. That scar.
An unforgiving face. A face he adored.
‘He may want you, but he can’t have you,’ he breathed, kissing her.
‘No,’ Jael agreed, her eyes wide open, ‘he can’t. I won’t let him.’
2
‘She certainly catches the eye,’ Eirik Skalleson mused, winking at his old friend.
‘She does. Though Eadmund would need to be awake to notice,’ Morac Gallas suggested, suffering a moody scowl in return for his honest assessment.
The two old men stood, ankle-deep in mud, watching Hector Berras, Lord of Blixo, escort his wife and daughter around Oss’ blustery square. It was a truly miserable day, and Eirik could taste snow in the air, though winter itself was months away. But despite the dour morning, Oss’ king felt a burst of enthusiasm.
For the first time in years, he felt like a true king.
Mostly, he felt like a parent, settling disputes, punishing and reprimanding. Praising. Trying to inspire. Imposing rules, hoping to achieve some order.
He felt like a crotchety father, wanting to be alone.
But today he was not just entertaining the famed King of Alekka, Ake Bluefinn, he was also hosting some of that king’s most important lords; those men Ake trusted beside him in battle. Scarred, hard men he had lifted out of the blood and guts of victory, taking them with him to Stornas, Alekka’s capital, where he had claimed the Alekkan throne from the tyrannical king he’d been waging war against since his youth.
And since his ascension to the throne, fifteen years ago, Ake had ruled with a generous hand. Benevolent and kind to his people, scornful and intolerant of his enemies, until now, when he had proposed a truce, and a meeting to discuss the prospect of an alliance with his old foe across the Akuliina Sea.
Oss was the largest of the eight islands in Eirik Skalleson’s kingdom; his home since his birth as a slave, sixty-two years ago. The home he had transformed from a colony of depraved slavers and their abused prisoners into a kingdom of free men and women, with the help of his best friend and closest advisor, Morac Gallas.
Now they stood in Eirik’s stone fort, wrinkled old men.
Eirik’s blonde hair was almost all white; Morac’s as grey as the sky above them. Their children were grown, and now the future of the islands was coming into sharper relief. And they both worried about who would sit on the throne after Eirik was gone.
Eirik thought about it daily. Hourly, if he were honest.
He felt sick at the thought of leaving his kingdom in the hands of his son Eadmund, who was in no state to command a horse, let alone an entire kingdom. Eirik needed to find him a wife. Someone to guide him. To care for him.
To knock him into shape.
He’d tried for years to turn Eadmund around.
They’d all tried – his friends, his sister – but nothing had helped.
His son remained a useless mess, trapped in a world of ale and despair.
Eirik sighed, wrinkling his forehead, trying to hold down his flapping white beard. He’d weighted it down with silver nuggets, endeavouring to fight back against Oss’ howling gales, but he obviously needed to use more. ‘I’m happy with Eadmund sleeping. He can sleep all day long while the Alekkans are here. Let him hibernate. He can come out in spring!’
Morac’s smile barely moved his thin lips. He was a morose man, getting more so as his scars and battle wounds turned into aches and pains in the bitter cold that was Oss. Each year, spring and summer would whip by in a frigid sea wind, before ushering in a bleak and bitter winter that would freeze them in for months. He too could taste snow in the air, and his shoulders slumped at the thought of it. ‘Eadmund probably thinks you’re going to try and make a match for him again,’ Morac said casually, his eyes b
ack on the girl. Not a girl, he thought. She carried herself like a woman. A lady. There was nothing shy or childlike about her. Her orange hair glowed like flames as she walked, her smile bright against the dull sky.
It was hard to look away.
‘Well, he’d be wrong about that,’ Eirik laughed, though his eyes held his friend’s gaze with some regret. ‘Ake’s daughters are children, promised to the sons of his lords.’ Eirik dropped his voice as the Berras family turned to walk their way. ‘Though it does seem odd to bring the girl here unless you have some intention...’
Morac’s frown was severe. He didn’t want to encourage his king down that treacherous path. It was better for the islands if their alliance with Alekka didn’t hinge on Eadmund and a woman. ‘I don’t imagine it would serve you well to make that match, old friend,’ he murmured. ‘Not if you want to keep Ake on side. Eadmund has a way of... causing problems.’ He flinched, expecting Eirik to snap, but their guests arrived before he could say a word.
‘I feel as though we’ve entered another season entirely!’ Lord Hector Berras boomed as he stopped before the two men, clapping red hands against his cloaked arms, breath smoke floating around a broad, cheerful face. ‘When we left Stornas, the sun was out. We were almost contemplating removing our cloaks, weren’t we, Orla?’ He was a substantial man; completely bald, with a red birthmark covering almost half his head. He smiled generously, though his hooded blue eyes were always watchful, especially when his daughter was nearby, leaving Eirik in no doubt that his guest was constantly weighing everything he heard and saw with a blade-sharp mind.
Orla, his orange-haired daughter, laughed, and Eirik took note of her full set of teeth. Freckles too. ‘You were, Father,’ she said, round cheeks revealing deep dimples. ‘I can’t imagine ever taking my cloak off in Stornas!’ She glanced at her mother who looked awkward as she tittered beside her, too shy to make eye contact with anyone, hiding beneath a fussy hairstyle of intricately beaded braids that had slumped forward and was now hanging over her eyes.
Hector Berras stared at his wife with a frown, trying to draw her attention to the malfunctioning hairstyle. He was a wealthy man. Wealthier than the King of Alekka and the King of Oss put together, he was sure, and though that wealth could buy dresses and jewels, it could not buy his timid wife any confidence or style. He smiled awkwardly, wishing he’d left her behind.
Morac coughed, and Eirik stopped staring at the girl, his attention drifting to his daughter, Eydis, who was walking slowly towards them, one hand out in front of her, trying to find her way.
Eirik lifted a boot out of the sucking mud and excused himself, heading towards his daughter, who was thirteen, blind, and thoroughly impossible to keep in one place. ‘You’re supposed to be using your stick!’ he grumbled, grabbing Eydis’ arm as she slipped. ‘Did you imagine you would just lie in the mud, hoping someone would come by and pick you up?’
Eydis couldn’t decide whether to frown or smile. She was a teenager, though, and feeling hungry, so a frown it was. ‘I know the fort well enough, Father,’ she grumbled. ‘And only my sight is impaired. My legs work just fine.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Eirik said, slipping her arm through his. ‘But even those of us with two eyes are struggling today. The square’s a bog. May as well just let in the cows!’
Eydis grinned, hearing the cheerfulness in her father’s voice. He had not sounded that happy in some time, and then she realised why. ‘It’s that girl, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’ Eirik stopped, staring into his raven-haired daughter’s eyes. They were milky white, had been from birth, but if she had not been born blind, Eirik was certain they would have shone a bright cornflower blue like her mother’s had. He smiled sadly, thinking about Rada, his third wife. She had died giving birth when Eydis was only five-years-old. He had lost both a wife and son that day. The pain was still so raw that sometimes it felt as though it was only yesterday. ‘What girl?’ he wondered, blinking himself back into the present.
‘The orange-haired girl. I saw her in my dreams.’ Eydis wrinkled her nose, inhaling a fresh dump of manure, but as she turned her head away, the mouth-watering aroma of meat cooking on Ketil’s grills wafted towards her, and she smiled. Ketil and his sister, Una, had the most popular spot in the square, serving up piping hot sticks of meat for freezing cold Osslanders each day.
‘You did?’ Eirik was intrigued. Eydis, like her mother, was a dreamer. Though blind while awake, she had always been able to see in her dreams: the future, the past, visions of what would come. Both helpful and terrifying, Eirik thought, his shoulders tense. ‘What did you see?’
‘Trouble.’
‘Oh.’ Eirik sought out Morac who was keeping the Berras family busy. He scanned the square, peering through the misty clouds grazing the tops of the ramparts crowning his stone fort. He couldn’t see Ake Bluefinn, though he had likely gone back to the hall for more food. The Alekkan king appeared to be a man whose appetite was no longer for battle or glory, but for wine and whitefish and all those delicacies that Eirik’s kingdom was known for, though Eirik could hardly fault him for that. In fact, he was encouraged to think that Ake appeared to have little interest in maintaining a war posture.
There was hope for the future of the islands in that.
But as for his dreamer daughter? ‘What sort of trouble, Eydis?’ he whispered, frowning as the rain started.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, lifting the hood of her cloak to cover her dark hair. ‘But you should stay well away from her, Father. Don’t let yourself be talked into anything. It won’t go well, you know Eadmund.’
Eirik pulled Eydis away from a man lugging a wide load of wattle on his back. Small stretches of woodland ran down the middle of the island, with quarries further south, so the tiny cottages crammed inside the fort were a mix of wattle-and-daub, with some older stone houses. Oss was a mostly barren island, and much of what they needed, that didn’t come from the sea and the beaches, was imported from the other islands and Tuura; some parts of Alekka too.
Eirik frowned, trying to focus his thoughts which were suddenly as tangled as a pile of fishing line. As much as he wanted and needed to find his son a wife, it would do no good to cause problems with the Alekkans.
Brekka was a richly fertile kingdom, with undulating mountain ranges, and verdant plains, perfect for farming. The winters were bitter but not as bleak as they were up north in Tuura. The summers were mild, not suffocating as they were down in Hest. It was the kingdom all others wanted a piece of, and Ranuf Furyck had spent much of his long reign working to hold back invaders, trying to protect his people, to keep them safe, and ensure their prosperity.
Lothar, though, was a different type of leader. His beady eyes were fixed further afield. He was hungry to extend his borders, eager to claim victory over his southern neighbours, salivating at the prospect of ruling over the Kingdom of Hest one day. For though Brekka had land to farm, Hest had a harbour that wealthy merchants flocked to. Merchants, not traders. Merchants who brought silks, glass, and spices from the Fire Lands. Who had more gold and riches than all of the lords in Osterland combined.
And one day Lothar knew that he would claim it for Brekka.
If his niece didn’t disrupt his plans.
He nudged a yawning Osbert into an upright position as Gudrum approached, leading a snorting black horse. They had been waiting in the middle of the square, which after the terrible weather of the past few days was starting to turn into a mucky field. ‘Eh? What do you think about that, then?’ Lothar chuckled, nudging his son some more.
Osbert swallowed, his mouth opening and closing as his father left him and waddled towards Gudrum, his fur-trimmed cloak sweeping the muddy ground. Turning around, Osbert surveyed the square, noting how many of the gathered Andalans appeared to be just as horrified by what Lothar had done.
And then he saw Jael approaching.
They had argued all the way from the cottage, Aleksander insisting tha
t she shouldn’t try to fight Gudrum; Jael already having decided that she would most definitely try to fight him. That was why he had come. He wanted revenge. He wanted her dead. And she would happily give him the opportunity to try and kill her. Why not?
It was the perfect way to end him.
Seeing Lothar grinning at her, and Osbert eyeing her slyly, Jael shivered to a stop, feeling Aleksander grip her arm.
Tig.
Gudrum turned around, his hooded eyes squinting, despite the lack of sunshine. He’d barely slept, and his entire face was puffy and bloated, but his smile was wide, and his pleasure in Jael’s horror was energising.
Jael flung away Aleksander’s hand and strode towards Gudrum, arms shaking, chest aching, white breath smoke pumping around her face. ‘Uncle.’ Her voice was quiet, clipped as she ignored both Gudrum and her beloved horse, Tig, her eyes snapping to Lothar who looked just as bleary-eyed but suddenly a lot less cocky than Gudrum. ‘What is going on?’ Heart pounding now, Jael curled her right hand into a fist to stop herself grabbing her sword. She could feel the long scabbard resting against her thigh, almost calling to her, urging her to act.
Then her father’s voice in her ear. ‘Jael...’ She knew that tone. The one he’d always used when her temper started to flare. ‘Jael... no.’
Lothar didn’t speak. He didn’t even pry his wet lips apart as he stood there beside Gudrum and the enormous black horse who was suddenly swinging his head around, trying to escape Gudrum’s hold.
‘Going on?’ Gudrum stepped forward, sensing that Lothar’s tongue had tangled in his mealy mouth as his niece towered threateningly over him. She had grown into a tall woman, he could see. Broad shoulders. Strong arms more than capable of wielding a sword against a bigger man. Her reputation had grown too. They had talked about Furia’s daughter in every kingdom up and down Osterland for years; even more so since her father’s death, wondering why Ranuf hadn’t chosen to put her on the throne. ‘Your uncle has kindly helped me solve a knot of a problem I’ve been working on for years.’
