Kallan held her breath, then waited. Once she was certain her passing had gone unnoticed, she made her way to her horse.
“Sh. Sh. Sh,” Kallan hushed as the stallion snorted. After enclosing Astrid in the same blanket of Seidr that concealed her, she pulled herself into the saddle and rode from the Dokkalfar camp to Swann Dalr.
CHAPTER 14
Kallan stared from the trees of Swann Dalr. Ljosalfar spanned the valley out as far as the darkness allowed. Hundreds of lights from campfires and torches peppered the camp. Kallan watched, hidden away in her enemy’s shadows, her whispers heard only by the rolling wind beneath the midnight moon.
“Seven thousand sleep. Seven thousand fathers…seven thousand sons whose wives and mothers will weep, all unaware of their fate the dawn will bring.”
Kallan memorized the face of a lone soldier who sat polishing his sword before a fire.
“Are your thoughts filled by a wife, a lover, your child? When this battle ends, and you, my friend, have fallen, what children will be left to die in Gunir’s streets?” Kallan watched his scarred hands as they slid up the blade with care. “How I hate to kill you,” she whispered. “How I hate more that you seek to kill me, and how I hate most your bloodthirsty king who orders the slaying of my kin.”
Kallan blinked back her hot tears. “How I hate the actions he evokes from me…the life he bestowed upon me. How I hate he, who has made orphans of the children and of me.”
Seven thousand.
All would be dead by morning.
The king’s army slept soundly, some outside around the campfires that still burned, while others slept peacefully within the confines of their tents. Not even a dozen meandered about the camp. Fewer still were posted on guard and walked the perimeter, but that wasn’t why she was there. She was there for him.
Abandoning the safety of the empty mead barrels, Kallan walked a final round through the Ljosalfar camp, desperate to find the king’s tent, desperate to see the face of the man who killed her father, eager to sink her Seidr into him. Kallan searched the Ljosalfar camp nestled within the crook of Swann Dalr, but the black of night had begun to wane as it counted down her last hour.
An hour away, barely more. The spell will be wearing soon.
Suppressing a loud sigh, Kallan bit the corner of her bottom lip and made for the trees. She stepped around a warrior and studied his sleeping face.
Somebody’s son. Somebody’s father.
She frowned at the waste.
This one will be wriggling on the end of my sword soon enough.
Kallan doubled her pace. The trees were just in sight.
A guard walked by and stopped, studying the soil where Kallan’s foot had touched the ground. She held her breath, afraid to move while he searched for the source of her print.
He raised his eyes and looked right through her, peering hard into the shadows where she was heading.
Only when Kallan felt his eyes pierce her beating heart did he move on, leaving Kallan free to breathe and a clear path to the wood. She softened her footfall and hastened her step. Within twenty paces, she had exited the camp. Another ten and the spell wore off. Five paces. A lone Ljosalfr out for an early hunt had spotted her. Two paces more and he was following her.
* * *
Kallan decided not to kill him. She wanted to. It would be too easy. A flick of the wrists and he would be dead on the forest floor where only a skilled tracker could find him, but she knew better. A missing hunter in these woods, on this night, was the last thing she needed.
She diverted her path, hoping to lose him yet again. Despite every attempt made, she failed to shake him. Kallan listened to the forest behind her. She had to strain to hear the offset rhythm of the Ljosalfr within the subtle winds. Only Daggon had ever given her such trouble.
Whoever trained him, trained him well.
Kallan clutched her fists, forcing her arms stiff at her side. The Ljosalfar clothes fooled him now, but the moment she summoned her Seidr, he would know she was no common peasant.
Dawn would soon come, and Daggon would be ready to ride into battle. She was running out of time. Kallan stopped and stepped to turn, to confront him, but in that moment, the silence changed.
The shapes within the trees shifted, and a new chill brushed her skin. Kallan slowed her breath as she fought the urge to attack…not the Ljosalfr behind her, but the sudden whispers in the shadows within the forest’s umbra. A shiver ran along her spine, her insides quaked, and her hand flew to her neck for the pendant that was not there. A cold crept down her face as the remembered.
Mother’s pendant is on my desk.
She tightened her hand into a fist.
Five. She counted as their indecipherable whispers awakened ancient dreams she could not remember.
Kallan leaned closer to the nameless shapes, desperate to hear what words they spoke, eager to force the forgotten memories as the Ljosalfr watched from behind. Closer, they moved, the whispers growing with the darkness. The shadows withdrew as an animal snorted. Kallan spun about and froze.
A wild boar, displaying its teeth behind its tusks, stared with beady, black eyes. Undaunted by the fact that the beast outweighed her by three hundred pounds, Kallan raised her hands as the animal pawed at the ground.
A single pulse through its heart is all I need. If I can just touch it…
The boar squealed then charged. Its muscle rippled as its hooves pounded the ground and Kallan, holding her breath, braced for impact.
A sudden squeal became a scream, and the boar hit the ground, sliding to a halt at Kallan’s feet as it kicked the air, twitched once, twice, then no more. A Ljosalfr arrow, perfectly positioned behind the boar’s front leg, protruded from its heart.
Discretely, Kallan drained the Seidr from her arms and spun to the Ljosalfr, who had stepped from the forest.
Clad in brown leather armor, he lowered a bow to his side that he gripped with gloved hands. A quiver hung from his belt next to a small hunting dagger. Had it not been for his large arms, honed from years of swordplay, she would have mistaken him for an ordinary hunter.
“You’re a long way from home, princess.”
His words fell like ice down her spine and she fought the urge to attack, to kill, and run. Kallan swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat. She raced through a number of possible replies, each one as unlikely as the last. The back of her neck burned with rising panic.
“Everyone knows the forest is out of bounds.” His stern, silver-blue eyes held her full attention. “What coerced you to break the king’s law?”
He doesn’t know. She swallowed the scream that had filled her throat as his voice rolled over her like Odinn’s thunder, and her shoulders dropped. She drew breath again while she scrambled for a credible answer to give.
“Your men,” she said. “They followed me.”
The hunter raised a curious brow.
“We are alone,” he said.
“Five, at least, stood among the brushes.” She pointed toward the trees. “Only moments ago. Your comrades.”
She ensured her voice remained strong.
The Ljosalfr moved his hand to his dagger as Kallan listened for the Shadows, but the whispering had ceased and the night’s bottomless black had ebbed, leaving behind the last of the usual forest shadows of the night.
The Ljosalfr shook his head. “I came alone.”
Kallan studied his face for deception, but his vow was adamant. He spoke the truth or lied well. The empty trees rustled then stilled.
“I felt their eyes,” she whispered. “They were there, whispering, their voices riding on the wind.”
Dismissing them as the Ljosalfr’s comrades had seemed such a simple explanation, but he appeared more perplexed about their existence than she did.
“I…but I…I felt them,” she said.
Placing a hand to her shoulder, the Ljosalfr pulled her beside him and looked hard into the darkness. The trees were eerily void of wildlife.
“You think I’m mad,” Kallan said, but the hunter shook his head.
“The forest is too quiet.” The hunter searched the empty black. “Whatever was there is gone now,” he said, still holding her.
Kallan shrugged to push him off and failed.
“Release me.” She spoke with the regality of someone used to giving orders. He met her eyes.
“No.” He smiled.
Kallan sent her hand flying, but the Ljosalfr clamped her wrist, stopping the blow inches from his face. His instant response confirmed her suspicions.
“You move too efficiently to be a mere hunter…and don’t underestimate me.”
The Ljosalfr and the Dokkalfr assessed one another. After a moment, Kallan’s face split into a wide grin, and the Ljosalfr shook his head.
While appearing to restrain a chuckle, he released her wrist and ripped his arrow from the boar’s carcass.
Kallan twitched with the temptation to attack as a streak of moonlight spilled over his back.
“What were you trying to do, anyway?” he asked, wiping the blood from his arrow onto the boar before sliding it back into his quiver.
“Kill it,” she said.
“Kill it.” The Ljosalfr grinned. “A little thing like you?”
Kallan barely caught the resounding ‘yes’ she almost threw back at him as the Ljosalfr shook with a chuckle that tweaked Kallan’s patience.
“You don’t happen to have a sword beneath those skirts, do you, princess?”
The pet name burned her blood and the beginnings of a smile softened Kallan’s face from contempt as she entertained the idea of frying his smug grin with her Seidr.
“No,” she said. “I was going to use the sword under your skirt.”
The hunter refreshed his laughter.
“Why were you following me?” she asked, eager to end his amusement.
He proved just as eager to play her game. “Why were you leading me in circles?”
“Why are you so difficult?”
He shrugged. “A man has to have his hobbies.”
Kallan narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t you have a wench to woo or a boar to clean?” Kallan said, attempting to be serious.
“Don’t you have some husband to please?”
Kallan straightened her back in defiance. “I don’t do well in confinement.”
The hunter arched a single brow. “You don’t?”
Kallan shook her head. “Hate it,” she said, his temperament putting her at ease again, the approaching dawn forgotten.
“And are you?” he asked. “Confined, I mean.”
“Too often.”
Kallan grinned again as she cocked her head at the Ljosalfr. The first of the birds had started to sing.
“Why are you here if the forest is so forbidden?” she asked.
With the bow’s stave, the hunter tapped the dead boar.
“The king would be most displeased,” Kallan said.
The hunter shrugged. “The king can be forgiving.”
“I’ve known a different king,” she said and sauntered away from the boar.
“Do you?” The Ljosalfar fell in step beside her. “Know the king?”
Kallan stopped, her thoughts adrift in better places. “I know the children his war has left behind,” she whispered.
“Children?” The Ljosalfr furrowed his brow and stepped closer.
“Countless children,” she said, “made orphan by the slaughtering of their kinsmen and left to die.”
Lost in thought, she paid no mind to the lock of her hair he brushed back. Startled, she turned and met his eyes. Like ice, they shone with silver blue.
“Too long, I’ve held them in my arms…watching helplessly as death takes them.”
“They mean so much to you?” he asked.
Kallan nodded. “I am one of them.” A breeze passed, sending a shiver up her spine. “What of you?” she asked. “Have you had the pleasure of meeting ‘His Majesty’?”
The hunter shrugged. “On occasion, I’ve had the pleasure.”
Kallan scoffed. “Is he as obtuse, cowardly, and spoiled as his men say he is?”
The hunter came to attention. “What men say this?” he asked, looking about as if these men would at once appear.
“Or does he spend his days justifying the bloodbath of our people?” Kallan said.
“No, truly,” the hunter asked. “What men say this?”
Kallan couldn’t help but chortle as she continued her stroll back toward Swann Dalr.
“The king is kind,” the hunter said.
Kallan furrowed her brow.
“Kind?”
“And attractive,” he said, evoking an eye roll from Kallan.
“Women swoon,” he assured her.
“I’m going to be sick.”
The Ljosalfr stepped closer. “You’re not interested in strong, powerful men who’ve dedicated their lives to honor?”
“Oh, no,” Kallan said. She held his gaze, letting him take in her striking lapis blue eyes that reflected the moonlight like gems. “I love honorable men. The greatest of my respect is reserved for such men, but I see no honor where that man is concerned.”
The smile fell from the hunter’s face. “I’ll bear that in mind when next I see him.”
Pleased with herself, Kallan bounced on the ball of her foot, content to be free of all burdens, content to forget everything out there in the wood, including the time. Her merriment left her oblivious to the Ljosalfr’s sour mood.
“He’s a sight better than the Dokkalfr queen hiding behind the Seidkona who slaughters our thousands.”
Kallan’s mouth was open for the rebuttal then froze. A single word would betray her. The careless refute would end everything. She closed her mouth and swallowed her words and his insult.
“Although,” the hunter mused, “she is better than her father was. That man had a blood thirst tha—”
“Don’t!”
Sudden darkness cloaked Kallan’s face. She was too angry to realize all of what she was saying. The hunter looked on with an expression contorted between confusion, curiosity, and something else she couldn’t quite place. With fists clenched white, Kallan forced her nerves to still and looked to the sky. The white moon was fading and the palest of morning blues was waxing.
“The skies are clear tonight,” she said. The hunter took a step closer. “They won’t stop until they’re dead. All dead,” she whispered, “and for what?” Tears glistened in her eyes, holding small images of the paling moon. “I don’t even know what we’re fighting for…why the children are dying.”
The dawn was near.
“I have to go.”
“Please.” The Ljosalfr grasped her fingers and shook his head. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
For him, Kallan managed a smile.
“And what do you know about being alone?” Kallan asked. Out here away from all else, he felt less and less like an enemy.
The Ljosalfr didn’t smile, but shook his head again. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“I have to go,” she said, pulling away.
“You speak differently.”
Kallan stopped, her fingers still caught in his grasp.
“I speak—”
“Your dialect,” he said.
She would have noticed the urgency, but her face burned. Her speech would betray her. “Northumbria,” Kallan recovered. “I…studied in Northumbria.”
“Engla Land.” He sounded impressed. “What did you study?”
His question eased Kallan’s breath.
“Writing, words, mostly. Runes. Although…” She furrowed her brow. “…I remember so little about the runes.”
She tried to recall those lessons. “It’s so hard to remember sometimes.”
“Remember?”
“Like sheets of black, it spans my mind,” she whispered.
The hunter was quiet as she thought. The birds were waking.
&nbs
p; “What else?” he said.
“Medicine and swordplay.”
“Swordplay?”
The gleam in her eyes returned with her smile. “I love my swords.”
“I prefer the range of the bow,” he said, “but my brother has a sword, a two-handed great-sword. Stunning piece. He picked it off a Dokkalfr. Elding forged right into the steel and folded with carbon. And the size…” He whistled. “…longer than my arm.”
Kallan did well to disguise the bitter distaste that filled her mouth at the sound of ‘picked it off a Dokkalfr.’
She cocked her head, pretending to be curious instead. “Your brother?”
The hunter scrunched his brow in suspicion. “You haven’t met my brother, have you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t think—”
Kallan marked the twain of a snapping twig, a voice rose, and the hunter looked to the trees behind him as she pulled her hand free.
Before he could turn and reach for her, Kallan withdrew a spell from her pocket. By the time the hunter looked back, she was gone, leaving only the black trunks interspersed with moonlight that cut through the darkness, and streaking the Alfheim Wood in strips of shadow.
CHAPTER 15
I know too well the shadows that lurk within. I’ve spent most of my life looking into empty faces. Every one of them veiled with the same deadened look. I’ve seen the insatiable rage that comes next.
Rune searched the darkness and dropped his shoulders. Despite his training, he found no trail. The blue of her eyes was as dazzling as the lapis gem Bergen had brought from the Eastern roads. Eyes he wouldn’t soon forget.
“Your Majesty,” the scout shouted, his voice on the edge of panic.
Rune turned his back to the wood where the girl had been standing a moment ago.
“What word, Joren?” he asked, pulling the gloves from his hands.
Panting, the scout emerged dressed in light leather armor and covered in a layer of dust from the road and a hard ride.
“The Dokkalfar,” Joren said. “She’s here.”
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