Dolor and Shadow

by Angela Chrysler

  With a gasp, Kallan awoke to the darkness and the bit of orange light from a small campfire. Her shoulders screamed with pain at having her arms pulled behind her and around a tree, forcing her back to arch into the trunk. But the cold metal of her blade pressed against the flesh of her throat robbed her of all other concerns. At the end of the blade, inches from her face, Rune stared.

  “Good evening,” he said.

  Kallan tugged at her bound wrists, adding to the fire in her joints while the bark of the tree grated the entire length of her back through her chemise. She assessed her bonds with her fingers.

  “You and I need to have a talk, princess.”

  Kallan clenched her teeth at the name, and he grinned. The firelight danced across his face, making him appear strikingly similar to the Dark One in the night’s shadow.

  “That’s right, you don’t like ‘princess’ do you?”

  “Untie me,” Kallan said.

  “Not until we have an understanding.”

  Kallan summoned a bit of flame from the tip of her finger and proceeded to singe the rope.

  Keep him talking. “What do you want?”

  “You have no reason to trust me,” Rune said. “I have no reason to trust you. Ergo, I have no reason not to slit your throat and leave you dead and tied to this tree.”

  He’s serious. “You have a point,” she said. Burn faster.

  “Now let’s assume as one possible option, that I don’t kill you right here and drag your body back to Gunir as a spoil of war.”

  Kallan crunched her face into a fake smile.

  “Instead, I extend my hand in truce and offer you…call it a choice.”

  “A choice.”

  “Let’s assume I lower this blade and untie you,” Rune said. “You then can kill me with that Seidr of yours.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Delight flashed in her eyes and she watched his attention shift to other matters for that moment.

  “Or, you can make a choice,” Rune said.

  Keep him talking. “I’m listening.”

  “Let’s say you hear what I have to say, return to Gunir as my—”

  “—prisoner.”

  “My guest,” he corrected. “We’ll sit down and negotiate peace between our people. Perhaps declare a holiday in our name and we all go home and forget this misunderstanding.”

  A coal in the fire popped.

  “Misunderstanding?”

  Her binds were weakening.

  “Or I can kill you now,” he said.

  “There is no misunderstanding,” she said.

  Rune narrowed his gaze.

  “I’ve sent out hundreds of messages to your city requesting peace, imploring you to meet with me on civil ground.”

  “Why do you lie?” She twisted a wrist.

  “You have traitors in your city, fair princess.”

  The smell of burning hemp reached her nose. Tension dissolved Rune’s confidence and Kallan pulled her wrists free, firing as she brought them around.

  Still clutching her knife, Rune jumped back and around the tree, missing Kallan’s Seidr just in time.

  Kallan rebounded, firing a blast that singed the trunk and Rune ran toward Astrid, who stood at the bank of a stream.

  “Kallan!”

  She fired a blast at Rune’s feet.

  “If you would just hear me out!”

  She fired a second blast, striking the ground ahead of him and steering him away from her horse.

  “We look for peace!” he cried.

  “Peace?” she shrieked and fired the ground again.

  “Come to Gunir. We c—”

  “You take me for a fool?” Kallan said. “You think I would trust you? I go to Gunir and I go to my death! The Dark One would personally cut my ribs through my back!”

  “Bergen woul—”

  “I’ve seen the horrors he unleashed on my people!” Kallan cried. “The horrors you and your father ordered! The orphans he left behind!”

  Rune furrowed his brow. “The massacre of Austra—”

  Seidr erupted from both palms as Kallan fired her flames into Rune. Under the energy, he arched his back and screamed.

  * * *

  Within, the Shadow erupted. In the abyss, the Darkness thrashed. In the depths of Under Earth far beyond the Falls of Light, beneath the lakes of Seidr, there, the Darkness waited. Writhing, it twisted and took shape until like a dragon awakened, it rose: the Black Beast.

  On the Seidr lines given by Aaric, the Beast found its way into Rune, where it devoured Kallan’s Seidr, feasting on it, drawing it into Rune’s body. There, the Beast ate of it and, unscathed, drank of the Seidr while Rune buckled beneath Kallan’s fire as it passed into him, trailing down his own threads of life. There in its belly, the Beast hoarded the energy, holding onto it and storing it, preserving it until the right time when the Seidr would be called upon again.

  All at once, the fire stopped and Rune fell to his knees, panting.

  His hands shook. His body quaked, and Rune gasped, wide-eyed. Energy surged through him, igniting a strength that felt like it would shred his body with want to break free. He clasped his hands, but the shaking persisted.

  From the ground, he raised his eyes and met Kallan’s across the clearing. The lone campfire did well to reflect the horror in her gaze. Before he had a chance to breathe, she struck again.

  And again, the Beast drank of its share. Again, the Seidr flame flowed. Throwing back his head, Rune roared as she poured her Seidr into him. His body twitched and just as he was certain his chest would implode, she broke the line.

  This time, Rune sustained his balance. He drew up his knee and the Seidkona took a pace back.

  She fired again. The Beast drank, but Rune held his ground. Her streams were growing fainter. Her endurance weakened. Rune moved toward Kallan, who stepped back and fired again, sending his body into another set of tremors. This time, when she broke the line, he remained upright, gasping for breath, but with far more strength than before.

  As if his body had been jolted awake, he bounced on his heels, eager to run, eager to fight. Blood roared through his body. He saw the Seidkona—the small, feeble princess rendered powerless—and he grinned.

  Kallan stepped back.

  Rune mirrored her footwork.

  She retreated two more steps, and he delighted in the nervous shift of her eyes.

  No sword, no dagger, no Seidr. Just claws. He widened his grin. I can handle claws.

  Kallan retreated, Rune lunged, and she ran into the forest.

  * * *

  Kallan kicked up the leaf litter as she tore through the wood. The wind stirred like Death’s cold breath. A chill pricked Kallan’s flesh and, all at once, the winds stilled. Darkness enclosed the forest like a black pool of bottomless water. The whispers within the shadows returned. They were there watching, waiting as they had for weeks now.

  Stripped of all weapons, and without a way to outrun them, Kallan summoned her Seidr. Flames swallowed her hands, spreading up her arms as the shadows grew colder and devoured the forest around her, and Kallan relinquished her flame into the darkness.

  A path of embers climbed the leaves and branches. The rush of adrenaline sharpened her senses. Not knowing if she should attack again or run, she studied the umbra for the things that drained the life from the wood.

  “Kallan!” Rune called from behind. He emerged from the brush.

  “Call them off,” she said, already amassing another round of Seidr that snaked up her arms like sleeves. Rune looked from Kallan’s Seidr to the umbra.

  “They are not my men,” he said.

  “I have no reason to believe you,” she said, eying her dagger gripped in his hand.

  The dream was clear and I am a fool for ignoring the signs. “I’m going back!”

  “You can’t go back.” Rune flexed his grip on the hilt. “You don’t know what goes on there.”

  The gentle note in his tone only augmented her rage. With a match
ing flick of both wrists, Kallan expelled the Seidr through the wind and Rune stood, enduring the Seidr, taking it in as he had before. As she poured her Seidr into his chest, as he took it in until he teetered from the rush she knew it gave him, Kallan approached him and snatched the hilt. But his guard had not been so low. As she moved to take the dagger, he grabbed her and spun her about, pinning her to his chest, her blade pressed to her throat.

  Kallan inhaled against the prick upon her tender flesh.

  “Why the sudden interest in peace?” she asked, not daring to turn against the poised tip of the blade.

  “Gunir has always, ever sought peace,” Rune said.

  Kallan threw back her head into Rune’s face. He stumbled back as blood poured from his nose.

  “I don’t believe you,” she replied and released a blaze that rent the air, launching Rune across the forest floor. The force slammed him into the tree with a crack while his body took in the Seidr and fire.

  She broke the stream and made her way across the clearing as he lay panting.

  “If I wanted this war, I would have killed you while you slept,” Rune said.

  A stream of Seidr roared from her hands. Like before, Rune buckled under the impact as it flowed into him until she disrupted the stream.

  “I would have left you at the stables!” he shouted.

  Sprinting, Kallan fired a blast to his chest. Rune’s back arched beneath the Seidr as if his body devoured the surge, taking in all that she gave him.

  She broke the connection and he fell forward, catching himself on his palms.

  “I would have left you to the Shadow,” Rune gasped as Kallan recharged her next attack.

  Welcoming the rage that was taking her, she sent a discharge and another, not caring where her Seidr landed. Each discharge Rune met and drew in. When the Seidr missed, it curved into him as if pulled by something inside of him.

  If only he would die, then maybe she could forget.

  She marched across the forest and Rune stood, his full focus clearly on the Seidkona. The next round of Seidr pooled in her hand.

  Kallan pulled back her arm emblazoned with flame when Rune’s hand flew to her wrist hard enough to startle her. He wasn’t weak. If anything, he was stronger. Too strong.

  “I would have killed you as you lay dying in Swann Dalr,” Rune’s words held Kallan in place.

  “You were there,” she whispered, her palms still surging with Seidr.

  “Free to impale you with my sword while you lay dying,” he said.

  “My father…” Anger held the word in her throat. Kallan condensed the Seidr into her palm, amassing the strength into a smaller surface. “My fath—”

  “I never gave that order,” he said between breaths.

  Kallan narrowed her eyes, weighing his words for truth.

  “Why should I believe you?” she asked, not yet ready to surrender her Seidr.

  “Because,” he said, “I wouldn’t have killed a king to spare his daughter, who, I might add, has proven to be more of a pain in my ass than her predecessor.”

  Kallan relaxed her grip, quelling the Seidr that had pooled.

  “I swear to you, Kallan,” Rune said, “I am not your enemy.”

  Silence engulfed the forest. Within the quiet, the shadows closed in.

  “We need to leave,” Rune said. The darkness swelled. “Now.”

  Rune grasped her hand and turned from the shadows, but his feet never left the ground. A whirlwind of black engulfed him, propelling Rune through the trees.

  Whether it was branches or bones that Kallan heard crack, she couldn’t tell. Expanding her lungs, she opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. The shadow dove down her throat and into her belly.

  Something hard struck the back of her head and she fell into a pool of her own blood. As the world faded black, the pendant slipped from her fingers, and Kallan lost herself to the darkness.

  CHAPTER 34

  Gudrun stared into the flames, watching as the fire danced. An unnamed darkness had befallen the city. The silence left by Bergen’s men lingered, plaguing Lorlenalin with stifled sobs that no one gave name to.

  The old woman pulled her shawl around her shoulders, desperate to shake the chill that had crept into her core overnight.

  “You can hug yourself in front of the fire all day long.” The amber of Daggon’s voice slid over her. “You’re not going to get rid of the chill that haunts us all.”

  Gudrun glanced at Daggon, who wore his exhaustion in the kitchen’s doorway. He had attempted to dress himself, getting as far as his muddy boots, some worn trousers, and an unkempt tunic that hung limply from his shoulders.

  Armed with a large flask of mead, Daggon threw back his head and gulped down three mouthfuls. Diminishing shades of red and pink, the only evidence left of the attack, trailed from his hardened face down his neck and vanished beneath his tunic.

  “So, you’re awake,” Gudrun said. “You don’t look so bad after a night’s work.”

  “I could say the same for you,” Daggon said as Gudrun’s chair scraped the floor.

  Pushing off the doorway, Daggon shuffled across the room and dropped himself into a chair that creaked beneath his weight. Moments later, Gudrun returned to the table with a small kettle of boiling water she had pulled from the fireplace.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, not bothering to look up as she poured the hot water into a cup of herbs.

  “Don’t trifle over me, woman,” Daggon said from behind the flask. “Your hen-pecking belittles a man’s honor.”

  “I’m sorry.” Gudrun dropped the kettle to the table. “Turn your cheek and I’ll grant you a set with which to boast your endurance.”

  Daggon grimaced and swallowed his mouthful, then omitted a sound like a half growl, half sigh. After a moment, he met Gudrun’s eyes and furrowed his brow.

  “You haven’t slept,” he said across the table.

  “You shouldn’t be up.” Gudrun settled herself into the chair opposite him. His white knuckles gripped his flask as he slumped over the drink, supporting his weight on his elbows.

  “Any news?” Daggon asked.

  Gudrun snatched the flask from Daggon’s grasp, added a liberal amount to her tea, and returned it to its owner. She rested her elbows on the table, keeping the drink just below her nose where she could breathe in the valerian root. The firelight glistened off her silver hair. The old Seidkona stared into her cup, arguing with herself over how much she should say while Daggon listened to the fire crackle.

  After a long sigh and a sip, Gudrun spoke. “Nothing new since the Dark One took her.”

  “The Dark One didn’t take her,” Daggon said.

  Gudrun’s cup hit the table with a cold thud.

  “The king took her,” Daggon said.

  Gudrun’s golden eyes softened as if lost in distant thought, unable to find her way back. She took another sip, then lowered her cup to the table and folded her hands against her mouth.

  “Alright, woman,” Daggon growled. “Out with it.”

  Rearing up for the tempers that would fly, Gudrun sighed.

  “We believed the Dark One had taken her. And with all the wounded…” Daggon shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. “Your wounds alone are too new to go off on a blood hunt.”

  “What are you not saying, Gudrun?”

  The old woman shook her head as firelight spilled across Daggon’s scars, adding black to the streaks of red that made it look as if his face blazed with flame again.

  “No one has left the city,” she said. “Not the war-men…not for Kallan. No one.”

  Daggon slammed his hand to the table and stood, shaking. With the creak of the chair beneath the pound of his boot, Daggon staggered his way to the door.

  “Daggon.”

  The giant mop of red hair whipped about, streaking across his bearded face.

  “Aaric left my queen to the whim of that…that heathen. And you sit here sipping your teas and spinning your vision
s.”

  “Daggon, be still,” Gudrun said.

  “I’ll have his head!” Daggon roared, stomping toward the door.

  “Daggon, stop.” Gudrun rose to her feet, releasing a crack of Seidr that split the air.

  “You can See,” Daggon said. “You have the Sight! You can see where she is, if she lives…where he has her, if she’s dead!”

  Gudrun’s chest steadily rose and fell with an ageless patience.

  “The last person I know who went looking for knowledge lost an eye,” she said gravely, holding his attention with a darkened gloom about her.

  “I’ll give both of my own if you can assure me she’s safe.”

  “Wishes made in haste are often ill-thought,” she said and settled herself back to the table.

  Gudrun resumed drinking her tea as if they had said nothing between them, as if he still sat nursing his mead and wallowing in self-pity.

  The fire popped as she weighed the images that played in her mind.

  “Twelve, twenty, two-hundred times a day,” Gudrun spoke low behind her cup. “Some pictures as clear as you standing across the room, others faded and scrambled, without placement, as if the Norns had not yet engraved them in stone.”

  Daggon shifted himself to better stare down in wonder at Gudrun’s power.

  “Yesterday the most faded of visions were as vibrant as they have ever been, forming a hardened ball of dread in the deepest, innermost reaches of my Seidr,” Gudrun said.

  Gudrun lowered her cup, looking past Daggon into the empty space behind him.

  “Yes. I can See,” she said with regret. “I can See far more than I ever wanted to See.” And some things not clearly enough. “I see things that, once spoken, would change them. I see things I wish I didn’t See. Things I can’t un-see. And things better left unseen. I See enough to know that what is here is more than you or I can change.”

  “More than Kallan?”