“Make your bet, newbie,” the guard said. The girl with the purse had appeared beside her and they were both watching Sibba expectantly.
“Oh, no,” Sibba objected. “I’m not—”
The guard grabbed Sibba’s wrist, and before Sibba could break free, had unclasped one of her silver armbands and handed it to the collector. “Her money’s on the second one,” the guard said. The collector was unfazed. She nodded and dropped the armband into her satchel. The guard clamped a heavy hand on Sibba’s shoulder and pushed her toward the wooden barricade. Sibba weighed her options—make a scene by trying to leave, or wait out this one fight. The more time she spent here, the more of a chance there was that Evenon would betray her to Chief Isgerd. But if she were arrested, it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.
✽ ✽ ✽
Watching a fight was perhaps worse than being in one. Was this how it had felt for Estrid to watch Sibba in the trial circle? But that had been over in minutes; this seemed to drag on forever. These men were performers, playing to the crowd, driving up bets. It was like a dance, a give and take, parry and block and dance away. The collector’s face gave nothing away. As long as it brought in more money, she didn't seem to mind that the fight was dragging on. Sibba only wanted it to be over. With every strike of the swords, her breath caught. The man with the black eyes was more skilled, but the other was a crowd favorite. Would one of them have to die? Sibba didn't know the rules.
Two girls beside Sibba were fighting over which was the more handsome of the two. “Neither of them compare to the foreigner in three.” The words drifted carelessly to Sibba's ears, not meant for her and therefore taking a moment to form before registering.
The foreigner. Evenon?
“I can't believe he's not dead yet. What do you find so appealing about him, anyway?”
“Those eyes, the tattoos, the muscles. Besides, he's Isgerd's favorite.”
“That doesn't mean he has to be yours.”
The fight continued below her, but she wasn't seeing it anymore. The foreigner in three? Had Isgerd thrown Evenon into a pit? If so, she was a woman after Sibba's own heart. But how would he already be gaining favor? He couldn't have been there much longer than she had.
Around her, a cheer rose up from the crowd but she was already fighting her way backward, the spectators pouring into her vacated spot. On the outskirts, the guard stepped into her path. Sibba’s right hand came to rest on top of her ax, an involuntary gesture that the guard either didn’t see or ignored.
“Don't you want to wait and see who wins? You have money on this one.”
Sibba shook her head and cleared her throat, trying to calm down. “I heard about three,” she said. “I wanted to see—”
“Him?” The guard smiled smugly, one side of her mouth lifting higher than the other. “Of course you do.”
“Where is three?”
She pointed to the other side of the courtyard. “Follow the biggest crowd.”
That's what she did, no longer caring about drawing attention to herself, not worried about whose toes she stepped on or who she made angry. She had to get there and see it for herself. If it was Evenon, she wouldn't wait and let some other man kill him. She would jump in there herself. He wouldn't get away again.
The noise around the third pit was tremendous. It was all Sibba could do not to turn and flee as the bodies pressed closer. Smells and sounds overwhelmed her but she steeled herself and pressed forward. She reached the barrier amid protests from the other women, but she ignored them. Her eyes scanned the pit. There, a man with a longsword and shield, and there, on the far side, another man, this one holding the hilt of a broken sword and no shield, his arms in shackles bolted to the dirt wall.
Sibba's blood rushed into her ears, the rest of the world falling away as her vision narrowed to focus on that one figure. There was Chief Isgerd's favorite—a boy who had once been handsome but was now gaunt and fierce, his lips pulled back in a snarl. Lips that had once smiled at her and teased her. He was broken and he was bloody, but he was alive. He was alive and he was fighting to stay that way. Five years had passed but she would know him anywhere. He was a part of her.
It wasn't Evenon at all.
It was Jary.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Sibba
“Jary!” she yelled. “Jary!” Again and again, until her throat was hoarse. But he didn't hear her. The spectators nearest her were watching her, some of them even moving away, but she didn't care. Her brother was down there, fighting for his life.
Why had she not thought this far ahead? Why hadn't she planned for this possibility? She had thought to be some great hero, able to march into Ydurgat and sweep him away in the dark of night. He should have been locked in a cell somewhere, not here. Not subjected to this. But she had known Isgerd's reputation, and she should have known the woman would stop at nothing to torture Chief Thorvald's son and heir. To try to ruin her rival, just as her father had said.
His opponent, bigger and older than Jary, lunged. It was hardly a fair fight, not like the others had been. How long had he been doing this? How many men had he killed while chained to a wall? How was he even still alive?
“Jary!” This time her voice carried over the silence of a crowd waiting for the blow to land. Fear had made her stupid. She should have kept her mouth shut like everyone else. But she hadn't, and Jary's eyes lifted to the audience, though his gaze went to somewhere across from her, to a pair of women she hadn't noticed before. They sat on high-backed wooden chairs beneath a white tent in front of the giant sutvithr tree, both of them raven-haired and slender, though one had a face wrinkled by time. They were watching Jary with stony faces, and Jary, for some reason, had thought one of them had called his name.
And he paid the price. The other man brought his sword down, and though Jary came back to himself in time to move, it wasn't fast enough and the sword swiped down his face. Sibba brought her hands to her mouth as Jary fell to his knees, his hands covering his eyes.
Sibba leaped without thinking, without considering how far the jump was or what kind of trouble she would find herself in when she landed. Her feet hit the dirt and she dropped into a crouch, catching herself on her hands before propelling herself forward. The crowd, which seemed to have gasped collectively when she'd thrown herself into the pit, now broke into riotous shouts. Some were telling her to get out, others were telling the boys to kill her. But she ignored them all.
Jary's opponent didn't see her. He saw only victory, his sword raised for the killing blow. There was no time even to draw her ax. Sibba flung herself at him with a yell that was a mix of rage and grief. Just before she rammed into the man, Jary looked up, his left eye a pool of blood, his right eye distant and unfocused.
Sibba and the swordsman both went sprawling to the ground. His hands groped for the sword that he had lost in the fall, while her hands pummeled his face, nails scraping against armor, trying to find a seam to work beneath and failing. He wasn't wearing a helmet so she clawed at his eyes, snarling like a field cat. He shouted and tried to push her away but her legs were locked around his waist as they rolled in the dirt. When he pinned her, she dug a rock out from beneath her back and slammed it against the side of his head. He toppled to the side and she pushed herself to her feet.
Her brother still knelt behind her. Was he crying? He was gasping for air, his fingers clawing at the iron manacles around his wrists. Blood leaked down his face and over his lips, dripping in strange patterns in the dirt beneath him. Her ax had flown from her hip and landed near him after the impact and she ran over to pick it up. When she was close, he looked up at her again, his good eye searching her face.
“Sibba?” he whispered.
She scooped the ax up without answering and turned just in time to face the opponent, who had also recovered his weapon. Her ax met the blade with a thunderous crash that rang up her arm and rattled her teeth together, but she pushed back against him. The muscles in her arms tremb
led as she drove him away. The crowd that she had been ignoring until now went wild, their shouts roaring in her ears. Sibba tried to drown them out, to summon the battle fury that had become a familiar state of mind. She thought of Gabel with his hands around her neck, of Evenon plunging her own ax into her stomach, of her brother, bound and fighting for his life.
The rage inside of her swelled and reached its crescendo, then came crashing down on top of the man who had sliced open her brother's face. His sword glanced off of her arm as she spun, and she brought the ax down. It bit into the place where his neck met his shoulder and lodged there. Red-black blood oozed from his neck and then his lips as he dropped to his knees, his face frozen in a wide look of surprise.
When he collapsed face down in the dirt at her feet, she looked back at her brother, but he wasn't watching her or the corpse. No, he was watching the two women, and the two women were watching her.
It had to be Chief Isgerd and her daughter, Isgerd the Younger. Well, if Evenon had come to betray her, it didn't matter now. She had betrayed herself. Lifting her arms to the side, the bloody ax dripping in one hand, she smiled what she hoped was a crazy grin at the women, inviting them into the ring. The older woman didn't move but the younger one jerked to her feet, knocking her chair over in the process.
Gods, she was beautiful. Or she would have been if not for the sneer on her face. She didn't burn bright like Tola but smoldered like coals after the fire had burned out. She was tall and her black hair was a mess of braids and curls. The tight-fitting leather armor she wore stretched taut over full breasts, and there were two swords at her curving hips.
“Isgerd, stop this!” Jary called to Sibba's surprise. The girl looked at her mother, but her mother didn't look away from Sibba. The whole arena held its breath. Finally, the woman nodded, and the girl smiled and then leaped over the barrier much as Sibba had done, landing in a crouch on the other side of the arena. She straightened and threw back her head, two shortswords twirling in her hands as she stalked forward.
Sibba had always faced men who were bigger than her, stronger than her, and thus underestimated her. In Isgerd the Younger, she might have finally met her match. But to her surprise, she didn’t feel fear, only the tight excitement of anticipation.
“Isgerd,” Jary said, lower this time, his voice more plaintive and obviously directed at the daughter. The spectators were stomping their feet, ready for this fight. Isgerd the Younger was one of them, and it was likely that they were eager for her to show this intruder what it meant to be a part of the Maiden Army.
Isgerd the Younger ignored Jary. If there was any friendship or affection there, she didn't show it. She circled Sibba and Sibba turned with her. She wished she had a shield, but drew the Crowheart sword instead, holding both weapons at her sides. The girl's eyes flashed to the weapon and then back up to Sibba's face.
“Look at you,” she said. “You must be a Hallowtide.”
“And you must be a Grimsson,” Sibba said.
“To the core.” The swords flashed as they made wide loops around her hands. Sibba hoped she'd slip and cut off a finger. She tried to remember what she knew about Isgerd the Younger, but it wasn't much. Chief Isgerd guarded her fiercely, always keeping her by her side. Isgerd never would have let her heir wander off on a raiding party or get captured by a rival clan. It was no wonder they thought her father a fool, an easy target.
“Release my brother.” Sibba rested the ax on her shoulder, trying for threatening but glad when her voice didn't tremble. “Let's settle this, you and me.”
“Oh, we'll settle this,” Isgerd agreed. “But Jary's not going anywhere.”
Isgerd was done talking. She swung one sword after another, and it was like watching a dancer, each move carefully planned. In the face of her windmilling arms, it was all Sibba could do to block her, using the blade of the sword and the hilt of the ax in quick succession. Going on the offensive was out of the question as Isgerd drove her backward against the wall. Sibba jerked to the side as one of the thick-bladed swords pierced the dirt where her face had been.
That was Sibba's chance. She shoved past the girl and spun, her sword skimming Isgerd's upper arm. Isgerd spat a curse at her and parried, but Sibba knocked her sword to the side. It flew out of Isgerd's surprised fingers and it was Sibba's turn to smile. She tossed the Crowheart sword away to the delight of the audience and advanced, feeling what those men must have felt in the pit—the bloodlust, the palpable encouragement of the crowd, the near taste of victory. Isgerd stumbled away. She had seen the ax against a single sword just moments ago, had watched the swordsman die.
It scared Sibba how much she wanted to kill her. How much she craved giving the ax another taste of blood. Her father would be proud. It is the Fielding way. But what would Tola say? She would stop her, pull her back, beg her to show mercy. To think about what more there was to get out of this situation. Negotiation and peace and allies. An end to the clan wars.
Tola.
No. Sibba remembered their connection and tried to push her out of her mind, to think of anything else. But instead of the beautiful, smoldering Isgerd, she saw a sharp, angled face and disappointed green eyes slashed black with kohl.
Isgerd must have seen her hesitation like a dog who could smell fear because her smug smile returned. They were just below her mother now, and she looked up. Sibba followed her gaze and saw the chief nod, a terse smile on her own full lips. From either side of the older woman, two other girls leaped into the pit. The three of them together made an intimidating display. One girl carried her own ax, while the other held two short knives in confident fists.
“You brought friends,” Sibba said.
Isgerd cocked her head. “And you didn't.”
Sibba turned to retreat but didn't get two steps before something hard cracked her square across the shoulders and sent her sprawling to the dirt. The girls were on her before she could even roll over, feet pounding against her ribs, fingers twisting in her hair, jerking her head up to meet black eyes. Blood stained Isgerd's arm and Sibba smiled just before the girl's fist connected with her jaw. Once, twice. Sibba raised her arms to try to protect herself but one of the other girls grabbed her arms. The spectators were shouting for blood, and Isgerd was giving them what they wanted.
“Enough!” called a woman's voice over the mayhem like the crack of a whip. Chief Isgerd was standing, and beside her was a tall, sharp-boned woman that Sibba would have mistaken for Tola if it hadn't been for the streaks of gray in her red hair. She carried the same brass staff as Tola, and darkness seemed to swirl around its base, not unlike the shadows she had seen in the draugnvithr. That sight alone was scarier than Chief Isgerd's grimace could ever be.
Isgerd the Younger leaned down and hissed in Sibba's ear. “Don't think that this is over.”
She didn't need to worry. Sibba knew that this was just the beginning. The elderly vala's hard green eyes were the last thing she saw before the third blow landed, this one to her temple, and she fell reluctantly into the darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Rayne
Rayne existed only in the darkness, in the shadows that haunted the palace dungeon and kept her awake at night with their eerie keening.
“It's the wind,” Old Sim, the jailer, had told her, but Rayne didn't believe him. It was the ghosts of all the children that her father had killed, of their mothers raging in their own sleepless nights, of their fathers bound in chains and etching spells onto swords they would never get to use against the man who deserved it the most. And there were her own ghosts—Madlin and Merek, Imeyna and Tamsin. People who had died because of her, because loving her had been too costly.
On the first day, she had writhed in pain, the burns on her arm flaring to life with each movement, the heat of her skin at war with the burning shame that hid inside of her in a place she couldn't reach. She wanted to cut it out, and she might have if she'd had a knife.
“Please,” she begged Old Sim.
He had looked at her with his sad, drooping eyes. “No salve for prisoners,” he told her, even though that wasn't what she wanted. He did offer her a rag dipped in ice-cold water that she let fall to the floor. She didn't deserve the kindness.
On the second day, she screamed and beat against the iron bars. She yelled for her father, for Tierri, for the cowardly Prince Danyll. Anyone that could come down here and put her out of her misery. The other prisoners joined her and soon the dungeon was a riot of sound that she knew they could hear out on the streets, but no one came except Old Sim. He took one of the prisoners out of his cell—a dirty old man with a beard down to his chest—and gave him five lashes just beyond the door of her cell. Rayne had pressed herself against the bars.
“No!” she yelled. “Me, take me, beat me!” But Old Sim ignored her and droplets of blood flicked off of the whip and rained down on her outstretched arm.
That night, the shadows were louder than ever. They seemed to coil around her, swim inside of her eyes. In her head, she repeated her own sort of curse: Madlin, Merek, Tamsin, Imeyna. Over and over until finally, she slept.
The days lumbered on, and the pain began to subside. When Old Sim offered her a cold cloth, she took it and wrapped her burned arm, reluctantly glad for the relief. Sometimes, he would pull up a stool to the other side of her cell door and sit for hours, talking. He had been alive when the Blood Flu had swept Casuin and killed King Malstrom. It had taken his own father from him and left him to care for his mother and younger siblings. It was how he lost his fingers, when they were taken for thieving.
He had been a jailer during the Malstrom Massacre, and after, had buried the Crowheart prince’s body—Rayne’s uncle, Wynn. He had knelt on the marble steps and cleaned the blood with sopping rags and watched as any surviving Malstrom was marched to the executioner’s block.
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