by Bec McMaster
“Andromeda.” Draco sat up sharply.
“I have heard your will,” she told him, shooting a cool look over her shoulder. “But your voice is not mine. And I will pay my debts.”
The Zilittu king served her a hot glare from beneath his eyelashes. “As much as I respect my queen’s opinion, she does not speak for my entire court.”
“Only for herself,” Andromeda countered. “And I have spoken.”
The timing was right to add her voice. Solveig could sense the mood of the room shifting. “You wish to rejoin the dreki world? Then this is the cost of bringing the Zilittu into the open.”
His anger turned in her direction, but Solveig merely arched a brow. “And if you choose not to walk this path, then there are… others with Chaos-wielders of their own whom we can approach.”
Like your brother.
There’d been a great uproar when they returned to find that Scorpius—previously locked in chains down in the dungeons—had escaped.
She might as well have said it out loud. Draco shoved to his feet. “You dare? I am the recognized king of the Zilittu. My brother is in exile.”
A tricky situation. “Is your brother the only dreki warlord in the northern realms who has Chaos-wielders at his side?”
“Please.” Rurik poured everything he had into that one word.
Solveig tipped her head toward Draco. “Sometimes a king must act instead of waiting for the enemy to bring the war to him. Freyja is a blow that strikes deep into the heart of the Zini court, but Ishtar is another matter entirely. She was manipulated into opening the gates once. This time, she may unwittingly bring an entire horde of armored alfar with her.”
“We’re not ready for that.” Marduk finally spoke up. “I’ve travelled this world. Every court of dreki stands alone. Some of us have alliances. Some of us share enmities. And while one dreki is worth, what… ten elves? They would ride as a host, and each court by itself would be outnumbered. If we wait, then we will be forced to react. We will be unprepared. We cannot afford to react.”
Draco stared at her flatly.
Her blood stared to pound. “We attack first. We strike them where it hurts. The last time we went to war, we captured their queen—well, now they have one of ours. But we have Tyndyr. He may only be the king’s bastard son, but he is still valuable.”
“If you give me some time,” Árdís said. “I may be able to track down some old friends of Father’s who were actually involved in the original kidnapping attempt upon the alfar queen. They will have information on the lands we shall find and the layout of the castle.”
“The Sadu stand with the Zini,” Solveig said.
The breath exploded out of Rurik. “Thank you.”
Andromeda squeezed his shoulder. “There are some things worth fighting for. Love is one of them.”
Draco’s hooded eyes settled on his queen as if her words had been a dagger meant for his heart.
All eyes turned toward him.
“The Zilittu stand with their cousins, the Zini,” he finally said. “On one condition.”
“Name it,” Rurik said.
“My brother’s head,” Draco purred. “On a spike.”
Andromeda turned ashen.
Interesting, Solveig noted.
They landed in a world made of snow.
Freyja cried out as she fell forward, and her left wrist jarred. The shock of such cold sent needles of sharp pain through her fingers, and she jerked her hands back.
Where the hell were they? What had that bastard done to them? Where had he sent them?
She had the horrible feeling she knew that answer to that last question.
Don’t think it. Don’t think it.
You came through once. You can get back to him.
But there’d been that sucking feeling, as if the world around her had turned her inside out and then spat her out into a world that was so alien, it almost stole the breath from her lungs.
She wanted to vomit.
Worse, she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. There was an emptiness within her that ate at her chest like a hungry wolf.
He was gone.
Rurik was gone.
And with him, everything she had ever known.
Ishtar cried out, scrambling to her feet and staggering into a deep snowdrift. It was enough to shock Freyja out of her grief.
“Are you all right?” she asked her sister-in-law, helping her to her feet.
Blood dripped from Ishtar’s nose. She brushed at it, her eyes widening in horror when she saw the smear of vermillion across the back of her hand.
“Does your head ache?” Freyja asked gently.
Ishtar shook her head violently, but she was seemingly transfixed by the blood.
Freyja bent and tore a scrap of linen from her petticoats. “Here,” she said, gently dabbing the blood away.
“I’m bleeding.” Ishtar whispered. “Is it stopping?”
Freyja checked and gave a sigh of relief. “Much better.” She handed the bloody rag over. “But keep this pressed against your nose, and tilt your head back.”Then she turned to survey the scenery.
Enormous jagged mountains reared over them, and the world was such a blinding white that she squinted. Shaggy fir trees wore a mantle of snow, and the forests were strangely quiet.
“There are no birds,” she whispered. “Nothing moves in the forest.”
An eerie effect.
The facts were realigning themselves: She was no longer on her world. Her bond to Rurik—once something she’d considered forged in iron—was gone, or smothered so deeply she could barely feel it.
And this was the land of the alfar.
Though there was nothing moving in the forests right now, they’d be out there. Somewhere.
Fine. There was no point crying over spilt milk. It was what it was.
“You brought us here,” she said, returning her attention to Ishtar. “Do you think you can take us back?”
The young woman’s nose was still bleeding. Freyja took mercy on her and helped her sit on a nearby log.
“My head hurts,” Ishtar replied, her lower lip shivering.
It was cold, and the wind pricked through her shawl, but the temperature hadn’t bothered her too much. She pressed a hand to her sister-in-law’s temples, then jerked her hand back in surprise. “You’re burning up.”
Was this some residual effect of the portal? An overuse of Chaos magic?
“He’s gone,” Ishtar said, staring glassy eyed at the world around her. “Marduk’s gone. I’m so tired.”
And speaking out loud when she always preferred a mental connection. That alone was sign of Ishtar’s exhaustion.
Freyja caught her hope behind her teeth. To create a portal between worlds was a feat of strength she couldn’t even imagine. There was no way that Ishtar could resurrect such a feat anytime soon.
Shelter.
Warmth.
Food and drink.
Ishtar could rest, and maybe when she was feeling better, they could return.
“Come on,” she said. “We have to get moving. If this is the portal in Álfheimr then it stands to reason that it would either be patrolled or watched. We need to—"
Awooo!
A howl echoed to her left.
Stillness slid down her spine like a trickle of ice water. Her breath caught.
Awooo!
To the right.
“Mother of Christ,” she whispered, crossing herself out of old habit.
A sleek white shape darted through the trees nearly fifty feet away.
“Get up!” Freyja hauled Ishtar to her feet. “Can you run?”
Ishtar tried.
Freyja grabbed her skirts and slogged through the snow. It was ankle deep. She managed three steps before she realized the howls behind her were very clearly pushing them in one direction.
She’d gathered enough sheep in her time to know how to push them where she wanted them.
A flash of white loped
along beside them, keeping pace.
Ishtar gasped and panted, tripping clumsily through the snow. Freyja caught her arm as she nearly fell and the bloody linen dropped into the snow.
They’d never outrun them.
Not like this.
“Stop!” She pressed her back to Ishtar’s as three enormous white wolves stalked them through the trees.
Or no, not wolves.
Wolfish, perhaps.
Snowy-white, their eyes glowing green, and their lips curling back from their enormous teeth, they looked like they’d just found their next meal.
“Stay behind me,” she told Ishtar, shoving her sister-in-law behind her. She’d been working with her magic ever since she married Rurik, and even though their magics were not one and the same, she was far more powerful than she’d been when she met him—though her powers occasionally remained uncontrollable.
The creatures prowled toward them.
Freyja’s chest rose and fell.
“Be ready to run,” she whispered.
“We can’t run,” Ishtar replied. “Not from this. This was fated in the stars.”
Freyja shot her a sharp look. “Remember what we said about seeing the future? Sometimes it is not reassuring.” She paused. “Will I ever see him again?”
“Who?”
“Rurik.”
“You will see him,” Ishtar started to explain, but it felt as though she was trying to consider how best to say it.
I will see him.
That had to be enough.
“Fine.” She picked up a heavy limb that had broken from one of the trees, and stepped toward the lead wolf. “Stay back!”
Horns shattered the stillness of the air.
Damn it. Her heart plummeted in her chest, but the creatures darted away.
Elves.
“This way!” she cried, turning to the left.
An arrow landed in front of them.
Freyja skidded to a halt, and Ishtar slammed into her. The thick snow and her skirts seemed to be hampering her, and while there was an air of grace to her, Ishtar always moved through the world as though unaware of it.
Freyja spun around to face their attackers.
Ishtar leaned against her heavily. Her glazed eyes were wide, but Freyja knew she was trying not to panic.
No portals.
No running.
Just her and her magic.
Horses surged out of the trees.
The lead rider reined his horse in hard, his smile fading. He dragged his helmet from his head, revealing an extraordinarily handsome face carved of chiseled lines. Half of his head was shaved, a shock of silvery blond hair spilling over his right temple and down past his shoulder like a cloak of silk.
And then she started assimilating the rest of his features. Skin the color of warmed honey. Sharp points to the tips of his ears, which were embellished with little gold caps. Someone had painted little gold dots across his brow, with a straight line bisecting his lower lip. Some form of ring pierced his nose, with several small chains running across his cheek and into his hair. Not human, it all said.
But the biggest shock occurred when she met his eyes.
One of them was blue. The other green.
She had never seen those eyes outside of a mirror. Or no… Tyndyr had them too.
What did that mean?
“Dja la alla llang?” he asked.
The rest of his warriors circled the pair of them, light gleaming on their burnished armor. Freyja held her hands out, calling her magic to life. It felt like drawing breath for the first time in her life. The land came alive beneath her feet. Power gushed into her like a dam had burst. “Stay back!”
The leader’s eyes flared slightly wide. “Ah, you are from Midgard,” he said in a halting manner. “Who are you?”
Freyja stared at him with her hands by her sides and lightning dancing from her fingertips. A single move and she was going to fry him. “I am Freyja of the Zini court.”
“A dreki queen,” laughed one of the elves in considerably better Norse. “Let’s string her up and listen to her scream.”
But the lead rider wasn’t laughing. He swung down from his horse and strode toward her, tugging his gloves from his hands.
Freyja swallowed hard, even as she summoned every last vestige of power. It swelled through her like a storm brewing. Too much to hold. So much that when she looked in shock at her hands, she found them glowing.
What was this place? Why did it affect her magic so strongly?
Laughter choked off. Every single guard fell quiet.
“Who are you?” the leader demanded, and this time there was menace in his voice as he grabbed her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. “And I’ll have the truth now.”
“It is the truth!” She shoved at his chest, feeling electricity shock through her palms. He staggered backward and nearly landed on his backside in the snow, though she hadn’t physically pushed him that hard. “I am Freyja Helgasdottir of the Zini clan. I am….” The words choked a little on her tongue, for what cause did a simple farmer’s daughter have to speak them? “I am the queen of the Zini clan by right of marriage, and if you dare lay your hands on me again, my mate will tear you limb from limb.”
“He won’t have a chance,” leered one of the guards.
The stranger cut him off with a backward wave, but he stared at her face. “Helgasdottir? Helga?”
The way he said the word was strange.
Elega….
A little frisson of unease settled over her heart like the first layer of frost on the ground. People did not react to her mother’s name like that. And it was a common name in her country. Nothing that should have caught his attention.
It was too late to prevaricate. “Y-yes.”
They stared at each other.
“That silky rotten liar,” he whispered. “This was what she was hiding….”
The shock of it began to overwhelm. Freyja tried to hold herself together the best way she knew how: with anger. “Who are you?”
A horse started toward her, its bearer wearing an ugly scowl. “How dare you address our prince like that you worthless—”
“Silence, Elendil.” The prince never took his eyes off her. “Your mother…. She was tall and blonde, with the same eyes as you?”
Tall and blonde, yes, but…. “No, her eyes were both blue. So blue they looked like an alpine lake.”
“And is she still alive?”
What was going on? Why was he so interested in her mother? “No.” It was an old hurt, but mere mention of it stirred hot coals of sadness to life within her chest. “No, she passed when I was younger. A wasting sickness. Why? Why do you wish to know of my mother?”
The stranger closed his eyes but briefly. “The Languish. Ah, gods.” He breathed the word out before his lashes fluttered and she was once more pierced by that penetrating gaze. “I ask, because you look just like her.”
Freyja gasped as he turned toward his men.
Wait! He’d known her mother?
How?
“Bring a pair of spare horses,” he called. “We return with them to the castle.”
“Wait!” No, this wasn’t happening. She had to return to Rurik. Her home. Her family. “How did you know my mother?”
“Is the circle still open, my prince?” One of his men called.
The stranger gave the small glade a sleepy-eyed look. “Locked again, I think. But we have hope. What has been opened once can be opened again—"
“The gates are shut,” she told him fiercely. “You’ll never get them open again. You’ll never wage your war. How did you know my mother?”
“Ah, you’ve run afoul of my dearest cousin”—he spat the word—“Tyndyr. How fortunate for you that you seem to have landed in my lap and not one of his little lackeys’. I promise you that—” He finally seemed to notice Ishtar, and his eyes widened slightly. “My… lady.”
The two of them stared at each other.
I
shtar cocked her head on an angle, as if examining him. “You look different to how I expected,” she said.
The stranger shared a sharp look with his second-in-command.
“Keep your hands off them,” he snapped to his men. “We’ll take them to see the king. And if any of you dares breathe a word of this when we return to the castle, I will have your tongues. This passes no one’s lips, do you understand?”
Several of his warriors exchanged glances, but two of them swung down from their saddles, and a pair of horses were brought forward.
“Here,” one of the warriors said, offering Ishtar the reins.
“She doesn’t know how to ride,” Freyja told him. She looked for the leader. “We’re not going anywhere. Not without you answering some of my questions! Who are you? What do you intend to do with us?”
“I am Caelum,” the stranger said, offering Ishtar a hand in order to haul her into the saddle in front of him. “Crown Prince of Álfheimr. And I think my father, the king, is going to be very interested in your story, Freyja Elegasdottir. You want to know how I know your mother? Then you may ask him.”
Chapter 31
“We need to sit down with your father and work out how best to get word to his allies,” Marduk told Solveig, three days after the fight at World’s End. “Árdís and Sirius are going to take turns watching over Rurik.”
Solveig froze as she sat polishing her dagger. She’d given him time to be with his family, but she’d never expected him to return to her like this. “You can go south. I will stay here and—”
“Solveig. We said we’d do this.”
She put the dagger down and tossed the whetstone aside, wiping her hands clean on a rag. “I need to see if Andromeda has had any luck in her efforts to create a smaller portal between two places—"
“You’re not even going to talk about it?” He spread his arms wide.
What was the point? “I can’t go home. I made an oath to the goddess to kill you, remember?”
“I remember. I just don’t know if that’s the whole truth of the matter.” Marduk’s lashes obscured his eyes. “Tell me a secret.”
Solveig froze. “What?”
Now?