by Bec McMaster
“It’s just a dream,” she whispered to herself, wiping sweaty hair back from her eyes.
Slipping from beneath his grip, she placed several logs on the fire, then paced the hut until the sweat along her spine had dried.
Maybe it was the thought of his loss that had awoken her dormant sense of prescience?
Maybe she was seeing a glimpse of him, far away in the future?
Or maybe her mind was conjuring thoughts because in her heart of hearts, she couldn’t fathom not having this enormous sleeping giant at her side.
Bryn slipped back into the blankets, snuggling into his embrace.
His earlier words still struck at her like hammer blows. This man—this gentle giant who laughed at the world when the world tried to kick his feet out from under him—was unlike any other she’d ever known.
Loyal.
Brave.
Selfless.
The kind of man who would give his life for his cousin without a single hesitation, for he loved him. The kind of man who would protect the weak and shoulder any burden.
Nothing like her.
She rolled onto her back and stared at the roof, a gaping hole in her chest bleeding mercilessly. She didn’t even know herself anymore. Years on this mortal plane had abraded the very core of honor from her being, until she’d become little more than a cold, ruthless mercenary.
Odin’s breath, what had she become?
No longer a hero, for sure. No longer fierce and fearless and bound to serve a higher purpose.
Sitting up, she dragged the furs around her shoulders.
It would be easy to surrender to Tormund’s conquest. She’d seen it in his eyes when he spoke of the wife he would one day protect. Her. He’d been thinking of her.
She could have it all.
Tormund’s warm arms around her. His child in her belly. A home. A… belonging.
And what will you give him? More betrayal? More lies?
Bryn slipped from the blankets once more, moving as silently as she could. There was no point trying to sleep again. The future he promised wasn’t the one she’d spent all these years fighting for. If she chose him, then she could never return to Valhalla. She would never clear her name and fulfill her mother’s legacy.
And it ached.
That the choice should be so sharp-edged.
To have one meant losing the other.
“He’s mortal,” she whispered to herself. And she would never age. No, she’d watch him die. Watch him grow to hate her slowly over the years. Watch any children they had wither and fall to the sharp edge of mortality.
Bryn glanced over her shoulder toward him.
The kindest thing she could ever do would be to leave him.
Before this evolved into something she couldn’t escape.
Twenty-Four
The storm finally abated.
Tormund shoved the door of the shepherd’s hut open, blinking at the shock of blinding white snow that greeted him. He ventured out, wading through the snow. Everything was quiet and still. Snow slid off a nearby fir, but not a single creature stirred out there.
“Well, there goes our trail,” he grumbled, turning around and almost walking directly into a half-naked dreki.
“Rargh!” Sirius yelled in his face.
Tormund staggered back with a cry, landing on his ass in the snow. His heart leapt through the roof of his mouth, and he gaped at the one-eyed prince.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he yelled.
Sirius was laughing too hard to answer. Behind him, Marduk merely shook his head, though his lips twitched with a faint smile as he held out a hand to haul Tormund to his feet.
“I have been waiting to do that since we landed!” Sirius howled with laughter.
Bryn exploded from the hut, flames licking up the sword in her hand. She paused when she saw their companions.
“Mother of Jesus.” Tormund clapped a hand to his chest and turned away before he did something foolish, like drop his axe on his own foot.
“When did you two arrive?” Bryn lowered the sword, and extinguished it.
“Fifteen minutes ago,” Sirius said, taking his time and stretching. “I was going to kick the door in and scare you, but Marduk reminded me that that wouldn’t have been very polite. Besides, your mortal warrior was whispering some sweet, sweet words in your ear at that stage and I thought we’d best leave the lad to—"
“Were you trying to give me a heart seizure?” Tormund snapped, pointing at the smug warrior. “We’ve been tracking your cursed Keepers for days. I thought you were them!”
“Do I look like a tattooed virgin who’s not allowed to even look at his own cock?” Sirius sneered.
Tormund blinked. “What?”
“The Keepers are fanatics,” Marduk said. “They’re not all virgins, though they’re supposed to avoid the company of men or women. Mates and bedmates are a distraction from their sacred duty.”
“It’s no wonder they’re fucking miserable,” Sirius replied.
Tormund eyed the bastard. “Ah. You’ve been snuggled up in Malin’s arms. That’s why you’re in such a good mood. Where is Haakon?”
“With Árdís,” Marduk replied. “Haakon’s got her locked away in some little hut near Rurik’s volcano.” He shook his head. “My spoiled older sister is living in a hut. It must be love.”
“It’s love.” Tormund sighed under his breath. “It gets a little sickening at times, but it’s better than seeing him weep manfully into his ale.” He straightened. “Did you find the queen?”
Marduk shook his head grimly. “I found a necklace in the vault that once belonged to her. It reeks of her magic, but there’s a crack in the emerald and the light inside it has faded. It must have been some old spell lingering.”
“Why are the pair of you here?”
“Our beloved king”—a wealth of sarcasm sneered in Sirius’s voice—"insists that we return with his long-lost little sister. He heeded our warnings about Amadea and the Chaos magic, but he seems to think Ishtar is the priority.”
“Rurik is concerned that if the Keepers get their hands on her, they’ll kill her,” Marduk said flatly.
“Rurik is also of the opinion that if we want to discover whether there is any remaining taint of your evil bitch mother’s Chaos magic around, then the best way to track her down is to use another Chaos wielder. And with Árdís’s magic still so new to her, Ishtar seems to be the best alternative,” Sirius added.
Bryn’s eyebrows arched. “Are you entirely certain we’re capable of containing Ishtar’s magic? And will she work with you? She seems to have her own aspirations. Namely, freedom.”
“She will come with me,” Marduk said firmly. “She knows me, and when we were trapped in those caves, she was starting to listen to me.”
Tormund exchanged a glance with Bryn. “Is this before or after she set off a cataclysmic chain reaction among all the volcanoes down the east coast of the continent?”
Marduk turned toward the north. “She will come. Get your things. We need to find her before the Keepers do.”
Flying over the countryside was so much better than riding a horse—though it had cost him a handful of coin to have them stabled.
Tormund whooped and bellowed as Sirius wove between clouds, challenging Bryn and Marduk to a race. Bryn shook her head at him.
“Were you dropped on your head as a child?” she yelled.
He grinned, holding on to the strap that was secured around Sirius’s body. “Why not enjoy it, love? You never know when it will be your last chance to ride a dreki.”
“I thought you were afraid of heights!”
His gut dropped. “You had to mention it, didn’t you?”
Bryn turned into the wind, her face devoid of expression. Then she shook her head, a smile escaping her. “You’re a fool. Race you to the mountain!”
She leaned forward as Marduk banked and dove down, his wings flat against his side. Her red braid whipped behind her, a
nd her cloak tore itself free in the downdraft.
“Did you hear that?” he yelled down to Sirius.
Sirius banked and began to plummet. “I have ears, you idiot.”
The words sounded as though they came directly from the dreki’s mortal mouth.
Tormund reached out, snatching Bryn’s cloak out of the air. He could barely breathe, his hair whipping in his face and his heart racing. If he died tomorrow, then he would never regret this moment.
And if he lived…. Well, he’d never forget it.
They dropped like a stone, Sirius’s greater weight swiftly catching up to Marduk’s. Down and down, with the mountain’s sheer sides growing larger.
Sirius knew what he was doing. He’d shattered enemies with a single storm and battled through the darkest nights. He’d been flying for well over a century surely. He definitely wouldn’t hurl himself directly into the mountain—
Tormund’s yell of glory was just about to turn into a scream when the enormous black dreki abruptly banked and soared along the sides of the cliff. Sparks raked off the stone, as though the Blackfrost was running his claws along its sides, and Tormund swore he could hear the bastard laughing in his head.
By the time they landed on a rocky outcrop that hovered above a beech forest, Tormund was fairly certain his stomach was several miles behind them. He fell from the dreki’s back, landing on hands and knees on the blessed, sweet soil.
“Mother of Jesus,” he whispered, bending low to kiss it.
“What’s wrong?” Sirius purred, shimmering back into mortal shape. “You look a little pale, friend Tormund.”
“You could have warned me!”
Sirius gave him a perplexed look. “Warned you about what?” His expression suddenly lightened. “Did you think I was going to slam into the cliffs? Foolish mortal. I rule the skies. And I wasn’t about to let that puny princeling beat me.”
“Not. Funny. I nearly shat my trousers.”
Sirius was still snickering as Bryn alighted with Marduk.
Grinning at him madly, she slung her leg over Marduk’s withers and slipped down his scaled side. “That was wonderful. Are you all right? I thought I heard a little girl screaming, but it seems to have stopped.”
“I hate you all.” He staggered to his feet, offering her the cloak that was clenched between his fingers in a grip that might need to be pried open. “None of you are even remotely amusing.” He pointed a finger at Sirius. “Friends do not scare the devil out of friends.”
“If you’d trusted me, then you wouldn’t have been scared,” the enormous dreki warrior said with a shrug. “As if I was going to end my life as a mere stain upon the stones. I’m the Blackfrost.”
“Quiet.” Marduk suddenly held up a hand, walking toward the edge of the cliff, wearing naught more than the trousers he’d hastily hauled on. “I can hear Ishtar’s song.” His face brightened. “I couldn’t sense her for a while, but now she’s back on this mortal plane.”
“Where the hell is she going when she passes through her portals?” Tormund muttered.
“We don’t know,” Marduk replied. “There are other realms out there, and some of them can be reached by the portals in the Hall of Mirrors at the Zini court. Since those portals were created by Chaos-wielders, she may be able to slip into other realms, and time moves differently there. Or… I don’t truly know. Portal magic wasn’t something I paid a great deal of attention to when I was younger.”
“Unless it wore a skirt, you didn’t pay much attention to anything,” Sirius said.
“I thought you were too busy murdering dreki to know what I was or wasn’t doing as a kit.”
Sirius bared his teeth, but Tormund clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Ishtar. Let’s focus on Ishtar. Where is she?”
Marduk concentrated, his head turning slowly to the mountain. “Up there, I think. It’s more of a generalized location, rather than a pinpoint.”
“Let’s move,” Sirius said. “And be prepared for anything. Her magic is unpredictable.”
“Besides, those Keepers have been on her trail ever since we left Kamchatka,” Marduk muttered. “They’re still out there somewhere.”
They slipped down the hillside and crossed a river.
Marduk abruptly froze. “I can smell those cursed Keepers. They’re close.”
Sirius looked up at the slopes of the mountain ahead of them. “This way. She’s gone up the cliff face.”
Tormund craned his neck. “She climbed that? That frail young woman?”
“Dreki,” Marduk corrected.
His balls tried to shrink into his abdomen. Nope. That was a nope. “Have I ever mentioned my distaste for heights?”
“Frequently,” Bryn said.
“All the time.” This from Sirius.
Marduk looked between them, and then shrugged. “Once or twice.”
“I’ll take to the skies and see if I can spot her,” Sirius said, transforming. He launched into the skies with a thrust of his wide black wings.
Tormund swallowed as Marduk set himself into the climb, finding handholds in the sheer rock and hauling himself up. It seemed odd that Ishtar had climbed the cliff. He and Bryn had been tracking her for days, and whenever she’d encountered a physical obstacle like this, her tracks simply vanished—found several miles to the west perhaps, or in the middle of a forest.
The princess was no fool.
She’d managed to stay ahead of the Keepers, after all, and they were legendary trackers according to Marduk.
What was it about this mountain that had drawn her to it?
He looked up at the stark cliffs. High in the sky a flicker of wings disappeared into a cloud bank. Sirius, prowling the night like an overgrown bat.
“If she’s on that mountain, then she’ll stand out like a signal fire,” he muttered, under his breath.
Bryn set her foot on a piece of rock, and chills broke out down his back.
“I don’t think I can do this,” he admitted.
“You rode a dreki, Tormund.”
“I know. But that’s different.” Marduk crawled up the cliff face as though he was part lizard. “I don’t know how to explain it. When I’m on Sirius’s back, I’m strapped to him, and if I go down, he goes down.” He looked up, his gut twisting in a huge knot. “There was this time in Sweden when we were hunting a dragon and I had to climb a mountain. I couldn’t do it. I knew Haakon and the others were ahead of me, waiting for me to join them, but my body just froze. Haakon had to slay the dragon by himself, then come back and rescue me.”
Bryn stepped down from the ledge, her hand resting on his forearm. “I’ll be beside you.”
He shook his head, backing away. “I’ll only slow you down. There. There’s a small track over there,” he said, pointing to the right. “You follow Marduk. I’ll… try and join you.”
“Tormund—"
An icy sweat dripped down his spine as a sudden gust of wind nearly blew them off the plateau. “Just go. Marduk will need help with Ishtar, and if those Keepers are up there, he’ll need a sword at his side. I’ll find you. I promise.”
Bryn stared at him for a long time, then stepped closer and kissed him. “Don’t get yourself hurt.” Then she turned back to the cliff. “And yell if you need us. Marduk can send Sirius back down.”
He watched her crawl up the cliff, the strong muscles in her thighs bunching as she swiftly followed Marduk. The sight made him feel sick—and perhaps if Sirius hadn’t dropped from the skies like that, he might be in better condition to attempt it.
No point dwelling on it.
He watched until Bryn had cleared the first part of the escarpment, then looked across a narrow ravine, eyeing the curve in the track. If he got a run up, he should make it. Backing up, he resettled the axe. Blowing into his cupped hands, he stared across the—
A flutter of movement caught his eye.
Tormund froze as a pale-faced figure dashed through the long grass below and into the forest.
&nbs
p; And then he blinked.
The princess had doubled back on her tracks and was now heading in the opposite direction. She’d never intended to take the bare, rocky mountain paths after all.
“Mother of dragons,” he hissed, glancing up.
There was no sign of either of the dreki, nor of Bryn. And no means of contacting them without also alerting the Keepers.
“Bryn?” he tried to call softly.
Sirius had made contact with him mind-to-mind, but Tormund had no means of reaching out.
“Bryn?” he half yelled. His voice echoed through the ravine, and he winced. Hopefully Sirius was in a position to see him.
Lose Ishtar?
Or follow her?
“Fuck,” he cursed, ripping a shirt from his pack and tying it around a branch so Bryn would be able to track him. “Run into a dark forest, Tormund. Follow a magical dreki princess who doesn’t want to be caught. All alone.”
That sounded exactly like something he would do.
Where the hell was Haakon when you needed to blame him for a rash decision?
Sirius soared around the top of the mountain, craning his neck to see below. Mist obscured the lower flanks of the mountains, but he caught a glimpse of Marduk and Bryn following Ishtar’s path.
Where the hell was Tormund?
He dipped down, riding a thermal.
There was no sign of the Keepers. No sign of Ishtar.
And why would she be climbing this particular mountain anyway?
He closed his eyes, opening up the Third Eye that allowed him to see Beyond the mortal plane.
There were five flaring hearts of gold throbbing in the skies ahead of him.
Dreki.
Sirius roared a challenge and saw Marduk’s head snap up. Then he was wheeling toward the intruders, cutting through the clouds like a scythe.
The lithe black female in front soared forward to meet him, her cohort hanging back.
He recognized her immediately, and this time it wasn’t merely rage that made his heart squeeze in his chest. “I thought I told you I would kill you if you followed us,” he sent, circling his mother.