The Burning Sea

by A. E. Rayne

  One day, he would kill her.

  Aleksander’s eyes widened as he squinted at the huge castle in the distance. It was larger than anything he’d ever seen.

  Haaron’s palace of stone. Lothar’s longed for prize.

  And now, there was Lothar, bumbling up ahead behind Haaron’s horse like a pathetic, drenched slave. An utter failure.

  And they’d saved him.

  Aleksander turned to Gant. ‘What has he been plotting, do you think?’

  Gant rolled his eyes, shaking his damp hair out of them. It had mercifully stopped raining, and now they were all starting to steam in their cumbersome battle gear. He fingered his empty scabbard, anxious about his sword which had been confiscated with the rest of their men’s weapons. ‘Something for himself, no doubt,’ he muttered. ‘Whatever deal he reaches with Haaron, it will benefit him alone, of that I’m sure. But the rest of us? Or the Islanders?’ he sighed. ‘I doubt there will be much thought for anyone else.’

  Axl groaned on his left. His blisters had burst, and the pain in his feet was unbearable; his wet boots rubbing away at the open wounds as he walked. Still, he wasn’t seriously injured as some of their men were, and he was clear-headed enough to be grateful for that.

  ‘And as for you,’ Aleksander whispered firmly, turning to Axl. ‘The best thing you can do is nothing. However Lothar and Haaron plan to tie you up in this mess, you had better keep your mouth shut. Leave it to your sister to try and sort it out.’

  Axl frowned but didn’t argue. He had a bad feeling about all of it. His feet throbbed and his chest tightened as they followed Haaron down the hill towards the castle.

  ‘I...’ Eydis started, then stopped, stroking the cat, uncertain. ‘I keep seeing my father’s face,’ she lied quietly. ‘It is hard.’

  Amma hurried to sit beside Eydis, wrapping her arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said sympathetically. ‘When my mother died, I did not think I would ever stop seeing her death. It hurt so much, but one day I remember thinking that I had not cried for some time, and I realised that my heart had begun to heal,’ she sighed. ‘But that doesn’t mean I do not think of her and cry often. I do, especially now. It just means that the pain becomes less raw. Time makes it so.’

  Eydis could feel tears building. She had not wanted to speak of her father’s death again. She just wanted to hide away from it and pretend it had not happened until Jael and Eadmund returned.

  If they did.

  ‘My mother died when I was five-years-old,’ Eydis said slowly. ‘She had seen her death coming. She knew that she would not survive the birth of my brother. She knew that he would not survive either, so there was time to say goodbye, to prepare things.’ Eydis blinked away the tears that filled her eyes. ‘And with my father... we knew as well that it would happen. But not when, and not how,’ she sniffed. ‘I was so busy trying to find out how to stop it that I didn’t think about saying goodbye.’ She started sobbing, unable to stop, forgetting all that she had just seen, burying it away beneath her own pain.

  Amma pulled Eydis into her arms, tears rolling down her cheeks as she pictured her mother, missing her so desperately. She doubted she would feel any such grief if her father were to fall in battle.

  ‘Your brother seems an angry sort of man,’ Jael smiled at the jiggling Berard. She frowned. ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘I can’t feel my arse,’ he shuddered. ‘Or my hands.’

  ‘Well, then, how about we untie you for a while?’ Jael suggested, nodding at Klaufi, who stood nearby. ‘Help me remove these ropes,’ she said gently, deciding that someone like Berard would respond more helpfully to a kinder tone.

  Berard looked surprised as the ropes around his hands dropped to the ground.

  ‘Here,’ Jael said, grabbing his arm. ‘Stand up, let some feeling come back into your body.’

  Berard’s legs were still tied to the chair, so he could barely balance, but Jael held onto him. He was smaller than her, and light. Shaking too.

  ‘You are cold?’

  He nodded. ‘A bit.’

  ‘I will find you a fur or a cloak,’ she smiled.

  ‘But not for my brother?’ he asked anxiously, his eyes darting to where Jaeger sat, his head drooping.

  ‘Your brother wants to kill me,’ Jael said. ‘He’s too busy spitting in my face to listen to anything I might say.’

  ‘Our father will be very disappointed in him,’ Berard said quickly. ‘Jaeger is worried, I’m sure. He blames himself for this.’ He nodded at the blackened shell of the hall as rain dripped down through holes in the roof; at their bloodied and burned men who sat outside, soaked through, guarded by armed Islanders. Prisoners.

  Jael frowned. They were very protective of one another.

  Good to know.

  ‘Understandable,’ she said. ‘He wants to impress the king. It’s hard to get noticed when you’re the fourth son, I imagine?’

  Berard nodded, his tongue loosened by her soft approach. ‘This was his chance. But you ruined it with all that fire.’ He shook from the memory of it. ‘Our father will be furious.’

  ‘He will.’

  ‘If he survived,’ Berard mumbled, his mind whirring. ‘You did fire the Tower.’

  ‘Well, we will hear soon, I’m sure,’ Jael said. ‘Now, why don’t you sit down and we’ll tie up your arms again and loosen your leg ropes for a while. I’ll leave you with Klaufi here. He will help you, and I’ll go and find you that fur.’ Jael smiled at Berard, who blinked over to where Jaeger had suddenly disappeared from.

  What had they done with him?

  Bayla waited, stony-faced, flanked by Irenna and Nicolene, on the wide stone steps of the castle; grizzling, impatient children milling around their feet in the light rain. She watched as Haaron’s servant hurried to help him dismount his horse.

  He looked bedraggled, she thought, her lips twisted in disgust. Old, too.

  Bayla’s eyes wandered to her two sons as they embraced their wives and children, relieved to see that they appeared unharmed, as did her own husband, who walked stiffly towards her. She could see the anxiety in his face as his eyes searched hers for answers.

  She would not give him any.

  ‘You have word?’ he croaked, reaching for her, hoping for something in return.

  Bayla noticed the Brekkans then. The filthy mess of a man, who had to be Lothar Furyck, stared towards them with curious eyes, and she relented, allowing her husband to embrace her rigid body. ‘They sent Eilo. He waits for you inside,’ she said icily, her eyes barely resting on his. ‘Skorro has fallen. Our sons live. Prisoners of the new King and Queen of Oss.’

  Haaron couldn’t decide what to think about that. He looked towards his sons, but they were too busy with their own families to notice him at all. He turned away from Bayla’s judgemental eyes and walked into the castle, but he could feel them, the cold threat in them, as they followed him every step of the way.

  Those eyes would give him no room to manoeuvre, he sighed to himself.

  Jaeger was making things difficult. Thorgils had slapped him across the face more than once, but Jaeger was still fighting him as Thorgils dragged him towards an ashy pit which had become a temporary latrine.

  ‘What do you think you can do if you get away from me, arse? When you can’t even stand?’ Thorgils growled, eye to eye with the raging bear that was Jaeger Dragos. ‘Swim back to your mother?’ Jaeger pulled against Thorgils, who glared angrily at Fyn. ‘Do you plan on helping me at all, Fyn Gallas?’

  Jaeger stopped all of a sudden, stumbling, his eyes darting to the boyish-looking man long enough for Thorgils to get a better grip on him, but it did not last long as Jaeger twisted and turned himself away from Thorgils again, elbowing Fyn in the eye.

  ‘Need some help there?’ Eadmund wondered, one eyebrow raised in their direction.

  ‘No,’ Thorgils grumbled, punching Jaeger in the stomach, and grabbing one side of him, while Fyn hung on to the other. ‘We have everything
under control, don’t we?’

  Fyn nodded unconvincingly, one eye closed, as he hurried after Thorgils, clinging onto Jaeger.

  ‘But I think next time he can just piss himself!’ Thorgils called over his shoulder. ‘He’s far too much trouble, this one. Perhaps we should just toss him into the sea? We only need one brother, don’t we?’

  Eadmund couldn’t help but smile, as miserable as he felt. ‘I think we’ll keep him, if you don’t mind! Once you’re done, make sure you tie him tightly to his chair, then go find some more ale,’ he sighed. ‘Get him to tell you where the rest of their stores are and he can have a cup too.’

  Thorgils nodded, liking the sound of that, and shunted Jaeger towards the pit, muttering threateningly in his ear.

  Eadmund turned, deciding to look for Jael who had left to inspect the ships with Beorn. Instead, he saw Ivaar standing in the burned-out hole where the gates had once stood.

  Ivaar hesitated, then stepped into the fort, walking straight towards his brother. He was not about to be cowed by Eadmund, or his wife, no matter what Hassi had said. The throne should be his, and he was never going to take it back by being weak in the face of threat.

  Eadmund’s hands trembled with rage as he stopped, watching his brother, remembering his father’s death; his eyes pleading for help, in shock, pain, then so quickly glazing over, lifeless. His heart thudded in his ears as he lunged at Ivaar, grabbing him by the throat.

  Ivaar barely flinched, defying his brother’s rage as it burned all over him. He jutted out his chin, clenching his jaw. ‘You want to kill me, Brother?’ he laughed. ‘Go ahead, but know that you will be a king who killed an innocent man. Hardly the sort of king our father would have hoped for.’

  Eadmund’s eyes were mere slits. His breath pumped urgently through his nostrils; his mind filled with an almost uncontrollable thirst for revenge. He had waited so long to destroy his brother...

  The man who had killed the people he loved most in the world.

  He squeezed tighter and tighter, his filthy fingers digging into skin, Ivaar’s eyes bulging, his hands flapping at his side as he struggled to breathe. Eadmund suddenly caught sight of Jael, frozen at the entrance to the fort, her mouth open as she watched him. His eyes flicked back to Ivaar, whose pulse he could feel quickening beneath his fingers.

  Eadmund closed his eyes and shoved his brother away, shaking all over, unable to speak. He stormed towards his wife, grabbing her arm.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  29

  ‘Hmmm,’ Entorp murmured, shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t know it.’

  They stood around his small table, staring at the scrap of vellum that was puzzling them all.

  Edela had tried to replicate the symbol she had seen in her dream. She frowned, not satisfied with her effort. ‘It is not quite right. Let me try again.’ Closing her eyes, she tried to slip back into her dream, to where Evaine had wrapped herself around Eadmund, and the symbol had entwined itself around them both. Opening her eyes, she took up Entorp’s quill, dipped it into the ink pot and began scratching again.

  Standing back, Edela wrinkled her nose, unconvinced.

  ‘No, I’m afraid I do not know it, Edela,’ Entorp said thoughtfully. He wandered over to a battered wooden chest, and kneeling, creaked open the lid, rummaging through loose pieces of vellum and books that had been haphazardly stuffed inside over the years. His memory, Entorp knew, was generally poor, so he liked to keep notes of everything he discovered; records of all his experiments. Although, he conceded, it was probably time to build another chest.

  ‘Here!’ he announced, at last, pulling out a faded leather notebook and creaking back to his feet. ‘This is my book of symbols. All that I know about them is in here.’ He placed the notebook on the table and started thumbing through its pages. It was not a large book, however, and it took no real time to look through it.

  ‘It’s not there,’ Biddy stated rather obviously.

  ‘No,’ Edela sighed. ‘No, it’s not. But I know it was in that book from Tuura. If only I could remember it properly.’

  ‘And what was this book?’ Entorp wondered.

  ‘It was a book of dark magic. Ways to stop it. To ward yourself against it.’

  ‘Then what Evaine is doing to Eadmund is certainly dark magic,’ Biddy breathed, worried. ‘He is under her control.’

  Entorp looked just as worried as Biddy. ‘Yes, it sounds likely, for that symbol looks like nothing I have seen before. You just need to find a way back into your memory, Edela, to see that book again, to find the symbol.’

  ‘If only it were that simple...’

  ‘Well, I do have a salve that might help with that,’ Entorp smiled with a twinkle in his eye. ‘It has always worked for me.’

  ‘Has it?’ Edela looked surprised and suddenly, very hopeful.

  Eadmund clamped his teeth together, trying not to scream.

  ‘You can’t kill him now,’ Jael insisted firmly. ‘It’s the wrong time, the wrong place. It would breed bad feelings amongst the men. We don’t need that. Not now, when they are full of victory and hope. Our minds have to stay focused on what happens next with Haaron and Lothar, not creating tension that we can leave for another time.’ She grabbed her husband’s arm, glaring at him, trying to break through his anger. ‘Taking Skorro has shown all the Islanders that we are worth believing in, especially the lords. Killing Ivaar now would undo all of that.’

  Eadmund shook her off and walked over the rocks, down to the water. Of course, she was right, he could see that. But Ivaar was here. Ivaar the Murderer was here. Now. It would be easy to end him.

  Why was she so determined to let him go?

  Jael followed him, not willing to leave things like this; leave him like this. ‘Eadmund, I know how much you want to kill Ivaar. And if he killed Eirik, he should die.’

  ‘If?’ Eadmund seethed, his teeth bared as he turned on her.

  ‘It’s always an if unless you have proof,’ Jael insisted. ‘And so far there is none. He says he didn’t. And you say he did. There is no proof in that, either way.’

  ‘You don’t even think he killed Melaena!’ Eadmund cried. ‘Why? Why are you always so quick to believe him?’

  Jael wasn’t sure. She didn’t like Ivaar, but she liked to think she could read people; that she could separate a lie from the truth. It was a game she would play with Aleksander when they were children; guessing which stories were lies, which were true. They would rope everyone in to play: Edela, Axl, Gisila, even Gant and her father, and she was never wrong. Not even once.

  The drizzle was turning back into rain as they stood there, damp and cold. ‘I want to believe that Ivaar did it,’ Jael insisted. ‘That he killed Melaena and your father. It would be easier that way, wouldn’t it? To make him guilty. To know that there wasn’t someone else out there murdering people. But I don’t believe he killed Melaena. He loved her too much. And I’m not sure he killed your father either,’ she said slowly. ‘Ivaar is clever. It makes no sense to murder Eirik like that, in front of everyone, knowing that he would be blamed.’ She looked away, out into the murky afternoon as the white-capped waves started building in the breeze. ‘Ivaar is clever,’ she said again, almost to herself. ‘Why would he do something so foolish?’

  ‘And if it wasn’t Ivaar?’ Eadmund growled, barely wanting to admit that she might be right. ‘Then who did it? Who killed my father?’

  Lothar wanted to sink onto the stone steps and die. His weak, worn bones could barely hold up his aching, sagging skin as he stood there, waiting with his men, abandoned by all the Dragos’ who had disappeared inside their monstrous castle to discover the fate of Skorro.

  He sighed and simply gave up, collapsing onto the nearest step, not caring whether it looked royal or not.

  ‘Father?’ Osbert limped towards him, sitting down with a grimace. ‘What’s happened?’

  Lothar grimaced back. ‘What’s happened is that I’m fed up with standing, so I am sitting. Is
that not obvious, boy?!’ He turned to his only son in a burst of exhausted fury. ‘It has hardly been the best few days. I can’t even remember when I last ate!’

  Osbert’s head drooped. It was hard to disagree with that. But then again, he supposed, they had earned their punishment for such a weak display against Haaron’s army. When he was king... he rolled that thought around his aching head, inhaling the evil stench of his father, and himself, for that matter; soiled and filthy, riddled with blood-crusted wounds, damp and disgusting as they sat there, discarded by the victors.

  Oh, how he prayed to Furia that Jael had survived to restore their reputations.

  Irenna was sobbing, comforted by Nicolene, worried that her father had drowned along with most of his Siluran fleet.

  Haaron kept glaring at her, his right eye twitching in irritation. ‘Perhaps you need to take your wife away?’ he muttered to Haegen.

  Bayla rolled her eyes, cringing at the sound of her husband’s hissing voice; it had been a pleasant few days without him. ‘Let her cry. We need to talk about Jaeger and Berard.’

  Haegen glanced at his wife, guilty that her father might have drowned helping defend his father’s island. ‘Mother’s right. We need to think about how to negotiate with Jael Furyck.’

  Karsten glared at Haegen. ‘What? Negotiate? With her?’

  ‘Well, who else do you think we should be negotiating with?’ Bayla spat.

  ‘I’m suggesting that we don’t negotiate at all, Mother!’ Karsten growled. ‘Hest comes before family. Jaeger and Berard know that. And since they failed to defend Skorro and lost most of our fleet, they would certainly see it as a fair punishment.’

  ‘What?’ Bayla and Haegen were united in outrage.

  ‘How can you suggest such a thing?’ Bayla barked. ‘Your own brothers!’

  ‘We need to find out what they want,’ Haaron said evenly, ignoring his entire family. ‘They have the island. They have a large fleet. We don’t. Not anymore. Perhaps they have more of that fire liquid? We need to tell them that we have the Furycks,’ he sighed, as irritated as Karsten at the thought of having to negotiate. ‘But whether Jael Furyck is going to be enticed by the idea of saving her brother or her pathetic uncle, I don’t know.’