Fire and Lies

by Angela Chrysler

  He didn’t look back as she hurried down the steps like her feet couldn’t beat the flood of tears that would come.

  Rune drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

  “There’s going to be a lot of crying around here the next few days,” he muttered and pushed open the doors of Kallan’s quarters.

  The sitting room was empty. Rune gazed at the rain that streaked the blues and greens of the solar glass windows and shuffled his way to the bedroom door Torunn had left open. Staring blankly out the window with tear-glazed eyes, Kallan sat with her arms tightly wrapped around herself.

  Torunn had bathed and dressed her, and had the sense to slip her into a plain chemise and dressing gown. A single bare toe peeked out from beneath the hem. An untouched cup of steamed herbs waited on the small table beside her.

  Rune’s chair scraped the stone as he pulled it around and seated himself across from Kallan. Casually, Kallan tilted her head to better see him and caught a line of gold encircling the vibrant blue of each eye. In a constant stream of falling tears, Kallan sat rigid and silent.

  “Kallan.”

  The rain splattered the keep, the courtyard, the stone window frame and Kallan stared and watched the rains as if the skies cried with her.

  “I saw the water falling high from the face of the mountain. But Lorlenalin was gone. The mountainside was bare.” Her voice was hoarse from screaming. “I saw my father, but I didn’t know him…and I didn’t care.”

  Rune sat quietly as he watched a fresh tear slip down Kallan’s face and she lowered her eyes to her fingers.

  “What’s happening to me, Rune?”

  Rune shook his head and gently replied, “I don’t know.”

  “Where is Daggon?” She raised her face to Rune’s as another tear spilled down her cheek.

  “I don’t know.”

  Without an answer, Kallan looked back to the window and sighed as her tears continued to fall.

  “Kallan.”

  The courtyard seemed quieter. A dog barked.

  “I can’t save them,” she whispered. “Not father, not Daggon… Not the children. Or Kovit.”

  Kallan’s voiced cracked and she studied her hands again.

  Rune resisted the urge to ask who Kovit was.

  “Not Gudrun,” Kallan muttered.

  “Your people need you, Kallan.”

  “I’ve lost my people,” she said, raising her eyes to Rune’s. “My city…”

  She heaved a deep sigh that left her exhaustion visible.

  “Kallan, you must sleep.”

  She shook her head and looked back to the window.

  “I can’t,” she said. “The images…too many pictures… It won’t stop. When I close my eyes, I see the girl, the blood… So much blood. I couldn’t save her either.”

  Slipping his hand into Kallan’s, Rune pulled Kallan to her feet with him. He could feel the burden bearing down on her.

  “Come,” he said.

  Too weary to battle Rune any longer, Kallan followed him to the bed. There, he passed her the cup of steamed herbs Torunn had left out for her. He distinctly smelled valerian root and something strangely aromatic rise out of the cup.

  He waited, ensuring she took every drop, then guided her down to the bed, surprised that she obeyed. Holding tightly to her hand, he worked to pull the furs over her with his free hand.

  “Rune?”

  “Yes, Kallan?”

  “Please stay with me.”

  Still clutching his hand, Kallan released a long sigh and closed her eyes. At the side of her bed, Rune stayed, watching until at last sleep took her.

  Silence permeated the keep. From across her chamber, the fire crackled and Kallan rolled onto her back, absorbing the ache from her neck, through her spine, down to her legs.

  She listened to the soft patter of rain steadily falling through the black sky outside as she laid there, devoid of thought. The hole in her chest was raw from the pain, but, for the first time since leaving Gunir, she could breathe with ease again.

  She dared turn her thoughts toward Gudrun and winced against the chasm throbbing inside her chest. The unbearable stab had finally dulled to a muted ache she could live with and Kallan released a loud, long sigh as she cocked her head to the window.

  The images were still constant, though less intrusive now. She tried again to sort through the pictures, to find an individual face or pull out a single, comprehensible word from the millions. The cluttered jargon was still indecisive and Kallan shoved the attempt aside. The images were tolerable now that they seemed subdued, and she wondered if she was simply getting used to them.

  Forcing herself to her feet, Kallan swung her legs over the side of the bed and welcomed the pain of moving. She paused as a wave of sorrow encompassed her and left her obtusely aware of how deep the emptiness penetrated. At once, she longed to fill it.

  Without apprehension, her thoughts shifted to Rune and decided, despite the late hour, to find him. Leaving her shoes, Kallan closed the door of her bower behind her.

  Only the light of the waning moon lit the hall as she walked to Rune’s chambers. With a natural ease, she slid into his room and softly pulled the door behind her. Her back stiffened, alert at the sudden scent of wood and earth engulfing her. For a moment, she forgot what she was doing and gave a slight shake of her head, willing her legs to move across the empty sitting room toward the bedchamber.

  The crackling fire was the only life in his room. She paused as she looked at his boots left carelessly on the floor, his shirt thrown over the back of a chair, and an empty flagon of mead left on the side table next to his pipe.

  Her chest burned and the urge to find him pulled her toward the back of the room to the door. In an instant, she knew where he was and proceeded to the war room on the other side of the landing separating the war room from his bower. The warm light poured from beneath the door, giving little light to the passage between his chambers.

  Without hesitation, she opened the door and, in spite of her grief, a minute grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. Alone, Rune sat slumped in his chair. Still clutching a mead in one hand, he had rested his head onto his arms on the table. The hearth fire spit and popped behind him, casting an orange glow about the room. He had left the single candle to burn low and pool wax into the cracks of the grain. Thunder gently rolled a great distance off and joined the metallic spatter of the rains.

  Gathering her skirts, Kallan quietly glided across the floor. The soft pat of her bare feet grazed each cold step.

  “Rune,” she said quietly.

  Her voice was enough to stir him, and only then did she realize he hadn’t been sleeping at all.

  “You’re awake,” he said, sitting upright and releasing his mead.

  She watched as he leaned back in his chair, stretching his spine before exhaling and looking at her to assess her overall composure.

  “How are you?” he asked after taking the time to follow her hair down to her waist and back again to her feet.

  “Better,” she said. Her heart pounded hard in her chest. “The tea…” she tried to ask casually, uncertain of what to say.

  “Valerian mixed with something Bergen brought back from Râ-Kedet. Not sure what it is, but it does it well.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Asleep.”

  Kallan nodded, biting the bottom corner of her lip.

  “Are the images still there?”

  Kallan listened to the drumming of the rain and countless more pictures flashed by with incoherent jargon.

  “Always,” she said, wishing them gone once more.

  The sharp smell of the fire's smoke mingled with the sweet scent of the rain as it wafted in, carried on the wind, then dissipated once more and left the rains to gently patter in tune to the crackling hearth.

  “We ride at dawn,” Rune reminded her suddenly, uncertain if she even knew the plans. “I can have Torunn brew you more tea if you’d like and—”

  “Ru
ne?”

  She spoke his name with a prick of fear and, at once, he realized how soft and clear her voice had always been.

  “If you win this, where am I to go?”

  Her question filled the high ceiling, leaving behind a worry that weighted down the air and filled Rune with the same dread he had meant to avoid indefinitely.

  “I imagine you’ll go back to Lorlenalin,” he said.

  Kallan flicked her eyes down for a second while composing her follow up question.

  “And if I win?”

  Rune’s insides wrenched at the unknown.

  “I always assumed you’d just kill me when the opportunity presented itself.” Rune shrugged. Her hair fell like ringlets down her front, where his eyes lingered on the collar of her dressing gown. “I guess you could put me back in your cell. Every now and then, you can come down and use me for target practice or fire up your Seidr a—”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  Rune stared into the ring of gold that strangely encircled the blue in her eyes. An arm’s length away, Kallan stood as he waited for her to falter, to weaken. Instead, she stood plainly before him, finally strong enough to stand, stripped of her inhibitions as she stared hard into him.

  The look in her eyes was enough to encourage him.

  Rune flew from his chair and was on her. Desperate to lose himself in her, he took her face into his hands and kissed her hard. Inhaling sharply, he breathed deep her perfumes then stopped as the Shadow Beast awakened and rose its curious head.

  Slowly, Rune pulled back, leaving Kallan unsated, unkissed, unrumpled in his arms as he rested his hands on her shoulders.

  “This thing,” Rune said, unsure of what it would do.

  Kallan shook her head. “I don’t care.”

  She curled her fingers into his back as if refusing to let go. Her encouragement was all he needed.

  “Faen it!‎” Rune said, and again, he dove back on her, this time without worry or concern for the forethought that had haunted him since Jotunheim. Sliding his hand through her hair, he held her in place as he drank his fill. She returned with matching eagerness and shoved him hard into the table, which only riled him further. Holding her waist, Rune was on her and guiding her toward the door back to his chambers, his mouth never leaving hers as she dug and pulled at him.

  They hit the door hard as Kallan sank into his mouth. At every move, she welcomed his advances. When he dared pull back, Kallan tightened her grip, denying him the chance to release her. At the door, Rune fumbled with the handle. A slight nip on her neck gave him the chance to open the door before she retaliated with a set of nails digging into his back.

  The door swung open and, reclaiming his mouth, Kallan pulled Rune across the landing. A moment later, he slammed his hands into the wall, bracing himself up over Kallan as he let her fumble with the handle this time. The door swung open and, still pawing at each other, they eagerly pushed into Rune’s bower. Determined to see the night through, Rune kicked the door closed behind them.

  Rune stretched the length of his bed and opened his eyes to the dark of his room. Outside, the sun had not yet risen, but the first of the birds had started to sing. He rolled onto his side and glanced down at Kallan. She snoozed quite peaceably on her belly. An arm hung relaxed over the side of his bed and her hair pooled down her back, over his pillows, and down the side of his bed.

  Taking care not to wake her, Rune lightly brushed Kallan’s cheek with his lips. He quietly slipped from the bed and began shuffling through their clothes scattered about the room. As he found his, he threw what else he found on the trunk at the foot of his bed where he quietly set his boots.

  “Do you really think you’d sneak off without my knowing?”

  Her eyes still closed, Kallan lay. Rune pulled up his trousers and fastened them.

  “I figured it was worth a shot,” he said, casting a satisfied grin over his shoulder at the disarray that was Kallan. Taking a seat on the trunk, he pulled on his boots.

  A moment later, he returned to the bed and Kallan. Brushing her arm, he added a soft kiss to her brow and brushed back one of her long locks from her eyes.

  “It’s nearly dawn,” he muttered. “Battle will soon be upon us.”

  Without a word, Kallan rolled to her back and gazed up at him while he took up the charm around her neck and turned it over once, then he gently returned it to the crook of her neck and stared, in awe of the golden rims that encircled the blue around her pupils. The rings glowed, undeniably visible in the early morning blues, and had grown noticeably wider overnight.

  “My senses haven’t deceived me,” Rune whispered, studying the intricate rings of each eye. “The color is changing.”

  Kallan furrowed her brow and, inhaling, looked to the first rays of sun. Like a silent eruption, the sun struck the sky, pouring its lights over the endless stretch of rolling black clouds streaked with shadow and filling the heavens with a sea of red as if the sun itself ignited it with flowing lava.

  “Rune?”

  Caught up in the sunrise, Rune gazed down at Kallan, who slipped her fingers into Rune’s just as the door of his chamber flew open and Kallan vanished beneath the blankets and furs with a squeak.

  “Rune!” Bergen bellowed with his hand still on the door’s handle. “We’re ready!”

  He stopped long enough to spot the lump in Rune’s bed and grinned widely as only Bergen could.

  “Finally!” Bergen exploded with a magnificent gruffness through his grin. “Was it worth the wait?”

  “Status!” Rune barked, pulling a tunic on over his head.

  “Roald and Thorold wait with their men,” Bergen said. “Nineteen thousand wait ready to ride.”

  “I’m on my way,” Rune replied, fastening his belt.

  Bergen gave a nod and grinned once more at the lump.

  “Hey, Kallan,” he greeted.

  A tiny hand poked from beneath the furs and waved ‘hello’ in response.

  “We’ll ride in ten,” Rune said as he unsheathed a dagger and inspected the blade.

  The furs of the bed flew down and revealed Kallan’s disheveled head.

  “I’ll be ready in five.”

  Scrambling, she tugged the furs around her.

  “We’ll be gone by then,” Rune said.

  “Bergen,” Kallan pleaded, snapping her head to Bergen for aid.

  “I’m gone,” he said, cutting her off while he still could and added, “See you down there, Rune,” before closing door behind him.

  Rune shoved the dagger into its sheath on his belt and took up his bow and quiver beside the bedside table.

  “You can’t fight your own kin,” Rune said sternly. “And I’m not about to let you fight mine.”

  Rune secured the quiver to his belt with his dagger. Taking up his bow, he came to stand beside the trunk at the foot of his bed and collected the pile of clothes resting there.

  “We have no use for someone who stands neutral,” he concluded.

  “There is still a chance I can stop this,” Kallan said, kneeling on the bed.

  Rune shook his head. Expecting this tirade from her, he had prepared for it.

  “You saw where this could end,” Rune argued and admired the inflection her nostrils gave when they flared. “Aaric’s unpredictable and, at the moment, he holds your throne.”

  “I’ll take it back from him,” Kallan said.

  “Will you? Because it may come down to that.”

  “Those are my people, Rune. I’ll not leave them to be slaughtered.”

  Rune turned for the door.

  “I’m going with you,” she said.

  “Well, unfortunately…” Rune glanced over his shoulder as he took the handle. “…I’ve got your clothes.”

  Holding up a fist full of Kallan’s chemise and dressing gown, Rune dashed out the room, slammed the door behind him before Kallan could summon her Seidr.

  “Ruuuune!”

  In an instant, Bergen was there to meet him
with a chair they propped up against the door to secure the handle in place.

  Kallan’s screech carried through the chamber to the hall as the door rattled against a solid boom, a kick, and a shriek.

  Side by side, Bergen and Rune stood, stupidly impressed by their own ingenuity.

  “To think,” Bergen boasted, grinning, “we could have ended the war centuries ago if we had just applied this trapping technique.”

  “Ruuuune!”

  “Rune.” Bergen threw out his chest and beamed. “We just caught a Seidkona.”

  The knob remained fixed in position despite the aggressive jerking Kallan exercised on the other side. The door rattled beneath another boom and a shrill cry.

  “Are you sure this will hold her?” Bergen asked as an afterthought.

  “It held you for hours during your tantrums,” Rune reminded Bergen, who nodded at the old memory.

  The door trembled beneath what, they could only imagine, was Kallan’s Seidr as she released another screech.

  “She’s going to break my stuff,” Rune deduced. “You remembered to lock the other side?” he asked with a slight twinge of worry hanging at the end of each word.

  Bergen thought for a moment as he listened to the wood sizzle and crackle beneath the Seidr flame.

  “I did,” he answered and resumed his head bobbing.

  Kallan had just started another wave of Seidr flame on the door.

  “You know, we’re going to die the moment she gets out.”

  “Yes,” Bergen said. “But for now we are victorious! Let’s go!”

  And, eager to get the distance between them and the Seidkona, the brothers bolted for the corridor.

  “Aaric’s troops will be nearing the plains by midday,” Rune said as they rushed down the stairs. “Any word from Joren?”

  “So far, nothing, but the day is early,” Bergen said as he gleefully hopped down the stairs behind Rune, snaring a handful of dried meats from the dining tables before heading on to the stables for Zabbai.

  * * *

  “Of all the stubborn... Uskit!” Kallan muttered as she ransacked Rune’s room and rummaged for anything that could aid in her escape. She pulled out drawers and blankets, combed through the wardrobe, and shuffled eagerly through the chest at the foot of his bed, adding her own colorful entourage as she grumbled beneath her breath.