He grunts as a thin line of blood stains his torn tunic and charges at her, his face twisted with anger. Thyra backtracks quickly, blocking jab after jab, spinning and slicing whenever she’s presented with an opening. Sten doesn’t give many, but there are enough that after a few minutes of this, he’s bleeding from three different wounds. The cheers have subsided slightly as Nisse’s warriors see she will not be easily defeated. When they fled our camp over the winter, Thyra was not yet a full-status warrior. She was still in training. And she has always been a reluctant fighter. But that is not the same thing as a hesitant fighter, and the difference is critical.
Thyra has only hesitated once. I was there to do her killing for her, and so it did not matter. She doesn’t need me now, though. Her thrusts are smooth and controlled, and she looks utterly at peace, even as Sten plods heavily around the circle, glaring his hatred at her, his lips peeled back into an ugly snarl. I wonder if he realizes he is going to die soon.
I see the moment it dawns on him. He’s just made yet another stab with his spear, and Thyra swings her dagger down so hard that his spearhead hits the ground. As it does, she jumps onto the shaft, and the wicked snapping sound echoes off the tower above. Sten stumbles forward as his weapon shatters, surprise and fear flashing in his eyes before he dives at his smaller opponent. She dodges his blundering charge and drives her dagger into his shoulder as he falls. It sinks deep, drawing a strangled shout from Sten and ripping it from her grip. He hits the dirt and rolls away from her, leaving a trail of blood behind.
She does not chase him. She merely waits, calmly transferring her remaining blade to her right hand. I glance at Nisse and Jaspar; both of them wear blank expressions, giving nothing away. But the warriors around them look frustrated and shout at Sten to rise. He does, with Thyra’s dagger still protruding from just beneath his collarbone on the right side. The wound bleeds heavily—she’s hit a large blood vessel by the look of it. Just as I’m thinking it would be wise to leave it, Sten reaches up with his left hand and, with a wrenching growl, yanks the blade from his flesh.
This is a mistake. Blood spurts from the wound, and he stares at the flood with stunned surprise. He clutches at the gash as he turns his hateful gaze on Thyra again. With another broken roar enhanced by the renewed cheers from his fellow warriors, he runs at her, the bloody dagger leading the way. Instead of dodging this time, Thyra charges too, but dives to the dirt as he nears, tumbling head over tail until she lands in a crouch between Sten’s legs, her blade a blur of silver. It happens so quickly that the shouts from the crowd falter, not knowing if Sten struck or she did.
But when she jumps to her feet again and spins, the answer is clear. Sten falls to his knees. Blood flows down the inner thighs of his breeches and puddles in the dirt beneath him. He is facing Nisse and the others, who sit on their raised benches. Thyra approaches from behind as he braces himself on his palms. I watch her profile as she looks up at her uncle. I wonder if she’s thinking he could have stopped this. If she is, she doesn’t say. She merely grasps Sten’s hair and draws her blade across his throat. No glory, no challenge or boast, no offer of mercy, just lethal action. She lets Sten fall forward onto his face, and then steps back.
Nisse looks down at Elo and Flemming, Sten’s two armorers, and then at Thyra. He stands as the warriors crowded around me fall into hushed silence. Sander and I do not cheer. For some reason, it feels dangerous to do so. But I want to. She might have cast me aside, but she is so magnificent in this moment that I cannot help but love her with every shred of my body and soul.
“The chieftain has won her challenge and retains her chair,” Nisse yells.
Thyra bows, a small, weary smile on her face as she walks toward the edge of the circle, her shoulders relaxing from their taut readiness. She’s breathing hard, but she’s completely unscathed. Sten couldn’t even draw blood. I grin, so proud of her that I can barely breathe for the feeling. Jaspar catches my eye and gives me a little nod as Elo and Flemming trudge into the circle and carry Sten’s dripping body to the other side, where they lay him gently on a length of rough cloth that has been brought over by Halina and another Vasterutian, a bearded man with a shaved head and bold black eyebrows. Both of them look disgusted as they watch Elo cover Sten’s face.
Thyra reaches the edge of the circle and begins to step over the rope. Preben and Bertel offer their hands, wide smiles on their faces. Nisse holds up his arms again, a glint of strange amusement in his eyes. “And now—”
“I challenge her,” shouts Elo, his kill marks shining silver in the smoky light. He holds his ax high from his position next to his fallen comrade.
Thyra’s head jerks up, her eyes wide. “But—” Her words are drowned out as Preben, Bertel, and several of our warriors shout their protests as Nisse’s cheer. I am so stunned that I can’t find my voice. A second challenge?
“A challenge to a chieftain cannot be refused,” Nisse shouts. He gives Thyra an apologetic look. “I am sorry, Thyra. I did not anticipate my warriors’ feelings about your presence here.”
Thyra slowly steps back from the rope, retreating deeper into the circle. Without taking her gaze from her uncle, she kneels and picks up the dagger Sten ripped from his shoulder. Two slashing swipes and his blood paints the thigh of her breeches with a thick red mark. “Come then, Elo,” she says loudly, still staring at Nisse. “Just remember that once you enter this circle, there is only one way you will leave. Be certain.”
Elo sneers as he stomps into the circle without hesitation. “I was fighting better warriors before you were even born,” he says in a deep, rumbling voice. His beard is shot through with silver, and he looks to be nearly as old as Edvin, but he’s lighter of frame and his arms are roped with muscle and vein. He is an experienced killer, and he hefts his ax, a double-bladed weapon with a short, thick handle, with comfort and ease. One solid blow would be all it took to destroy his opponent, and Thyra has already had one fight tonight.
“This is unjust,” I hiss from between clenched teeth.
Sander is staring at the puddle of Sten’s blood that is being absorbed by the dirt. “There is no rule that says one challenge cannot immediately follow another.”
“But it isn’t done. This isn’t how warriors treat each other.”
“We’re on foreign ground, Ansa,” he snaps. “Nisse doesn’t have to rule the same way Lars did, and Lars didn’t give him the choice to remain in our tribe.”
“Where is our tribe?” I ask, looking around. A few waving fists mark the loyal, but there aren’t enough of them to make any difference at all. Most of the warriors around us seem hungry for this fight.
I turn back to the circle to find Thyra watching us. Can she see that I am loyal? Does she know I would never abandon her? Her gaze softens for a moment when our eyes meet, but then her bottom lip trembles and she looks away quickly. Her grip on her dagger tightens, and her face loses any expression—she has gone again, and now she’s alone in that circle. Her limbs move with a grace that makes my heart pound with want and wish. Her steps are sure as she crosses one foot over the other, circling as Elo begins to stalk her. He is vibrating with hatred, though she only did what any warrior would in responding decisively to Sten’s challenge. I don’t understand what drives him.
“You’re a conniving little thing, aren’t you?” he says to her. “Do you think we don’t know what you did?”
“What’s he talking about?” I murmur.
“No, Elo.” Thyra tilts her head. “I know you don’t know what I did.”
I look up at Sander, but his face is a mirror of my own puzzlement. And we get no explanation, because in the next moment, Thyra strikes. Her dagger reflects the flames as it arcs forward, but the blade of Elo’s ax knocks it away. And then they are a blur of metal and muscle, and Thyra has to backtrack rapidly under the strength of Elo’s blows. Her speed is her best ally as she leaps to the side, her thighs brushing the rope of the fight circle as Elo’s ax blade slashes only a few i
nches from the chests of the warriors standing just on the other side of the rope. They all shout and throw themselves back, but there is nowhere to go because the crowd is packed in so tightly between the tower and the stake-wall.
Thyra pants and quickly swipes sweat from her brow as Elo rounds on her again. He’s more strategic than Sten was, and stronger. An icy splinter of fear begins to dig its way into my stomach as she parries another attack. Her arm buckles under its ferocity, and though she dodges, his next swing slices along her left shoulder.
Elo laughs as she staggers back. “If you hold still, I’ll end this quickly.”
She regains her balance and lowers her chin, glaring at him even as blood blooms along the sleeve of her tunic. “I didn’t realize you needed a stationary target to be victorious.” Her voice is jagged with contempt, her cool melted under the heat of her pain and this disrespectful, impulsive challenge.
Elo roars at the insult and swings his ax, a blow that would sever her head—if she had remained still. But she is fast as the wind as she lunges low and ducks inside his guard. Elo grunts and his ax flies from his outstretched hand, and the warriors on the benches dive out of the way as it whirls end over end, stopping only when the blade buries itself right where Jaspar had been sitting a moment before. Nisse is the only one who didn’t move, and he merely looks down at the vibrating ax handle before raising his head to look at the warrior who challenged his niece.
Elo, like Sten before him, has fallen to his knees, and is embracing Thyra, his hands scrabbling along her back as she presses herself close. Relief nearly doubles me over as I realize what I’m seeing. Thyra’s dagger is buried deep in his gut. She is kneeling in front of him, twisting it as he makes high, choking sounds until at last she yanks the dagger out again, spilling his blood across the dirt. Her breath rushing harsh and fast from her mouth, Thyra stands as he slumps at her feet. Her left arm hangs at her side, the weapon in that hand dangling from her fingers. “There you are,” she says to Nisse in a weary, halting voice. “Surely I have proven myself now.”
Nisse sets his booted foot along the edge of Elo’s ax handle. “Impressive, Niece.” He glances at Flemming.
“Oh, heaven. He had this planned,” Sander mutters right as Flemming stabs his dagger at the sky and shouts, “I challenge her!”
“No!” I shout as fire melts the ice inside me, singeing my heart as it rises. Sander’s hand clamps over my wrist, but he pulls back an instant later, gasping and shaking off the heat.
Preben and Bertel have drawn their knives and are approaching Flemming as he moves to step into the fight circle, but Thyra’s voice cuts through the noise of the crowd, rising into the smoky night. “Stay back!” She glances over at me. “Stay back,” she says again, more quietly.
“Flemming,” Nisse says. He sounds so calm, as if this is merely a tournament instead of a fight to the death. “Are you sure?”
“She’s not fit to lead,” Flemming shouts. “She’s a betrayer and a schemer! She’s the one who should have been banished.”
“Liar,” I shout, but Thyra turns around and gives me a look so fierce my mouth snaps shut.
“I will not stoop to dignifying these pathetic insinuations,” she says in a tight voice. “Especially when it’s obvious that the truth carries no weight within these walls.”
Jaspar looks right at me and Sander as he takes his seat again, next to Elo’s ax, still buried in the wood of the bench. His blank expression only stokes the flames of my rage.
“Nisse’s told everyone that he didn’t try to poison Lars,” I say to Sander. “Are they implying that they think Thyra did it?”
Sander shrugs. “I think the bigger question is—why isn’t she denying it?”
“All of that is in the past,” Nisse says blandly to Flemming. “We found our victory even in defeat, did we not?”
His warriors shout of blood and victory as Thyra wipes Elo’s blood onto her breeches. Now there are two parallel stripes of crimson on her leg. But her hand shakes as she adopts her fighting stance again. The sight makes my throat constrict. “This has to be stopped,” I whisper. “If their enmity is truly in the past, as he says, why isn’t he stopping this?”
“What a dead clever plan,” Sander says.
“What?”
“If he had executed Thyra, or assassinated her, he could not have won the loyalty of our tribe. So he’s letting his warriors fight this battle in a way everyone must honor, because we all know and respect the basic rules of the fight circle. All he has to do is nothing, and his victory will be complete.”
“There is no honor in this!”
“Thyra is a chieftain, Ansa. Warriors can refuse a fight like this, but chieftains must defend the chair or lose it.”
I cry out as Flemming steps into the circle, his tan skin glistening with sweat. He is no taller than Thyra, but he is wiry and fierce, all sinew and strength. Like her, he has two daggers. Unlike her, he looks steady and smooth as he approaches.
And for the first time, she looks like prey. Her chest shudders and sweat drips from her chin. Her beautiful face is twisted with pain, and her left sleeve is soaked with blood. Flemming does not joke or preen, but the determined look on his face is just as bad. Heat blazes across my skin even as ice runs hard along my bones. I begin to tremble with the effort of holding them inside.
Flemming lunges, and Thyra staggers away from him. Their blades clash together, but Thyra isn’t strong enough to hold him back, and he pushes inside her guard, the tip of his blade arcing toward her throat. She kicks him in the stomach, and he huffs, his eyes wide, but he’s still able to block her next strike and shove her off balance. She stumbles over her own feet and falls onto her rear. As he advances, Thyra hurls her dagger, and it slices along his thigh as it flies past. She rolls away as he tries to stomp on her rib cage, so he stabs both of his blades down. One misses, but the other cuts along her flank, and she can’t quite stifle her scream. She stabs up with her only remaining blade and sends Flemming arching back, then blocks one of his daggers as he sends it flying at her.
Thyra heaves herself to her feet, clutching at her side. Blood flows over her trembling fingers.
“No,” I whisper.
Flemming walks toward her, unhurried, unconcerned. He doesn’t look like he’s exerting himself at all as he blocks and parries her next desperate strikes. Finally, he slams his blade against hers, and her dagger flies out of her grip. Before she can scramble for it, his fist crunches into her stomach, sending her to the ground.
She’s on her knees, right in front of the wooden benches.
“This is it,” whispers Sander, and even as Nisse’s warriors scream their satisfaction, I hear him so clearly, each word penetrating my heart. I am paralyzed with disbelief. This cannot be happening.
Thyra raises her head. She must know Flemming is behind her. She must know what comes next. “Uncle,” she says, and all go quiet. Will she ask for her life, even if it means banishment?
Ask for mercy, I silently beg. I’ll leave with her. I’ll follow anywhere she goes.
Nisse stands. “Yes?”
She lets out a pained breath and squares her shoulders. “Treat my warriors and andeners with respect after I am gone.”
Flemming grabs a handful of Thyra’s short hair and wrenches her head back, his dagger rising to cut her throat.
I cannot let this happen. I will not let this happen. As the curse bleeds through my skin, begging release, I stop trying to hold it back.
Instead, I embrace it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
All the noise of the warriors falls silent, smothered by the rush of fire and ice in my mind, the swoop of it along my bones, its roar as it invades my very soul. I am barely aware of stepping into the ring, only that suddenly the rope isn’t there anymore. Its ashes flutter in the air around me like moths.
I am the flame. It bursts from my palms as I stalk toward Flemming, who whirls around, perhaps when he feels the heat at his back. “You will
not touch her,” I say, and my voice is monstrous, teeth and claws and blades and hate made sound.
Flemming staggers away from Thyra, his arms reeling, his mouth gaping in a silent scream as I come after him, liquid fire in my veins. “Witch!” he screams.
It is the last word he ever utters. I hurl the flames, all my hurt and rage fueling an inferno that devours Flemming instantly. His cry is desperate and shrill and now it’s gone and I don’t care. I won’t stop until he is cinders at my feet. This feels good and right and savage.
I raise my head at the flash and glimmer of a dagger blade, but the mere thought of wind brings forth an icy gale that sends it flying off course, its master thrown back into the churn of warriors with his eyes frozen wide and horrified. I turn in place, glaring fire at the tribe that was so eager to kill my chieftain. “Challenge me,” I say.
Nothing has ever felt this magnificent. I laugh as a few warriors surge to the front and throw their spears. I swing my arms out, and the wind does my bidding once again—the long razor tips of the weapons fly past me on either side and into the crowd behind me. Let them all die. I don’t care that they cry. I don’t care about the terror on their faces. A moment ago they were salivating as they watched Thyra on her knees, a chieftain defeated by scheming. Not with honor. Not in a fair fight. I realize now it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d defeated Flemming—another would have stepped up, and another, and another, until one landed a lucky blow, until Thyra fell from sheer exhaustion. I don’t know what kind of chieftain nurtures a tribe that would do such a thing, but at the thought, I look up at the tiered benches where Nisse was sitting with Jaspar and the rest of his loyal entourage.