“Damn you both.” Elecia wasn’t giving up gracefully. “You’ll get yourselves killed, and that’s the end of that.”
“Nothing will happen to either of us.”
“You can’t honestly believe that, Aldrik.”
“Oh, enough,” Jax groaned. “If you’re that worried, I’ll do it.”
“What?” the three said in unison.
“ ‘Cia is right, Aldrik.” Vhalla had never heard anyone other than Aldrik use Elecia’s childhood nickname, but Elecia made no objection to it being uttered by Jax’s lips. “You must live, and you know it. But me? My life means nothing. So I’ll be her sworn defender.”
“Your life isn’t nothing,” Vhalla couldn’t stop herself from objecting.
Jax tilted his head back with laughter. “You still don’t really know much about me, do you?”
Vhalla pressed her lips together in frustrated thought. She searched for a way to object, and yet she couldn’t, which was all the more aggravating.
“Why?” Aldrik seemed more curious than disbelieving.
“For Baldair.”
Vhalla inhaled a sharp breath, the name like an ice dagger to her gut. She remembered what Victor had said about the late prince, about quartering his body and feeding it to the dogs. Her hand rose up to massage the angry scar that covered her shoulder to chest.
“The last order I received from him was to protect her—”
“Fine job you did of it,” Aldrik remarked curtly.
Jax faltered a moment, a wounded expression overcoming his face.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Vhalla insisted, equally sharp. “What happened is on my shoulders.” She wasn’t going to let Jax take Aldrik’s ire for it.
“Let me have another chance.” Jax was relentless. “I am owned by the crown. It’s a fitting duty.”
Elecia averted her eyes at the reminder, as though she could un-hear the truth that spilled from Jax’s lips. Vhalla knew his situation had been similar to her previous enslavement, but she had no idea how it had come to pass. It was now something she desperately wanted to know.
“That leash now transfers to you, my Emperor.” Aldrik seemed more bothered by what Jax was saying than Jax himself.
The conversation was moving too fast for Vhalla to inquire about what leash.
“Order me to do it, and I’ll defend her to my dying breath. I’ll treat her life as my own. I’ll do it for Baldair and for you, my sovereign.”
Aldrik considered it, much to Vhalla’s shock.
“Come now, I’m not the hero type. Let me have this moment as we go out and save the world.” Jax gave a toothy grin as easily as if he was talking about the weather.
“Jax, I am not in the mood for levity.” Aldrik pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Very well.”
“Excuse me?” Vhalla finally entered the conversation, sharply. “I get no say in this? I said I can take care of myself.”
“Then use me only for those times when you can’t take care of yourself,” Jax countered easily. Sensing her continuing objection, he added, “Don’t take Baldair’s last order from me.”
It was part threat, part anger, part sorrow, and all determination. Vhalla bowed her head, frustrated. He was tugging on just the right heartstring to get what he wanted, and she hated him for it.
“All right,” she agreed weakly. “But find me a sword the first moment we can.”
“Well, if there is nothing else.” Aldrik cast a wary eye toward Elecia. “We leave at sundown.”
They followed their Emperor’s decrees, every last one of them. They tacked the horses and filled their bellies with the last hot meal they were likely to get for the foreseeable future. The Charem family swore their secret loyalty even as Aldrik ordered them to bend knee in body—but not in heart—to Victor. After the moon had begun its journey into the sky, they rode out swathed in the darkest cloaks the Charems owned.
The Emperor Solaris led his loyal few into the uncertain darkness.
CHAPTER 2
They had underestimated Victor, specifically the speed at which his abominations could be created and moved. Those forced to follow his will were going to be subjected to death by ten thousand papercuts from witnessing those they loved being turned into horrors. And this would be before Victor began mobilizing an actual structured army to take the continent. That is if any survived to object to Victor’s rule.
As the Emperor and his loyalists arrived at the first tiny town beyond Fritz’s home, they discovered it painted red with blood.
Half frozen bodies, glistening crimson, littered the ground in the mid-morning sun. Men, women, children—the young and old—were reduced to shades of former life. Vhalla stared on tiredly. It shouldn’t hurt any longer, but pain sat rooted in her chest. She had seen this before. She had lived this blood-stained life recently, now more real than when she had filed books away in the Imperial Library.
Vhalla unfurled the vise-like grip she held on her reins and raised a hand to her shoulder, soaked through to skin from the heavily falling snow. Her fingers massaged the angry scar tissue. It ached and stung all the way down her arm. The physical pain was a mask for the visceral guilt that tore its way through her.
This was her fault.
“He didn’t spare anyone, did he?” Elecia whispered. Whatever had caused the carnage was long gone, but she still kept her voice low, in homage to the dead surrounding them.
“Why didn’t they kneel?” Aldrik’s brows knotted together, deep lines appearing between them. He asked the question they all were thinking.
“They never would’ve.” Fritz swayed in the breeze, nearly falling out of his saddle. Vhalla wondered if he’d known people in this town like she’d known people in the neighboring town to Leoul. “For centuries, the eldest in every family went to serve in the Imperial guard, back to when the South was just Lyndum.” The Southerner shook his head. “They’d never accept someone who wasn’t a Solaris on the throne.”
Aldrik’s mouth pressed together into a scowl. Vhalla struggled to find something to relieve his pain, but there was nothing she could say when her guilt was just as heavy.
“We’ll rest here until sunset,” Aldrik decided, pointing to a small tavern.
The seven housed their mounts in the attached stables, alongside a tired-looking pony and a spooked mare. It was expectedly empty inside, void of both corpses and survivors.
“Well, they still have ale,” Jax revealed from his inspection from behind the bar.
“Leave it,” Aldrik ordered.
“Just because you—”
Aldrik silenced Jax with a pointed look that he quickly abandoned when he pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “I will have no drunken stupors on this journey.”
“One drink does not a stupor make.” Jax crossed his arms over his chest; it hid the slight tremble Vhalla had noticed in his hands when he had run them along the bar.
Aldrik sighed heavily. “Do what you will. We move again at sundown. You should enjoy the beds while we have them.”
Taking his own advice, Aldrik dragged his feet up the small stairs that presumably led to the inn’s rooms. Concern lined Jax’s forehead as his eyes followed the Emperor’s departure. Vhalla caught his look and gave a nod in affirmation, following on Aldrik’s heels.
His cloak was already hanging to dry when she poked her nose in the crack of the doorway. Aldrik turned quickly at the sound, nearly crumpling from exhaustion when he saw it was only her. Vhalla eased the door shut behind her and rested her back against it.
“These people served my family for centuries.” Aldrik started a small fire with a look, and Vhalla was relieved to see that, despite his mood, it did not flare out of control. “A whole town of them, sons and daughters, loyal to the Solaris name until their end. And I-I was never made aware.”
“We will honor them.”
“How? With what?” Aldrik’s voice had bite, but his expressi
on was tired and his eyes searching.
“Until this is over, we will have to carry their memory with us. But when we have fixed all this, we can do more,” she vowed, as much to him as to herself.
“This is something that cannot be fixed.”
Vhalla bit her lip thoughtfully. “For those face-first in the snow? No.” She squeezed her eyes closed with a soft sigh. Baldair was behind her eyes as the ghost who rode with them all, the man they’d had no time to properly mourn but were reminded of at every turn. “He seeks to turn the continent into this desolation, Aldrik. It is not too late for everyone still breathing. We fight for them. We honor the dead with a commitment to the living.”
When Vhalla opened her eyes again, he stood before her. Aldrik considered her for a long moment. His long fingers rose to the ties of her cloak at her neck, and Vhalla let him slip the fabric off her shoulders. She let the warmth of his hands seep as deeply as it could into the icy brambles that had vined around her heart.
“You’re soaking wet,” he breathed. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Freezing,” she whispered in reply.
“Fortunately for you, your future husband happens to command fire with his hands.” Aldrik watched her as his declaration settled onto her shoulders.
“Truly?” It was hard to believe, even now, with the world as it was.
“If you do not wish it, now would be the time to tell me.” The words could’ve been a jest, but they carried a serious note.
Vhalla raised a hand to the watch at her neck. Its chain had barely missed being severed by Victor’s axe, the only pity fate had taken upon her. Aldrik followed her motion to the token he had given her the first time he had asked for her future to be spent at his side.
“My love,” he sighed in relief, resting his forehead against hers.
Their noses brushed against each other, and Vhalla pressed an exhausted kiss into his mouth. The day would permit no further affection than that, but she allowed herself to melt into it. Her lord, friend, and lover—if she didn’t ground her heart in something, it wasn’t going to survive the rest of their journey.
They left promptly at sundown as Aldrik had instructed. Vhalla knew the man had hardly slept at all, but she was in no place to scold him for it, as she had spent most of the hours awake as well, haunted by the town’s stillness. On their departure, Vhalla held them up, insistently searching the town and bodies for a useable sword. When she found one, it was small, and not nearly as fine as anything she had used when training with Daniel, but the cold steel felt reassuring on her hip.
The next afternoon, they stayed in the woods, which was far less comfortable than sleeping in one of the abandoned rooms of an inn, but it was easier mentally. Periodically throughout the day, Fritz used his Waterrunner abilities to command the snow to shift and hide their tracks, including the last hour or so before they broke camp. They rotated watches and slept huddled against each other.
One night, they slept against a fallen tree, then in a cave, then out in the open. They passed abandoned homes, slaughtered towns, and places where the people were so silent and still they could have been dead. They walked parallel to the Great Imperial Way, which appeared and disappeared in the distance, through the trees and snowdrifts. But for all of their concerns and careful progress, they never saw another wandering soul.
As the days and distance slipped by, silence became their primary companion. At first, they didn’t speak out of necessity and nerves, then out of respect for the dead, then out of fear of discovery. But it finally became the way of things, the world too much to be expressed with language. Vhalla began to yearn for Aldrik’s nightly whispers affirming his adoration when he took her into his arms so they could sleep hunched together. It was one of the few things that kept her strong.
Vhalla lost track of the days. It could have been a week. It could have been a year.
When they came across a small hunter’s hovel, she wanted to cry with relief. Abandoned, it offered an opportunity for them to get out of the cold and to dry out their boots. The front had mostly collapsed, but the remaining walls supported a pitched roof that stood in defiance of the snow.
“I’ll give it a look.” Jax swung down off his horse, quickly inspecting the structure and deeming it stable enough for them to spend the night.
“Is it too close to the road?” Elecia glanced nervously at the Imperial Way, barely visible through the trees.
“We haven’t seen anyone for days,” Fritz groaned. “I want a roof.”
“It’s not going to be any warmer than sleeping outside; half the front is missing,” Elecia pointed out.
“If we hang up our cloaks to dry on the walls, it could block the light from a small fire and keep us warm enough.” Jax turned to Aldrik, who remained mounted at Vhalla’s left. “What do you say?”
Aldrik glanced back to the road, clearly weighing the options. “If we don’t get out of the cold, one of us will fall ill, and that would be worse,” he decided.
They dismounted and tied their horses to the closest tree. Fritz led the charge for “making house” and quickly demanded everyone’s cloak. Elecia helped alongside Jax. Though the Western man never let Vhalla out of his sight for very long—her new shadow.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Vhalla offered with a yawn.
“Are you sure?” Aldrik asked.
“I’ve been getting the most sleep; it’s my turn to watch.”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m fine.” Vhalla rubbed her shoulder for emphasis. It was still tender, but the skin grew stronger by the day. She knew the ache she felt would always be there. It would be there until Victor died, and it would be there every moment afterward. “Rest, Aldrik.”
Her Emperor conceded, disappearing under the cloak Jax was using to close up the gaping hole in the building’s front. Vhalla’s attention shifted to the two who remained in the snow.
Sehra walked to a tree and placed both her palms on it. She did this every day, regardless of when they stopped, dawn or sunset. Vhalla watched as the young woman brought her forehead to the icy bark and remained still and reverent.
None of the group had questioned or stopped the Northerners. Vhalla looked on, curiosity finally getting the better of her.
“What are you doing?” she asked when the two women headed toward their sleeping place for the night.
Za and Sehra looked at each other, momentarily startled. Sehra studied Vhalla for a tense moment. Whatever test she had been silently administering, Vhalla passed.
“I’m looking for traces of crystal magic,” she answered.
“You can do that?” Vhalla blurted in surprise.
Za snorted.
Momentarily wearing a small satisfied smile, Sehra answered, “I can.”
“How?”
“You doubt Sehra?” Za asked defensively.
“She doesn’t,” Sehra answered before Vhalla could. “She just doesn’t understand. Crystal magic is much like the old magic. Similar, but different. Like light and darkness, two halves to a whole. One knows of the other, even if they cannot command it.”
The princess’s explanation could’ve been condescending but wasn’t, Vhalla noted. She considered this for a long moment. She understood what the princess said, but she still had no concept of what made crystal magic and “old magic” different.
“And you can do this because you are a Child of Yargen?”
The smile Sehra gave then was certainly genuine. The young woman had been schooled in diplomacy and it showed. But her youth also betrayed her in moments when she felt as though she could relax. Vhalla filed this information away in case she needed to capitalize on it in the future, and hated herself for doing so.
“That is so,” Sehra affirmed.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I am chosen to wield Yargen’s power and be an overseer of fate.” The way Sehra spoke showed she believed every word of w
hat she was saying, no matter how fantastical it sounded.
“Like a God?” Vhalla tried to confirm she knew what Sehra was claiming before she passed judgment on it.
Za laughed at the question. “Only Gods are Gods.”
“More like an agent of the Gods,” Sehra elaborated. “You have much interest?”
“I do.” Vhalla swallowed, easing the next words between her lips with as much grace and strength as she possessed. “I want to know more about where my first born will spend their childhood, should it all come to pass.”
The wind agreed gustily with Vhalla’s words, whipping snow and hair across her face. Sehra remained so still that Vhalla wondered if she’d thought, rather than spoken, the words.
“Do not fear so deeply, Vhalla Yarl.” Sehra made a fist with her right hand, clasping the left over it. The gesture meant nothing to Vhalla, but she understood enough meaning—that there was peace, strength, and respect ahead for them all—from the princess’s expression. “The path you chose to walk with me is not easy. But it is right.”
Deeming the conversation finished, Za and Sehra disappeared. Vhalla felt like she’d ended up with more questions than answers. She paced around, racking her brain for everything she’d read on the North, but it was precious little. Vhalla felt frustrated with herself. She could name almost all the Southern kings in order, but not one of the Northern Head Clans.
The crunching of snow and the whinny of a horse cut through her thoughts. Vhalla turned away from the structure where the mounts were tethered. Something spooked the horse: a snow hare, a fox creeping from its den. Her fingers closed around the hilt of her sword, debating whether to drawing it. Would the sound alert any potential threat? Would it give up a potential advantage she had?
She briefly thought about waking Jax or Elecia or Aldrik, but the soft glow of the firelight winking through the gaps in the hung cloaks had just faded. They had only just fallen asleep, and she wouldn’t wake them for what was likely nothing.
Vhalla held her breath as she rounded the corner of the structure where the horses were tethered. She saw nothing. Just when she was about to relax, the snow crunched to her right.