But Vhalla mentally smeared away the blood and decay. She imagined the woman’s eyes to be blue and her frame thicker. She imagined her hair was not matted and, after a wash, would be blonde. But not the fair shades of blonde. A darker shade, one that could almost pass for Eastern.
“By the might of the Mother, we will smite you down,” a guard boldly proclaimed.
“Wait!” Vhalla stepped forward, and the crowd melted away from her.
Heat registered next to her as fire crackled around Aldrik’s closed fists.
“What do you want with Vhalla Yarl?” she asked the familiar creature.
There was a delay, and the tainted woman swayed. She looked as though she was about to make an effort to dismount, but gave up halfway through. Her body fell to the road below with a sickening thud.
“Vhalla, stop.” Aldrik caught her wrist, stopping her from running to the prone creature. “Don’t go near it.”
“It’s Tim.” At least, she hoped it was.
Shock relaxed his jaw, and Aldrik looked between the woman he held and the one unmoving on the ground. He squinted, trying to see what she had seen. Vhalla didn’t have time for it.
Wrenching her arm from Aldrik’s, she sprinted over to the prone woman, stopping a step out of her reach. The taint was even worse close-up. It looked as though the very thing that was holding Tim together had somehow turned sour, and now her body was falling apart from the inside.
“Timanthia?” Vhalla breathed.
No one made a sound.
The woman struggled, gasping for air through bleeding gums and black saliva. She half snarled, half cried, as she tried to will her body to move. Vhalla knelt down, hearing Aldrik’s footsteps behind her.
“T-take it. Take it. From him. I came. For you,” Tim’s voice crackled and rasped. She raised an arm weakly.
Vhalla’s hands closed around silver. She felt the etchings along the outside of the bangle, familiar and almost warm to the touch. It was scratched and scuffed. But it was undeniably the token Larel had given to Vhalla years ago.
“Listen to. Listen, and help them,” Tim pleaded. She gripped Vhalla’s skirts, blinking away bloody tears that poured over her cheeks. “Take it and kill me.”
“Can nothing be done for her?” Vhalla whispered to no one. She was unable to tear her eyes away from the other woman’s face. At the grotesque shade that had been cast upon what was once beauty.
“She’s too far gone,” Sehra responded.
Vhalla wanted to scream. She had a thousand questions. How had Tim made it to Norin? Why had she come? How had she survived, and what had she endured? Vhalla needed hours to dissect all the information locked within Tim’s story. And all she was giving Vhalla was a bracelet. Vhalla carefully twisted the bangle and slipped it off while holding Tim’s wrist steady.
“Lady Empress, I don’t think it wise—” the highest ranking guard began cautioning.
“I did not ask what you thought.” She put the jewlery on her own wrist and slowly returned Tim’s arm to the woman’s side. Vhalla stared down at the face of suffering. This was what their time had cost.
They were partying, while their people were dying.
Vhalla caressed Tim’s cheek gently, unafraid of crystal taint. Sorrow was being smothered by anger, by pain. She didn’t want to cry. She wanted to end it all, once and for all. She wanted to see that there never was another day, ever, where crystal taint would be feared.
“K-k-kill . . .” Tim’s lower lip quivered overtop her unnaturally shaped teeth.
“Tim, thank you.” Vhalla’s hand shifted to cover the woman’s mouth. “Thank you.”
Just enough magic, just enough to turn her insides to liquid. To shred her lungs and tear through her heart. Wind roared under Vhalla’s skin and poured into Tim. The woman shuddered and the second her neck burst Vhalla withdrew her palm.
Everyone looked on as the Empress slowly stood. Vhalla balled her hand into a fist, blood dripping between her clenched fingers. Vhalla raised her voice for all to hear.
“We march at dawn!”
“MY LADY, THE army can’t possibly march at dawn.” One of the majors tried to catch up with her as she strode through the castle. “That’s not enough time.”
“Find time,” Vhalla demanded unapologetically.
