Even worse than last time.
And once more.
This time, she nearly dropped the sword entirely.
He scrubbed his jaw, looking her over.
She bit her lip. ‘I told you I was bad at this.’
‘New plan,’ he decided. ‘Keep both hands on the hilt at all times. If someone charges at you, screech like a falcon and swing like hell.’
She did as he advised, the blade whistling as she swung it back and forth with complete and utter abandon.
Alarik backed up several steps.
‘Like this?’ she said, screaming madly as she spun around in a circle. ‘Do I look just reckless enough to be intimidating?’
Laughter burst out of him. He had to drop his own sword and bend over just to catch his breath. ‘At least your mind is as sharp as your blade,’ he said, still chuckling.
Across the grass, she was laughing, too, tears streaming from her eyes. They were blue again. Bright and beautiful as sapphires. He was half a heartbeat from telling her so, when a furious boom shook the world.
The earth trembled.
Inside the palace, screams rang out.
Roars and howls filled the morning air.
Iversen’s wide-eyed gaze shifted to something just over his shoulder. ‘The mountains!’ she gasped. ‘They’re breaking apart!’
Alarik spun on his heel, as ice and rubble rained down from the sky.
His heart clenched when he saw it: a brand-new crack ran down the centre of his beloved mountains, as though some almighty being had reached down from the sky to cleave them in two.
‘There were explosives in the tunnels,’ said Vine, the moment she burst into the atrium to offer her full report. Having just returned from the mountains, where the soldiers had been working through the debris all morning, she had run straight into Alarik.
He had been pacing back and forth, waiting for her.
‘Regna,’ he said, through his teeth.
There was no other explanation.
Vine nodded. ‘I suspect they were planted some time ago.’
Alarik went to the window, looking out at his beloved mountains. And the crack that now split them in two. Somehow, Regna had heard about the beast – heard the rumours that something wild and ancient had awoken here. Something angry.
She was trying to free it.
Mercifully, her attempt at unleashing all hell on Grinstad had failed. The creature that snarled beneath the rock was still trapped there, though Alarik’s mountains looked all the worse for it.
‘Who detonated the explosives?’ he said, turning back to Vine. ‘Did you find any bodies?’
Vine shook her head, her dark brows pinched. ‘Not a trace.’
More concerning still.
They stewed in silence, until Vine said, ‘What’s our next move?’
Alarik didn’t hesitate. ‘War.’
