Saga did not protest as Kassandr lifted her in his arms and set her down on the bed, nor when he arranged himself behind her. Her eyelids were so heavy. Saga was asleep within a minute.
The next day, Saga winced as a kerchiefed woman tended a burn on her forearm. The healers had taken over in the fortress great hall, rows of pallets filling the central space. Four enormous wooden statues of their seasonal gods watched over the wounded while silken tapestries glinted from the walls.
Looking around the room made Saga want to cry. People were dying—lives irrevocably changed—all because of the explosion she’d caused back in Íseldur. Yes, Kassandr had taken her against her will; yes, she’d been prevented from speaking with the Urkans. But still this guilt festered, as did the desperate need to put things right, no matter what—
She tried to stop these thoughts in their tracks, and it was a great comfort to Saga that she didn’t have to look far in this room to find hope. It was there in each small corner of the great hall, where those who could not fight found ways to help. One group worked to cut and sterilize linens for use as bandages. Others clustered around an enormous pestle, grinding herbs and birch bark for poultices. Stillothers slipped about the room, providing food and waterskins to anyone in need. So many Zagadkians had stepped up, no matter how unglamorous the task.
The healer prodded her wound once more, and Saga clenched her teeth against the pain. She’d lost count of how many errant sparks had singed her skin since the Urkans had invaded. But this wound was far worse than a rogue ember. With the city walls fallen, the siege tower now steadfastly lumbered through the streets toward the fortress. Word had carried that Kassandr’s warriors held it at midtown, but it was little comfort. The catapult atop the siege tower was within range of the fortress walls.
Now, rather than the small firepots flung by the ship-bound trebuchets, they had to contend with enormous explosive barrels. The one responsible for Saga’s wounds had landed near the field kitchens, where she’d been shoveling soup into her mouth. Bodies had flown, leaving people writhing in agony while trying to extinguish their burning clothes.
Saga knew she was lucky to have been shielded from the worst of it. Yet still, she gritted her teeth as the healer pried out the fibers seared into the wound.
“What is it between you and my brother?” asked Elisava in slow Zagadkian, emerging from the shadows between the statues of Old Man Winter and the Spring Maiden. In recent days, Elisava had forgone her elegant brocade jackets in favor of a simple linen kaftan belted over breeches.
“Nothing.” Saga said this as much to Elisava as to herself, as a reminder. Yes, she’d been sharing his bed, but it had been out of convenience. And if this lie was flimsy, Saga refused to acknowledgeit.
Elisava’s arched brow told Saga she didn’t believe it, either. “Between us cannot be anything,” Saga said, putting steel in her voice.
She felt Elisava’s curious gaze on her skin. “Why?”
“He stole me!” Saga exclaimed, hissing as the startled healer ripped the garment from her wound. Despite her conflicting feelings toward the man, she could never forget that he’d lured her fromher cage, only to entrap her in a new one. Even if deep down she knew it was not so simple as that.
But Elisava only sighed. “Kassandr has always been…overbearing in his caring. His meaning is right, but his methods are not.”
It was mad to speak of such things with the dead and dying all around them; with the growing inevitability of what was to come. As the siege tower inched closer to the fortress walls, it was no longer a question of if, but when, they too would fall.
The healer was now packing a cooling blend of herbs and honey against the wound, and Saga felt relief from the itching burn for the first time in hours. “Forgive me.” Saga exhaled as the healer wrapped strips of clean linen around her arm and tied them in place. “I am tired.”
An explosion rocked the keep, shouts tearing from the courtyard. More and more barrels had landed beyond the fortress walls, where the citizens of Kovograd now sheltered from the Urkans. Saga had tried long and hard not to think of what fate would befall them when the walls fell, but now it was impossible not to. Everyone in this fortress would be killed or worse, and Elisava…Saga glanced at Kassandr’s sister, whose eyes were wide with fear. Would this beautiful, headstrong woman be taken as Bjorn’s bride? Forced to watch as her family was slaughtered? Broken down as her kingdom was unmade, stone by stone.
Saga wouldn’t wish what she’d endured upon her greatest enemy. Watching everything her mother and father had worked for in Íseldur torn away; each kind face she’d grown to love in the palace slaughtered for sport; Ivar’s men mimicking the pleas of Saga’s mother as she’d begged for her life…
Wrath built low in Saga’s chest, and she wrenched free from the healer’s grasp. Outdoors, mayhem was unfolding, the toll of bells joining the din. And it was here, amid the tumult, that Saga had a moment of clarity. She would not allow this to be Elisava’s fate. She knew what she had to do.
Saga pushed to her feet, then faced the Zagadkian princess. “Do fiery pots remain?” But Elisava’s face had drained of color, her greeneyes wide and shining. “Fire flasks, Elisava!” repeated Saga, in sharp Zagadkian.
Elisava seemed to come back to herself. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, stoppered flask. “If they tried to take me…” Elisava could not finish, but Saga understood well enough. A fiery death was far preferable to falling into the Urkans’ hands. With a hard exhale, Elisava placed the flask in Saga’s palm and folded her fingers around it. “You must take it. I will find another.”
Saga met Elisava’s gaze and swallowed. “My thanks.” She blinked furiously. “You were kind. I—I wanted to have longer together. Tell your brother—”
“Saga,” said Elisava, eyes widening, “what do you intend to do with that flask?”
Saga slid the fire flask into her pocket. “What I must.”
And with that, she turned on her heel. Let her feet carry her through the corridors. Saga’s mind pulled the details she’d overheard between Rov and a wounded wolf shifter. A postern—a back exit to the fortress—could be found in the northern wing. Saga walked through the fortress as though she were dreaming. Found the tower the man had mentioned. The door was unmanned, which was no surprise to Saga, as all capable warriors were now on the battlefield. She drew a deep breath. Pushed the door open.
And stepped into a hellscape.
Beyond the fortress walls, berserkers clashed with shifter warriors, the monstrosity of a siege tower looming in the distance. Her gaze darted from the arrows flying from the body of the tower to a barrel being loaded on the catapults up top. Saga’s hand closed around the fire flask in her pocket, and she took a single, angry step toward it.
No,she told herself. This flask was intended for Ivar.
The screams and clash of steel and those ominous tolling bells all jumbled inside Saga’s skull. She gasped for breath as her heart raced impossibly fast. The telltale signs of her panic quickly swamped her, and Saga took a few moments to catch her breath. When it was clear that would not happen, she forced herself to take a step.
One foot in front of the other,rang in her ears as she took a second step.
The air was thick with smoke and blood, sweat and excrement. A few paces away, the greataxe of a berserker whizzed through the air, embedding into the neck of a wolf shifter with a wetthwack.A whimper slipped from Saga’s lips, but she took another step.
