“Come now, this is not the time to be shy.” Beserkir smiled, making Aelia’s skin crawl. “I admit I probably wouldn’t have remembered you from Callodosis until one of my men reminded me, one with a particularly good nose. He recognised your scent amongst the bodies of my soldiers, along with the scent of a maleI’d seen just the night before. The same man who stopped me from killing you in Callodosis.”
Beserkir’s smile fell, and although he was still on the other side of the room, Aelia took an involuntary step back.
“I firmly believe it’s important to acknowledge one’s mistakes,” Beserkir continued, “and letting you live was undoubtedly one of mine. But we cannot change the past, we can only take action to make the present more tolerable.”
Beserkir snapped his fingers and, a moment later, a man appeared in the door. The Astraean dragged someone behind him, straining as he heaved the motionless body across the room to dump it at Beserkir’s feet. It was only when Beserkir grabbed hold of it and hauled it up onto its knees that Aelia recognised it.
“Fenrir,” she gasped. Her legs felt like they might give out from under her as she cast her eyes over her friend. The strong, capable man she had loved since she was a child was barely recognisable, lost beneath the swollen flesh that distorted his features. “What have you done to him?”
Aelia’s anger rippled through her, stripping her of her fear. Fenrir was barely conscious, one eye completely invisible beneath the red, puffy skin around it, the other glazed and unfocused.
“Well, once we knew who you were, we remembered you’d been fighting with this one for the little human bitch.” Beserkir shook Fenrir hard enough for his head to loll forwards. “So, it wasn’t too much of a leap to work out that you were probably coming for him. I admit I perhaps let my temper get the better of me a little whilst we waited for you, but in my defence, you did royally piss me off.”
“Not used to not getting your way?” Aelia tilted her head to one side and pouted. “Poor baby.”
Beserkir paused, surveying her with cold, hard eyes. “No, I’m not, nor do I ever intend to be. You see, I’m lucky enough to havethe King’s authority to do exactly what I love doing. He wants the humans rounded up and shipped off, and I’m all too happy to oblige. All I ask for in return is a little freedom, a little room to play.”
Beserkir drew his sword with his free hand and held it to Fenrir’s neck, his eyes never leaving Aelia’s face. He watched her closely, his lips curling in a smile as he saw the dread fall over her.
“You like games?” Aelia tried to control her breathing, to keep the fear from her voice. “Then come play with me instead. I’m the one you’re angry with, not him.”
“Oh, but I am playing with you.” Beserkir touched the edge of his blade to Fenrir’s throat, just enough to break the skin. The pain caused Fenrir to stir, his head raising on his unsteady neck to peer at Aelia through his one good eye.
“Aelia?” he managed to say, his jaw moving at an awkward angle where they’d broken it. The light in his eye when he recognised her broke her heart, a glimpse of the man she knew. She’d done this to him. In trying to get him out, she’d made everything ten times worse. Time seemed to slow as Aelia watched the blood drip from Fenrir’s throat onto the floor. She tore her eyes from the red droplets that beaded down the edge of the steel to look at the man responsible.
“Let him go, and I’ll do anything for you. I’ll walk right onto one of those ships to Ideolanthea, I’ll let you punish me however you see fit, but please, let him go. Please.” She had no power here, and she knew it. She had nothing to bargain with, but if there was even the slightest chance she could save Fenrir, she was prepared to beg.
“No, Aelia,” Fenrir mumbled, wincing at the effort of talking.
“Anything?” Beserkir asked, taking her by surprise.
“Anything,” she agreed, knowing it to be true. She had nothing left to lose, this man had taken it all from her. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to save Fenrir from him.
“And you won’t fight me?” Beserkir narrowed his eyes at her, sceptically.
“Not if you let him go.”
Beserkir pressed his lips into a line, watching her closely as he considered it.
“I prefer my first plan,” he said with a shrug, and drew the blade clean against Fenrir’s throat.
Blood poured out from the wide gash in his neck, bubbling out from his mouth to pour down his chin. Beserkir still held him upright by his collar, keeping him in place for Aelia to watch every agonising moment of his death. Her last friend on this earth, the last person she loved.
Something raw and vicious sparked inside of her, alien and yet inherent. Her rage was its kindling, her grief igniting a power in her she didn’t know she possessed. Aelia sank to her knees and screamed, unleashing every pent-up emotion she’d been carrying with her since Callodosis. They exploded out of her in a torrent of anguish and agony, of loss and confusion, of heartbreak and fury. They burst out of her, throwing her head and arms back with the violence of their release, erupting from her in a blinding flash of silver light. It channelled out of her with a mind of its own, destructive and beautiful and hateful.
The light faded as quickly as it had appeared, withdrawing back into her, and her scream died with it. She dropped forwards onto her hands, with hardly enough strength to look at where Fenrir’s body lay abandoned before her. Gasping for breath, she could barely process the destruction that lay around her. Half the warehouse was gone, the Astraea and artemians flung away from her in assorted heaps, some struggling to move, some obviously never going to move again. Some of the cages hadburst open, and the artemians took their opportunity to run, stumbling through the rubble to the gaping hole in the side of the warehouse.
A pile of stone in front of her shifted and, to her dismay, Beserkir appeared from beneath it, struggling to push free from the debris. His eyes landed on her with a hunger she couldn’t understand.
“You…” he said, laughing manically. “Oh, they’ll be thrilled if I send them you. A hundred gold coins to the artemian who secures her.”
Beserkir waved his dust-covered hand in her direction, grinning at her like a man possessed. Aelia twisted her neck to see a fresh wave of Astraea flooding into the building, and her heart sank. She tried to push herself to her feet, but whatever had just happened had wiped her out, draining her of every drop of energy.
She didn’t understand what had happened, and there wasn’t time to think about it. She pushed herself back on her heels and, with the last of her strength, pulled her dagger free. She would not allow them to take her alive, not if it benefited Beserkir, and she’d rather die than let them ship her off to Ideolanthea.
She pressed the tip of the dagger to her chest, took one last look at Fenrir, and closed her eyes.
“Aelia,”Keeran’s voice ricocheted around her skull, and her eyes flicked open in shock. “Don’t you dare.”
