His arm lifted, the tip of my sword scraping across the stone of the mountain. It pleased me to see his obvious struggle, which he fought to hide. Yet, he couldn’t shield the way his arm shook under the weight of the steel.
I stilled when he laid it across my chest. The blade dug into the tunic I wore. I had just sharpened the edge last night, in the warmth and quietness of myvoliki, and now it would drink from me when it had never tasted my blood before.
As if to himself, he said, “They said nothing about keeping your body whole. All they need is yourfilthybeating heart.”
My brow furrowed grimly, a memory pushing forward from the recesses of my mind at his quiet words. But in my weakness, it eluded me.
With that, he dragged the weight of my sword across my chest. The steel cut through my tunic easily, like parchment, and I felt the warm slide of the pain as it split my flesh.
I didn’t make a sound as the blood welled in the new wound and trickled out, wetting my tunic and seeping underneath it. The cut wasn’t deep. He’d meant it as a warning.
And it told me three things.
That he could be controlled with anger. That he thought he could controlmewith pain.
And lastly, that thevekkiriwere working with someone else to keep me here. Was it the Ghertun?
I saw the glint of black blood on my sword as he lifted it from my chest. My own blood. Benn was breathing hard, his eyes gleaming with something that gave me pause. Delight.
In a leader, that was a dangerous thing. That he reveled in pain and power.
“Blood keeps us strong, does it not?” Benn asked me, turning towards the door, turning his back on me. “And I like you weak. I think your sword will get used to the taste of your blood while you’re here, horde king.”
My nostrils flared.
Before he left, however, I murmured quietly, “You just sealed your own death,vekkiri.”
He paused at the threshold of the door. Perhaps he heard the truth of my words in my voice.
I grinned.
“And I willrelishit.”
Chapter Eight
When my eyes opened, I stayed still. Benn’s murmuring voice reached me, carrying over the snores of the others. All of us, with the exception of him, slept in the same room. Curled up on the floor, padded with whatever we could find.
A short distance away, I saw Emmi asleep, his hand curled over Kaila’s growing belly. A child hadn’t been born since long before our village burned to the ground. The youngest among us was Hassan, a young boy of eleven, who wore the expression of a jaded warrior, much too grim for one of his age. He was sleeping now next to his mother, his hand holding hers.
When I was eleven…
I couldn’t actually remember what life had been like then. The same as it was now and yet completely different. Happier. Sadder. And yet, I hadn’t been nearly as lonely then as I was now. Father had been alive. And my aunt.
“We will just need one guard on him,” Benn was saying, his tone hushed. I heard something scrape against the ground and I knew instantly what it was. The horde king’s sword. “He’s not nearly as strong as I expected.”
Because the fog stole his strength. And then you chained him in unbreakable bonds, I couldn’t help but think.
“Rest tonight,” Benn said. “Taylor is on guard now. You can relieve him in the morning.”
And when was morning exactly? Under the Dead Mountain, keeping track of the sun was nearly impossible.
We all slept when Benn told us to. And morning was when he woke. I marveled at how much power he had amassed over us in such a short amount of time. I wondered if it bothered the others as it bothered me.
But was he so different than a horde king? I’d heard unspeakable things happened within a horde. Torment and tortuous punishment for those who went against their king, who dared to defy him. I’d heard aVorakkarcould have his pick of the females and that they could not deny his advances. The horde members died for their king, went to battle for him, and obeyed his every order.
Was Benn really so different then?
I chanced a peek towards the voices. In the hallway just outside the open door, I saw the flickering of torchlight. Benn stood there speaking with Jacques, who looked spent. His shoulders were sagging and his head hung heavy. The events of the day had finally caught up with him.
