Kalith’s eyes narrow and the tension around his mouth increases. “In the pit? You saw her there?”
Father’s voice remains matter-of-fact. “We were not so foolhardy as to touch her. If you wish to save her, you may want to hurry. Her hands were already black with rot.”
In the background, the shadowed figure pulls up sharply. He whirls in the direction from which they came—back toward the pit, which is now a full two-hour hike down the mountain.
Kalith seems acutely aware of that man’s reactions, his jaw clenching.
He lets his breath out with a snap. “You lie, Einherjar! I personally checked the pit this morning. She wasn’t there.”
He’s lying about checking the pit. I’m not sure how I’m so certain about that.
Maybe it’s the slightly desperate tone of his voice or the tightness of his jaw. Or the timing. The second nest of butterflies was disturbed while I was pulling the woman out of the pit. If it was these Blacksmiths who disturbed them, then they had already passed the pit and were well within the forest by that time.
He can’t have checked the pit, because if he checked it, he would have seen his daughter in it and?—
My breath stills.
I reassess the tension in his face and recall the sickening contempt with which he spoke about her when he called her ‘feeble’.
He saw her there.
He fucking saw her and left her to die. He might have even been the one who put here there.
Kalith’s eyes flicker once more to the man in the background. “She wasn’t there! She’shere. She has to be.”
The way he shouts, it’s as if he wants the other man to believe him. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on between them or what their hierarchy is, but it’s clear that the other Blacksmiths are wary of the man in the shadows.
Kalith spins back to my father, declaring to the other Blacksmiths, “I will find Asha and bring her out.”
Asha.
That must be the woman’s name.
A deadly smile splits Kalith’s lips as he continues. “But first I’ll tear these Einherjar apart.”
Chapter 13
With awhooshof material, Kalith casts the coat off his shoulders.
Beneath it, he’s wearing a white shirt and pants, neither appearing lined with fur, but he doesn’t seem to notice the cold.
Two copper armbands rest on his left forearm while three more copper bands are wrapped around his left bicep. A copper-colored hammer is attached to a white belt at his waist.
Curiously, a fine, copper ring rests on the thumb of his right hand and an unbroken line of metal runs up the inside of his right arm all the way to the edge of his sleeveless tunic. I can’t see what might be sitting beneath his clothing that could be connected to that metal line.
He moves fast.
Before I can blink, he snatches one of the bands from his forearm into his right hand. Its flat shape instantly elongates into a chain, growing in length as he spins it in the air, a blur of circular movement that makes an unearthly metallic hum.
All I manage to make out is the deadly shape forming at the end of the chain: a cleaving knife like the one hanging in our smokehouse.
It’s small enough to whip through the air while attached to the chain.
And large enough to slice right through my father’s throat.
Kalith has already taken a step forward, letting the blade fly with a force that makes it shriek in the cold air. A killing scream.
His aim is perfect.
