1Astrid
Astrid looks up from her grimoire to find an axe swinging directly for her head.
It’s been six years since someone tried to kill her, yet her reflexes are still sharp; she throws herself sideways and spins to face her attacker, just as the blade sinks into the spruce tree—right where her neck had been a moment ago.
She staggers back, twisting her ankle when her boot snags on the uneven forest floor, and swallows the yell that creeps up her throat.
The assassin yanks at the hatchet, now firmly stuck in the trunk, while Astrid tries to figure out what the Hel to do. If she had her vials, she’d melt his skin off with a potion, but her vials are in her pack and her pack is currently at the foot of the very tree he’s just pulled his hatchet from. He notices where her attention lies. Not taking his eyes off Astrid, he picks up her pack and tosses it into the frostbitten undergrowth.
Well, shit. There goes her best chance of killing him.
She drops her book in the snow, as much as it pains her to do so. She’ll need both hands for this.
Wind bites at her cheeks as she watches him, waiting to see what he’ll do. He’s not tried to use magic, so perhaps he has no magic to wield. Bloodless, then. He’s got at least five inches on her and he’s bulky with muscle, but she’s trained since she could walk. On a good day, she reckons she could take him, but with her ankle… She tests her weight on it, wondering whether she should run instead, but it almost crumples beneath her. Running is out of the question.
He lunges and she flings a hand out, fingers splayed. Panic flaresin his eyes, barely visible through his mask, and she feels a fleeting satisfaction when he hesitates. A man without magic has no hope of besting a witch. Usually, anyway.
Before doubt can overwhelm her, before any traitorous thoughts can puncture her courage, she mutters a prayer to Sqaõi and casts the first spell that comes to mind. The spell that still haunts her.
“Forsvare!”
He throws up an arm, but he needn’t have bothered. Because absolutely nothing happens. She bites down hard to stop the cry of frustration. She is the Nachstern witch princess and heir to the throne of Arturea, daughter to Queen Guinevere Nachstern, the most powerful witch in the queendom, and Astrid can’t even perform a shield spell to save her own life. This realization dawns on the assassin’s face as his cool-blue eyes fix on her. Then he smiles. Genuinely smiles.
The sick bastard.
“So the little hag can’t cast,” he says in Vatran. He’s from the southern continent, not that it’s a surprise to Astrid, given it was the southerners who were always trying to kill her. The southern royals anyway.
She pulls two small daggers from the black leather cuffs at her wrists and assumes a fighting stance, willing her hands not to shake.
“I don’t need to cast to kill you.” She adjusts her daggers so the slender hilts sit between her middle and forefingers, the curved onyx blades becoming makeshift claws. The assassin begins to circle her, but she won’t give him her back—Jessa has drilled that into her often enough.
She studies his movements, trying to glean anything that might give her some sort of edge, but his footing is sure. The black clothing he wears is a stark contrast to the snow-white surroundings, and he’s wearing no cloak, nothing loose that could prove a hindrance to him. Unlike her. She shrugs off her own heavy cloak and shivers as the frigid air hits her.
He stops pacing. “I was going to come for you after dark, but this is much more fun.”
“Ah, that explains the black,” Astrid replies. “I just thought you were an idiot.”
He keeps his smile locked in place, but Astrid notices his right eye twitch. She’s pissed him off. Good.
“I’m the idiot? And yet here you are—no guards, no familiar, no magic.” He licks his lips, and she suppresses a shudder. “I can’t believe my luck.”
Astrid can’t believe her shitty luck, either. Six years hidden away in these isolated mountains at the end of the world, and this maniac has managed to find her. The reason she’s even here is because no onecanfind it.
“How did you get here?” she bites out. The expansive Isfjell mountain range sits at the very north of the Arturean continent and spans from east coast to west, even its lowest peaks reaching beyond the clouds. They cannot be crossed. And the passage carved through the mountains that allows them to reach their home of Fort Isfjell is magically hidden. It is impossible to find its entrance. Though apparently not for this lone man.Why bother?she wants to say. Why try to kill her when she’ll be dead in a few weeks anyway?
He resumes his pacing, eyes on her daggers, then flips his hatchet, catching it easily. She supposes it’s too much to ask that he might sever his own limb. “Let’s just say your people have gotten sloppy.”
Astrid pauses. “Sloppy” is not part of the Ulvene’s vocabulary. Her mother’s elite witch and witchkin soldiers are the greatest warriors in Arturea, maybe across both continents, so if he managed to tail them somehow, it’s because this assassin is better than she’s giving him credit for. Goddess, she needs to do something, needs to stall him until Jessa finds her, because without her vials and with a busted ankle, Astrid doesn’t fancy her chances.
“Do you think you’re the first to come after me?” She might be able to brazen this out. “Please, I stopped keeping count when it hit three figures.” To be honest, she stopped counting at twenty, because at that point, what’s the difference between twenty and two hundred people trying to murder her? She’d almost forgotten what it was like, the adrenaline, the terror she felt every single day before she came to Isfjell, not knowing who might attack her next. But no one’s tried to kill her since her father died during the last attempt.
She points a claw at the masked man. “What you don’t seem to have grasped is that I’m still here. Alive. Which means the others failed. What do you think happened to them, hmm?” She flips one ofher claws, catching it between her knuckles. “I’ll give you a choice. Flee now and live. Or stay and die.”
He glances to the path beyond the trees on his right. Her hands tremble, the fear she’s kept leashed starting to slip.Fear is good, she reminds herself.Fear can keep you alive. She shifts her weight, positioning herself if she needs to loose a claw, but her bad ankle gives way and she fumbles her footing, dropping one of the daggers. The assassin bares his teeth at her. A shiver ripples along her spine, nothing to do with the cold this time.
“Nice try, Hag.”
And he throws his axe.
