“You can’t walk around and say things like that,” I said, worry twisting in my chest.
“Why not?”
There was true curiosity spinning around the bond. It made my gut turn.
“Because.” I threw out my hands. “The king is the closest thing to divinity outside of Valhalla, so his every demand is to be honored.”
Vexation overtook the air, and I rolled my neck at the intense sensation.
“My people didn’t have one all-powerful leader,” Darcke said, and the urge I’d had to leave his side faded with the prick of pain that stabbed at me.
“No?”
“We had a council, each man and woman elected by jarls and karls alike.” Darcke’s gaze was on the snow-covered mountaintops, but a hollowing feeling of grief built around us until I could taste the devastation. “Everyone was gifted the rune for water when they turned fifteen.” He shot a look at me. “It didn’t create this hatred for the elite—for the ones blessed by gods who couldn’t care less if their subjects slaughtered each other until no one remained.”
“Our gods care,” I protested, fear burrowing into my heart. “That’s why they allow us to share our runes with our people.”
“And make them dependent on you?” Darcke clicked his tongue. “Most don’t enjoy that. Having their lives tied so fiercely to someone else’s that their wyrds are no longer their own? Knowing that if their chief dies, they are left to become thralls under another?”
I stiffened, my hands twisting behind my back.
“Don’t worry,” Darcke drawled. “I have no desire to lead yourpeople, so I intend to keep you alive.” He cocked his head. “Us fighting together would aid that.”
“It’s one of the highest honors to be a second, you know.” I dug my nails into my palms, ignoring his attempt to make me talk about the fighting. “Anyone at the Hird would have killed to be in your place.”
“And they would have killed you to take your place. What is the honor in that?”
I turned to the waterfall again. “If an heir can be killed, they have no right to lead a people.”
“Everyonecan be killed.”
I jerked when Darcke raised his voice.
“You, me… even Gustief, if the chiefs want it.”
“Stop speaking like that,” I hissed. “You cannot talk of our king’s murder.”
“If you’re so afraid of the gods’ wrath, why are you not participating in the trials they’ve set up for you? Why are you not showing off the powers they’ve offered you? Why do you hide away like a scared fugitive?”
“I am not hiding away!”
Darcke raised his brows.
“I am not hiding because I am scared formyself,” I snarled.
“So you’re scared for someone else?”
Fuck. I took a breath to calm myself before I said—or felt—something else that Darcke might be able to interpret in his quest to figure me out.
“I’m not scared of anything,” I responded after another deep gulp of air.
“Everyone is scared of something.”
“What are you scared of, then?” I demanded.
Darcke sucked on his teeth. “Many things.”
“Name one.”
