“I have to unless you’re going to use that Sweengard strength to help me.” There was a note of struggle behind Darcke’s words, but I didn’t care when I felt his determination, which would damn us both. “We’ll die if I don’t. Whatever it is, I’m sure we can figureit out.”
I’ll die if you do.
“Please!” I covered my face with my hands. “Please, don’t do this!”
“Tell meexactlywhat you’re hiding.”
When his demand rumbled through me, the air went still. The branches that had kept whipping the ground stiffened in their places, and the breeze died down, making the leaves dance as they trickled over the ground.
Sorrow crawled through me, twisting my insides. Dropping my hands from my face, I forced myself to look at him. If I was going to be responsible for his death today, then he at least deserved that—me watching as the tree crushed him.
“No,” I said quietly.
I expected hatred. Fury. Rage. But while his face hardened, Darcke couldn’t hide the seed of respect that took root within him, and something in his eyes flickered—only for a second, but long enough that I realized I’d proved him wrong about something.
“I’m sorry,” I got out as the roots began moving again.
One of his brows arched slowly, as if it had all the time in the world.
“Are you?” Then his head was forced forward, his neck bending until I could feel his bones protesting, ready to snap. His back followed, the roots around him making him bow until his knees hit the dirt.
Anyone but him would have felt fear at that moment. I did. A furious terror seized my chest, crushing it against my heart. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want this to be the end. I didn’t want to prove my mother right. But Darcke only growled, a loud and fierce defiance spreading within him, making my limbs twitch.
My fingers flexed.
I couldn’t just stand here. Even though what would happen now was my fault, I couldn’t just watch. Even if it was Helheim that waited for me, I’d fight to the end like I’d earn a feast in Valhalla for it.
A cry tore from my throat as I sprang forward. I groaned as abranch slammed into my gut, sending me flying into another, which pummeled me into the ground. The branch pinned me there on my back, my neck twisted so I could watch as the roots pulled Darcke with them toward the ground, as if they would take him right down to Hel themselves.
He didn’t scream. Even his growl was silenced. But that unyielding sense continued to tear through Darcke. I cried out as I fought the tree, iron tinging the air from where the branches ripped into my skin, cutting into my flesh until I bled like the crimson oaks surrounding us.
Then a shadow flew over one of the roots. My shout was cut off as someone jumped off a horse and threw a branch sharpened into a spear with perfect precision up into the darkness of the trunk above. The world stuttered for a second before all roots lifted, and a screech that made my ears ring shattered the night.
“Get up!” someone screamed.
Darcke didn’t hesitate, and the speed with which he sprinted to our mare ignited the same urgency within me. I grabbed the hand that wrapped around my wrist, allowing the person to pull me onto my legs, then help me onto their horse.
“Go,” the man bellowed, leaning forward and forcing my chest over the horse’s neck.
Branches whipped and slashed and fought all around us, and I closed my eyes, begging Odin or Tyr or whichever god was watching to help us as well, when I felt Darcke and our mare escape the tree.
I could almost hear Darcke’s scoff.Your gods will be of no help today.
“Faster,” the man behind me shouted, and the horse neighed as it lengthened its strides.
A crack that must have been heard all over Nordoen sliced the dark. I gasped when I turned my head and saw the tree itself detached from the ground, its roots like the many legs of a spider, starting a sprint toward us.
“This way!” a woman called.
I don’t think I’d ever been so grateful for a makeshift torch as when our horse passed her and she threw it at the tree chasing us. It hesitated for long enough that we reached what looked like a border of gilded rowan trees standing guard, with metal leaves formed like arrowheads and berries the color of blood.
The ash screeched again as it slid to a halt, its branches whipping out but never reaching past the golden row of trunks, and I took a shallow breath as the horse came to a halt beside Darcke and our mare.
Sweat stung my eyes as I turned, and whatever I’d been in the process of saying evaded me as the man pulled off his hood, an infuriating smirk pulling at his pale features.
“Why?” I said instead.
“It looked like you needed some help,” Ottoh said smugly. “And my rune gives me perfect aim.”
