Ottoh helped Vero to the spot Darcke had vacated, and when she rested against the trunk, the two men sat down opposite us.
No one spoke, each of us deep in our thoughts, as the day turned lighter. The sun’s rays whispered over us, and my eyelids fluttered shut while I tried to understand how my parents could have kept this secret from me—how Viljan could have hidden it from me all these years. Because he’d known. That was the only thing that made sense.
Had Lika known? Did my sisters?
I felt Darcke study me, and when I opened my eyes to his, my pulse leaped.
Where there used to be a cold, calculating look, there was now a curiosity that made my heart pound in my ears. And behind it was something even more dangerous: a familiarity that was starting to be impossible to deny.
My eyes moved to the hands twisting in my lap. I hadn’t even touched upon what this could mean for me walking into the gods’ halls. Was my Skagerik blood enough, or would the other half—the silent, diluted half that connected me with the strange warrior before me—instantly render me unworthy?
“Look!” Vero’s gasp made fear knit in my gut.
Darcke flew to his feet the same moment Ottoh did.
“What is that?” Ottoh hissed.
The roots from the tree Vero and I had our backs against sneaked their way through the soil. From them a thick yellow sap began bleeding out across the ground, like liquid gold surrounding us, reflecting our tense faces back at us.
“Seers’ sap,” I whispered as my reflection smiled at me.
“What the fuck is seers’ sap?” Darcke growled as he backed away from the gold trying to reach for him.
“It’s useless to try to avoid it,” I said as I rose on shaking legs, allowing the sap to encircle my feet entirely. “These trees were planted by the gods, and if they want us to see, they will make us see.”
“See what?” Vero stood as well, her blond hair mirroring the gold spilling from the tree.
“Whatever they want.” I took a breath. “The king’s shaman uses it to communicate with the gods, but since we’re not blessed with that kind of magic, we can only watch while the gods show us what they wish.”
“He can communicate with the gods too? So much for fucking perfect aim,” Ottoh muttered.
“Ottoh! Look at this,” Vero breathed. “I’m chief, like we always wanted.”
Ottoh inched across the gold until he stood by his sister. “Amazing.” His smile was sad when his eyes slid my way. “Are the visions always true?”
“I don’t kn—” My words stuck in my throat when my reflection changed.
The person who stared back at me was pale as a ghost, darkness around her eyes, standing in a realm that could be none other than Helheim. Ice spread out beneath and behind me, and an impenetrable mist swirled around my ankles, the dampness of it seeping through my ripped leathers.
Blood dripped down my arms, staining my hands crimson.
I raised my palms in front of me. I wasn’t the one bleeding.
That blood—that draining life force? It was my people’s. And this? This was my failure.
Another hand wrapped around the palm I’d been studying, and Darcke smiled at me as he lifted it and traced his lips over my skin. He was wearing my father’s iron helmet—the one my father only used in battle—and his whisper reverberated in the mist.A people for a people.
“Don’t believe everything you see.”
I flinched as Darcke’s voice vibrated against my ear, the depth of it sending a shiver racing across my shoulder. When I spun from the gold, my nose grazed his, and the sharp, electric thrill that followed stalled the air in my lungs.
“What?” I whispered.
He was too close. My eyes dipped to his chest and up again.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you see,” Darcke said, his voice rough. “The truth can be twisted, information misinterpreted.”
“That seems pretty straightforward,” I said.
