“I heard you the first time.” He still didn’t look at me, his eyes on the fire where the king strode into the empty space I’d just left, and harsh features locked down, as if this was the last place in the realm he wished to be.
“I…”
A blaze trailed over my face. Viljan was making his way over.
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath.
The man scoffed.
“What?” I hissed as I hunched under my guard’s glare.
Again, the man didn’t respond, and strokes of irritation flared across my neck.
“What is your problem?” I snapped.
“I have no problem.” The man laughed darkly as he nodded to Viljan shoving people aside to get to me. “You have many.”
There was something strange in the way he pronounced the words. I’d heard it in the longhouse, too, but I’d attributed it to the tension.
“Elvara!” Viljan ordered in a raging whisper.
I cursed again. I didn’t want the lash of a public outburst.
“Such a mouth on you.” The warrior licked his lips. “I thought heirs were supposed to bewell trained.Like the king’s horses?”
“Excuse me?” I whirled his way, the rage against Ottoh and the karls who’d come for me and my fucking wyrd boiling my blood. “Did you liken me to a horse?”
“No.”
My shoulders lowered.
“That would be unkind to the animal.”
My lips parted. “You f?—”
“Careful.” The word was laced with such venom, the reddish hint clouding my gaze, which had lingered since I met Ottoh’s eyes, turned bright crimson. “You’ve already marked yourself a target,heir. And targets… they disappear.”
My hand moved to my sword.
“Was that a threat?” I asked quietly as the king raised his hands, silencing the crowd.
“It was.” The man pushed off the wall, giving me a look that raised every hair on my body for how he managed to pile in suchjadedness, warning, and disdain in one glare. “Save your tantrum for your little guard.”
With that, he cut a path toward the dais with a stride as sharp as his words, just as the king’s voice boomed over the hall once more. My ears rang, and I stared after the warrior with my mouth hanging open, unsure whether Viljan or I should be the most offended.
Five
“Let’s get out of here,” Viljan hissed as he reached me.
“Viljan—”
My guard furiously shook his head. “I won’t hear it.”
“You’re to stay until the king allows you to leave,” someone interjected.
Both Viljan and I stumbled back against the greasy wool of the tent when one of the most terrifying men I’d ever seen pointed a spear at Viljan’s throat, the single warning he’d offer. His red hair fell tangled down his back, as if he’d only just stepped off a fast-sailing ship, and a jagged scar ran down his pale face. Where his left eye should have been, a tattoo of a rune I’d never seen before was inked.
At our expressions he licked his lips, then took a leg of boar from the table beside me and ripped off a large piece of meat before throwing the bone back with the other food. “You don’t want to cause more trouble than you already have, Sweengard.”
