“Because you do not ask ones I can respond to.”
I blinked at the white-hot spike driving through his thoughts.
“Can you two stop bickering?” Kilia hissed. “I think Guner is about two seconds from slitting all of our throats.”
As Darcke released me, moving to stand on the other side of my third, I tried to convince myself I was relieved, but the aching void settling in my chest made that difficult.
Thirty-Seven
“There was an attack again last night.” Guner walked back and forth on the dock, his shadow playing across the damp planks. “The king is in a meeting with Chief Rafenskol, Chief Solsken, and Chief Leskog to see what can be done about this threat. In the meantime he wants you all to earn your weapons. It’s more important than ever that you are equipped to protect our people.”
Ivren shot me a look, and my jaw locked as I returned it. Thoughts I wouldn’t have dared to let surface a few weeks ago swirled in my mind, and when Darcke raked a hand through his hair, messing up the waves framing his sharp face, I remembered that pain—the crushing grief and chaos that was his mind—and my nostrils flared.
Whoever was behind the attacks, greed was causing it. Greed for more land and people under our rule, which had resulted in us being surrounded by enemies.
Darcke shifted his weight as my emotions slammed into him. The intensity of the sensations within me didn’t cool when he bored his eyes into mine as if he read every thought and suspicion, then shared a long look with Torden and Borje that made them fall into a whispered conversation.
“The trial of steel will test each one of you as individuals and as a group,” Guner continued. “You, and you alone, will travel to Gravsgard—the battlefield where our ancestors claimed the North. Return alive, and you will bring back steel blessed by Odin—a sword already wetted by the blood of those who dared stand against us, heroically wielded by one of your forefathers. It’s the highest honor to be blessed by a blade from Gravsgard, but the path to hold one in your hand is brutal.”
Kilia flexed his fingers while Ilse closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. Hot nerves flitted over my skin as I watched them, making sweat trickle over my neck and down my chest.
Gravsgard was where the epic battle of the North had happened, when we claimed these islands as our own. We’d lost many men and women in that war, and they all still lay there on our most northern island—one shrouded in mist and glory—frozen in time.
Growing up, our elders told us horror stories of the island, mostly to scare us from talking ill of the dead, although after Morkskog I was becoming more open to all the tales being real.
I wiped at my neck when more sweat formed there. What if… justifI was wrong, and Darcke was the one behind the attacks? We’d be alone out there, heirs and iron-bound.
It would be a perfect opportunity.
Darcke’s gaze was heavy when it slid my way, and even though I kept my face forward, trying everything I could not to let my emotions reach for him, the slow curl of his lips was impossible to miss.
“Do we have to earn a sword?” Darcke drawled. “My axes work perfectly fine.”
My stance wavered as Ivren and Geord drew a sharp breath at the same time.
Did he always need to remind everyone how little he wanted to be a second?
Does he have to remind me?
Guner glared at me as if it were I who had spoken, and I reached around Kilia to smack the back of Darcke’s head. Unfortunately he anticipated it, catching my hand and dragging me to him instead.
“I am in the mood to play,” Darcke purred.
I lowered my chin, tiredness weighing down my shoulders.
Even if I was wrong, it wasn’t like I could do anything about it now.
“I know that you don’t want this,” I whispered, waving between my group of iron-bound. “And trust me, I am beginning to see why. But they’re watching me—us—so please, just for now, shut up.”
A stillness came over him.
“That was wrong in so many ways,” Darcke responded quietly. “And if that is what you’re beginning to see, your eyes are failing you.” He shook his head. “But I’ll be quiet if that’s what you wish.”
“Are you done?” Guner asked.
“Yes,” I replied, as Darcke hissed, “Far from it.”
Thankfully no one else heard him.
