Gods, I was so fucking tired of feeling powerless. Ever since the day our ships had gone quiet, it felt like I’d been fighting a battle where the enemies kept bringing in fresh armies that I had to fend off with a dull sword.
“Elvara.”
I fucking hated the way Darcke said my name because I knew what would come next.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“The rocks covering the entrance are too large,” he said furiously. “We won’t be able to move them. Not alone.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?” Vero cried. “You’re a Sweengard. Get us out!”
Every sip of air became more of a battle, like trying to gather water from a dried-up well, and the tears swimming in my eyes spilled over, roaring rivers in summer rolling down my cheeks.
“Elvara!” Vero screamed. “He’s barely breathing!”
I wanted nothing more than to claw at my throat. I wasn’t struggling only with my own breaths. Darcke and I felt each other’s need for air, and all the fury in the realm couldn’t stop the fear as I thought of the Viking warrior’s chest no longer moving.
Darcke growled as he fought to shift one of the rocks, and I jerked at the pain radiating through him as he slammed a fist into one and violently kicked another.
Darkness pressed in like it couldn’t wait to swallow us—addus to the bodies that already littered this cursed island. For every breath that didn’t fulfill our need for air, I felt it come closer, our wyrds knitting a final ending of the two heirs and their seconds, one that would turn into a warning for future generations.
Vero started laughing, and I guessed the same strange euphoria clawing at my mind had started in hers. It would be so easy to give in. A giggle rocked my chest. No one would find us here—no one would know what I’d failed to do.
“Fuck!” Darcke screamed, and the scent of iron that already clung to him grew stronger as his knuckles split from the force with which he punched the boulders. “This is not how we’re going to go! I fucking refuse!”
I pressed my hands into the floor, where puddles had begun to form, when more of that delirium set in. My fingers whispered over the water, and reality started to go in and out, the dark cave replaced by a towering, snow-covered mountain.
My mind snapped to a burning village—to Darcke standing in the water, screaming out his pain. Then it went to the shaman, severing his rune and tying down his magic, ripping out a piece of his soul. I placed more weight on my hands, the ice-cold water covering them, as Darcke’s pain tried to consume me, keeping my eyes closed while I allowed his memories to battle the darkness surrounding me.
How had he not given up? How was he still here?
Alone and broken and forced to submit to the king who’d killed everyone he loved—who’d killed the person Darcke had been.
My nostrils flared as my mind showed me Darcke falling to his knees in the sea, calling for a god who couldn’t stand up to the stronger Aesir—who had to leave his people to die.
I felt his pain like it was my own. And perhaps it was. My reflection sitting atop the cliffs at Oenskan came next—me washing away the image of the young, naive girl, replacing her with the version of me today.
The king had done this to me too. If not for his war hunger,my father would be alive, and getting out of this cave wouldn’t be an issue. My teeth slammed together. If not for the king’s greed, Lika would be alive, and I wouldn’t be here at all. I wouldn’t have collared a man already leashed to the monarch, dragging him into a bond that made him a traitor to his own blood. I wouldn’t have tricked an heir and his second to trust me, and I wouldn’t be the reason they wouldn’t make it out to lead their people.
It all went back to the king.
“Elvara,” Vero pleaded. “Help us.Please.”
A snarl pulled my lips back from my teeth as I dug my nails into the frozen ground, a familiar feeling of rage making me rise on shaking legs. Perhaps this was why Darcke was so angry all the time. It was easier to focus on one emotion to keep moving.
I pictured the king at the first feast, sitting on his dais as the initiates fought for their lives on the ground beneath him. That’s where he sat when we waged every war he asked of us. That’s probably where he was right now.
My hands shook by my side as I walked blindly to where Darcke was still fighting his losing battle with the stone. Maybe it was time to do something about all this. Maybe what I was fighting for shouldn’t only bemypeople, butallour people—and all the people out there in the world whom King Gustief had forced beneath his rule.
“I’m not giving up on us,” I said.
I would claw us out of this mountain if I had to. I hadn’t survived this far for it to end here. None of us had.
“I know.” Darcke’s low voice fueled the fire within me.
I pressed my palms against one of the boulders before me. Something deep inside me—the memory of the power that used to flow within my blood—had expected my rage to maybe find that strength again. But the rock didn’t move. Something else did, though.
A metallic sound made the first echo since the cave ruptured, and I knew what I’d find as I trailed my fingers down the stone. As my fingers wrapped around a cool hilt, mybody went rigid.
