“No.” Darcke shook his head. “We make our own wyrd.”
“Do we?”Is this where you would have been, then? Is this the life you would have chosen?
He dragged me to him. “That was not your fucking future.”
“What was it?” I asked.
“I’m not telling you, you fucking martyr.”
That tension between us returned tenfold, the ice creaking beneath us not the only threat in the air. Darcke’s chest heaved, the vein in his neck throbbing as he leaned over me like he was physically trying to stop me from doing whatever it was he’d seen.
A crack shattered the silence, and we flew around as one, our swords lifted.
“Elvara!” Vero screamed.
I didn’t wait as I started sprinting. Vero was dragging Ottoh with her as a gaping wound in the ice opened behind them, chasing them across the lake we’d been standing on.
“Elvara!”
I’d thought it would be Darcke who’d be the next person to yell at me, but it was Kilia and Ilse from the other side of the jagged maw where dark water spilled out at the sides, forcing my third and fourth backward. Ivren, Viljan, Rakkel, and their iron-bound came sliding to a stop behind them, closely followed by Geord and his men.
I didn’t like Viljan’s face at all as he cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Watch out!” he screamed. “Behind you!”
My feet kept moving as I turned my head over my shoulder and realized why Darcke had been so quiet. Three men in tattered clothing swarmed him, and while he easily parried the blows from their axes, they weren’t trying to outfence him—they were herding him.
With every strike he deflected, they forced him closer to the fracture in the water.
Enemies had found ushere? They’d braved Gravsgard to kill us?
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I cursed violently.
Two more men were approaching Vero and Ottoh, coming from the hill we’d slashed ourselves out of. My head snapped back and forth between the Briggen siblings and my second, and I had only heartbeats to make up my mind.
“Fuck!” I swore. “Vero! Duck!”
Fear twisted her features as she did what I said. As soon as her back bent, I threw my sword.
I didn’t stay to see my blade hit true, but my ears picked up a pained groan followed by a thud when I ran to Darcke and the men trying to get him into the vicious tide that churned beneath the ice. Hopefully Vero would be able to deal with the other one herself.
Darcke had managed to get one of the men. I jumped over his unnaturally twisted body, praying I wouldn’t slip on the warmblood pooling beneath him. The other two were relentless, attacking my second again and again and again, each time forcing him another step backward.
Darcke didn’t realize my plan until it was too late. By not deciding what I would do until the last second, I kept my intent hidden from him. I saw his mouth open as I lunged, but I only used the fear erupting along the tether to fuel my leap.
The man I’d aimed for didn’t see me coming. As I slammed into his back, I sent us both careening over the slick surface, hurtling toward the water.
It would have been easier if I’d had my sword, but I sacrificed my nails to dig into the ice—to try to stop, or at least slow myself down. I cried out as my nails ripped clean off, but it worked. The split in the ice wasn’t coming at me so fast anymore. Then something wrapped around my wrist, and my breath hitched in my throat when I sped up again before the man I’d knocked down dragged me with him into the water.
The freezing waves shocked me, every nerve within my body firing. I knew I had only seconds if I wanted to even try to survive. Kicking myself free from the man’s grip, I reached upward, but my fingers touched nothing. I didn’t dare spin—I didn’t want to become confused in the dark water—but only used my legs to thrust upward and try again.
Nothing. Bubbles rose before my face when I screamed in frustration, but it was when those bubbles became smaller that terror truly settled like a hand around my throat. My limbs were already stiffening, and I still couldn’t see anything in the swirling dark.
One more time. One more.
I stretched an arm as high as I could, and this time I felt ice. I could have cried from happiness—at least I hadn’t accidentally swum to the bottom—but I stopped the air trying to wrangle itself from my lungs. I would need it for as long as possible.
Keeping my fingers touching the barrier between me and air, I turned myhead.
