I kept my gaze on the dead man as Darcke’s soft voice tried to seal my broken heart. It must have only worked on physical wounds, because there was nothing that could stop the hurt seeping through me, making every nerve quiver with its fierceness.
Hair the color of the horizon at dawn was splayed around the man’s face, and as I went to move his thin body from touching Ottoh’s, my foot hooked behind my other leg.
This was no man. This was a young boy, and his face…
“This… this is the karl who was tied to Ottoh that first test,” I said slowly. “Look!”
Darcke came to my side, his hand slipping into mine.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
My second pulled me to him, his arm winding protectively around my chest. “I think so.”
But why? Why would he be here? Why would hekillOttoh?
“We should go,” Darcke said quietly as he held me closer. “They won’t like it if we’re late.”
“Darcke! This is no foreigner. I don’t know which island he hails from, but he’s from here! He’s from Skagerik.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, ‘so’? Why would he be fighting with the foreigners?”
“Karls have tried to go after you all this whole time,” Darcke said, but he sounded as convinced as I felt.
“No.” I said. “That’s not it. That can’t be it!”
“We need to go,” Darcke said. “I… I can’t risk your life again. Not after?—”
“But this matters!”
Darcke raised his voice. “You matter! How can you not see that!You. Matter.”
“I know I scared you,” I snarled. “But something is fuckinggoing on, and I need to figure out what it is. Nothing makes sense!”
Darcke pulled me to him, his heart pounding against my chest. “What’s going on is that you’re going to the gods any fucking moment now, and I can’t keep you safe there! I can’t be by your side. You need to focus on that. You need to focus on what you’re going to do.”
Nauseating, crippling fear gripped me. The gods. I’d stand before them soon. Maybe even today, if they were eager. And then I’d have to decide if Ivren’s plan could work.
My lip trembled at Ottoh’s shut eyes and Darcke’s frantic, haunted gaze.
Both were eerie reminders of what I had to lose if I failed. Ottoh a reminder of my family’s fate, and Darcke of my people. The shaking continued into my shoulders and settled in my hands.
For them—for all of them—I would do this. I’d unseat the king and earn my rune.
Or I’d die trying.
Darcke watched me, and when I pushed my shoulders back, a shadow of pride pulled at the corner of his mouth before it was on my own.
His hand slipped into my hair, and there was nothing soft about the kiss: it was heated and desperate and everything he wanted to say but there wasn’t time for.
It was a goodbye and good luck and please-stay-with-me in one. I pretended not to notice as heat flared in my core, and I held him closer, letting his tongue and lips guide me—drive every coherent thought from my mind—until he abruptly pulled back, his eyes shut as if in pain.
“We should go,” he said again, his voice hoarse.
“What was that for?” I asked, even though I could feel his anguish.
One side of his mouth lifted. “In case I don’t get a second chance.”
