Fury ignited like a wildfire within me. I wasn’t even sure who deserved it more. The king? My brother? My father? My mother? Me for not understanding earlier?
Darcke’s eyes pleaded with me, and I didn’t know what to do—what to say. What to believe. Lika had wanted this, and my father… my father was on the king’s side? How could he side with the man he and my mother had spent so many evenings complaining about?
“Why?” It was the only word I could get out.
“Why?” my mother asked, and her tone was so foul Vero and Geord winced. “Greed? Power?” She threw out her hands. “Take your pick, little girl.” As Adrion’s father came up on her other side, she grinned coldly. “We were getting tired of fighting beneath a king who had too little ambition. We can conquer the world! We have the ships and the people and the magic, but Gustief here thinks we should use it… sparingly.” She spat out the last word.
Sparingly? We’d almost taken over the entire fucking world already.
“Chief Leskog,” Geord demanded. “What is this?”
Adrion’s father tilted his head. “This has been in the works for a long time, Geord. You didn’t think you taking over for my useless son was a coincidence, do you? We all worked to mold our heirs, but Adrion was too soft. I needed someone like you: brutal, vicious, emotionless—the perfect warrior.”
Geord’s face blanched with every word leaving the chief’s mouth, and the rest of us followed when Chief Leskog continued. “We couldn’t have gotten here without Chief Solsken. She came up with the brilliant plan of turning her magic on the shaman a decade ago. Shame it didn’t work entirely as intended.”
I could barely breathe when Ivren’s eyes widened, and his whispered “Mother?” echoed in the mounting dread surrounding us all.
Geord and Vero moved closer, the latter standing almost shoulder to shoulder with me. Rakkel was the only heir standing by herself, pale and shaking hands twisted in front of her body.
“Son, you didn’t think this was allyour plan, did you? You may be a great heir, but you are young and naive,” the Solsken chieftain said. “We tried not to spill our clan’s blood. We really did. I used my rune to influence the shaman’s mind, forcing him to poison our dear king’s thoughts. But Gustief is strong. Hard to break entirely. Although here…” She smiled. “Here you can’t fight us. Did you not worry what would happen when you didn’t have all your runes,Your Majesty?”
Her grin widened when everyone turned to the stiff king—to the shaman with a blank face beside him. The king’s warriors shifted, sharing glances with each other.
“Gustief couldn’t stop everything,” Ivren’s mother continued. “We did conquer nation after nation, but our dear king and his men pocketed the treasures we bled for. He knew something was off with the orders he gave, and he used our hard-won earnings to tryto figure it out.”
“Elvara.” Vero’s whisper brushed my ear.
I only sent my eyes her way, too aware that every person on this divine pathway was balancing on a knife’s edge. One wrong move would set everything in motion.
Geord had his blade in his hand behind Vero’s back, and Vero hers behind his. She nodded to Ivren, and I tried to subtly nudge the bewildered heir backward, but his entire head turned. As he took us in, he stepped right into line with us—four heirs reminding each other that we might not know who the enemy was right now, but we did know it wasn’t us.
“Look at that,” my mother taunted. “They’re protecting each other.” She laughed quietly. “You will be good chiefs when you’re ready. And we’ll make sure you have the land you deserve beneath your rule when you take over.”
“Everyone but Elvara, is that right?” Vero’s voice shook, and I pressed my shoulder into hers. “She will not live to see that day.”
“The gods wouldn’t have spared her anyway,” my mother spat. “Isn’t that right, Rakkel? Elvara and Darcke already betrayed their sacred bond.”
For the first time since the chiefs and their warriors arrived, Rakkel moved, her hands coming to cover her face. Her skin had that sickly gray hue it had assumed lately, and I finally understood what it was.
Guilt. Nauseating, cold, crippling guilt.
If Darcke hadn’t been behind me, I might have fallen.
“What is she talking about?” I asked.
Rakkel shook her head, her features still hidden by her hands. “I’m s-sorry. They forced me. They…he”—she pointed a shaking finger to the shaman—“is keeping my brother’s mind captive for us to spy for them.”
“She’s been using her mother’s rune to keep us informed on everything that happened at the Hird,” my mother said smugly. “Very useful. I didn’t care much for gomnd, but it’s a truly helpful power. So we know all about you two and the way you’vedishonored the gods.” She clicked her tongue. “I didn’t have high hopes for you, Elvara, but to fuck your second? Your father must be hiding his face in Valhalla.”
Darcke’s chest vibrated against my back, a growl rumbling through us both.
I couldn’t help but bare my teeth.
My mother’s grin broadened. “No. Don’t tell me. Are youin lovewith him, Elvara?”
Darcke stopped breathing, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know why.
“Don’t let her get to you,” Ivren whispered, still facing my mother. “They’re trying to distract us. Look.”
