“Don’t blame him.” The king took a step toward me. “He didn’t want to do this. Not like how it happened.”
The warriors reached the heirs. Viljan roared as a man barreled into him, but thankfully Torden was able to kick him off my former guard.
I paced a narrow, restless pathas my friends broke their line.
Rakkel’s mother tried to shove her daughter out of the way, but Rakkel shook her head and the two women stared at each other for a moment before Chief Rafenskol dipped her chin and turned against the other chiefs.
“I need to get over there,” I hissed.
But as I went to start sprinting, Darcke’s arm found its way around my waist again. His touch was too hot—too harsh and too gentle at the same time—and I shoved at his hands, but he only held me closer, forcing me to listen to the heavy breaths leaving him.
“I will cut you if you don’t release me,” I screamed, wrangling my sword to try to angle it behind me.
“I don’t fucking care,” he replied into my ear. “I need you to live.”
Ivren, Viljan, and Geord were pushed backward as they tried to hold back the horde of men and women coming for me, and I saw the moment Ivren’s foot twisted.
“No!” My scream made Viljan spin, and color fled his face when one of the men flew toward the Solsken heir, using his sword as leverage and driving it deep into Ivren’s chest.
“Ivren!” Another scream split the chaos, and Ivren’s mother lurched forward when a look of surprise overtook her son’s face before he fell to his knees and toppled over.
The Solsken chief bared her teeth and sent a dagger flying, lodging it in the man’s neck so that he went down only a step away from the heir he’d struck.
Tears blinded me as Viljan screamed toward the aurora. Geord bent down, his hard face pulling with every emotion as he dragged Ivren’s lifeless body to the side before jumping right back into the fighting.
After that it became mayhem. Nobody knew who to target, so everyone went for everybody, like a pack of starving wolves turning on each other. I could smell the smugness on my mother’s breath when Adrion’s father went down next and Ivren’s mother was surrounded, still fighting her way to get to her son.
“Let me go,” I snarled to Darcke. “I need to help them.”
“Donotlet her go,” the king ordered. “We need her alive.”
“You do not get to decide that.” I twisted my body with everything in me, my eyes set on my mother’s unprotected back. “Let me go!”
“Elvara,” Darcke started.
I threw my head so that the back of it slammed into his nose, and when he stiffened, I sent my elbow into his gut. I waited for my feet to hit the ground, but Darcke’s manic laugh only brushed my ear as his arms cradled me closer.
“You’re going to have to do a lot better than that,heir,” he hissed.
I hated him at that moment. I hated that he called meheir. I hated that I couldn’t feel anything from him. I hated that I couldn’t tell if he was protecting me because hewantedme to be safe or because heneededto.
“Oh, I will.” Crimson tinted my vision when I started spinning, making myself deadweight in his arms before tensing and pushing away from him with my legs. But he was too fucking strong.
As I took a breath to do it again, something creaked behind us.
I went entirely still as the gates towering over us opened an inch. The brightest light I’d ever seen spilled onto the ground, and the warmth from it was like a midday sun dancing over my skin.
“What do you see?” the king asked.
“Nothing.” I tried to tear my eyes away, but it was impossible.
Whatever was in that light was pulling me in, so alluring it pained me to blink—to look away for a single moment. The scent wrapping around me was spellbinding, making memories I hadn’t thought of in years flash before my eyes, and showing me new images of moments I’d never forget.
Lika and I playing by the river when we were children—him forcing me to bend the knee to him like I’d have to when he became chief.
My father making me sit in on Lika’s lessons. My father asking my opinions when we had our village meetings, always allowing me to take the time to think before I spoke.
Darcke and I during our bonding, the way he looked at me when he held me while Njord spun around us, blessing our bond. There wasn’t only respect in his eyes as Njord conjured a crown of water over my head, but something softer, something vulnerable that he allowed to cross his face only because my eyes were closed. Longing. It was desperate, irresistible longing. Not for a romantic partner but for a queen—for someone to heal his people.
