As his hot breath fanned over my face, I screamed, “What is wrong with you?”
My head pulsated as he grinned a violent, vicious smile. “Revenge, Sweengard. The thirst for revenge runs hot in my blood. And now that you’re weakened…”
“I didn’t do anything!” I thrashed to break his hold, but it only anchored him deeper, his weight pinning me to the jagged seabed. His hands found my shoulders, and with a snarl, he tried to drive me back into the cold embrace of the deep.
“I don’t care,” Kilia hissed.
I groaned at the weight of him, squirming to find a way to escape.
Something flashed above me, and I looked up. Darcke stood there, elbows resting on the railing above the chaos, nothing shadowing his features as he stared back at me. I bared my teeth at him when he nodded in a bored salute I didn’t care one fuck for.
Bastard.
Kilia heaved against me once more, and stone cut my hands as I tried to withstand it. A tapping sound reached my ears, and I involuntarily glanced up again. Darcke remained there for a second before he spun, his silhouette against the dark sky disappearing from view.
As I twisted my body, a splintered rib of a longship floated my way, and I didn’t hesitate as I used my last strength to dive for it, pressing one shoulder up to throw Kilia off.
The wood sealed itself in my hand as if it had been made for me, and I wedged it between us, driving the tip into Kilia’s throat. I used enough force to draw blood, but I stopped after the wood broke his skin.
There was no fear in his eyes when he glared at me. Only rage and regret. From somewhere in the battle around us, someone screamed his name. I didn’t need to look up to know it was his brother.
A swallow rolled down my throat.
“Why”—I took a breath—“do you keep trying to kill me?”
“Blood for blood,” he spat.
“Who did my brother kill?”
The muscle in Kilia’s jaw worked. “My sister,” he admitted.
My brows pinched. Lika might have been ruthless, but he did not kill easily. And he definitely didn’t kill women.
“No.” I shook my head, firming my grip on the driftwood. “You’re lying.”
The corners of his eyes twitched, and it wasn’t a bead from the bed of water surrounding us that traced down his cheek. It was quiet for a moment, until a drop of blood escaped the wound I was creating and forced a decisive look over his features.
“He promised her it was love,” Kilia snarled. “He promised her she’d become his wife! That he’d come for her. She waited for himfor years, and he kept dangling his lure. Every fucking summer he’d bait her, but when winter came around, he was nowhere to be seen.”
“So?” My voice sounded sharper than I felt.
Everyone had flings over the summer when we met at battles or on travels for trade.
But promises of weddings? That wasn’t common. It also wasn’t something Lika could offer.
“She decided she didn’t want to wait anymore, so she went in search of him!” Kilia screamed, pressing himself harder against the weapon draining his life. “She was killed. My mother’s only daughter was killed by enemies, her head severed like a fucking thrall! It’s Lika’s fault, and he knows it!”
“No,” I said.
Kilia didn’t say anything else as my thoughts waged war inside my mind. Lika couldn’t have promised marriage because a chieftain’s bed was not theirs to give. Heirs could play around—we were no prudes—but that freedom ended with the Hird. Once an heir was the king’s chosen, their hand became a coin of the realm,to be spent by the crown on an alliance of their choosing.That’s how my parents wed.
“You lie,” I accused him again.
Kilia’s face grew paler by the second, and a tiredness seeped across his features as he turned from me. I followed, and Oscri, the mirror to the man whose life I had in my hands, stood a few feet away, his skin as white as the one before me.
To his side, Ottoh wiped blood from a busted lip while the boy tied to him heaved the limp body of a captive to the side, shoving it into the surge, where it joined the many others.
I waited for a smirk from the heir, perhaps a sharp comment as to why I hadn’t killed this brute for these accusations yet. But no razor-edged smile came.
