Page 163

“Yrsa!” King Hundur roared from up the slope. “Stupid girl, get out of there.”

Princess Yrsa tossed back her hood, her eyes ablaze. She threw more pouches of herbs at the foot of a fleeing Stav Guard. At once, the man stumbled, clawing at his skin in terror from her hallucinogen.

Yrsa claimed not to be skilled with blood craft, but I was beginning to believe those might’ve been her father’s words all along.

“Tell me, Father,” she shouted back. “Did Baldur tell you his true name? Did he tell you what he’s after?”

Hundur glared at his daughter. His fists curled, the hooked bones Lyra had melded onto his knuckles in Stonegate gleamed like jagged claws. “I know what we seek. It will only strengthen our alliance. And you are ruining it all.”

“Think so, Hundur?” Thane materialized through the mists. He wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his sleeve, glaring at his mother. “Do you know? Do you wish me dead so fiercely, Mother?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You killed my father,” Thane roared. “Now you wish to kill me. Get off the horse, Mother, and do it, then.”

Ingir’s brow furrowed. “There are things you do not understand. Your father would be ruthless with the bones. We will restore the first kingdom.”

“By slaughtering your children!”

“No.”

Thane barked a laugh. “Ah, Fadey didn’t tell you. The bones are within us, Mother! That is how he gathers them. Did you never stop to wonder why he wanted Yrsa at the palace the moment you decided to kill the king? The bones, Ingir. They are buried within your heirs.”

Ingir’s face paled. She shook her head. “No, that isn’t…that isn’t true. It is our blood that will lead the melder to them.”

“By spilling our blood!” Thane’s voice boomed. “Look at all you’ve lost for greed.”

A figure slunk closer to Hundur. The king did not turn. He did not see.

Movement in the trees came from the side of Ingir. Pain shadowed Thane’s bright eyes, as though he knew what was about to happen. As though he’d reconciled with it, but the sorrow could not be helped.

Thane’s sword lowered. “Will it be worth it to send me to Salur? Perhaps you and Fadey can make a new son.”

Ingir shook her head. “You’re wrong, Thane. You must be.”

“You know, you still have not said that you wouldn’t do it.”

“You are my son.” She was frantic. “You must be wrong.”

“I’m not, and I do not call you kin any longer.” The prince lifted his blade and used the tip to point at me. “But he is my brother, and you poisoned him.”

The queen shot her disdain toward me. “You are ensnared by soul craft, and when he is gone, you will be free.”

“Is that what Fadey told you? The folk who stand against you, the clans I thought were my enemies, are more kin to me than anyone at Stonegate. Farewell, Mother.”

Hundur’s cry came first. Emi had moved behind the king like a wraith in the night. One touch to his leg and her craft jerked the bone of his thigh to twist and snap into a sickening angle.

When he doubled over, Emi made quick work of clasping his neck between her palms.

The snap of the Myrdan king’s spine seemed to echo across the battle.

Ingir screamed and rammed her heels into the belly of her horse, desperate to flee. When she turned, the point of a spear rammed into her heart. Blood dribbled down Ingir’s lips. Her body convulsed, once, twice.

She toppled off the horse in a heap onto the knoll.

Thane closed his eyes. Yrsa was silent, but tears fell onto her cheeks.

Jordis let her hand drop from the throw of her spear. My brother’s wife pressed two fingers to her own brow, then bent to the soil.