Page 12 of Blood Beneath the Snow (Blood & Souls Duology #1)

12

There was no morning light to wake me, so I had no clue how long I’d slept. But when I sat up, the Hellbringer was in the same spot he’d been in when I fell asleep. The fire, however, was barely embers. Torches on the walls had been lit to make up for the missing light source.

For a minute the Hellbringer didn’t move. Perhaps he was sleeping, his eyes closed beneath the mask. I shut my eyes tight and opened them again, half hoping the scene around me would dissolve, replaced by snow-covered mountains and green pines.

It was useless. I swallowed the sour taste of anguish in my mouth, the memory of the day before. Had it only been one day?

“Good, you’re awake.” The deep voice echoed against the walls and the masked, black-clad figure stood and turned to face me. “Are you ready to begin?”

Sitting up, I glanced at him, then began re-braiding my hair tightly to my scalp. One stray lock, too short to stay back, fell in front of my eyes. “Begin what, exactly?”

He strolled to the hooks on the wall. I watched with morbid curiosity as he drew his sword from its sheath. Holding it up in the torchlight, the Hellbringer studied the flame reflected back at him. “Training.”

“Training? What training?”

He extended his sword to point to where mine rested next to me on the bed. I’d kept my hand tight around the hilt while I slept, in case he tried anything. Not that I could do much against his godtouch. Surprisingly enough, he kept true to his word—he hadn’t attempted to kill me so far.

“ Combat training?”

He nodded once, beckoning me to stand. I didn’t move. Surely there was an ulterior motive here. Until I understood his endgame, I wasn’t willing to play along.

“Why would you train me?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest. “We’re on different sides of the war.”

He chuckled, and the sound reverberated through my bones. “Not for much longer,” he said. “My queen hopes to make a truce with your nation.”

Good luck.

“A truce? Your queen must be foolish if she thinks my father will consider anything but her surrender.”

He nodded. “Tell you what. If you train with me today, I’ll tell you why I brought you here. And everything else you want to know.”

Everything?

I frowned, wishing I wasn’t tempted by the offer. “How do I know I can trust you?”

The mask was impassive, but I swore I heard something catch in his voice as he said, “You will hear no lies from me. I promise you.”

My stomach soured at the prospect of caving to his demands, but I was too curious to remain on the bed. Despite my predicament as his captive, the Hellbringer’s words rang with sincerity. I stood, grabbing the hilt of my sword as I went.

“What is your weapon of choice?” he asked, moving forward to examine my sword more closely. He gestured with one hand and I obliged, holding up the blade for him to study.

“Sword, I guess? Never fought with anything else.”

“May I?” I handed him the sword, hoping he didn’t kill me with it. His gloved hand dwarfed the dull steel, and I was reminded viscerally of the night before, when I’d watched his blood run down the metal. Some of it still stained the weapon, now a dull rust red. “Your blade is subpar at best. A strong strike in the right place would shatter the metal. We’ll need to find you a more suitable weapon. What do your brothers fight with?”

I swallowed down the irritation pushing to the surface. We hadn’t been at it for a whole minute and he’d already insulted the weapon I’d learned on. The one I’d chosen myself and guarded with my life. “I’ll have you know that subpar blade has saved my life on more than one occasion.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He tilted his head slightly, and I knew his focus had been drawn from the blade to me. I crossed my arms. “In many situations, the weapon matters far less than the one wielding it.”

Was that…a compliment?

It was too soon to tell. I pursed my lips, knowing my suspicion was clearly written across my face. I hadn’t answered his question, though. Eager to change the subject, I considered each of my brothers.

“Erik uses a greatsword.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “Frode has two long knives—not exactly daggers. I’m not sure what they’re called. Jac is best with a bow and arrow, but in close-range fighting he prefers to transform into a beast and use his claws as his weapons. And Bjorn uses a sword like mine. I think he throws daggers on occasion, too.”

I watched closely as he twisted my sword and studied the hilt. He ran a careful gloved hand over the worn leather, which had warped slightly from my years of practice with it. “We could forge you another kind of weapon if you’d like, but since you already have a sword, I assume you’re probably most comfortable with it.”

It wasn’t a question, but I knew he was waiting for an answer regardless. “Hard to say. I can’t imagine fighting with anything else. I know how to use the sword, though. If I needed to learn another weapon, I’d be starting from the beginning.”

He wrapped a hand around the blade again and extended the sword to me, hilt first. I took it, wondering what a newer version would look like in my hands. Whether the familiar grip of this one would be something I missed. “A sword is versatile. I think it will be your best option, considering your brothers’ weapons of choice,” he said.

“My best option for the Trials.” I rubbed a thumb against the hilt of my sword. “You know I’m competing.”

The Hellbringer’s chuckle was dark. “The whole world knows by now, Princess. Now, prepare to spar.”

I took a deep breath. He was trying to bait me by calling me princess , and it was effective. He didn’t say it like a fact, even though it was. He said it like an insult.

The worst part was that I didn’t blame him.

“I’ve already been trained, you know,” I said, facing him and planting my feet in position. My words were meant to give me confidence but had no effect. “I’m not bad.”

“Who taught you?” he asked, observing my stance. “Your feet are all wrong.”

When I knew my death was not imminent, he was much less frightening. Just annoying. “My friends.”

“Not your brothers?” He moved close to me, sheathing his sword so he could readjust my stance.

I flinched as his gloved fingers touched me. He could sense it—he stilled for a moment and the mask tilted toward me, as if to ask permission before continuing. I nodded, refusing to look at his visage, ignoring the whiff of pine that strayed from him. “No. Why would my brothers teach me anything?”

He must have heard the bitter note in my voice. I was grateful he was focused on my feet so I couldn’t look at the mask’s blank stare. “Your family is different than most.”

I grunted an affirmation, too annoyed to be grateful for his gentle touch. The Hellbringer stood straight again and stepped back to survey my stance. The room was significantly colder when he stood far away. “Better,” he said.

“I don’t like it,” I muttered. “It feels weird.”

“It feels right ,” he corrected.

I rolled my eyes.

“Your hands are fine,” he conceded. He spread his arms. “Now come and get me.”

I relaxed. “Is this a joke? You don’t have your weapon out. And you’re wearing no armor.”

“You would refuse the chance to run a blade through my heart?”

Yeah, right. He’d proven already that he wouldn’t let me kill him no matter how hard I tried. But I sensed a smirk under the mask and my irritation made me clench my jaw.

I lunged forward, swinging my blade with my momentum. To my surprise, it failed to connect with flesh.

He had dodged my swipe. Flustered, I turned. Fine. Faster, then.

I moved, nimble on my feet, my blade sailing through the air, catching the torchlight as it flew. At no point did the Hellbringer see fit to parry, much less to unsheathe his own weapon. Instead, he stepped lightly away from each attempt I made to wound him. Like a shadow slipping between flickering flames, he moved with the ease and grace of a wolf.

With every missed swing, a heavy anger formed in the pit of my stomach. After ten minutes of no success, I finally screamed wordlessly and hurled my sword at him.

He stepped to the side. The blade clattered against the wall.

I turned away, grinding my nails into my hair.

“You need work,” he commented. “But you’re better than I expected.”

I lunged blindly, this time with my hand pulled into a fist.

His own gloved hand reached out and caught my wrist. The strength of his hand was like iron; try as I might, I couldn’t pull away.

“First rule,” he growled, his mechanical voice echoing slightly off the wall. “Never fight angry.”

I tugged my hand and he let go, leaving me to pick up my blade and pull a lantern from its hook.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving.” I stormed out the door, back into the corridors winding through the building.

He didn’t follow me.

The hallways blurred together in a swirl of black and gray, shadows and dark metal. My boots pounded a constant echo against the floor. I tried to keep my breathing steady, but as thoughts ran through my mind, it turned more ragged.

Anger built in my stomach, pounding to the beating of my heart. Sweat collected on my brow despite the frigid cold, and I reached a hand to wipe it out of my eyes. I took another left.

Better than I expected. The Hellbringer’s comment, made with no sarcasm or jest, only pure logic, made me seethe.

When I turned too fast, my foot caught on a corner and I flew forward, the heels of my hands landing roughly on the metal floor. The lantern clattered to the ground and rolled away from me.

The anger heated to boiling in me and I screamed.

The sound wrenched itself from me. I had no control over it; it bounced off every wall, containing every ounce of what I felt.

You are in a prison with a madman and no one is coming for you.

Father had brought me to the front lines in the hopes I’d be killed. We hadn’t even made it there before I was taken. Every day, I was one step closer to my demise, but the cruelest part of being with the Hellbringer was never knowing when it was coming.

Any plans the Kryllian Queen had for me would end in my death. To keep me alive would be a child’s mistake.

No one is coming for you.

Finally, the echo of my scream faded into silence, and I clenched my jaw until pain radiated through my face. I looked up at where the light of the lantern flowed to the top of the ceiling. In front of me, the hallway extended into darkness so thick, it could have been a dead end. The place was a maze, impossible to navigate. And I was only on the bottom floor—I’d ignored the ascending stairs I’d passed while I ran.

“What are you doing?”

I wasn’t surprised to hear the Hellbringer behind me, but when the grinding voice softened slightly through its distortion, I stiffened.

Sympathy from a monster?

“Trying to get away from you.” I didn’t turn to face him, but the lantern caught his shadow and threw it against the wall. I could see my own shadow, reflecting where I sat on my knees, shaking from the cold burrowing deep into my bones. He towered over me.

Something inside of me broke; I couldn’t define it, but I felt every ounce of will leave me. I had been wandering the endless hallways for what must have been an hour. I was no closer to escape.

You are in a prison with a madman and no one is coming for you.

“All of the exits in this prison have been sealed entirely,” the Hellbringer said. “Doors that used to open have been welded shut. The locks on the few doors with functioning mechanisms are impossible to pick. I’ve seen to it myself.”

I stared at the ground, unmoving.

“The only way in or out is for my soldier to take us. This location is hidden from all but her.”

Frode would look. So would Jac. If they could get away from Father for long enough to search. But if what my captor said was true—and I suspected it was—then they would have no success.

I took the shaking part of me and forced it back into the pit of my stomach. Pushed the image of Frode’s and Freja’s faces far into the recesses of my mind. “It doesn’t matter,” I whispered. “It wouldn’t make a difference anyway.”

There was a long beat of silence, broken only by the crackling of the lantern’s fire.

“Go away,” I said. It would be better to die of starvation in the darkness.

His lantern was held outstretched as he stared at me. There was nothing behind the eyes of the mask.

What did he see when he looked at me? A broken princess, desperate to free her people and impossibly far from achieving that goal?

Did he pity me?

I was too numb to care.

He didn’t speak. When I looked up again, I was alone.

Keeping time was impossible within the prison, but I assumed several hours had passed. And I’d spent all of them wandering, hoping to find a shred of evidence the Hellbringer had been lying, and there was a way to escape. I’d come upon several doors, many of which appeared to lead outside, but they wouldn’t budge. Many of them were melted along the edges, the frames indeed welded shut.

Only one door had seemed usable in any way. I made a mental note to come back with tools to try picking the lock. Assuming I could find tools, of course.

I clutched my arms around myself. My teeth had been chattering long enough my jaw hurt, but I wasn’t going back to him. I couldn’t. I would rather die here in the dark and the cold than face the Hellbringer again.

Because then I’d have to admit I needed him to save me.

The lantern light danced in front of me as I forced step after step into the gray darkness. Shivers overtook my every movement. Occasionally the metal was dulled and dented where something heavy had swung into the walls. The prison told a visual story, like scars on skin.

If I could escape, then it wouldn’t matter if no one was coming to find me. I would save myself. The way I always had before.

Step after step I continued walking, finding several dead ends and turning back around to locate the next available path. I knew I was hopelessly lost, but the moment I admitted it to myself, fear would come creeping in. So instead I kept walking.

That is, until the cold sank far enough into my bones that my knees groaned and gave out.

I let out a grunt as I fell. The lantern’s delicate glass covering shattered into pieces as it hit the ground again, and I felt a shard sink into my palm. My tongue was numb from the frigidity, so I couldn’t swear.

Darkness. It soothed me. I faded in and out, in and out of consciousness.

I was dying.

The fear I’d expected didn’t come. Instead, a sigh of relief covered me like a blanket, and my body relaxed. Finally.

I slipped into the dark.