Page 19 of Blood Beneath the Snow (Blood & Souls Duology #1)

19

Four days later I looked down at myself and wished—not for the first time—for a change of clothes. I’d been wearing the same ones since I departed Bhorglid. I spent all day sweating or shivering in them and they reeked. It had been almost three weeks now since I first arrived in the prison. How much longer would I be living in my own filth?

When I expressed my need to bathe, I expected the Hellbringer to decline, rudely reminding me that I didn’t get to ask for anything as long as I was here. Instead, whatever torment he’d felt earlier this week seemed to be forgotten as he displayed his usual, straight-to-the-point attitude. “Come with me,” he demanded. He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

I hurried to grab my sword and follow him. Maybe we were training in the enclosed spaces of the prison hallways today.

He moved quickly, never looking back to see if I followed him. I worked up a sweat keeping up. Did he know I was there, or was it up to me to avoid getting lost?

We walked for about fifteen minutes before reaching the door I’d tried to make my escape through. The same crowbar I’d used to try and pick the lock lay discarded on the floor, exactly where I’d dropped it when he startled me that early morning, demanding I travel to the forge with him. Had it really only been two weeks since then?

Now he removed a chain from around his neck with a key on it. I frowned, stretching up on my tiptoes to examine it more closely. He hadn’t been wearing it when he had his shirt off in the forge, and I’d never seen so much as a glimmer of light catching on the artifact when we were sparring.

He reached to unlock the door. “If you’re still entertaining thoughts of escaping, then be warned: I rarely have the key on me.”

I wasn’t sure if the Hellbringer or I was more surprised when I softly said, “I’m not. Entertaining thoughts of escape, that is.”

It was impossible to decipher my own thoughts or untangle the web of emotions inside me, but the words weren’t false. While sparring together after I’d seen him weeping, I’d decided to set aside my complaints and remain here willingly. This was where I needed to be; I was done fighting it.

For a moment he stilled. The time around us froze like the winter landscape when the door swung open to reveal an opening filled with snow up to my chest. But he didn’t comment on it, instead saying, “You know, this is one of the few times I wish we were working to get that fire Lurae brother of yours on the throne.”

I shoved him, and he laughed, an unexpected sound that echoed in the wild, snow-covered wastes.

Half an hour and a lot of swearing later, we’d managed to hike to a body of water nearby. Steam curled off the surface, tendrils reaching for the trees around them like wanting hands.

“Oh,” I sighed as a bit of warmth drifted over me. “A hot spring.” I couldn’t hide the surprise in my voice.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “I figured it was time I brought you here to wash your clothes and have a bath. You reek.”

I rolled my eyes. “The stories don’t lie when they speak of your pleasant demeanor, do they?” I remarked drily. I couldn’t deny the truth of his words, though. “I do need to bathe.”

He reached into the bag slung over his shoulder and set a neatly folded pile of black clothing on a dry rock near the shoreline. “I had an extra set of clothes stored. While you wait for yours to dry, change into these. Wash yourself and your clothes. When you’re dressed, call for me and I will return.”

“Thank you.” This show of kindness was…unexpected to say the least. In the time since we’d returned from my family’s camp, the Hellbringer had been different. A bit softer around the edges.

It was new. It was nice. And sometimes I found myself opening my mouth to tell him I didn’t begrudge him the sharpness he’d held before—in fact, maybe I even understood his need to keep me at a careful distance—but I never allowed the words to leave my mouth.

Now he hesitated a moment, then nodded before walking away.

I waited until his silhouette disappeared between the trees, then sprinted into the water fully clothed. I sighed as I felt the silt and grime washing away. The water soaked through the fabric of my clothes and left them to fall heavy on me.

I dunked my head under the hot water, letting it burn my skin. While I was submerged, I took the tie off the end of my braid, letting my hair fall loose around my shoulders. It floated, unearthly, like a shadow beneath the water’s surface.

I wanted to strip my clothes off so I could scrub at my skin, but I glanced toward the path we’d carved through the snow, where the Hellbringer had retreated. Unease gnawed at me. Was it safe? Was he out of sight?

He had disappeared into the thick copse of trees. No dark figure stared back at me.

And if it did, I realized I didn’t particularly care. The coat of grime over my body itched enough that it would be worth it.

I pulled my clothes off, one item at a time, and scrubbed them before tossing them toward the nearest dry rock. I then proceeded to wash myself more thoroughly than I’d ever done before.

When I scrubbed my face, I was surprised to feel traces of the paint the priests had marked me with stuck to my skin. I’d forgotten about it once I’d been captured. As I washed it off, I smirked at the irony of being branded by Aloisa—marked for death. The Hellbringer was about as close to death as a person could get, and yet here I was, unclaimed by it.

Guess the priests aren’t as prophetic as they like to think they are. The thought was as satisfying as submerging myself in the water.

Time moved faster than I wanted, and when I finished washing, I let myself float on my back, savoring the heat. I hummed with contentment.

A song my mother used to sing—the same one Frode had been humming that fateful day when I met Volkan for the first time—drifted through my memory. It was instinct to let my voice carry the tune over the slowly moving water, the soft drifts of snow on the bank of the hot spring. I couldn’t remember the words, but the tune had stayed with me throughout the years. And now, I realized happily, the notes reminded me of my brother and not my selfish, bitter queen.

The tune echoed slightly through the trees, somehow managing to touch each flake of snow on the ground. As I sang, I realized that for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t thinking about my father or my brothers; the looming Bloodshed Trials hadn’t crossed my mind in hours; and the constant fury bubbling under my skin at being treated like godforsaken trash had cooled.

It was peaceful.

Eventually the song came to an end, and I relished the silence for a moment longer, loath to leave. The sooner I got out of the hot spring, the sooner I had to endure the frigid temperatures on the hike back to the prison.

I couldn’t stay forever, though. I wrung my hair out as I stepped onto the shore, rocks digging into the soles of my feet, and grabbed the pile of clothes the Hellbringer had left for me. There was a towel on top that I used to dry off, then wrapped around my sopping hair.

The pants went on first, then the long-sleeved black shirt. The material was soft, much better than the travel garb I’d been wearing for…was it twenty-five days now? The waistband of the pants draped loosely on my hips, threatening to fall if I wasn’t careful. Likewise, the shirt was too big but tight around my chest. Clearly made for a man.

Then it hit me—these were the Hellbringer’s clothes. He hadn’t brought back a set of women’s clothing when he went aboveground. He had found an extra pair of his own clothes and left them here for me.

A smile flickered across my face. He didn’t have to show me the hot spring. Didn’t have to lend me clean clothes. But he did anyway.

For a murderer, there was certainly some kindness behind the mask. I wondered how much he did under orders, and not of his own will. It confused me.

Maybe it confused him, too.

Either way, a sort of intimacy came with wearing another person’s clothing. I didn’t mind. I doubted the Hellbringer intended anything other than basic decency.

When I’d put on my cloak and boots, among my other warm outer layers, I gathered my wet clothes in the towel and called out. “Hellbringer? Are you there?”

I glimpsed the shadow of a man in the distance. He faced away from me. “Are you…decent?”

I snorted and began trekking over to him. The pants, too big around my ankles despite being rolled up several times, allowed some of the snow in and I winced at the sensation. The Hellbringer turned to face me, then froze, still as a rabbit realizing it was a wolf’s next meal. “Yes. Can we go back now?”

For a moment he merely looked at me, hands balled into fists. I tilted my head. “Hellbringer?”

His name brought him back to reality. He nodded, and we began to walk. His distorted voice floated back to where I walked behind him. I thought I heard a slight tremor in his voice when he said, “You sing beautifully.”

Red stained my cheeks. “You heard that?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Yes.”

How close had he stayed? Within earshot, clearly. “You didn’t…I mean you weren’t…” I paused, letting the question hang unspoken in the air.

He stopped abruptly and I nearly ran into him. “ No ,” he said forcefully. “I stayed out of sight. I would never have dreamed of…” He shook his head and resumed walking. Then he muttered, “I know what you must think of me. It’s true I am a monster, but there are lines I will not cross. You are safe with me here. And not only because those are my orders.”

I couldn’t explain why, but I believed him. The nervousness in me settled, and we kept moving.

The question had brewed in my mind for days, ever since our return from Bhorglid’s camp. Since the sentry boy was killed. I’d kept the curiosity clutched to my chest since then, but the hot water had loosened not only my limbs but my tongue, too. “When you kill on the battlefield with your Lurae…do you do it because you want to or because you’re ordered to?”

He didn’t seem fazed; he only chuckled, the sound cold as darkness. “Trying to find my humanity?”

I didn’t answer. I was trying to find his humanity. Truthfully, I enjoyed being with the Hellbringer more than my own family. He made me feel like myself—here I was Revna, not the godforsaken princess.

And didn’t it make me as much of a monster, to care for the man who murdered my people for sport?

“I hate to disappoint you, Princess, but it doesn’t matter. I’m the one behind the blade—metaphorically speaking, of course. I am a monster either way.”

I bit back the disappointment slicing through me, and we walked in silence the rest of the way. But it didn’t keep my thoughts from spinning. There was something beneath the mask I wanted to discover. What was it?

A memory came unbidden. The summer I was twelve, a delegate from Faste had come to the castle. She had dark hair that fell in dreadlocks and gold piercings peppering her brown skin. There was a tattoo on her forehead she’d explained to me, though that part of the memory was fuzzy. But I did remember her peculiar Lurae—she could taste the emotions of the people around her.

“Imagine the bittersweet taste of a lemon,” she’d whispered to me at dinner. “That is what it tastes like to dream of what you can never have.”

I held back a sigh. The memory of lemons lingered in my mouth. I couldn’t deny it—I wished the Hellbringer might feel I was worth something. That I was important enough to make a difference. That he wouldn’t be disappointed or disgusted with the lack of potential in me, not the way others were.

And I supposed, deep down, I wished he would take me away from it all.

“What is the queen of Kryllian like?”

The sound of a knife scraping shreds off a block of wood stopped instantly, and I looked up from where I sat at the table, pretending to read the book on war strategy. I rubbed the thin pages between my fingers, anxiously awaiting his reply.

He was in the middle of carving something, though I wasn’t sure what. I’d tried several times to steal glances, but it was too early to tell what the finished product would be. Perhaps another hilt for a weapon. The other day, he’d presented me with two of the daggers he forged while I was busy shaping Aloisa.

I’d accepted the gifts reverently, uncertain how to feel about the gesture. But considering I was training for battle, I wasn’t about to turn down a weapon.

“I only ask because surely she and I will be working closely after the war is over,” I hurriedly explained, not entirely certain why I was so nervous about having this conversation with him. “I want to make sure allying with her is the best choice—the right choice.”

“Of course it’s the right choice,” he scoffed. “You don’t have another one. The only reason this war isn’t already over is because the queen doesn’t want it to be. If she did, your family would be dead at my hand long ago.”

“And that’s what I don’t understand. Why are we still fighting? If she could easily destroy us and take Bhorglid in a few days, then why hasn’t she?”

The Hellbringer sighed and set down his project. “I wish I knew. The citizens are becoming tired of the war, from what I can tell. There is no public interest in taking over Bhorglid, only in stopping the violence. Many people are frustrated with the queen for not ending things when she easily has the power to.”

“Through you,” I pointed out. “Does she really have any power other than what you offer her?”

“Yes.” His response was instant and gravely serious. “I’m nothing more than a weapon to her. A powerful one, to be sure, but if I weren’t here, she still could have conquered your country in just a few weeks.”

“A few weeks?” I gaped. “This war has been constant for the past seven years .”

“I know.” He moved a hand toward his mask, then seemed to catch himself, closing his fingers into a fist before bringing it back down. I wondered if he had wanted to run his hand through his hair or rub it along his jawline. “This is bigger to her, for some reason. I have the same question you do: Why does she want to end the war now, when you have the potential to sit on the throne? It’s not out of any desire to spare your people, I can assure you.”

“What is her Lurae?”

“No one knows. She’s never used it in any recognizable way.”

I stared, uncertain what to say. “She sounds…as bad as my father.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know your father well enough to say.”

I swallowed. If I won the Trials and became queen, would it only be possible to end the war by becoming a pawn again?

“Hellbringer?” He looked up. “Why do you stay? Why do you kill for her?”

His gloved fingers began to drum against the table. The quiet, bated breaths escaping me while I waited to see if he would answer felt like anvils against my chest. This woman, this queen I would have to bargain with for the safety of my people…was she hurting him? What did she hold against him to make him do these things?

The Hellbringer cleared his throat and stared into the fire. “I have a sister.”

I was afraid to ask, but I had to. “Is the queen…”

“Torturing her? No. Holding her captive? Also no. Sonja probably thinks I’m dead, truth be told. I have no idea where she is, only that she’s safe and healthy enough. But the queen knows. And she will have Sonja killed the instant I step out of line.”

My heart sank. This was the knifepoint he’d hinted at when I confronted him at the forge. A sister. One who clearly meant a lot to the Hellbringer.

The question of his parents flitted across my mind. They were aristocrats, surely—to date Volkan, the Hellbringer would have been running in upper circles. Was the Queen of Kryllian threatening the daughter of her staunchest supporters? Or was there more to the general’s history I wasn’t picking up on from the basics he chose to share?

It struck me then that the Hellbringer and I were far more alike than I’d ever wanted to believe. Two pawns of our respective monarchs, the lives of our siblings strangely tied to our freedom.

“Death is a strange concept in my family,” I offered quietly. “My brothers were raised knowing it followed their every footstep. Each year the Trials grew closer and their fates more certain, especially as our parents began to show favoritism toward the more powerful of them. When I planned to involve myself in the Trials, I knew it would mean killing some of them. And yet, I still can’t imagine it.”

The soulless gaze of the mask was fixed unwaveringly on me. I wondered what expression he wore beneath it—whether the conversation was as raw for him. I continued. “If someone was holding Frode captive, I would do the exact same thing as you.”

“Become a monster? I doubt that.”

“You’re more human than you think.” I kept my voice soft. The feeling that he would shut down if I pushed him too far was instinctual, innate.

Something had changed between us, but I didn’t mind. The Hellbringer was gentler, more careful with me. And now the secrets between us thinned with every passing minute as he bared pieces of his soul. Told me of his sister and the atrocities he committed in her name.

The trust he placed in me felt like the most tender of gifts. And while maybe once I’d believed him to be a monster, I wasn’t sure he truly was—not anymore.

I wanted to see his face. To lean over and pull the mask off, to look into his eyes and memorize the sadness there. To do everything in my power to make sure he never felt like that again.

Instead, I stood from the table and held out a hand, palm open. “Dance with me, Hellbringer.”

I watched his throat work for a moment before he tentatively reached out and took my hand. Tugging him from his seat reminded me of the last time, when I’d only been his prisoner for a week and a half. For a man who moved like a shadow in battle, he had two left feet on the dance floor. It hadn’t taken long for him to become the frustrated one.

This time he was marginally better. I called out the steps to the line dance in a rhythm. The Hellbringer was consistently half a beat behind, needing to watch my every move before he made his own. And when he tripped and fell on his ass trying to do the step-ball-change, I cackled, tears streaming down my face from laughter.

Grumbling, he pushed to his feet. “We’re doing this my way now.”

The next thing I knew, we were so close our heaving breaths brought our chests mere centimeters apart. One of the Hellbringer’s hands was wrapped tight around my waist and the other grasped my own, lifting our joined palms up in the air. My free hand found his shoulder, resting there lightly.

The laughter faded into silence. The only sound was the crackle of the fire, which cast shadows over the mask.

It was terrifying. But I was not afraid.

“This is a far different kind of dance.” My voice was hoarse, my throat full of something I couldn’t name.

The fingers on my waist tightened briefly, then relaxed as he replied, “This is the only kind of dancing I’m familiar with.”

He stepped backward and I followed, his movement so certain, I didn’t fear missing a step. The Hellbringer would guide me.

“You were raised an aristocrat, then?”

Why was my voice so breathy? Why was my heart pounding so loudly? Why was I so acutely aware of every inch of skin touching the fabric of his borrowed clothing?

Why did I wish I knew what his lips looked like?

“Yes and no.” His response was the only warning he gave before he spun me, sending me away from his warmth for a brief second before pulling me back in.

When our bodies reconnected, touching all the way down, my breath left me in a whoosh. This, nothing more than the barest connection, was even more electric than my dream of him had been. I wanted to kiss him or bite him; I wasn’t sure which. Neither felt adequate to express what was happening inside me right now, the way I wanted to meld myself with him. We understood each other so precisely, so intrinsically. Surely there was a way to commemorate it, to force the knowledge on the world, ensure no one forgot.

My next inhale was filled with him. The pine and snow scent he carried everywhere, the faint trace of smoke from our living quarters. Did his skin smell like this, too? If I ran my tongue over the planes of his stomach, would my mouth taste of the northern wastes?

Slowly, ever so slowly, he leaned forward until the forehead of the mask was pressed to mine. I couldn’t hold in the sound that escaped me.

“Something true.” My voice trembled under the magnitude of what I couldn’t hold back any longer. “I want to see your face. I want to take off your mask.”

“I know,” he murmured, a hand coming up to caress my cheek. “I know. But we can’t.”

I swallowed. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Revna.” He sounded pained, his hold on my hand tightening. “I can’t.”

The disappointment brought me back to myself. The elation of being so close, reveling in our newfound trust, evaporated in an instant. I cleared my throat and took a step back, removing myself from his embrace.

“You’re right.” I couldn’t look at him. “I won’t ask again.”

The prison was colder and quieter than usual when we separated, each of us heading to our respective sleeping places.