Page 32 of Blood Beneath the Snow (Blood & Souls Duology #1)

32

Freja and Volkan, both with my best interests at heart, pushed me to wait until I was further healed before holding the coronation. But I protested. With every minute we waited, the power vacuum would stretch ever wider, inviting those who took issue with my win to challenge me.

Best to cut potential rebellion off at the root.

The morning after the Bloodshed Trials was the first warm day of the year. Spring approached, and with it the subtle hints of growth. Green buds peered out of the ends of tree branches on the castle grounds. In other years, the sight would have filled me with excitement, but this morning there was no song in my step. The snow would be back to crush the coming spring without warning.

I looked at my hands as I sat in the dismal rose garden. No roses yet; only thorns.

When I had woken earlier, I’d performed what I suspected would become my new morning ritual: scrubbing my palms. They were already clean, had been since I woke after my time in the arena, but the sticky memory of blood in the creases remained.

A crown lay on the bench next to me. I didn’t look at it. Couldn’t look at it. It was the same one Father had been wearing when I killed him. It had been thoroughly cleaned, but I feared that if I looked too closely, I would find rust-red stains in the metal pattern.

Five graves lay before me. Volkan had been true to his word and retrieved Bjorn’s and Erik’s remains after dropping me off at the castle. Someone—maybe Halvar—had brought my father’s and mother’s bodies back to be buried as well. Frode’s monument was only a headstone. The freshly turned earth marking the other graves was absent from his. His frozen body was buried in the snow, deep in the mountains to the north.

But now, on the bench, I pushed the thoughts of my brothers from my head. This wasn’t the time to think about them.

Anxiety continued to gnaw at my gut, as it had all morning. It persisted like the itch of the freshly forming scabs across my face. All my discipline couldn’t keep me from scratching at times. I’d removed the bandages against Volkan’s wishes, knowing it was important for my new subjects to see my healing wounds during the coronation.

I was going to fulfill a prophecy with the Hellbringer.

Swallowing the bile rising in the back of my throat, I forced myself to breathe deeply. Perhaps the two of us had already fulfilled the prophecy. Valen hadn’t mentioned any other details.

The image of the wolf skull mask flashed beneath my lids, and I shuddered. The Hellbringer was long gone, surely back in Kryllian by now. And —I set my jaw— before any damn prophecy gets fulfilled, he’s going to pay for what he’s done.

A single moment of mercy was all he’d receive from me. He shouldn’t expect more, not from a monster.

The stillness became too much to bear. I stood and moved to the barn, saddling a horse, the crown hanging around my arm. All the while, I ignored the feeling of something heavy weighing on my stomach. Something new, impossible not to notice. The faint hum of magic.

I grimaced. Magic I wasn’t supposed to have.

The ride down the mountain was quiet. I took the back roads to Halvar’s, knowing most of the city streets would be full of townspeople walking to the burned-down temple for the coronation. I’d decided it was as good a place as any to hold the ceremony. After all, my rule would be built on the ashes of the priests who’d come before me—the ones who ran in fear the moment my power was truly revealed.

Stopping by the Sharpened Axe was going to make me late. But it didn’t matter—I wouldn’t survive this without a drink.

Wind tossed my hair behind me until I rode to a stop around the back of the run-down tavern. When my hand pushed the door open, it felt as if nothing had changed.

Halvar stood at the bar, wiping glasses with a cloth. He didn’t look up when I closed the door behind me.

“Grab me a drink?” I asked. My shoes clacked with every step. The long, elegant gown I’d chosen was composed of light layers of red fabric draped into a long train. It was long sleeved and pulled back from my shoulders in a square neckline. The edges of each piece of fabric were lined with golden thread, and as much as I didn’t love dressing up, I couldn’t deny the thrill I felt when the dress shimmered in the light.

Halvar didn’t answer. He continued his task silently, eyes refusing to meet mine.

I studied him. Dark circles hovered under his eyes. There was a mark on his lip from where it had been gnawed incessantly. He stared, unfocused, at a wall next to me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

No answer.

“I came to get drunk before my own coronation,” I said with a chuckle. Nerves began to claw through my stomach as he remained quiet. “But I was also thinking you should come to the castle after the ceremony. Help me start planning. Freja and Volkan will be there. We can pass the first legislation together, maybe ban the priests from returning. And then reach out to the Queen of Kryllian about ending the war…” I let my voice trail off.

Halvar closed his eyes and let out a sigh. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Get out of my pub.”

I stared. “Are you talking…to me?”

He threw the glass he was polishing, and it shattered on the hard floor. I started. He pounded his fist on the counter. “Who else would I be talking to?” His eyes were wild. “Yes, you. Get out. And don’t come back. I don’t want to see you again.”

I threw my arms out. “What’s your problem? We won the Trials! This is what you’ve been waiting for all this time.”

“?‘We.’?” He spat the word, as if it were bitter on his tongue. “There is no ‘we.’ You forfeited that right when you lied to me—lied to everyone. Pretending to be godforsaken so you could get in our heads.”

I froze. “I wasn’t lying. I have always been godforsaken. I have no idea what happened during the Trials to change that.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” he seethed. “You’re one of them now. You say you want equality. Maybe today that’s true. But soon enough you’ll be addicted to your magic, like they all are. And then what?” He shook his head. “Then nothing changes. And we’re back at the beginning.”

Frustration throbbed in the back of my throat, brought hot tears to my eyes. I held them in, desperate not to show weakness. “You don’t know that. Give me a chance. I want to use my godtouch for good, to help the godforsaken become equal. That’s what I’ve always wanted.”

Halvar wouldn’t look at me. “I don’t believe you.”

“We’ve been closer than family for eleven years ,” I protested. “You’re practically my own father. Where is this coming from? Why would you abandon me?” Tears welled in my eyes, and I begged them to stay back.

“Everyone saw how much your blood father meant to you. Am I next? Are you going to snap my neck like you did his?”

I wanted to hit something, stab someone, take the anger out anywhere as it built to a crushing pressure beneath my skull. “That’s different. You wanted him dead, too. You wanted me to be queen!”

He threw his rag down and slammed a fist on the counter, teeth bared in a scowl. “I wanted a godforsaken on the throne. Not one of you .”

“After years of knowing me, teaching me, helping me, this is all it took to ruin our friendship? A stupid ”—there was a roaring crescendo in my ears now—“ fucking ”—nothing would shut it out—“ godtouch ?”

It exploded.

My vision went red at the edges and nothing would stay in focus, but the thread in my stomach attached to my magic was taut with unrestrained power. Everything inside me demanded I pull it tighter and tighter.

The sound of blood pumping through a heart reverberated in my skull, and there was something else, something high-pitched and inhuman.

Screaming. Someone was screaming.

Pull harder, the magic whispered. Harder.

With another swift tug on the thread, the world splintered.

My vision went black as the magic in me disconnected altogether, disappearing in an instant. I stumbled backward, tripping over something I couldn’t see. When I hit the ground, my vision began to clear.

Then I saw what I had done.

A thin trail of liquid seeped over the floorboards from behind the counter. I swallowed.

Blood.

My anger was replaced by fear. Overwhelming, all-encompassing fear.

“Halvar?” I called out, voice shaking. I pushed myself to my feet, brushing dust off my gown. I stepped toward the counter, wrapping my arms around myself. “Did I hurt you?”

My breath caught in my chest. The trickle of blood I had seen was a pool on the other side of the counter. And in the middle of the bloody mess, flat on his back, lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling, was Halvar.

I covered my mouth and dropped to my knees, crawling toward his body. Every part of me shook and my breath came in gasps. My trembling fingers fumbled at his neck, feeling for a pulse.

Nothing. His skin was already cold.

I screamed. The sound echoed through the silence around me.

Vomit rose in the back of my throat. I got to my feet and ran to the nearest trash can. The breakfast Freja had insisted I eat was gone in a matter of seconds.

I forced myself to look back at the corpse of my friend. His lifeless eyes. His blood soaked into his clothes, saturating them.

The sight would be burned into my dreams until I died.

I couldn’t feel my fingers, but I saw them shaking. I raised them to eye level. Blood blurred with skin.

The bell above the door chimed and I whirled, panic lacing through every one of my limbs. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or vomit again when Volkan’s face stared back at me.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You’re going to be…” His voice trailed off as his gaze drifted from my face to my hands, to my blood-soaked dress, to the trail of blood leading behind the counter. The pool of sticky red grew larger by the second.

“Shit.”

I couldn’t move. Volkan pushed past me and peered over the counter to see Halvar lying there. He swore and backed away.

A shuddering breath collected in my lungs, and I wondered distantly if I was about to start screaming again. Volkan paced back and forth in front of me.

“Okay. I’ll deal with this, but you have to go. Now.” He rubbed his palms over his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone what happened here. We can fix this.”

“My dress.” I didn’t feel myself utter the words, but it was my voice, so it had to have been me.

Volkan glanced at the hem, then pulled a dagger from his waistband. “Hold still.” He knelt and sawed through the stained fabric until it was nothing but discarded scraps. “Wash your hands before you go.”

He stood and I looked up at him. “Why are you helping me? I murdered him.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I knew the Hellbringer before that was what they all called him. Back then, he was a scared little boy whose magic killed people by mistake.” Volkan shook his head. “The two of you aren’t so different, you know.”

I forced myself to smother a sob threatening to emerge from my throat. Is this who I am destined to be? Are we the same now? The Hellbringer—who murders soldiers, devastates armies, pretends to love, then betrays all trust—and the Bloodsinger Queen, who killed her brother and her father and her friend, whose magic tears the kingdom asunder?

I picked up the crown on my way out the door and rode to the temple.

No cheers welcomed me from the crowd when I rode up to the temple ruins and dismounted from my horse. The tall building was now reduced to ash and rubble, the remaining white marble scattered and coated in gray soot. Freja had told me this morning that the temple burned long into the night, a crowd of both Lurae and Nilurae standing silent vigil.

One of the tall statues remained standing, though. Aloisa stared ahead at a point far in the distance, her face stoic as ever, the rest of the pantheon crumbling on either side of her.

“She wouldn’t fall when they took hammers to her,” Freja had whispered to me over breakfast, despite the fact that we were the only ones in my room. “Some of the Lurae are saying it’s a sign that you’re a tyrant queen—that by banishing the priests, you’ve incurred Aloisa’s wrath.”

I’d merely scoffed over my bowl. Now I found myself strangely glad my blade’s namesake was left here. She hadn’t fallen in the face of fire. And neither had I.

Too bad she’s a figment of the imagination and not a real goddess.

Whispers followed me like swooping vultures following the scent of death on the wind as I ascended the staircase. I ignored them, wishing I couldn’t hear the fragments of their conversations on the wind.

Terrifying.

Murderer.

Tyrant.

Freja came over to me, her hair braided tightly against her head and wound into an intricate updo. She squeezed my hand as I moved toward the throne.

Would she have done the same if she had known whose blood had stained my dress mere minutes ago?

I sat on the throne, which had been brought down the day before. It was made of gold intricately twisted to form a seat. Compared to my father, who sat here last, I was tiny. Nothing.

How long would it take for someone to realize what had happened? For someone to learn I had murdered an innocent man? A Nilurae man. One of my own people.

The rest of the day played out in my mind. Freja, upon discovering Halvar and the evidence of my Lurae, would never speak to me again. If or when Arne returned from the front lines, Freja would tell him what I had done. And with reason enough to hate me already, I knew he would jump on the chance to further justify his animosity toward me.

I swallowed. Yesterday, walking into the arena to face Bjorn, I’d felt a tiny glimmer of hope amid my resignation. But now…

I had nothing.

I had no one.

I was alone.

For a moment, an ache tore through my chest, and I wished a stoic figure stood in the back of the crowd, arms crossed over his chest, dark mask expressionless. We can be monsters together now, he would muse, and I would hear the half smile in his voice even if I couldn’t see it.

How could I love him after everything he’d done?

I bit back tears.

Voice steady, I spoke, hoping my words would carry over the crowd, wondering what they saw when they looked at me—their scarred princess, crowning herself on a throne of ashes.

“I don’t know the words the priest would have used to declare me queen,” I began. “But I don’t need them. Because the priests no longer hold power here.”

Freja let out a whoop, but it was the only sound. The crowd stared at me, expressionless.

“I am your queen. I am your ally. I will fight for your safety, for your rights. I will protect the vulnerable and raise up those who have earned it.”

It was everything I’d come to say. I reached up and placed the crown on my own head.

Freja’s cry was like a clap of thunder echoing in the silence. “All hail the Bloodsinger Queen.”