Page 107

Before Maude could take another step, a blast of water slammed into her back and shoved her up against a wall.

Maude hit the ground as a ripple of shock moved through the soldiers and her friends who were gathered in the hall.

Struggling to her feet, Maude tried to work out why Herrick or Hakon would have doused her flames when she spied the source of the water galder .

Hand extended toward her, with a sphere of water and earth weaving together over his hand, was her father. He removed the dalkr Hela from his ribs, a smug smile appearing on his face as he looked around the perplexed group gathered in the hall.

“You didn’t think that you had found the real dalkr Hela , did you?” King Helvig said as he chuckled darkly.

Maude sat slumped against the wall as Herrick and Bryn were both immobilized by her father’s air magic. The General of Flame straightened and watched as her father circled them all, the unknown dagger in hand.

“Before my father died, I searched for a rumored weapon that was said to be found in the Kingdom of Light,” her father said, speaking to no one and everyone. “I found an old temple in Ljosa that had an exorbitant amount of texts on a weapon that could harness every element known to the Elven.”

Maude’s blood froze. She looked at Herrick and saw that he made the same connection she had.

“I read that a blood debt would be paid to those who tried to uncover this weapon,” he continued. “That great danger plagued the Knotted Caverns where this weapon was hidden to those who could actually move the weapon from its resting place.”

The hall was silent as they were all forced to listen to her father’s speech. Liv fought against the bonds that held her while Hakon listened raptly to what her father had to say. Gunnar looked about ready to fall over, his face gray with a sheen of sweat over his brow .

“There was no real chance that I would be able to remove the weapon on my own,” her father said, coming full circle and stopping before Maude’s frozen form. “So I waited. I married and had children.”

All attention was on Maude now. She could feel Herrick and Hakon’s gazes on her, but she couldn’t look anywhere except into the eyes of the man she resented.

“I raised my daughter to be a warrior; I trained her to withstand multiple forms of trial and to succeed in them all,” he said, placing a tender hand on her head. “I trained her in stealth, combat, and espionage.”

Maude didn’t even try to keep her face neutral.

She heard the truth of her father’s words and let them go unchallenged.

She had been trained in all these ways, but the purpose was never known to her.

She was only a child trying to earn a father’s love; she never imagined she would become his weapon as well as his monster.

“I trained her for the day that she would one day face,” he finished. “I trained her to retrieve the Bone Dagger for me.”

Everyone looked to her father now, including Maude. He chuckled heartily.

“Ah, yes. That,” he smiled brightly, her uncle joining in. “This is not the dalkr Hela .”

He motioned toward the dagger in his hand, which felt like ice and was as heavy as a thousand suns.

“This is the Bone Dagger. It was carved from the bone of a powerful, ancient Elven who had harnessed every element. The use of this dagger grants the user control over all the elements. Very old magic. It allows me to override the limitations the gods have placed on galder .”

Horror washed through Maude. She had never been close to killing him, after all .

“I spread the rumors of this weapon being the dalkr Hela many years ago in the futile hope that someone else would risk their lives to retrieve it. I trained Maude to one day retrieve it for me.” Her father smirked. “It seems the Kingdom of Rivers really does breed hopeful fools.”

The King of Flame looked at the group from Veter, his expression disappointed. His hazel eyes landed on Gunnar, who was looking worse with every minute that ticked by. Abruptly, the King turned to his General.

“Ulf, your Flame Assassins,” he began as her uncle smirked. “Their blades are oiled with a poisonous concoction from your own hand, yes?”

The General nodded, his smirk growing.

“Belladonna, isn’t it?”

The General nodded again before speaking, “It is a long-acting poison. One slice to the skin can inflict the wounded for weeks. Fevers, blood thinning, epileptic episodes…”

Her uncle trailed off as he looked to Gunnar and then back to Maude, his smile now wide and wicked.

As if on cue, Gunnar groaned from where he was held in place by her father’s galder .

Helvig released him, and they all watched as Gunnar hit the floor, his weakness so advanced that he could not stop himself from slamming his face into the stone.

Hakon glared at her from where he stood frozen in battle with a Flame Soldier.

Liv looked at her with suspicion but mostly shot worried glances at Gunnar.

Maude could see from where she sat that he was still breathing, but her friends needed to get him out of here and find the cure for belladonna poisoning before it was too late.

Only Bryn and Herrick looked at her with any sort of understanding. They had all been played as fools.

Her father continued to circle them all, his captives trapped in the tight prisons of wind he had constructed before he stopped in front of Maude .

“I do hope, dóttir, that you choose your family over your infatuations as your sister has.” Bryn stiffened at his words. “It would be a shame to lose another promising soldier over the nonsense that your mother instilled in you both.”

He turned to leave them all in a battle for their lives.

Maude’s ears rang at his words. Her friends and Bryn exploded into movement as her father’s restrictions lifted, but Maude could only see his form walking away from her.

The edges of her vision blurred as Maude’s entire focus narrowed on the back of her cruel father. She stood on numb feet, the pain from the arrow in her leg throbbing slightly as she took one step toward her father.

Another.

Maude almost broke into a sprint as her father’s soldiers closed around him, forming an impenetrable line that Maude knew she would try to break through until her broken body hung from the blades of the men who protected that monster.

A single voice cleaved through the clatter of battle, forcing her still.

“Maude!”

She turned automatically toward Herrick’s voice as he called for her. Locked in battle with two soldiers, ice and water rained on them. Maude moved to help him when another voice called her name. The similar sound pulled Maude back to a time that she had tried to forget these last ten years.

Her father drew back the dagger to slice across her mother’s throat, and Maude only reacted. She released the arrow that was aimed at her father’s head, but The Norns had a different fate in mind for that day .

Maude watched in paralyzing horror as her father shifted out of the way and pushed her mother in front of the arrow. Time warped as Maude watched the arrow puncture through the burnt orange silk gown her mother had worn to supper and then through her chest wall, right into her heart.

Her mother let out a small noise that sounded like ‘Oh’ and fell to her knees.

Never once did she look away from Maude.

Never once did she cry out in pain. Blood spread out across her chest at an alarming rate as she fell to her side onto the night-blooming roses she had tended to so diligently during Maude’s childhood.

“Run, Maude. It’s okay,” her mother whispered before her eyes emptied, and she stared into nothing.

Despair, unlike anything Maude had ever known, overtook her senses. Fire exploded out of her in waves that crested well over the wall she stood on, burning away every flower her mother had ever gardened, every soldier who sullied her mother’s garden with their hateful presence.

A cry that matched Maude’s own echoed from across the garden, where she could see Bryn witnessing their mother’s death at her sister's hand. Copper hair and hazel eyes flashed with hatred before Bryn extended her hands out toward the remaining soldiers, her own fire bursting out in orange pyres.

Their father had begun to make his way to Maude, where she was perched on the wall.

No.

She couldn’t go back, not after this.

Maude shot one last look at Bryn, her sister who had nothing but disdain in her eyes now, and one last look at her mother, the only thing Maude had spared in her explosion. Her mother’s red hair that matched Maude’s so perfectly lay billowing around her, her green eyes void of any life.

She had killed her own mother. Her arrow had pierced her mother’s heart, ending her life forever .

Run , Mama had said.

So she ran. But no matter how far she got, the image of her mother’s lifeless body came with her. Haunted her. So Maude kept running and never stopped.

She had never told anyone that it was her arrow that had taken her mother’s life, that it was by her hand that her mother was dead.

That night at the inn in Dagsbrun, Maude had tried to tell Herrick, but the words had died in her throat.

The gods orchestrated this fight to mirror that day like they were all puppets for their personal enjoyment.

Time slowed to a crawl as Maude watched a Flame Soldier move in on Herrick, his short sword slicing in a way that would end in Herrick’s death.

At the same moment, Maude saw Bryn struggling with their uncle.

Bryn called out to Maude and screamed her name in the same way their mother had ten years ago.

A choice was set out before her by the gods, the fates, and any other celestial bastard who thought they could choose a person's life for them.

A choice between her sister— her other half— and the man she loved.

A choice laid out before the most selfish person in the world.

The Allfather was punishing Maude for running from her fate all these years by forcing her to choose now—an impossible choice.

But what the Allfather could not foresee was that Maude trusted Herrick. She trusted him to fight alongside her as an equal. Maude trusted Herrick to save himself because he would know exactly who she would choose at this moment .

So, as Maude watched her uncle angle his knife to stab up into Bryn’s lungs, she made her choice. She could not allow her sister to die on this day.

The note she had left for Herrick burned in Maude’s heart as she pivoted toward her sister.

Forgive me.

Maude sprinted toward the flash of copper hair and the voice so familiar to her heart that she could not turn away if she wanted to.

Numbly, she heard Herrick’s voice cut through the all-consuming silence that had dampened her hearing as she forced herself between Bryn and their uncle.

The basic need to protect her sister overrode any other self-preservation that might have been left after their father’s thorough destruction of their well-being.

Maude saw their uncle’s twisted face of savage glee as he drove his blade into flesh; it didn’t matter whose. She couldn’t even feel the serrated dagger puncturing her lungs as Ulf’s blade found itself embedded in the wrong Helvig daughter.

Maude could only feel the overwhelming relief of knowing that her sister was alive.

Bryn turned and must have screamed because a shriek pierced the buzzing that had enveloped Maude’s hearing.

Maude absently watched as Ulf’s head was separated from his shoulders by Bryn’s axe as she placed a shaking hand on the knife protruding from her chest. Her knees gave out from under her, forcing Maude to fall backward into her sister's arms.

It was freezing in this hallway. Gods, she was cold.

Hands were on her face, pushing her hair away as they shook her from the darkness encroaching on her vision.

“Maude, wake up,” a strong, familiar voice from her childhood called out from the rest .

She tried to take a breath, but the razors in her lungs cut deeper. Maude opened her eyes and saw copper hair, wild like her spirit.

Brynna.

“Maude! Hi,” Bryn said with a forced smile, her hazel eyes filling with tears. “You can’t go, Maude.”

Go? I’m right here , Maude thought as the cold ebbed and she finally felt nothing but exhaustion.

“I’m sorry I left you,” Maude forced out, the words hard to find as the heavy blanket of sleep weighed over her. “I was dying here, Bryn. Every day, I was dying. I’m sorry I left you here with him.”

Strong hands cradled her face, warm and protective.

That wasn’t right; his hands should have been cool.

Maude cracked her eyes open again to see golden brown before she slept.

“Stay with me, minn eldr ,” his voice begged. Hot liquid splashed against her face as she drifted further away from him even when she didn’t want to. “You are staying here with me, Maude.”

Maude found enough strength in her heavy bones to grab Herrick and Bryn’s hands.

“I’ll be okay,” Maude said before she closed her eyes, and darkness enveloped her. “I’m going to see the gods.”

Rest. She could rest now.