Page 102 of Reign of Stars and Fire

Magus wokein moments after a watcher went to the serpent heir room. Then again, I doubted the eldest son of a ruined court, burdened with the safety of his dozen brothers and sisters slept much.

His jaw was set, and he kept a pace behind us while Ari and I took the lead. Gorm and Bjorn waited for us in one of the towers at the gates.

“What is it?” I asked once we reached the top.

Gorm’s dark lips pinched. He said nothing, merely pointed beyond the top of the spiked fenceposts.

Bile burned the back of my throat. Magus let out a choked sob, but he swallowed it quickly, pressing a fist to his lips. No doubt, desperate to keep composure. It was the way of heirs in the court. They did not show weakness when the mantle was placed atop their heads.

And the moment meant Magus was the Serpent Lord.

On the nearest evergreen, nailed to the trunk with a thick, iron spike in his open mouth, was Hawthorne.

Blood soaked the front of his throat, his bare chest. Hawthorne’s eyes were closed, his body covered in bruises, and the spike was drilled through the back of his skull, keeping his body upright in a standing position.

“Damn you, Hawthorne,” Ari muttered under his breath at my back. “Are you thinking a trap, Lord Gorm?”

Lost in a sleep, only to wake as a leader in a land that wasn’t his, Ari already had the voice of a king. To have him here, at my side, soothed a bit of the overpowering nerves wrapped around my throat.

Gorm shook his head. “We’ve detected nothing nearby, and no one without the mark given by the Falkyn could get so close. This is a message.”

“If no one can get through, then how was the body left?” I asked.

Gorm took too long to respond, and Bjorn took up the task. “The huldra.”

“Sofia?” My insides clenched.

“Why would she do that?” Ari asked.

“Because of me.” I closed my eyes for a few breaths. “That tale I was holding when you woke, I told you, it would’ve unraveled all that has happened. It would’ve meant . . . Bracken lived again. She had a chance to change the past, and I stole it from her.”

Now—hells—I’d lost her again to Davorin and the chaos he caused.

“But why turn to him?” Ari’s eyes darkened in anger. “She knows better than anyone the destruction he leaves. Bleeding hells, he’s the one whokilledBracken.”

“She’s lost,” I whispered. “We do desperate things for the ones we love.”

Ari frowned, but lifted my knuckles to his lips, doubtless thinking of the desperate acts we’d done ourselves to keep each other safe.

“You’re certain it was Sofia?” I asked Bjorn.

The captain grunted. “Our guards tried to reach her before she fled again, but they saw her with their own eyes stuffing the serpent lord’s mouth with the stake.”

Magus whimpered.

“Tact is appreciated when speaking of the dead.” I gave Bjorn a narrowed look and stepped to the edge of the tower. Hawthorne had been tortured for days. Proof Davorin cared little for anyone. I held no doubt in my mind, if given a touch of power, Hawthorne and Yarrow would’ve been glad to revel at the battle lord’s table.

What was I supposed to take from this? What did Davorin want me to know?

The body was a gruesome sight. Could be to intimidate, show us all what our enemy would do to us. No, Davorin didn’t need to intimidate. He had the whole of history on his side. We weren’t fools, we knew what he was capable of doing.

Sofia might’ve pinned Hawthorne this way. Perhaps she blamed the Court of Serpents for bringing about the chaos that killed Bracken. Hawthorne had acted as a true snake, manipulating us all, playing an underhanded game for his own entertainment.

This position, his mouth was dropped in an eternal scream.

My breath caught. “Ari.”

“What is it?”