Page 73 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

The grappling ring resurrected, and it felt like nothing more than another spar.

The rigid and barren walls of the Temple melted away.

The Old Pub resurrected in Henrik’s mind, bringing the smell of mead and torch oil and flickering lamplights.

The ghostly cheers of his comrades motivated him as Vilhelm rolled onto his spine, removing the force of initial impact.

Before Vilhelm could curl to his side and escape the vulnerable position, Henrik slammed his chest on top.

Hard.

What little breath remained escaped Vilhelm all at once. A crunch sounded near his ribs. Vilhelm grunted as Henrik grabbed his arm, yanked it back, and cracked it at the elbow.

Vilhelm screamed.

Henrik sent a fist into Vilhelm’s jaw. His eyes rolled back.

Blood thumping through his ears, Henrik leaped to his feet and whirled.

Another soldat lay on the ground near His Glory, out cold, blood chugging from his nose.

The second soldat sparred with Einar, who spun with a kick that landed directly to the soldat’s jaw. He crumbled.

Einar whirled around.

His Glory stood alone in a corner, hands upright. He trembled as Einar advanced, panting.

“What?” Einar growled, smearing blood off of his face. “You aren’t going to use arcane against me? Arcane that isn’t supposed to work ?”

“I would!” His Glory shouted. “I would grind your bones to powder in a second!”

Einar closed in with righteous fury. “All those soldats you enslaved and forced to serve you with such unfettered loyalty and there’s no one here to save you. Too many of them rotting in the bog of the Unseen Island where you left them?”

“Stop your approach,” His Glory commanded, but the feeble word shook.

Vilhelm, barely conscious again, flopped onto his side.

Groggy, he nearly lost consciousness again.

His feet weakly scrambled in a poor attempt to stand.

Henrik shoved a foot onto his back and pressed.

A strangled, breathy sound preceded Vilhelm’s silence.

“Don’t move,” Henrik sang. “His Glory is about to die, and you have a choice. Stay with the soldats, or die with him.”

Henrik reached into his pocket, fingertips on the sharp tip of his favorite throwing star. Three others lay beneath it, protected by leather.

Einar closed two more steps between him and His Glory. “This is the last time you will ever command me,” he growled. “The very last time. I’m giving you one chance to answer this question and prolong your miserable life. Why ?”

His Glory lifted his chin. “I don’t answer to soldats.”

Einar flipped a small knife out of his pocket.

“But you will answer to soldats, you see? Henrik and I are here for answers. Revenge, too,” he tacked on.

His voice hardened. “Agnes was taken from me because of you. You , you bastid. If not for fighting against you, we would already be living on our island, happily together.”

Einar stood out of arm's reach, but not by far. Hatred seeped from him as he braced himself. Henrik extracted the flat, hidden throwing star and crouched, hiding behind Einar as he advanced.

Vilhelm remained on the ground.

His Glory’s eyes flickered to the side, registering Vilhelm’s prostrate form, before he paled. He swallowed audibly, his chin cranked so high he stared through slits.

“By the power of Norr?—”

“Shut up, you piece of shite. You still haven’t answered my question. Why,” Einar asked with elongated exaggeration, “are you such a bastid?”

Einar’s knife elevated, poised. He held it as if to toss it, but a boom sounded. The ground beneath Einar rippled. From the stones birthed a brilliant shadow that swamped Einar like a cloak, paralyzing him.

A soullock.

Einar didn’t move. He stood in an arcane shroud, face poised in a scream. A terrible light filled His Glory.

“You,” His Glory thundered, “will never defeat me!”

Feint completed.

Henrik jumped to his feet, slammed a hand into Einar’s spine, and shoved him to the side.

Before His Glory could even gasp, Henrik flung the first star.

It flashed a brilliant light through the air.

Still moving, Henrik threw the second and third before Einar hit the ground in a puff of luminescent rainbow.

The first star slammed into His Glory’s trachea.

The second below it.

The third skimmed his neck, slicing open the side. Blood squelched as His Glory reached up, yanked them out. Henrik palmed his knife, put it into position in his hand, and aimed it with a precision that should have been impossible.

He tossed it.

The blade wedged into His Glory’s ribs, just below the sternum.

A perfect shot.

A shocked gurgle accompanied the targeted hit. His Glory slid down the corner of the wall, blood spurting between his hands. Crimson oozed around the knife sticking from just below his ribs.

Henrik stared at him, panting. He crossed the distance, yanked his knife out. “Greetings to your bastid father, you piece of shite,” he muttered. “That was for Britt. For Agnes. For our mothers. For our fathers.”

Blood chugged with lessening force. The life in His Glory’s eyes ebbed, slumping him into a wet, crimson puddle. Henrik spun. Vilhelm blinked, eyes glazed with shock, from where he lay on the floor. A moan escaped him, and he dropped his face down. Still half conscious, by the look of it.

The other soldats didn’t stir as Henrik crouched next to Einar. He flipped him over and thumped a hard fist into his spine. Einar peeped once, a quick breath. The paralyzing cloud retreated in wisps, wafting away. Einar, pale as a ghost, didn’t respond when Henrik shouted his name.

“Wake up, you bastid!”

A firm slap on the cheek roused something of a moan. A harder second slap brought a cough. When Henrik raised his hand for a third, Einar croaked, “Slap me one more time, you bastid, and I’ll rip your head off.”

Henrik slumped to the ground at his side, yanked him upright. Air breezed in and out of Einar’s lungs. Hacking at first. Painfully, so.

Einar gazed at His Glory with disbelief.

“It worked?”

Incredulously, Henrik muttered, “Of course it worked, you bastid. As easy as taking down the tyrant of an entire island while he planned to use arcane against us, that’s all.”

“Feint and cut.” Einar coughed. “I knew he’d have arcane nearby.”

Shouts from outside echoed up, ricocheting off the Temple walls. Henrik gently slapped him on the cheek a final time.

“Pull yourself together, you piece of shite. We need to send the sign that His Glory is done.”

Einar’s brightening eyes lifted to a coiled whip hanging on the wall above the door.

He grinned.

“I have an idea.”

They stole down the same staircase they entered from, wound through the hallways, and into the main arcade on the bottom floor. As they passed out of the Temple and into the Compendium courtyard, Einar stopped. Henrik stood behind him, following his gaze higher.

His Glory’s body hung from a curved fourth-story window, suspended by a whip. Black drapes billowed in a surging wind, flapping around his still form. Moments after His Glory’s corpse appeared, a ripple of sound roared across Stenberg. Now, a stranger silence descended, far more unnerving.

Einar saluted the dead tyrant and turned to go.

Henrik lingered.

Freedom , he thought. His life beckoned.

The young side of Henrik that hadn’t dared to believe he was safe withered away. Like a child, it was easily reassured. The juvenile fears swept out with it. That tyrant was truly gone.

Soldats advanced from the dull shadows. Ebba nodded. Harald grinned. They joined Einar and Henrik with subdued hand clasps, one eye on the body swinging from the eaves. Henrik couldn’t take his eyes off him.

Freedom , he thought again.

“Henrik?” Einar’s question echoed in the empty Compendium courtyard. Ebba and Timmer and Fritz surrounded him. “You coming? We need to find Arvid, see what’s happening with the battle. Besides, Pedr still has the sails burning. I’ll bet he’s having a hard time subduing Britt.”

Henrik gratefully turned to go, leaving His Glory where he belonged.