Page 18 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)
I kept my eyes to the ground with the hood of my cloak draped over my head as servants guided us into the castle along with the rest of the visitors from Skaldir seeking alliance with the king.
“Silver.” A man’s voice rolled my name over his tongue and my skin prickled like it had when Sten came up behind me. I glanced back at my father, knowing it wasn’t him. He rarely called me Silver and opted to address me simply as ‘daughter’ instead. Who else here knew to call me by this name?
My gaze swept over the crowd.
A figure in a dark green cloak pushed through the throng of bodies.
Two men spoke to one another on my left, one of them with flashing red eyes.
Blood rushed through my ears with every erratic beat of my pulse.
I blinked and, though he still raked his gaze over me, hungry captivation darkened his brown eyes, making the red fade away.
The figure’s mouth, partially obscured by shadow, formed around the shape of my name again. I didn’t know if I heard him say it or only understood it by the movement of his lips.
“Keep moving,” my father barked, ripping my attention away from the strange man. “We need to meet with the king before he changes his damn mind.”
I blinked and looked ahead of me again.
With frayed nerves, I forced one foot in front of the other. Every step I took was a step deeper into the royal court, from which I’d stolen two lives. The flash of the figure’s red eyes brought my mind back to them and held my thoughts hostage.
Shadows had lurked around me as a child and that same sinister energy crawled at my back now. The feeling of my flesh turning inside out was as familiar as the ghost of Astrid’s hold and Sten suggesting he wanted to taste me.
Though I was terrified that maybe monsters had tracked me my entire life, it was the courtiers who finally captured me.
Either way, the energy felt the same, and I wanted to strip it off like a dress soaked in lye.
A foot caught the hem of my cloak, and my heart stuttered.
I yanked the fabric but it wouldn’t budge.
My father pushed me forward and the force tugged the cloak off my head and shoulders.
I yelped and clutched the fabric in my fists, snapping my eyes to the culprit.
The same man, shrouded in the shadow of his own hood, glared at me with golden eyes.
As every muscle in my body froze as my father growled something about my weak countenance.
The man’s lips parted, and he shoved in closer, taking the second before my father pushed me forward to whisper a warning. “Don’t go in there. Come with me. ”
My father ignored him like he had with every other shadow who’d lurked outside my window or followed my footsteps. He simply jerked past the figure, and the flow of the crowd pressed us forward, swallowing the shadow at my heels.
Finally, I yanked my dress from beneath his boot and allowed my father to nudge me forward.
Excitement buzzed through the people of Mara as alive as the unease swimming in my gut.
The golden-eyed man could have been one of my captors, had they survived my attack.
Did he want to devour me like Astrid? My blood went cold as a shudder rippled through me with the memory of her words.
The memory that had haunted me with every shape I caught sight of in the woods during our journey to Mara’s Keep.
Don’t go in there. Could this message be a warning that King Drakkar had decided to execute me after all? The second half begged to differ. This shadow wanted me to come with him, just like Astrid and Sten.
We spilled into the vast throne room where the ceiling stretched into the sky with a massive arch, and the open space allowed me to suck in a breath that was cut short when I felt someone watching me.
I flicked my gaze from the candles flickering across dozens of hanging candelabras to the throne.
King Drakkar stood, keeping his sharp eye fixated directly on me.
His other eye had been fastened with a leather eye patch, a blot of smooth black covering one side of his skull.
Two council members flanked his throne, Ylva and Darius.
My throat tightened. Was I marching to my execution?
Didn’t I deserve it? But I was so close to Freya’s trial, to reaching the opportunity to follow the king’s blood to the answers I craved.
When his mouth cut into a charming smile that split sideways across his face, I drew another breath, this one shallow.
All I could do was move forward. I’d made my decision.
In a daze, I floated to the throne with my father at my heels and dropped into a respectful curtsy, with my head tucked, my knees on the cold stone floor, and my copper skirts splayed around me.
Conversations fell silent, and the only sound echoing through the throne room was the approach of footsteps. My heartbeat doubled as a shadow stretched over me.
The king crouched in front of me and, with his thumb and forefinger, lifted my chin.
Every breath I dragged into my stiff throat became more shallow until I met his gaze once again. His icy eye, the color of melted fjords in the summer, held mine. He released my chin and brushed his thumb over my wound that had since become a scar.
It’d only been three days since I’d seen him last, but for the majority of the time we had been together, he’d been sitting at my back where I couldn’t see him. Now, I took all of him in again, noticing the details my distracted mind had left out before.
His wicked grin was as dark as his sleek hair and beard, and held my thoughts captive, rendering me senseless, foolish, like a young shieldmaiden enchanted by a battle-weary warrior from old tales.
The longer I looked at him, the more I wanted to look.
Everything about King Drakkar was the living vision of a man from the sagas my mother had dared to share with me.
A man I’d dared to dream of, and he’d even stopped my execution.
He’d saved my life just like a warrior would do.
He’d unknowingly given me the chance to pass a God’s trial and shirk off the shameful parts of me once and for all. That was the true rescue, whether he knew it or not.
Humming low in his chest, he dropped to one knee and leaned in to me. “Silver, I’ve missed you.” His gaze raked over me, and I expected another one of his unbidden questions. “I have a proposal for you.”