Page 37 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

His mouth curled in a faint smirk. “If you do not run, or stab me.”

“I make no promises to anyone but myself.”

“Then you’ll never know the potential the Gods are trying to give you.”

I frowned. “A Draugr speaks of the Gods?” The sagas said otherwise. Draugr were the only beings cut off from the Gods, since they were never living and could not die and go to Folkvangr or Valhalla.

“I told you…” he held his small smile. “I prefer Kayn.”

I forced a smile, mustering feigned respect for the man pinning me to the ground—or rather the shape of a man in Draugr’s skin. Another monster who sent my stomach fluttering. What the fuck was wrong with me?

“Kayn, will you alleviate your hips from mine so that I may move and we can discuss why someone like you would even acknowledge Odin and Freya when neither created you?”

His smile flickered, too quickly. I wanted to see it again. “It is true, they did not have a hand in my creation. But your kind did. What if I said you can both make and unmake someone like me?”

I narrowed my eyes, and it was then he finally picked himself up, freeing me from the weight of his body. He held out a hand to pull me to my feet. One moment I was running from him, then fighting him, now we were in discussion. My mind could barely wrap around it.

Like the Polar Nocturne, each day, each moment, melted into one another like a blur of memories with no defining features to track the change in time. The sun wouldn’t rise for several more days.

With the pendant still gripped in my fist, I stood in front of him. As long as he made no move to hurt me, in my fist it would stay. “Get to the truth, Kayn .” I elongated his name to show I was listening. “Why are you following me if you already know I won’t marry the king?”

“I want you to pass the trials so the Gods may reach you.”

I had a hundred questions but only one came out. “Why?” Why would he want the Gods in contact with me?

“Because it is crucial for the survival of humanity.”

A leaf crunched behind him and my gaze dropped from his eyes to the darkness beyond.

When another figure cut through the shadows, my shoulders went taut and my legs ached to run. If he’d brought more monsters, like Astrid brought her partner to drag me through the trees, any chance of escape was a distant dream.

But when the figure crept closer, they came with the confident gait of Stasia’s swaying hips.

“Cavorting with the enemy, are we Silver?” she said. “I should have known someone named after riches was not to be trusted.”

“Then why did you return?” I asked, refusing to mask the disappointment in my voice. She’d helped me escape Mara’s Keep, but it hurt to see her spot empty when I’d stayed awake and on watch for us.

“To save your sorry ass,” she said. Kayn twisted to see her, and she merely folded her arms, lifting her chin as if daring him to come at her. Stasia was truly a force to be reckoned with. Just like my mother. “Once I recognized who it was, I knew you were in for a good time.”

“You two know each other?” I asked though it was likely a stupid question.

If they both resided in Mara’s Keep, sharing the castle with the other servants and royals, they’d have crossed paths many times.

But Kayn didn’t dress like the other royals.

He prowled the celebration with the air of authority like the royals but clothed himself as a commoner.

“I know of him,” she said. “He is the only royal to ever have been exiled. And here he is again. ”

A royal and a vampire. “King Drakkar did not throw you out, why?” I asked.

“He does not stoop to pay attention to me when there is a witch as powerful as you within his sights. When you arrived in Mara’s Keep, I was able to walk in your path unnoticed.”

Stasia lifted one arm and regarded her fingernails with mild disinterest. “So, Kayn can’t bite us, and he won’t drag us back to King Drakkar either, because he’ll just out himself. The executioners always find the source of violence.”

“Not when they’re vampires,” he said, snapping his attention to her.

“That’s a lie,” Stasia spat. “The executioners always find those who incite violence. They’re bound to do it, or else they’re…” her voice cracked.

When he turned to face her, he towered over her, his shadow blanketing her in darkness as one thin stream of moonlight broke through the canopy of leaves and branches.

“What is with the two of you and your inability to listen? I said it once already. Not with vampires. Executioners don’t even have the strength to cut us down, much less the knowledge to track us. ”

First came icy fear with the impact of what he’d said. Executioners, the masked men and women trained to cut us down and control us, couldn’t even touch these vampires. If they couldn’t, what hope did the rest of us have to survive?

Once the ice in my veins melted enough for my mind to work, a rush of thoughts crashed through my mind like packed snow tumbling down the mountainside. Vampires thought themselves untouchable, but they were not more powerful than the Gods.

If Odin could reach me, I could protect myself from the king and stop the exodus of witches to The Sea of Skalds.

It was what my mother would believe. The Gods answered our calls before, but they’d never called for us.

Though why should they? The people had all but abandoned them, outlawed their names, forgotten that they kept the monsters of the Nine Realms from slipping into our world.

If they were to call on anyone, it’d be the silent believers, those of us who hid our sacrifices in the dark of night.

Someone like me.

A liar who lived in secret.

I sucked in a breath and fixed my eyes on Kayn. His blond hair tumbled over the parts of his skull where it was cut close to the skin. “What do you know of my Gods?”

He released a sigh and I found myself wondering about the inner workings of Draugr, or vampires. Why did they have no beating heart but sucked air in their lungs? Were their insides decayed? Could something that’s never been alive even decay?

“Not enough,” he said, his jaw flexing. “There are three trials that they’ve extended to you. An offering not unlike the sacrifice of burning Henbane to destroy a shadow.” I flicked my eyes to him, and my heart skipped. How could he know what my mother and I offered the Gods all those years ago?

Unblinking now, his deep gaze seemed to swallow me. Though his eyes were a simple brown, the darkness of them reminded me of my own. Black water in the poisoned pools of the wasteland, a sight I’d never seen but heard detailed sagas with poetic description.

“How do you know of these trials?” I asked.

“Anastasia,” he said plainly. Instinctively, I glanced at Stasia.

She pointed to herself and then shook her head. “Don’t look at me. I’m just a pretty face.”

Mother? Without thinking, I reached out and laid my hand on his forearm. If he was near my mother recently, I wanted to be closer to him. It was only expected that I wanted to trust the creature who proved to have some connection with the person I cared for above anyone else. “You know my mother? ”

“I can take you to her. She’s not in the wasteland, she’s been relocated to Mara.”

In Mara? My mother was right here, close enough to reach within a day’s travel. I didn’t know if I could allow myself to believe it.

My heart thumped, lifting weightlessly with every beat.

“Is this a trick?” Even as I asked it, I knew the truth.

Because the only way he knew about what we’d done to protect her from the shadow outside her window was if he’d spoken with her.

My mother would never have uttered it to another soul, not unless she believed there was a purpose.

“It is not. But I am not giving you an option either. I will pursue this until the Gods can reach you.”

“So you threaten me,” I said. I was growing tired of men and monsters wielding their power with words. I wouldn’t bear another threat.

“I’m simply committed to helping you seal your connection to the Gods.”

“As a vampire? Won’t you lead us into the dark and drain our blood?”

When he opened his mouth, fangs, like King Drakkar’s, descended from the pink above his row of teeth. Except his were shortened and without sharp tips. “I have not fed on humans in a very long time.”

The sagas said Draugr drew strength from the life that flows within us.

Otherwise, their strength came with age.

Every Polar Nocturne that passed, their well of endurance and strength filled and filled faster if they spent a portion of the darkness in an unconscious state.

I stared at his broken fangs for too long.

I didn’t trust him, but without sharp teeth, he was safer than King Drakkar. “Anastasia asked you to come for me?”

The muscles in his throat strained as he swallowed thickly. “Yes. ”

Stasia looked back and forth between us. “Don’t tell me you trust him.”

I lifted my chin. “She wants me to learn about these trials? Why?”

“You truly do not listen. Humans will not survive when Vylheim inevitably becomes overrun by monsters. Everyone here will either be a vessel or a vampire. Now with this Age of Exploration on the horizon, they’re seeking food from beyond, there won’t even be anywhere to run.”

“What do you care for human survival?”

He licked his lips. “Maybe there’s a human I care for. Once you pass the trials, you’ll not only know the truth of monsters, you’ll eradicate them.”

Victory over these trials will spare your fellow Volva for years to come. Freya’s words came back to me until Loki’s voice cut through my thoughts.

“I told you he was coming, L.

Go on, ask him about the second trial.

About waking those who play dead.”

A shiver stole through me. My gaze slid across Kayn’s face. “If you know so much about me and my Gods, tell me, what do they expect me to do next?”

His dark eyes fell to my feet. “Loki wants you to give power back to the vampires who’ve been buried. We rest in graves, but once we’re under the ground, we cannot rise up on our own. Only a vampire’s connected vessel or a witch with compulsion can do that.”

Breath stagnated in my throat. I was that witch with compulsion, straight from Loki. A vampire was who Loki sent to guide me to this trial? It was as chaotic as it was dangerous.

“And why would I help monsters climb out of their graves?”

“So you can kill them.”

“Me?” I breathed.

He nodded. “Chosen by Odin. ”

Nerves ignited down the back of my neck and my throat tightened. Kill them? Was this really what the Gods wanted from me? I didn’t yet know the details of Odin’s trial, but Freya’s showed me what these monsters were capable of, and Loki gave me the power to compel them. But Odin?

According to the single saga mentioning Draugr, the Allfather despised the sight of these monsters.

They were an affront to the humans he’d given life to in Midgard.

They were the only part of this world he did not have a hand in.

The sagas said they sprang from the ground, suggesting they’d found a new way into our realm from wherever they came from that wasn’t through deep water, like giants and the other monsters beyond Midgard.

I should have known he wanted them dead. But why at my hand?

I’m a killer.

I’m selfish.

Evil.

This is why they chose me.

Stasia huffed but when I met her gaze, she shrugged.

“I guess I’m on board,” she said. “Because if the council is dead, who would send the explorers to drown at sea? The exiles haven’t left for shore yet, if someone’s going to kill the council, it needs to be now, and I, for one, want to help make that happen.

” Hope pitched her voice higher. I couldn’t argue with that logic, but I was a weak runner, a simple girl from Skaldir…

and just wicked enough to kill. “It’s wild that you’re going to be the one killing them though. ”

I opened my mouth to defend myself. I’m not evil.

That wasn’t true. Maybe Silver wasn’t evil, but I wasn’t Silver.

Stasia hummed thoughtfully, drawing me from my downward spiral.

“I guess I should have expected this from someone who rolls around in the leaves with the enemy.” She said it as an insult but the mischief in her jade eyes revealed that the wall around her fortress was cracked.

She was considering this wild change of plans along with me.

“Anyway, it’s not like he can turn us in,” she muttered, dropping her arms and marching past us. “So lead the way, Monster.”

“Listen this time,” he said, his voice ragged and as deep as when he was pinning me to the ground. He was speaking to her yet staring at me. “I prefer Kayn.”

“Right then,” I said, not moving. Truly, it was out of sheer exhaustion rather than stubbornness or the desire to flex my control over the situation.

My heart was pumping too slowly, and my limbs were sluggish.

Fighting often energized me, but that combined with running all night and the shock and fear that stripped me bare, I required plenty of sleep.

As much as Kayn claimed we didn’t hear him, I listened well enough. My listening skills and focus were usually just reserved for when my body spoke. My failing heart demanded I keep a piece of my attention on myself at all times, for survival.

Was this how Freya expected me to spare my fellow witches for years to come? Kill the vampires?

I straightened my spine and fixed him with my stare. “Kayn, you may not need rest very often, but I do. We will sleep here and then when I wake, if you want me to do this, for whatever reason you refuse to explain, then you’ll take us to her.”

If nothing else, my mother and I could offer another sacrifice and cut my ties to King Drakkar.