Page 38 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

H ours of walking left my legs wobbly. The two days my body demanded I rest had all of us impatient to move faster now.

Pure fear and determination had pushed us deeper into the forest than I had thought possible that night. Far enough that Stasia claimed the wasteland was only a few more steps beyond the trees and to the side of us.

And she was right.

Between the crowd of tree trunks, I spotted dead plants with branches poisoned in black and gray earth stretched over the ground. Red lines, like veins snaked through the dry-packed dirt, and the stagnant clouds that clung to the border of the wasteland, threatened to inch its way into Mara.

We’d hiked a path parallel to it as we made our way deeper into the southern side of the kingdom.

Curiosity had me glancing to the edge of the forest, hoping to glimpse the place that was only spoken of in sagas.

Sagas that scared me as a young girl, leaving my imagination as scarred as the battles left the earth.

It was a morbid curiosity, not unlike my interest in King Drakkar before I had proof of his brutal behavior .

“Once you cross into the wasteland, you lose all sense of direction,” Stasia said from the path above. She’d turned to walk backward and explain this to me.

“Yet you plan to go there,” I said, my voice careful.

“Eventually, I’d find my way to Finan.” Her voice was simultaneously confident and tinged with sadness when she spoke of him.

“And where else would I hide from the vampires while I look for him? Don’t you think being lost is worth survival?

Or are your delicate sensibilities as queen more attuned to self sacrifice for the glory of it all? ”

She feigned being faint by draping the back of her hand against her forehead. In the time we weaved through the trees, she’d grown more comfortable teasing me.

Perhaps she picked on me because we were following my plan now, rather than hers. But Stasia didn’t strike me as someone who needed to control others, more that she found humor in times of distress as a way to cope. Likely because of her many years spent serving that monster.

I found entertainment in her teasing as we trudged through the darkness.

“I do love glory,” I said, fueling the pep in her step.

Besides, I relished speaking the truth out in the open air.

I didn’t know glory in my own life, nor care for it, but I adored the sagas of triumph, of the Gods and Valkyries selecting the honorable for Valhalla and the chosen for Folkvangr.

It was outlawed to speak of it, but I kept my dream to myself, to someday be taken to Valhalla where I could hear the stories of the Nine Realms from Odin himself where he sat at the head of the table with his wife Frigg.

I hurried to keep pace with Kayn who was picking through the forest’s overgrowth a step ahead of me. It wasn’t long before Stasia fell behind us as she became distracted by the wasteland. Perhaps she hoped to catch sight of Finan, but we saw no life and no movement beyond the scarred border.

We emerged at a remote village, where the view of the king’s castle was only a scrap of gray against the rolling green hills. The scattered structures didn’t form a village you would recognize. No signs indicated what was inside each structure or if they were actively used.

The hillside was bare, with little trees and shrubbery, different from the full rose bushes all across Mara’s Keep and the surrounding forest of thick trees that reached into the sky.

Here, stones were crumbling from the buildings, moss and vines cracked through the closest structure as if the earth’s growth was slowly swallowing it.

The spiked roof that reached as tall as the trees was cracked at the tip of the spire so that the tip lay sideways, pointing south rather than to the sky. Stained glass windows were either shattered or splintered into cracks until the artist’s rendering in the glass was no longer recognizable.

Stasia caught up with us as we paused, her breath heaving from the effort of climbing the steep hill. She could run like a hunted deer in the woods but climbing was not a skill she’d mastered yet with her thin body and minimal muscle. I was the opposite.

“Where are we?” I shot Kayn an impatient look. “You said my mother was in Mara.”

Stasia made a strange sound and folded her arms as she eyed Kayn. “He’s also a monster, I wouldn’t put it past him to be a little deceitful. Vampires love to trick and lie to their vessels so the humans come back for more torture.”

Kayn narrowed his deep brown eyes at her. “You instructed me to lead the way.”

A defiant hum came from her as she turned away from him. “Just because you’re an Exile who can’t turn us in without getting caught doesn’t mean I trust you. And it definitely doesn’t mean I like you.”

Ignoring her, he faced me again. “This is Mara. A forgotten side of Mara.”

“This is hideous,” Stasia said.

“Is it abandoned?” I asked.

“The Hall of the Gods?” He turned to me, his gaze sharp with the golden rim closing in, etching away at his dark eyes. “Yes, long ago.”

Stasia gasped. “Oh damn, it’s a temple! I’ve never seen one with my own eyes, all the temples near Mara’s Keep were leveled long before I was born. Children climb and play on what’s left but they’re ruins, nothing so grand.”

My body went cold. “My mother is in there, isn’t she?” I stole a look at Kayn who nodded silently. “Did she escape the wasteland?”

“In a sense.” He turned away from me to face the temple. “Mara’s people call this The Forsaken Hall.”

I didn’t ask more about her escape, but I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering. Perhaps someone gave her a pass, akin to when King Drakkar stopped my execution. Or perhaps she dared find a way to break free of the borders of the wasteland and hide in Mara.

My ear prickled with the sensation of his eyes on me. “Though she is alive, I should warn you, she isn’t well. I had a nearby villager come to attend to her while I was gone, but I can’t promise they followed through.”

Though I already knew this, a pang struck across my chest with a skipped heartbeat. Heat crawled up my throat and my hand found its way to my collarbone where I clawed at my itchy skin. Worry manifested in a thousand prickles over my exposed flesh.

“She’s sick.” I said absentmindedly, preparing myself to see her weak.

If Valhalla came for her soon, I would only try harder to find a way there.

Battles were a scar of the past, but divination could connect us to Odin.

Surely, her life as a seerborn had already connected her to the glory of Valhalla.

She would be a welcome addition with her knowledge of our history and the Nine Realms. Or rather, how she’d used that knowledge to protect witches before, the Gods’ vessels, like the enchantment she created to conceal my eyes and hide my nature.

I had to catch up to this glory if I wanted to be with her in the afterlife.

“She is,” he said, confirming the story my eyes already told. They were nearly all black now, and once the white was gone, she would be too. “This is only more reason for you to work faster toward killing vampires.”

I shot him a look. His impatience set me on edge. I hadn’t even had the chance to see or speak with my mother in ten years and he expected me to focus on killing right now? I didn’t want to be that person now, or ever.

“Yes, I’m aware you have your own goal in this,” I snapped. Though I didn’t know what that goal was. After traveling with him for over two days, he still didn’t share enough for me to get to know him beyond his name and what he was. “But my mother is my first priority.”

“And then I trust you’ll focus on the Gods’ Calling. ”

“And become a killer?” I shivered at the word.

“Of vampires.”

I frowned. “I need to see my mother before I agree to anything.”

Stasia, two steps ahead of us now, twisted toward us. Her freckles mashed together in a stricken expression. “What we should be asking is if she’s actually in there.” Her green eyes sharpened and slid to Kayn. “Even vampires without fangs have to eat. You could cut open her wrist just as easily.”

Kayn said nothing, only continued walking right past her. I didn’t need them to get along, but Stasia and I were entwined now and if Kayn was leading me to my mother, I’d follow him.

I had to believe she was here, because the alternative was that Kayn was the monster I knew him to be and he’d learned what he knew about my mother before he killed her, just like King Drakkar killed innocent humans so he could feed on them.

I forced a breath and stepped up beside Stasia. We walked together, climbing the loping hill where the Hall of the Gods perched at the peak. “What did they do at the temples? The sagas didn’t speak of them, and in Skaldir we communed with the Gods in the secret of the forest or in our own homes.”

My mother rarely spoke of official worship, because coming from her, it had sounded like she longed for it, perhaps even planned to gather other believers where they could all call upon the Gods.

Though it was outlawed in the official capacity, the hunt for glory, to impress the Gods and die in battle to earn a place in Valhalla was what created the wasteland.

We scarred our world to reach the next world. It was an act of stupidity.

“Sacrifice,” Stasia said. “That’s what Mara’s history says.”

“Silver.” Kayn said, his voice dying away as he froze in front of the temple.

I stopped short to keep from colliding with him. His arms flew out behind him to feel for me. He pulled me closer, as if using his body to block me.

Before he moved me, I caught his line of sight straight to the temple’s entrance. “Get behind me.” But it was Stasia who moved. From the corner of my eyes, I saw her slip away from us, sprinting for the cover of nearby trees.

And then I saw why.

Between two stone pillars sat King Drakkar.