Page 41 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

A fter a night of forced rest, I woke to Stasia shoving a crust of bread into my hands. Where she got the food, I had no idea.

“If you’re going to kill the council, you need to eat,” she said.

I dragged myself to sitting up in the makeshift bed Kayn had created with gathered blankets.

Stasia shuffled to where my mother lay and pressed her fingers to my mother’s throat.

After a moment without breath, Stasia nodded and I allowed myself to inhale.

My mother’s heart was still beating. She was still alive.

When Stasia turned around, I pinned her with my stare. “Where did you go when King Drakkar showed up?”

Folding her arms, she shot a glare right back at me. “Eat the damn bread, now. And I was in hiding, obviously. He can’t know I’m still with you.”

“Why are you still with me?” I tilted the bread to my lips but did not yet take a bite. “What about Finan?”

She smiled. “I’ll catch him when they move the witches to shore.

They have to go through Mara. We are between the wasteland and the most southern tip at the Sea of Skalds.

There’s no way they’re going all the way up and around.

Besides, you need your handmaiden if you’re going to survive long enough to supposedly kill the council. I’m rooting for you, Silver.”

Before I could thank her, she slipped through the door and outside. A blast of chilly air swept through the temple and a shudder rippled through me.

Though her offer to stick with me warmed me, goosebumps pricked my arms and I winced. A dull ache throbbed at the center of my chest. My heart had been working too hard with the effort of hiking to the Hall of the Gods, and then it nearly broke over the sight of my mother’s limp body.

After filling my belly with the dense bread, I climbed to my feet and tiptoed to my mother’s side. I listened to her heartbeat growing steadier when Stasia appeared again.

“There’s a fire outside with a pot of stew. I’m going to rest. You’re going to finish stirring it and then eat. Got it?”

“Okay, but where did you get food and supplies?”

“Again with the questions.” She rolled her eyes for a dramatic effect. “The temple had cooking supplies and there are villages nearby selling food. I think you forget we’re not isolated in the middle of miserable, frozen mountains like you Skaldir folk are used to.”

I shook my head but did not argue with her.

“Anyway,” she continued. “Kayn won’t stop talking about these trials you have to do. He says you need to be strong, so he’s been checking in on you even though I keep telling him that you need a lot of rest and even more food. In my book, strong means well-fed.”

“Kayn said that?”

She hummed her confirmation. “My guess? He’s worried you’re not going to run off and kill all the vampires he said he wants you to kill unless your mother tells you about it herself.”

His worry was spot on. I wasn’t going to run off and kill anyone, again. I’d already done that, and it haunted me. I needed a better understanding of what the Gods wanted, or maybe I needed more time, something that wasn’t just a cloaked vampire with broken fangs demanding I do what he wanted.

Stasia’s voice cut through my thoughts. “I don’t know what you’re really planning to do, but for now go eat the stew so you can get strong enough to at least wipe that damn smirk off the king’s face.”

Despite my mother’s condition, King Drakkar’s threat, and everything else, Stasia managed to make me smile. I stood and nodded, slipping out into the night without another word and hoping to find Kayn on my way to the stew.

With my mother unable to speak, I had to rely on whatever Kayn knew about Loki’s trial, which made my blood boil.

Based on Stasia’s comments, he was already growing impatient with me and we’d only just arrived at my mother’s side.

Not only was she sick, but she worsened, and I’d collapsed. What the fuck did he expect from me?

To wake vampires, apparently, and then kill them. I shook my head.

Waking vampires. It felt too dangerous, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from Loki, and I expected everything from myself. Dangerous or not, it was my destiny.

I rounded the corner of the Hall of the Gods to find Kayn pacing the yard, tracking the graves in the darkness. I wrapped my cloak tighter around me as icy wind cut through the fabric and sent a swath of goosebumps over my arms.

The fire and pot of stew by the graves were a welcome sight. I was endlessly grateful for all the supplies Stasia had spent time digging out from the cabinets in the temple. I’d be lost without her, and freezing to death.

Orange flames flickered and tendrils of black smoke licked up into the air.

I had no doubt Kayn had helped her build this fire since it was so close to the graves where he seemed drawn to hover.

I was grateful for all the help he’d provided, feeding my mother and keeping watch over her here before we arrived.

He crouched beside the half-winged Valkyrie whose stone body lay grieving over the gravestone.

His hand brushed over the dirt and weeds.

In Skaldir, everything would still be coated in a thick layer of snow, unable to plant and cultivate.

Everything there survived on stores during the Polar Nocturne.

Here, a dusting of snow melted away even in the persistent darkness.

When Kayn noticed my approach, he stood and weaved through the crumbling graves.

Chunks of stone lay in his path, but he stepped over them and marched toward me.

His cloak billowed in the wind behind him but he showed no signs of being chilled.

I pulled my cloak even tighter to ward off the icy wind but it was no use, my body already convulsed in its natural attempt to keep warm.

I stiffened as I prepared to tell him, once again, that I didn’t know if I could let myself kill someone again. Even if Loki’s and Odin’s trials would lead me to it.

“How is she?” he asked.

All tension melted as quickly as a snowflake in Mara.

I released my fingers from where I’d buried them in the fabric of my skirts and reached for the fire.

The blue tips wouldn’t turn pink for upwards of an hour, if at all, but the heat of the flames soothed my soul as it promised even a little help.

“Not much better,” I said as I sat on a rock by the fire. “There is nothing I can do for her other than attend to the wound King Drakkar left and keep her fever tempered. If the king hadn’t fed on her, I believe she’d still be awake.”

His jaw shifted. “We cannot wait for her to wake for you to trust me. You need to pass Loki’s trial.”

“Loki’s yes, but I’m not a killer, Kayn.”

“You can’t kill what isn’t alive.”

I gritted my teeth, knowing he’d let me stew in the quiet.

I wanted to wield the same weapon as him; silence.

Every time he sealed his lips and refused to explain more, I was further and further from trusting him, from accepting his message.

I needed to hear it from my mother’s lips.

Only then would I consider the task of wiping monsters from this world.

Kayn didn’t even deign to tell me the details of why he wanted me to eradicate all of his kind—including him. He only mentioned caring for a human, but he seemed more alone than even me.

My skin prickled. Was this all a lie? He’d led me to my mother, he’d fought King Drakkar for me, but I knew nothing else about him.

“Alive or not, it still feels like killing,” I said.

He sighed. “When a vampire is struck in the heart with a wooden stake, we turn to dust. It isn’t like stabbing a human where there is suffering and blood.

It isn’t killing, it is destroying. A vampire can also be decapitated, though the body must be burned after or we may return our head to our shoulders and resume existence. ”

I pulled my hands back into my lap and him from over the steam. “And you think I, a simple girl from Skaldir, can cut off a monster’s head?”

“I’ve heard you speaking with Stasia, I know you trained in secret with your friends back home, but beyond that, the Gods have?—”

“Chosen me,” I finished for him. “So you’ve said.”

“You don’t believe me?” His brow peaked as he took a seat on a rock on the other side of the fire. Hair fell into his face and he looked all the more my shadow as the flames cast dancing, erratic light over the darkness surrounding him.

“How can I believe what you barely say?”

I scooted to the edge of the rock and reached for the stone spoon. Swirling it around the soup, notes of warm honey and squash filled my nose. Stasia was a wonder with food. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was a witch and her particular power was cooking something from nothing .

My stomach growled with impatience. Ignoring it, I eyed Kayn.

Instead of biting back with a clever retort like King Drakkar, he remained silent.

The longer the silence stretched the more frustration swelled within me. I couldn’t stay quiet another second.

“Why are you consumed with the thought of me killing your kind?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense and paints you as cruel as the king.”

Though I supposed destroying bloodthirsty monsters for Odin and Freya wasn’t akin to feeding on the blood of innocent humans. Still, I couldn’t comprehend why a monster himself would pressure me to take up this call when it’d only end in his own destruction.

He scrubbed his hand over his chin, his brown eyes staring into the flames as he thought.

I tried to ignore the silence before I leaped over the flames and strangled a response out of him. That’d likely only further convince him that I was destined to become the chosen killer of his kind.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Perhaps I’d spent too many hours beside Stasia in the past few days.