Page 46 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

T hree days later my hand had completely healed. No scar remained and the pain had ceased immediately. While Kayn’s kiss had strengthened a connection between us, it was the vitality that channeled from him that ultimately healed me.

Now, I spent every waking minute training.

In nine days the Polar Nocturne would end, and King Drakkar would cut me down.

Worse, the Grimward would be transporting every exile from the wasteland to The Sea of Skalds.

Exploration would dawn, and Alva would never see her mother again.

Two mothers and a daughter destroyed by King Drakkar and his council.

This haunted me until I wrapped my fingers around the solid cut of an ash tree.

With the weapon in my hand, the promise of destroying the king triggered a flash of hope. Sick and twisted hope, but hope for my mother’s survival, for Ragna’s, and selfishly, for my own.

Before training to fight, Kayn had insisted I practice every skill I could, even those that weren’t powers granted from the Gods.

I expanded my knowledge of vampires by studying him.

I ran to push my body to the brink to test Freya’s visions, gaining glimpses of Mara’s Keep, the graves, images I wasn’t sure of but knew would be useful later.

For the compulsion, I practiced on him, building my resilience and strength so that the power would not strip all energy from me.

Starting with small commands, I compelled him to stop moving, then to look at me, then to come closer to me.

Each try drained me a little less, but my body was still in need of rest. My heart still hammered too fast with skipped beats and pain striking my chest.

No amount of training, no amount of power from the Gods, no amount of healing from Kayn changed this illness that plagued me, but I learned to train around it.

To use the skill I’d learned from my mother to calm myself and observe.

It forced me to slow down, to consider every angle and think before I acted.

This, Kayn said, would be my survival, and my greatest skill as a huntress.

And finally, he’d led me outside, his fingers twined through mine.

After enough careful training, it was time to learn to fight a vampire. If I could at all.

Moonlight coated the abandoned landscape surrounding The Hall of the Gods. Shadows from the headstones stretched like yawning arms over the dewy grass. Silhouettes from the trees beyond blanketed the weeping Valkyrie in gray.

We stood over the graves of the men and women of Mara who once dared to honor Odin and Freya, and the vampires who may or may not be buried with them. This is where I’d tease out Odin’s gift and learn to cut down monsters.

Kayn enclosed his fingers over mine and around the branch. “A stake will work better than your silver pendant. Because the tree of Yggdrasil is Midgard’s connection to the Gods, any sharpened cut of a tree will destroy a vampire, not just hurt them.”

As a witch, of course I was well versed in the understanding that Yggdrasil was the source of our magic since it was the gateway between Asgard and our realm. Odin had hung from the tree for nine days and nine nights for knowledge and to keep this connection between him and the people of Midgard.

But I hadn’t known of the tree’s power against monsters.

“Is this how you trained Ingrid? The last huntress?”

“Partially,” he said. “She never destroyed a vampire so she never became a huntress.”

I turned the branch over in my fist, then met his dark eyes. “And what happens when a vampire’s destroyed?”

“We hollow out and then turn to dust. Without our souls, this decay is almost immediate.”

I snapped my gaze away from him before my mind ran away with the image.

According to my mother’s visions, watching Kayn crumble to ash was part of my future as this huntress.

If I didn’t destroy every single vampire, I’d eventually lose my mind to madness.

Every other witch before me had suffered this same fate.

Kayn angled the tip of the stake to the right of his ribcage. “Our hearts don’t beat the same as humans’ do, but you have to cut through it all the same.” I frowned and tugged the stake to pull it away from his chest. He held it steady, reminding me, once again, I could never overpower a vampire.

“It will take effort to push it through,” he continued. “But with the right angle, you don’t have to be strong, just precise.”

I sucked in a breath and nodded. With Loki’s power of compulsion, I didn’t need exceptional strength or speed to bring a vampire down, but their bones and muscles still maintained a tough barrier to break through.

This would be so much easier if Odin granted me a powerful body.

Until I uncovered whatever the Allfather would give me for this task, I had to rely on Freya, Loki, and Kayn.

Thanks to Freya’s visions, I would be able to track the undead and catch them in their most vulnerable states.

Like a true huntress.

A tremble snaked down my spine. My mother encouraged this.

Odin wanted this. The Gods wanted this. They wanted me to kill, and yet I couldn’t shed the part of me that clung to becoming a seer.

If I grew into a witch who helped and protected others, I’d strip away every selfish choice I’d made and replace them with decades of service to my fellow witches.

That was the Silver I knew, not the huntress with her hands wrapped around a stake.

Kayn tipped the stake up. “Aim to the side of the hard bone at the center.” His free hand tapped the middle of his chest and then shifted to his left. “Point up and into the soft spot between the ribs. Try it.”

I shook my head. “Not on you.”

“I’ll stop you.”

“Can you? I’m the huntress. What if this draws Odin’s power out of me?”

“I can’t die except to a stake made from the tree of Yggdrasil.”

I tilted my head, my lips parting. “But you’re?—”

“Different. I told you.” Something akin to regret shimmered in his abyssal eyes as if reflecting the darkness in my own. “This isn’t Yggdrasil, but it is an ash tree. A stake sharpened from any ash tree will sink through undead flesh without much effort if angled correctly.”

My eyes flickered to the line of trees behind him. No wonder The Hall of the Gods was built so close to a forest of ash. “Then why hasn’t the council burned all the ash trees?”

“Because it’s not a threat. Nobody is fast enough to even think of getting a stake at the right angle. Remember, we are not human. We are predators, created to be pure power.”

“And they’ve never suspected a huntress like me might be a threat?”

His hair fell into his face as he shook his head.

“Like Anastasia said, history proves that the chosen witches lose themselves to madness long before they ever become a threat. Right now, the council has one main concern; their food source dwindling from the harsher winters.” Glancing over his shoulder, his eyes scanned the line of trees.

“Winter also doesn’t make it easy to burn the forest. The perpetual dampness keeps the trees from being their target. For now.”

“So they won’t expect a huntress at all?”

He turned back to me, the warmth in his eyes, like charred wood and just as dark.

Concern pressed his brows together. “I didn’t say that.

You can’t hope to catch them unaware. If you get too complacent, or reliant on Odin and Freya, you’ll be ripped apart.

” Grimacing, I tried to keep Ragna’s belief in a Draugr’s feeding habits out of my mind’s eye.

“I can’t let that happen, so we’ll keep training. ”

“Nine days,” I breathed.

Matching my frown, he trailed his gaze over my face. “Nine days,” he echoed. He brushed the soft pad of his thumb over my knuckles and then pulled his hand away. Tipping his chin down toward the stake, he prodded me. “Try it.”

My hands quivered. I peeled each finger off the wood and then tightened my grip.

With both hands and the entire weight of my body, I shifted the tip of the stake upward.

Blowing out a hard breath, I shoved every bit of energy I had into him.

The stake was pinched between his ribs but did not melt through him the way he said it would for other vampires.

A wince flickered across his face and he drew a sharp breath.

I yanked the stake away. “I hurt you. ”

He scrubbed his palm over his clean-shaven chin and huffed. “Only for a moment. You need practice to get the aim correct. Try again.”

“No.”

“Silver.” A line deepened between his brows. He reached out and placed his hand over mine again but didn’t adjust my grip or tell me to tighten my hold. He simply held onto me until I met his gaze. “You need to train. Over and over. Vampires are blindingly fast and incredibly strong.”

“And I can compel them.” I wouldn’t cause him any more pain than his guilt already did.

Hating oneself was enough punishment, and he didn’t deserve it.

Even if he’d made a mistake as a monster, he was doing everything to rectify it now.

Somehow, he’d overcome his soulless self and found empathy for the people he’d turned.

“Compulsion exhausts you, so you have to strike in the right spot the first time.”

I chewed on my lip and shook my head. “It’s all set up for my victory. The Gods made sure of it.”

Except we still didn’t know what Odin had granted me. When would the power he’d give me surface? Or did he not deem me worthy of one? That I could believe.

I wasn’t worthy of anything more than the shame that clawed through my gut.

“Again,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes and glared at him while running my thumb over the rough wood. “I don’t like hurting you.”

His gaze dropped to the stake in my hand, and then to the grass beneath my feet. After a moment of only an owl hooting, he shook his head. “It may have been a mistake to seal this connection between us.”

My arms went limp at my sides, the stake at the edge of my grip. “You mean it was a mistake to kiss me? Just because I don’t want to watch you in pain? ”