Page 60 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

E verything that led me to being locked in Mara’s Keep and in a marriage with a monster was my own decision.

The last night of the Polar Nocturne could have stretched endlessly.

Each second tormented me as time crawled to first light, to the moment I’d take King Drakkar’s hand and marry the man who tortured my sister.

I came here for answers and I’d gotten them, but it changed nothing.

I came here to destroy him. That I would still try.

Sitting on the cold stone, I leaned my back against the side of the four-poster and released a coil of misty air. Nobody came to light the wood in my fireplace so I sat in the chill with my icy fingers tucked beneath my arms. Only a single candle beside the bed flickered with a warm orange glow.

I hadn’t gathered the strength to climb onto the bed and curl within the blankets.

Besides, Silver likely didn’t have the comfort of blankets, or a bed, or even the ability to take a full breath through her mouth. All of it was King Drakkar’s doing. Why the former king hadn’t executed Silver like we were led to believe, I didn’t know .

But I knew what King Drakkar wanted from her. His chosen witches, like Ragna, were set to summon Odin, though he’d never given me the full reason behind it. If she could compel vampires, she must have had a piece of the same powers I did and perhaps he believed her a stronger witch for it.

The hard wood of the bed’s bottom panel dug into the back of my head. I didn’t care to adjust for comfort.

Soon, the Polar Nocturne would end. The sun would rise, damning all the vampires to stay within the castle. This was my only hope.

I toyed with the chain of another necklace that’d been left in my bedchambers with fresh clothes. After locking me away, the king at least had the sense to send a servant to help me bathe. He didn’t have the sense to keep the jewelry from me.

I planned to wear the chain with my own pendant at the end, tucked into my wedding dress.

I would stab King Drakkar with the pendant, and then run behind the throne through the servants’ door.

After that, all I had to do was get out into the sun where vampires would weaken.

All I had to do was get to an ash tree and fashion another stake.

Then, I’d return with a new weapon and all the determination in Midgard to become the huntress and cut down every single vampire for my sister’s sake.

I would never question Odin and Freya again. I was twisted enough to become their chosen killer, and now it was all I wanted.

Freeing her was all that mattered. First, I had to turn every one of her captor’s to dust, starting with the king.

Maybe I should have felt relieved when I saw Astrid and Sten alive. Or when I witnessed my sister alive, too, because that meant I’d never actually ended anyone’s life. But it gave me no comfort because I would have killed them, and Silver’s survival had nothing to do with me.

Until now .

I rubbed the soft pad of my thumb over the cold silver. The pendant shimmered against the glow of the single candle that burned on the bedside table. Tracing the shape of the Y, I swore to find the tree of Yggdrasil someday.

Someday, when all the undead were hollowed out and left in piles of ash, I’d take Silver with me and we’d find the tree Odin hung from for nine days. We’d gaze upon it and thank the Gods for the powers they shared with those of us who had a connection with them.

Without these powers, I had no chance of finding or destroying a vampire. I wouldn’t even know they existed. I’d be a simple girl in Skaldir with a desire to run but no purpose for it.

My head dipped forward. This exhaustion demanded rest. My body demanded penance for pushing it so hard. I’d need the energy tomorrow when I would stab King Drakkar in the throat with the pendant.

Even if it wouldn’t kill him, it’d hurt, it’d scar, it’d send a message. And if I was lucky, he’d be in enough pain that I could run.

It was a pathetic plan, but I had nothing else. I was locked in my bedchambers in a castle teeming with monsters. Maybe stabbing their king would show them that I would not give up. That I would do anything to get answers that could help free my sister.

Dozing tugged me into a dazed state. I slipped through the layers of consciousness and darkness until I nodded awake one last time and then finally fell into full sleep.

Tangled nightmares of Silver’s sewn mouth and the murder in King Drakkar’s bedchambers left me fitful and restless until the crunch of rough metal sliding over metal jarred me.

I woke to the groan of the door easing open.

A figure stepped inside, all wiry muscle. Blinking sleep away, it took several seconds for me to place the clean-shaven face, the swoop at the top of his cropped hair.

“Kayn?” I whispered. He dashed to me, stooping to lift me off the floor. “What are you doing here? How?”

“We’re connected, Silver. I feel when you need me.”

Of course he could, because he’d connected us so that he could steal my soul.

My skin prickled. When he set me on the bed, I recoiled from his touch. “Get away from me.”

“Silver?”

“No.” I shook my head and scooted further onto the soft bed and away from him.

“I know what you want from me.”

Recognition shined in his eyes. He frowned and scrubbed a palm over his mouth. For too long he stood like that, absorbing what I said, acting helpless at the end of my bed.

“You found the lost history,” he said, his voice flat except for a quiver of worry. Staring at the edge of the bed, he didn’t meet my eyes.

“Some of it,” I said. “Enough of it.”

“I don’t want your soul.”

I said nothing. He didn’t deserve a response. I had no doubt he was here to convince me to kill the king. At least in that, we agreed.

Finally, he dared look at me. “I did. I’m still tempted at times, that’s the truth. You deserve that truth as much as it kills me to say it. I never intended to care for you. All I’d wanted was a soul before. When I told you that you’re my huntress, I meant it. You will destroy me too.”

I sat up and narrowed my eyes, keeping my glare steady on him. “And how does that work? When I stake you in the heart, my soul transfers to you?”

He shook his head. “No, Silver. I watched you sacrifice your blood at the altar. I watched you stand up to King Drakkar for your mother’s sake.

You reminded me what it means to be truly honorable.

Because of you, I see now that even if I took your soul, or anyone’s soul, it wouldn’t be the right way to go to Valhalla.

I wouldn’t have earned it. You would have killed all the monsters, not me. ”

Again, I said nothing, though I was tempted to ask what changed.

His thick hair clung to his forehead like he was a human exerting enough energy to sweat. Though I supposed monsters grew tired too.

All the rage I felt in the library returned tenfold. Instinctively, I slid out the pendant from my pocket and kept it tightly in my fist.

I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t, not after this betrayal.

The tears I shed for Silver dried sticky and tight on my cheeks.

I sniffed and forced the emotion in my throat down, trying to keep my voice steady.

“You lied to me. I can’t trust that you’re not still planning to take my soul.

The runestones are the source of truth, our history, so I will trust when it calls you the king of monsters. ”

His throat rippled in a slow swallow. “I did not lie.”

“You omitted the truth.”

“I said I’d made a mistake and that it consumes me?—”

“And now you want me to rectify it.” I stepped closer while raising the weapon to his throat, not pushing too deep into him but not relieving him either.

“How much time have we spent discussing these trials, Kayn, and you failed to confess you pursued me for this purpose? This isn’t about human survival, like you said. ”

“It is.”

“You’ve known me long enough now to know that I wanted the truth from the beginning. That you weren’t doing this for me and my people, but to rid yourself of your own guilt and climb your way to Valhalla, damning me to Hel’s underworld.”

Carefully, he nodded “You’re right.” His voice was wound tight.

“I need your help to unmake me and release me from the guilt. The first witch made me. I was dying and she used her magic to suspend me between life and death so that she may siphon this immortality from me. There was no one else like me, and when she started to lose control of her magic, I knew I’d end up alone.

” He cast his eyes down for a moment before dragging them up to meet my gaze again.

“So I made them. I cursed hundreds of dying men and women to this existence so that I would not be alone. So that she could use them and turn me back. When she didn’t make me human again, I became enraged and turned more of those fallen in battle from human to vampire.

I am their maker. I need you to unmake them before I persist for yet another generation, after these hundred years, ravaged with guilt.

” A quiver placed his voice somewhere between desperation and grief.

My hands shook with the skipping of my heart. It pulsed once, then three times, pausing, then beating twice as fast again as if my heart was reacting to the single last word he’d said. The Gods knew my lingering illness worsened when my mind dwelled on guilt.

Kayn had created monsters, but he didn’t choose to become one. I had. Through each choice I made, starting twenty years ago, I slowly accepted the darkness within me.

And now with Kayn here, I actually had a chance to take down the king, to save my sister. Though it would never make up for what I did to her, it was the only thing that mattered now.

I would do whatever it took to free her, even though it’d never relieve me from the shame that twisted and stretched this soul I supposedly had.

But Kayn? He had no soul to twist, only hundreds of years of shame.