Dolor and Shadow (18 page)

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Aaric spun on his heel as he continued his pacing along the entrance of the receiving balcony. As he walked, his polished sword clanked at his side. His dress clothes seemed only to enhance his threatening form, despite covering most of his tattoos.

“Of all the jewels of Alfheim,” Aaric said, “she is our most precious. Everyone in Lorlenalin seems to know this, save for the jewel herself.” He turned on his heel to Gudrun. “You had to teach her the cloaking spell.”

“She is trying to cope, Aaric,” Gudrun said.

“The girl’s favorite pastime is running off and wreaking havoc through the city that would put her mother to shame and you teach her to vanish,” Aaric said.

Daggon leaned against the arched frame of the balcony in his finest clothes, just out of sight of the crowd.

“The girl is leading her people into a new era, and she’s doing it alone,” Daggon said.

“She’s seen little else outside of the world Eyolf had given her, you know this,” Gudrun said.

“Bah,” Aaric said, giving a sound as if he understood, but didn’t like it.

“That girl was nearly born into war and lost a parent in each.” Daggon said, staring out into the masses. “The least you can do is to empathize with her.”

“I empathize,” Aaric said. “But, emotions aside, she has to go forward whether she likes it or not, and we don’t have the time for the apprehensions of a whimsical girl. The New Era is here, now, and the queen can’t be found to welcome it.” Aaric released an audible sigh and forced himself to stop. “Has she changed her mind, at least?” he asked, peering at Gudrun, who was already shaking her head in answer.

Aaric threw his arms in surrender.

“She’s determined to kill him,” Daggon said. “She won’t budge. She plans to launch the celebrations tonight with the execution.”

“It’s a mistake,” Aaric said. “An execution will lure the Dark One from his hole.”

“I think that’s what she’s hoping for,” Daggon said, but Aaric stood at attention, drawing Daggon’s interests from the courtyard to the passage leading to Kallan’s bower. There, shadowed by Eilif, Kallan glided down the corridor in her gown of silver and blue.

Daggon straightened his posture, tightened his jaw, and took her hands in his. “You look so much like your mother,” he said.

Kallan weakly smiled as Aaric swept his arm around Kallan’s back.

“Enough of this, there is no time. Lorlenalin is waiting,” he said, leading her onto the balcony alongside him.

Seventy thousand voices rose up and engulfed Kallan as she stepped into the moonlight that bathed the courtyard in its splendor. Below, amid the masses, torches and lanterns blazed, adding to the gaiety that already infected the Dokkalfar gathered there.

They roared in jubilation, eager to welcome the end of the age-long war. At the courtyard’s center, the fountain rose up from the crowd where a platform and executioner waited to receive the king.

The crowd quieted at the wave of Aaric’s hand and Kallan expanded her lungs as the last of the uproar died down.

“Bring him out,” Kallan called.

The Dokkalfar exploded with a tumultuous roar that filled the courtyard and rolled up Lorlenalin’s high towers as the first of the guards appeared. From high in her balcony, the crowd appeared to swallow the Ljosalfar king.

Kallan’s insides flipped and she averted her attention to the moon, to Daggon, to Aaric beside her, anywhere but the king who killed her father. She refused to see him, who masked his grief with the blank stare he held firm through the crowd, his head cocked high with honor as he followed his guards to the platform to welcome his death. There he would find the merciful headsman that would relieve him of his failure.

The cheering grew quieter. Although Kallan was certain the king had reached the platform, she still refused to look. An encouraging hand took hers and Aaric gave it a gentle squeeze. He nodded, urging her ahead. Only when the crowed quieted, only when Kallan was certain she could not prolong another moment’s delay, she forced her gaze to the platform below.

Her spine tightened. Her breath ceased. She felt her hand go cold in Aaric’s grip.

In the courtyard below, flanked by a pair of guards on the raised platform and shackled with elding, stood Rune, son of Tryggve, Lord and King of Gunir: the Ljosalfr hunter she had loved in the wood, if only for a moment.

Stripped of his bow and quiver, Rune stared, his gaze secured, unwavering on Kallan. His black hair fell to his shoulders. But his eyes, his cold, silver-blue eyes wide with relief, held hers as if he could see beyond her iron wall buried within her void.

A cold chilled her spine, but nothing could stop her head from spinning, leaving her battling to clear her mind. In the time it took for her to gasp and for the color to drain from her face, Kallan’s strength left her, her legs gave out, and the world went black.

CHAPTER 23

What happened?

Kallan tried to speak. She tried to open her eyes, to move, and failed. She was alone in the darkness, in the void.

Gudrun?
She tried to speak, but her lips wouldn’t move. Her legs wouldn’t obey and so Kallan lay in the dark, trying to remember.

I was on the balcony,
she thought then remembered everything at once.

The crowd. The executioner. The platform. The hunter. But where was the king?

She tried to ask that too and failed.

Focus
.

“What. Happened.” Kallan heard Daggon’s voice punch the air. The waver he always had when he was angry was there.

Why was he angry?

“She fainted,” Kallan heard Aaric say.

No, I didn’t
, Kallan tried to say, to tell them.
I didn’t faint. It was something else!

“Kallan.”

She heard Gudrun calling and Kallan felt her finger move.

“Can you hear me?” Gudrun asked.

Kallan tried to move her arm and her fist tightened. Her eyes, at last, flew open.

Peering down around her in a circle with eyes all wide as if the dead had risen, Daggon, Aaric, and Eilif stared at her stretched on the corridor floor.

“She’ll be alright,” Gudrun said beside her. “Help me get her up.”

At once, Daggon and Aaric leapt to the instructions. With an arm to Daggon and one to Aaric, who supported her back, they lifted her to her feet.

“Easy now,” Gudrun said as Kallan found her feet beneath her.

“What—” Kallan gasped. “What happened?”

“You fell,” Eilif answered as Daggon said, “You fainted.”

“What…happened?” Kallan had to raise her voice to be heard over the clamoring.

“You fell,” Aaric said, but Kallan’s thoughts were already onto the next worry.

“Where is the king?” she asked.

“The king?” Daggon raised a brow.

“She really should go to her room,” Gudrun said.

“Where is he?” Kallan asked with growing irritation.

“He has been returned to his cell,” Aaric said

Gudrun mumbled. “You need to rest.”

“Why wasn’t he brought out to the platform?” Kallan asked.

Silence encompassed the hall.

“He was, Kallan,” Daggon said with apparent ever-growing worry.

“King Rune was on the platform,” Aaric said.

“That was…” Kallan whispered and remembered his face. She had no doubt the hunter from the Alfheim wood had stared up at her from the platform beside the executioner.

“It’s worse than I thought,” Gudrun said, eager to get Kallan on the way to her chambers.

“That’s why we thought you fainted,” Aaric said, “because—”

“I didn’t faint!” Kallan’s voice filled the corridor.

Distance muted the joyous cries of hundreds of thousands of voices that carried from the courtyard. The mass had dwindled considerably. Kallan pinched the bridge of her nose.

“The man who was on the platform…is he dead?” she asked.

It was a long moment before anyone dared answer.

“King Rune was on the platform, Kallan,” Daggon said finally. “He has been returned to the prisons.”

Kallan released her nose. “Who—Who ordered him back to the prisons?”

“I did,” Aaric said.

Kallan whirled about on her heel. “He was to be executed immediately,” she said. “Why, when I’ve made my choice, and my decision was clear, why did you disregard my orders?”

“You fainted,” Aaric said. “And without my queen conscious or present, I had to do what I felt was best for Lorlenalin.”

“I didn’t—” Kallan took a breath and returned her fingers to the bridge of her nose as she forced her demeanor calm and her head clear. “That man was to die today.”

“And I stand by what I said days ago,” Aaric said. “That killing that king forfeits our lives, and while my queen was incapacitated, I had to do what I felt was best for Lorlenalin and her people.”

“And I will not have him go unpunished,” Kallan bellowed. “For the massacre of Austramonath and the lives his berserker has claimed, for every drop of Dokkalfar blood and for the orphans he’s made of our children. For the life of my father, the Ljosalfar king must answer. If I have to carve Odinn’s Eagle into his back with his own sword myself, I will!”

Her voice rang clear through the corridor.

Aaric heaved, matching Kallan’s temper. “If you do this, if you insist on this madness, I promise you, Kallan, King Rune will live through the Blood Eagle long enough to see the berserker tear down our gates and witness the start of this…this madness…as you start this war all over again.”

A stab of anger quelled to a sharp pain, pushing from behind her wall, but she was too late. Hurt blanketed Kallan’s face in the sheer second it took her to suppress it.

“Aaric,” Gudrun said, looking to ease back his rage.

“She has to know,” Aaric said.

Gudrun shook her head. “Not like this.”

Kallan tightened her jaw, closing her eyes in an attempt to focus more strength on holding up her wall. Paralyzed, she prepared to stand against the torrent that was to come.

“She has forgotten what Kira taught her,” Aaric said, then frowned at Kallan. “The people look to you to end this, Kallan. They trust you to deliver, and if you don’t, they will abandon you. You will lose their support. Do not kill the king.”

Kallan forced herself to gulp down the knot in her dry throat.

“My people—”

“Your people trust you to make this choice for them,” Aaric said. “You seek to end this war, to give them what they have dreamed about for centuries, but you invite a wrath the Dark One will bring. If the king dies, his berserker will not stop until every last Dokkalfar is dead. The Dark One is loyal. He will seek vengeance. What answers will you have for your people then, Kallan, when they call your name for aid while the Dark One runs them through in his berserker rage?”

Kallan closed her eyes, desperate to feel what seemed so far from reach, but the pain was too great and she was faltering.

“I,” Kallan’s voice cut the tension, leaving her company suspended on bated breath, “am tired.”

The simple words struck the room like a thunderous wave, giving voice to the burden they all had carried for centuries. In silence they stood, anxious for what she would decide, worried for what she wouldn’t.

Kallan raised her face to Aaric’s. Her color had returned, and with it, the burden she shouldered. It weighed her down heavier than ever before, but a new look glowed, and with it, a shimmer of hope she seemed unaware of. Silence hung suspended with every breath she took.

“One day,” Kallan said. “I can delay his death one day. Whether or not the Dark One has made his move or not. And then I will cut Odinn’s eagle into the king’s back myself.”

Without pause or delay, she swept from the room, and plodded all the way down to the dungeons.

CHAPTER 24

Beneath the city, buried deep within the mountains, the guards led Rune down into the vast caverns hewn of black earth and stone. Every footfall echoed back throughout the labyrinth to become the only sound in the darkness where the last of day’s light ended and the occasional torch left large gaps of black between each orange dome.

Into the depths, they lumbered until they came to a small passage where the prison’s key keeper dragged his leg with a slight gimp that followed his every left step. The keeper unlocked a door that loudly whined as he pulled it open to reveal a stone pit devoid of sound and light.

With a violent shove, a guard pushed Rune down the three stone steps into the black hole. The last of the torchlight vanished, leaving Rune buried alive in the darkness. But, before the guard with the gimp could pull the door closed behind him, a palm struck the wood, leaving it ajar as the echo dwindled.

Awed by the contrast, the key keeper followed the folds of silver and blue up the slender body of his queen who stood like a beacon amid the desolation. He gulped down the hot ball that had formed in his throat and suddenly wished he had shaved the whiskers from his face.

Kallan moved too quickly, snatching the keys from their keeper. Her eyes remained fixed on the prisoner, who noted the rise and fall of her deepened breath.

“Leave us.” Her clear notes permeated the stale death of the prison.

The key keeper limped away. The last of the shuffled gimp faded into the silence where even the sharpest of hearing couldn’t make out the slightest footfall, and still she remained unmoving.

Finally, pulling her hand from the door, she flicked a wrist, sending streams of white light to flood the room and suppress the darkness. The silver headdress in her hair glistened like raindrops bathed in moonlight. Enchanted by her trick, Rune watched, intrigued by her stunning presentation.

The door banged closed, leaving the echo behind as she descended the three steps into the room. Her gown swept the floor, adding a contrast that enthralled him.

Rune said nothing as Kallan’s hands flew over his bonds, perhaps lingering too long on his hands while she fumbled with the keys. His attention lingered on the bits of silver in her hair glistening beneath her Seidr light. She fitted the correct key into the shackles and turned the lock with a series of metal clicks.

His gaze strayed to the delicate lines of her neck. From there he followed the fine chain down to a tri-cornered knot of black silver and elding. The simple jewel would have appeared out of place with her ensemble if it hadn’t fit so naturally in the nook of her collarbone, magnifying the elegance of her slender curve.

The chains clanked as she pulled them free. They hit the floor with a metallic crunch as Rune rubbed his raw wrists. He could hear her every breath in the silence, taking in the scent of lavender as she lifted her face to his.

He had correctly remembered every dip, every curve, elated that she stood unscathed before him, her eyes as vibrant an iridescent blue lapis as he remembered. For a moment she seemed fixed on his mouth until he was certain she would close in. And just when he thought he had the right words to begin, she caught the smile on the corner of his lips and slammed her hand into his face.

“Ah! Son of a…” Rune squawked, holding his cheek.

As he regained his balance, Kallan threw back her head in defiance, daring him to slap her back. As if wishing him to strike her, she visibly braced for the impact.

Rune’s hand twitched with the temptation as he heaved, pacing himself through the anger.

“Why did you come here?” Kallan whispered.

Rune cocked his jaw. He felt it pop.

“I’m pretty sure you were present when the queen gave her orders,” he said, checking his fingers for blood.

Before he could regain his composure, Kallan stepped in, closing the last of the space between them, and splayed her hand upon his chest. Just as heat flooded him beneath her touch, Kallan fired a blast of wind into his body. He fell to his back, releasing a groan. As Rune fought to regain the breath she had knocked out of him, Kallan was on him, straddling him with her arm braced across his chest. In one hand, she cradled a ball of flame poised at the ready while her hair fell like a curtain around her face.

“My Seidr is only the tip of my very short temper,” she said. “Answer me.”

“You brought me here,” he said. “Bound and blinded were your orders, princess.”

Rage sparked in her eyes at the title and Rune fought back a grin.

“I am not weak,” she hissed and slid her forearm up onto his neck. The cold in her eyes seethed as she stared down. The flame in her hand flickered idly, waiting to obey its enchanter’s command.

“Why do your men follow me?” she asked.

“My men aren’t here,” he said, fighting the pressure she applied to his throat. Kallan shifted her weight and eased off his neck, sliding her arm back to his chest. With a twitch of her wrist, she extinguished her flame and sighed, sitting upright.

“I believed you once,” she whispered. “I’ll not make that mistake again.” Her face softened as she eased on the venom she spewed. “They are here, nipping at my heels, cowering in the shadows.”

“Did they attack you?” Rune asked.

“No,” she said.

A gleam in his eye caught the light. “Then they weren’t my men.”

Appearing pensive, Kallan sat for a moment then shifted her weight and pulled herself to her feet. She hugged herself against a chill he couldn’t feel as she turned her back to Rune and walked toward one of the hovering Seidr lights. Rune scuffed the ground as he stood, eyeing the keys still clutched in her hand.

“They watch me outside the city,” Kallan said, clearly determined to keep her eyes on the Seidr light. “I can only assume they are your spies.”

Rune took a breath, allowing his gaze to wander over her backside, before speaking.

“You would turn your back to a prisoner?” Rune asked, highly suspicious of her apparent foolish choices.

Kallan peered over her shoulder. “You are no threat to me.”

Rune inhaled, forcing the offense aside. “Why?” 

Dropping her arms, Kallan turned back to the light and slid a finger along the sphere as Rune circled around to stand before her.

“Why did you release my bonds?” he asked.

Her eyes glanced down at his chest and she threw back her shoulders. But the tension, the usual anger, the aggression was missing from her composure. 

“It isn’t right,” she said, “attacking a man who can’t defend himself.”

A distasteful look pursed his lips as he blinked at the absurdity of her answer.

“You call an unarmed man against a Seidkona a fair fight?”

Kallan smiled mockingly.

“Your lies are not the first I’ve heard from the lips of a woman,” Rune said. “Why did you really come here?”

“Why did you attack my people?” she asked. She glanced at his bare chest again then forced her head up in a stiff angle as if to prevent herself from gawking.

Rune narrowed his eyes, heavy with disbelief.

“You did not come here to discuss politics. If you’re creating excuses, you could at least ask where Bergen is or when we plan—”

“Why did you follow me in Swann Dalr?” she asked.

Rune grinned and relaxed his shoulders.

“Any question in the world. Any at all and you want to know why I followed you. Is this why you interrupt my final hours and deprive me of my last rights, all on a woman’s whim?”

“Answer my ‘why,’” she said.

“You’re evading,” he said with a smirk.

“Why did you follow me?” she asked again. Her jaw had visibly tightened and the urge to kiss it off of her was overwhelming.

“You’re shaking to burst,” he taunted. “Ready to bare your claws, screaming and kicking and you want to know why I followed you.”

“Answer.”

“I did once,” he said. “My men needed meat.”

“You left the boar.”

Rune’s jaw fell and he smiled.

“So…” Rune folded his arms across his chest and leaned into the wall beside her. “You went back.”

“Why did you follow me?” Kallan asked again. The light of her Seidr caught the blue in her eyes.

“But you know the reason,” he said.

Kallan scoffed and Rune dared a step closer, closing the last of the space between them.

“That pain you horde,” he whispered. “That pain you are so adamant to keep, it will devour you in its unending darkness.”

“You know nothing of what you speak,” she said. “Nothing of pain.” Her eyes flickered to his neck.

“You’re defensive for one so confident.”

Kallan locked her eyes onto his.

“I am not—”

“You’re shaking,” he said.

“Why did you spare me?” Kallan blurted the question in a hush.

Rune’s face stretched into a wide, undaunted grin and his shoulders relaxed, savoring his victory like aged mead or a well-wooed wench.

“And there she speaks,” he said.

Kallan threw back her head. Her breathing had deepened visibly.

“So that’s what troubles you, princess.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Rune arched a brow.

“You knew who I was when you found me in Swann Dalr,” she said. “You could have dispatched me at any moment and claim your victory. Why did you spare me?”

Rune studied the lights reflected in her eyes. “I didn’t know who you were.”

“Then why did you follow? Why did you stay?”

Rune shrugged.

“You looked like you had forgotten.”

“Forgotten,” she said.

“How to feel, how to breathe, how to smile,” he said. “How to live.”

“I don’t—”

“You look miserable,” he said and glanced at the lines of her neck long enough to let her see that he stared. “You’re cold.”

“You know nothing.”

“I know what I’ve seen,” Rune said. “What it does, what it will do. I’ve seen the shadow of what you’ll become, staring back at me from those who once knew me. You will forget everything: how to think, how to feel. It will consume you until it takes you. You’ll forget it all, until nothing is left and you abandon those you love the most. They’ll be the first to go.”

Every word came in a fluid rush, and he watched his words dig into the hate that enveloped her.

“I love my people,” Kallan whispered.

“Yet already you’ve forgotten the danger you place on them when you signed my execution.”

Kallan smiled warmly. “Is this a final plea from one so desperate?”

“Bergen will come,” Rune promised. “Do not underestimate his loyalty or his lust for vengeance. There are tempers even I can not quell.”

“Do not pretend to care for those who you hate,” she said. “Our walls can not be breached.”

“Pretend to care?” He shook his head. “I didn’t know I was supposed to hate you, and I’m not sorry you want me.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed and moved toward the door, but Rune leapt from the wall. His arms flew up and, slamming his palms onto the stone, he caged her in between the wall and his body, leaning in too close as he spoke.

“You have traitors who sleep among you, hidden behind these walls, but you hate too much to see your usurpers.”

Kallan narrowed her eyes into snake-like slits.

“You know nothing of my people you…coward…Outlaw…
Nidingr
!”

Rune’s hand gripped her neck, slamming her head into the wall. His nostrils flared with rage and Kallan met his eyes, seeing them for the first time steeped in a cold, crazed hate.

“There are laws for such backless accusations made,” he said, the affection gone from his voice.

“You had my father killed, stabbed in the back while you rode away. You left him to bleed without a sword in his hand or the decency to take his life and finish the job. What greater dishonor is there?”

Rune eased his grip on her neck as he changed back to indifference and released her, leaving behind a cold that had not been there before. With a sigh, he lowered his arm, giving Kallan the space to push off the wall as the cold settled between the small space left between them.