Page 75 of Blood Beneath the Snow

When my arms had no strength left and tears stained my cheeks,grief flowing from me for a boy whose name I didn’t know, I fell to my knees.

“There is no greater death than to die in service to Bhorglid.” My father’s voice echoed through my head.

“No,” I moaned. “No, no, no.”

A pair of arms wrapped around me, pulling me in. I sobbed into the Hellbringer’s shirt until my mind was empty.

When I woke up, theHellbringer was gone.

At some point, while he rocked me softly against his chest, I must have fallen asleep. And then…he moved me to the bed. It was the only explanation. Every muscle hurt, as if the soreness resulting from each training session had held back until now, the well-earned pain demanding to be remembered. I groaned. My voice was hoarse, my eyes swollen.

I rolled over and pulled my cloak over my face. Why did I have to be awake? Why couldn’t I sleep and forget it all?

It was impossible to tell whether I’d slept till the afternoon, missing our morning training, or if the Hellbringer had left early to give me space. I didn’t particularly care either way.

I added another thing to my list of what I knew about him:liar.

He had promised me he wouldn’t hurt anyone, wouldn’t kill anyone while we were visiting the camp, and he had lied. Even though the boy had shot him, even though retaliation was instinctual, he had taken an innocent life.

You know he didn’t mean to.

I pushed the thought out of my head. Why did it matter? The Lurae were all the same. They saw everyone around them as bodies to do their bidding and nothing more.

The boy was Lurae, too.

Tears welled in my eyes again at the thought, emotion clawing at my chest. One day he would have been exactly like the Hellbringer.

Maybe that made his sacrifice a worthy one. To keep another Lurae from terrorizing Bhorglid.

That was when I heard it. Coming from somewhere deep inside the prison, a haunting, eerie noise like a wail.

I scrambled for my sword. There was someone else here. How had they gotten in?

Grabbing a lantern, sword in my other hand, I peered into the darkness. The noise was quiet, as if it were nothing but a distant memory echoing through the halls. If there was someone here, they were far away.

I took a step into the darkness and frowned. The echoes made it difficult to discern which direction the noise came from, but after a moment of hesitation, I turned left. I had to start somewhere.

I followed a twisting path for ten minutes, the sound slowly growing louder as my fingers went numb. The noise was strange and animallike, almost unrecognizable. How had something living managed to work its way into this underground sanctuary?

I turned the corner, and my lantern cast a too-familiar shadow on a distant wall. Panic hit me like a punch to the stomach and I stepped back fast, hiding behind the corner, shielding the lamp with my cloak to hide the light.

The Hellbringer hadn’t seen me. I relaxed slightly, tilting my head to listen.

He was crying.

No, not simply crying. He rested on his knees, face in his hands, and shaking sobs echoed back to me. Despair resounded around us, each of his shaking breaths punctuating his anguished lament. But most startling was my eyes adjusting to the darkness just enough to see his helmet resting next to him. He faced away from me, anydetails of his face obscured in the darkness. Long dark hair covered the back of his head, appearing in the dim light almost the same color as his mask, which stared at me now with wide, unseeing eyes.

As I stood frozen, he spoke.

“Forgive me.” His voice trembled, thick with emotion. “Please forgive me.”

A shiver shook me, and I didn’t know if it was the cold or the realization that I was eavesdropping on something personal. Even sacred. Was he praying? He’d said he didn’t believe in any gods. What higher power could possibly grant him forgiveness?

What could make the Hellbringer sound broken?

My hands shook. I rushed back down the hallway, keeping my footsteps as quiet as I could, hoping he wouldn’t hear me.

With each step, thoughts flooded my mind. One stuck out more than the others: Did he…feelguiltyfor the young boy he had killed?

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