Page 167 of Kingdom of Embers and Ruin

She knew that he would be up until the late hours of the night, scheming and plotting his takeover of Ahland.

The rage that had driven her through the Dead Waste and the desert surrounding Logi was reignited as she closed in on the war room in which she knew her father was stewing. As a child, she had sulked through these halls after her brutal lessons with her father. The palace staff had become her friends, the secret halls her place of comfort. It was fitting now that she was using these halls on the last mission of meaning in her life.

Maude turned the corner, listening intently for any signs of life outside the secret wall entrance to the war room.

Silence.

Maude eyed the stone wall in front of her.

The runeinguzwas carved into the top corner— the rune for reward and awareness. That somethingotherstirred around her once more. Her fatemark pulsed on her chest with a bright silver light that lit up the dark tunnels Maude was currently hiding in. It was as if it was happy she was standing there. Maude put one hand on the wall to push it open but hesitated.

It was not lost on her that she might not get to see Herrick again in this life, as much as she avoided the idea. She pictured his golden brown eyes, his long curls falling forward as he smirked at her, his dimple on display. She could count the freckles that bridged over his nose from his cheekbones, could feel his cool skin under her fingertips. She thought of how he looked so peaceful when he was asleep, his strong arms wrapped tightly around her as if she might disappear when the moon rose.

The illusion shattered behind her closed eyes as she remembered the look of betrayal on his face as she left him on that wall.

Maude breathed in raggedly, whispering to the gods above her and the Norns who weaved their threads of fate around them.

“Spare him, please. Take my love for him, my life over his. Just spare him on this day.”

The air shifted around her, and goosebumps erupted over her skin. Maude smiled then as warmth settled on her chest, right over her fatemark. It pulsed once and then cooled again.

“Thank you,” she whispered to the gods as she pressed on the wall in front of her, opening the hidden door to the war room.

The room was exactly how she remembered it. The long table in the center depicted Ahland’s topography, the velvet throne encrusted with rubies at the head where her father sat, and the large open windows that looked over Logi. Maude hesitantly stepped into the room, the memories of her past overwhelming her, snuffing out the anger that had driven her for the last ten years.

It wasn’t exactly nostalgia that made her lower her axe and short sword for a moment, but rather a mourning for who she was and could have been if her father hadn't been a vicious ruler. Just as Maude settled in front of the large windows, a disarming and honeyed voice came from behind her.

“Hello,dóttir.”

35

Fire ignited down Maude’s spine.

“I am no daughter of yours,” she said to her father, her voice low and acidic.

Movement came from behind her, close to the hidden door she had emerged from, like he was waiting for her. Thedalkr Helawas heavy on her thigh, the blade almost wanting to make its presence known.

“You’re right,” he replied, his tone light. “No daughter of mine would have so recklessly abandoned her duties to behave as avitki.”

The derogatory way her father said the wordvitkimade Maude see red. She turned, then, to lay eyes on the man who had so thoroughly destroyed her life.

Standing on the other side of the table map of Ahland stood her father in all his resplendent glory. He was dressed similarly to Maude; their clothes were each black and fit for battle, the slim fit of the clothing showing off their honed muscles and powerful bodies.

Where Maude was dark with shadows in her coloring, though, her father was lighter with honey-colored hair and hazel eyes as light green as her sisters.

Maude had always likened their mother over their father, the wine-red hair and deep green eyes so similar to her mother’s that they could be twins. Maude’s tanned skin was a mystery, but living in the desert meant that most pigments were on the darker side.

“So, you have brought thedalkr Helahere to kill me,” her father said, his tone still light as he circled the table closer to Maude.

She smiled sweetly at him while smothering her panic over his guess that was entirely true. Maude mirrored his movements exactly, keeping her axe and short sword drawn against him as they circled each other. The predatory gleam in his eyes never dulled as he took in her appearance.

“Your skin is stained with the ink of the lower class,” he pointed out. “You have degraded yourself to their level,dóttir.”

“I could never degrade myself by living amongst them,Papa,” Maude replied, her voice becoming honeyed like his. “They are my people.”

He scoffed. The King took a seat as he reached his monstrous velvet chair. Maude remained standing where she was, staying on guard for whatever he was planning. Herrick’s words speared through her mind as she plotted all the ways to get close to her father.

You are not a monster. You don’t have to sink to his level.

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