Page 174 of Kingdom of Embers and Ruin

Maude sprinted toward the flash of copper hair and the voice so familiar to her heart that she could not turn away if she wanted to.

Numbly, she heard Herrick’s voice cut through the all-consuming silence that had dampened her hearing as she forced herself between Bryn and their uncle. The basic need to protect her sister overrode any other self-preservation that might have been left after their father’s thorough destruction of their well-being.

Maude saw their uncle’s twisted face of savage glee as he drove his blade into flesh; it didn’t matter whose. She couldn’t even feel the serrated dagger puncturing her lungs as Ulf’s blade found itself embedded in the wrong Helvig daughter.

Maude could only feel the overwhelming relief of knowing that her sister was alive.

Bryn turned and must have screamed because a shriek pierced the buzzing that had enveloped Maude’s hearing. Maude absently watched as Ulf’s head was separated from his shoulders by Bryn’s axe as she placed a shaking hand on the knife protruding from her chest. Her knees gave out from under her, forcing Maude to fall backward into her sister's arms.

It was freezing in this hallway. Gods, she was cold.

Hands were on her face, pushing her hair away as they shook her from the darkness encroaching on her vision.

“Maude, wake up,” a strong, familiar voice from her childhood called out from the rest.

She tried to take a breath, but the razors in her lungs cut deeper. Maude opened her eyes and saw copper hair, wild like her spirit.

Brynna.

“Maude! Hi,” Bryn said with a forced smile, her hazel eyes filling with tears. “You can’t go, Maude.”

Go? I’m right here, Maude thought as the cold ebbed and she finally felt nothing but exhaustion.

“I’m sorry I left you,” Maude forced out, the words hard to find as the heavy blanket of sleep weighed over her. “I was dying here, Bryn. Every day, I was dying. I’m sorry I left you here with him.”

Strong hands cradled her face, warm and protective.

That wasn’t right; his hands should have been cool.

Maude cracked her eyes open again to see golden brown before she slept.

“Stay with me,minn eldr,” his voice begged. Hot liquid splashed against her face as she drifted further away from him even when she didn’t want to. “You are staying here with me, Maude.”

Maude found enough strength in her heavy bones to grab Herrick and Bryn’s hands.

“I’ll be okay,” Maude said before she closed her eyes, and darkness enveloped her. “I’m going to see the gods.”

Rest. She could rest now.

37

Bryn felt hollow as she kneeled on the floor, her sister’s body limp in her arms. She traced her hand over Maude’s features, her face relaxed and peaceful in a way she had never seen before. The large man to her right was still running his hands over Maude’s arms and hair, desperately trying to coax life into her.

His shirt was torn down the front from his struggle to get to Maude before Ulf killed her. Bryn could spy the fatemark,vegvisir, on his chest. This must be the General of Rivers, then.

“Maude, you can’t go,” he whispered in her ear, his tears still splashing onto her inanimate face. “I’m not ready to let you go. We didn’t have any time.”

Bryn’s throat burned with the emotion she was keeping buried inside of her. If she let go now, hergalderwould destroy whatever part of the palace that was still standing.

Maybe she should let it.

The commotion behind them grew as the group from the Kingdom of Rivers finished off the last of the soldiers. The man who looked like the General of Rivers with different coloring was kneeling by the older warrior and helping him to his feet. Belladonna poisoning, her father had said. Kneeling in front of them was a tall woman with midnight skin and long braids running down her back.

Bryn realized that the woman was screaming at the General of Rivers, but it seemed he couldn’t hear her either.

“Herrick, we have to movenow,” the woman begged.

“I can’t leave her here, Liv,” Herrick snapped, never taking his eyes off Maude.

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