Page 176 of Kingdom of Embers and Ruin

Bryn was already over the top, but Hakon was still helping Gunnar. Liv was just beginning to climb when she realized Herrick was stepping back, closer to the soldiers. Realization dawned on her features as she opened her mouth to speak, but Herrick stopped her.

“You have to go,” Herrick said quietly. “I will hold them off long enough for you to get Hakon and Bryn out of this city. Find Gunnar a healer in the north. Just go.”

“Herrick, you’re outnumbered,” Liv called as he turned his back to his friend.

“Then this will be a challenge I welcome,” he said, drawing his axe as the first soldier got close enough for Herrick to swing his blade through the thick muscles of the soldier's neck. “Go, Liv. I’ll catch up.”

“Liar,” she shouted.

Herrick turned for a second and grinned before diving into another battle for his friend's lives. Every soldier that met Herrick’s blade perished under its edge, sending them all to Hel.

“I guess you’ll just have to find out,” he shouted back to her as Liv crested the wall. “Goodbye, my friend.”

His friends were safe, and Bryn was safe; that was all that mattered. Maude’s sacrifice would not go unheeded.

Exhaustion weighed in Herrick’s limbs as soldier after soldier tried to cut their way to him. His chances of escape were slim, but he would rather die here where the woman he loved had perished. To die here would mean he would see Maude in Valhalla soon.

He welcomed the idea, brought it into his heart, and found peace there.

A sharp pain came from behind his eyes, and the world went dark.

I’m coming, minn eldr, he thought to himself as he drifted into darkness.

Pain was the first thing Herrick registered as he came back to consciousness. Pain everywhere— his head, his body, his heart.

His mouth was sticky, and a thick coating over his tongue made it hard for him to swallow as he tried to sit up. The ground beneath him was slightly damp, the cold seeping into his very bones and numbing him to everything. He welcomed it.

Opening his eyes, Herrick thought he might have gone blind, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw that he was in a cell with very little light. Only the torches from further down the hall told Herrick that this was a prison cell.

In front of him was a pitcher of water; the condensation running down the side reminded Herrick of how thirsty he was. He reached for the pitcher only to hear the clinking of metal on metal. He looked down and saw deep gray cuffs on his wrists, binding them together. Chains ran from the wall behind him to the cuffs, giving him very little room to move without chafing his skin.

He reached for the pitcher only to find that it was too far. Bastards.

Diving deep inside himself, Herrick reached for hisgalder. He could manipulate the water out of the pitcher. But it didn’t matter how deep he dove. Herrick could not find hisgalder.

“You won’t be able to use yourgalderwhile in those cuffs,” a smooth voice came from outside the metal bars that caged Herrick in. “Though, you’ve probably already realized that, General.”

Normally, Herrick would have had more of a reaction to his current circumstances, but he felt nothing. Maude’s death left him a shell of who he was, and nothing would pull him from that. Herrick sat up and leaned back against the wall he was chained to, waiting for Helvig to continue speaking.

“My daughter, and Heir, is dead.” Ice settled heavier in Herrick’s chest. “I know my foolish brother was the one to do it. Rest assured; he has been burnt to ash and scattered into the desert winds without honor.”

Helvig’s voice quaked with barely restrained anger.

Rest assured. Herrick could do no such thing.

He studied the man who sired the woman he loved and found no resemblance. Helvig was a tall man, yes, but his coloring was so different from Maude's. He was light where she was dark. Maude must have taken after her mother more than anyone else.

The way Helvig spoke about her death stuck out in Herrick’s mind. Helvig wasangryabout his daughter's death. Furious.

Interesting.

“Your friends got away, along with my second daughter,” Helvig continued. “They outran my soldiers, probably because of Brynna and her affinity for wind.”

Herrick was silent; only dim relief washed through him at the news of his friend's escape.

“They will find only ice and death in the north. They’ll turn back up here soon enough when they hear of your capture, though.”

Helvig’s gloating tone did nothing to aggravate Herrick. He was a broken shell that could not be filled.

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