Page 26 of Kingdom of Embers and Ruin

“Youare what is wrong with me. You got Hakon separated from us, and we arrive to find that he hasn’t shown up here yet. It wasyouridea to split up. Now he’s missing,” she said, voice low and dangerous.

“Hakon is a big boy; he can defend himself,” Maude said, voice matching Liv’s.

“I told him to split up the group, Liv,” Herrick chimed in from the bed.

“Stay out of this,” they both snapped at him, never taking their eyes off each other.

Maude continued, “It was better than all going together and drawing more attention to yourselves. Hakon is smart and capable of defending himself; he doesn’t need you to run around protecting him from the big bad pit fighter you don’t trust.”

Maude only held a defensive position, blocking off all attacks from Liv.

“We work better together,” Liv replied as she took another slice at Maude, landing her hit and slicing Maude’s collarbone open right through her last, now ruined, sleeveless shirt. Hot blood poured from the cut, but Maude never took her eyes off Liv.

“You would’ve also died together in a group that large.”

“It’s none of your business how we operate. We’ve all been traveling and fighting together for years before you came along. Give me one reason why I should trust you,” Liv said to her as Maude’s blood spilled onto the clean wooden floorboards.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Maude said quietly.

She lowered her dagger to show Liv she meant her no harm, but Liv wouldn’t accept it and rushed toward Maude again. Maude feinted to her left, ducking under Liv’s upraised arm and hooking her arm through it to yank it behind her. She used Liv’s momentum to slam her into the washroom door face first, then grabbed her outstretched arm and twisted her wrist so she would drop the dagger. The other arm she hadpinned to the wall, much like when she had fought Herrick. Maude allowed hergalderto the surface and heated her skin so the places she touched Liv grew hotter and more uncomfortable. She didn’t want to hurt her; she just needed her to stop long enough tolisten.

“I am not your enemy, Liv. I am a wretch and wreck most of the time, but I am not your enemy. I will help you find Hakon if he doesn't show up by morning. You two were late to get here, too, so I doubt it’s been an easy journey for him, either. Stop trying to beat the shit out of me, or we will end up leveling Thora’s inn.”

Maude released her and the hold on hergalder, dizziness overwhelming her. She stumbled toward the chair she had been occupying and slumped into it, hand on her open cut. It must’ve been deeper than she thought if she was already feeling dizzy from blood loss.

“Gods, you two are a mess,” Gunnar said to the two women. “Tell us what happened to you while I stitch up Maude’s cut. Liv, take a walk if you can’t sit still long enough to listen to their story.”

He withdrew a long, hooked needle and some blue thread as he spoke, heading toward Maude’s slumped position in the chair. Liv snatched her daggers up off the floor and walked into the washroom, slamming the door behind her.

Herrick, who had sat on the bed during their brawl and said little, stared at Maude’s blood that had pooled on the floor. Without a word, he stood slowly and walked out the door of the room, still wrapped in a sheet. When he returned a few minutes later, a swearing Thora in tow, he leaned against the dresser and waited for Thora to finish cleaning up the blood. She fussed over Maude and made her move to the bed and lay over a sheet she had placed to catch any fresh blood while Gunnar sewed her up.

Feeling weak, Maude only went along with Thora and Gunnar’s pushing and prodding. She removed her ruined shirt and handed it to Thora,who said she’d find some new clothes for her. Too tired to hide her fatemark, Maude turned and ignored the sound Gunnar and Herrick made at the damning ink on her chest:Yggdrasiland the Valkyrie wings that flanked it. If they hadn't suspected her of being highborn before, they knew without a doubt now. Only nobles received fatemarks.

“Wait,” Maude said as Gunnar leaned in to start closing her cut. “Let me clean it first.”

Maude snapped, and a tiny flame appeared over her fingers again, just like in the desert. She ran the flame over the needle and then withdrew, the flame burning out quickly. Herrick flicked his fingers, and water ran smoothly across the surface, cooling the needle so Gunnar could begin. She settled within herself so when she felt the burning of the needle puncturing her skin, followed by a thread being dragged through the new wound, she would be able to weather it silently.

Herrick took this opportunity to tell Gunnar about their journey here, leaving out the moments in the alleyway and what they may have seen when they walked in. He recounted the arrows being shot at them and what the guards had said about another group scaling the wall that night. He finished updating Gunnar about how Thora and Maude had cleaned him up and how they had waited for the rest of their group to show up.

Maude drifted in and out of the retelling as the pain of the needle piercing her skin repeatedly overwhelmed her, but she did not make a sound, letting Herrick tell their story. Liv had rejoined them at some point and was leaning against the washroom door, watching Gunnar sew Maude’s skin shut. This tension between them wasn’t over, but they had reached a tentative peace for now.

Maude only thought about what almost happened before Gunnar and Liv entered the room. She could still feel Herrick’s thumb tracing over her mouth and how it had felt to be pressed up against him. She thought abouthis hands gripping her neck so she could only look at him, about how she had seen his resolve crumble behind his eyes as he leaned into her. Her skin had started to burn again, and she thanked the gods that they had been interrupted as her restraint had begun to fail. She wouldn’t get close to him. She had one mission in life: to destroy King Helvig.

Whatever Maude was feeling for Herrick would pass; she just needed to wait long enough for that to happen. Gunnar was just tying the final knot in her sutures when Liv finally spoke.

“We must’ve been the group they were speaking of. We were almost to the wall when a patrol of guards spotted and cornered us. We managed to get the children up and over the wall, but the mother got in the line of fire to save her boys from an arrow and didn’t make it.”

Liv’s voice was strained, and despair filled her eyes as she looked at Herrick. Maude tried not to stiffen and retreat into her sorrow, instead looking up at Gunnar, where she saw that same despair reflected in his kind blue eyes. Maude placed her hand on top of Gunnar’s for a second and allowed him to see her regret that they were unable to save her. He nodded and gave her a sad smile before she removed her hand.

“We carried the children here all the way from Logi but had to make more frequent stops than usual because of their age. We found them a family to stay with close to the temples in town who would watch over them until they could be reunited with their elder sister and infant brother who had gone with Hakon,” Gunnar finished for Liv.

They were all silent for a time while they processed the information.

“We need to find Hakon to make sure Helvig hasn't taken him prisoner,” Herrick said, his voice intense and heavy with calculation.

Maude understood that they needed to find Hakon, but she didn’t understand why the room had a new blanket of strain over it. Tucking that bit of information into the back of her mind, she sat up and groaned. Themovement had caused the stitches to pull a bit, so she put her hand on it, covering both the wound and the fatemark on her chest.

“We go in the morning if he doesn’t show by then,” she said to Herrick.

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