Page 10 of Vow of the Undead
Though I’d never heard of royals inciting violence, they’d skirted other crimes, like bribery, abduction, or breaking an oath. These stories were merely nightmares, unreal to someone who lived their entire life in the distant village of Skaldir, weeks' travel from Mara where Mara’s Keep, the castle itself, housed the only throne in Vylheim.
Had King Drakkar sent them in case the executioners didn’t carry out their mission?
“She doesn’t have a lick of sense,” the woman drawled with annoyance. To her partner she said, “Sten, are you so sure she’s the one?”
“Are her nasty little beetle’s eyes not enough proof for you, Astrid?” he said.
My stomach flipped. The enchantment had never faded before the next morning. Could he see through the magic? I eyed him as he toyed with a bronze ring that held a ruby jewel at the center of the thick band, emphasizing his wealth as a royal.
She glared at me, taking in the black apex of my eyes that’d spread like a perfect circle of spilled ink. She could see it too. “Hideous. We should scoop them out?—”
“So you do intend to hurt me,” I interrupted. The pendant weighed heavier and heavier in my pocket. “The king sent you after me?”
Astrid’s eyes flashed and, for a moment, our roles as predator and prey swapped. I knew the strange place in between fear and anger too well.
Was she afraid of me? Angry at the king? I couldn’t begin to understand it.
Perhaps they wanted to impress King Drakkar by bringing me before him, but that didn’t explain why shadows like them—moving too quickly and with inhuman eyes—had lurked at my heels since I was a young girl. King Drakkar had only held the throne for seven years since he’d replaced King Roderic at only nineteen.
Both kings had been on a witch hunt my entire life, while skillfully denying we existed at all. A king who looked like the warriors in our sagas was no different. Just because he had long hair, wielded a weapon, and carried bloodlust in his eyes did not make him sympathetic to our history, to witches.
“Are you taking me to King Drakkar?” If so, everything would be easier. I could go with them without a fight and follow the vision.
My pulse fluttered. The king’s gaze had left me unsteady, his presence everything I didn’t expect.
Sten spoke, letting Astrid stew in silence. “Hoping we won’t kill you before you see Mara’s Keep?” He stepped so close his hot breath blew over my neck. I recoiled as my own breath hitched. How could he throw that threat around so easily? To his partner he said, “She only has to be alive, not conscious.”
“Sten,” Astrid growled. “Don’t tempt me.”
“She’d be easier to handle as a limp body.” Goosebumps prickled across my neck and arms.
“You won’t be able to control yourself,” she said.
“Her blood smells like wine…”
His voice crawled over me and ignited the mix of fury and fear building in my veins.
I could no longer hold back the flood of words on my tongue. “I don’t care what you think you can avoid as a royal. My father is a Vyl, a leader in Skaldir, and he will call for the fair use of executioner justice when he sees you’ve hurt me.”
My free hand found its way into my pocket, my fingers wrapping around the cold silver Y.
As if sensing my thoughts, Astrid ripped me toward her, forcing us face-to-face so that I’d give her my full attention. My hand twitched, ready to pull the makeshift weapon from my pocket.
“Hurt you?” She gripped my chin with her other hand, her strength unmatched, my head locked in place so tightly it seemed she could merely twist her wrist if she wanted to snap my neck. “Not until we make use of you.” She spoke through her teeth. The flex of her jaw revealed her anger. I’d hit a sore spot. “Then, and only then, will I taste your blood until you’re nothing but a lifeless human husk.”
“Astrid! Your hands!” Sten’s voice became background noise along with the brush of leaves overhead. We both ignored him, but something warm trickled down my arms. Iglanced at Astrid’s hold where her fingernails dug in so deep they left crescent wounds in my flesh and drew hot blood to the surface.
Blood rushed through my ears, my heart pounding louder—a thumping applause to cheer for my next move. All thoughts of starvation, exile, the possible execution I’d face, washed away at the sound of the feral and sickening hunger that laced her every word.
Her fingernails had sliced into my skin, leaving the back of my arm stinging when she suddenly let go.
I seized the moment of freedom. Pulling the Y Tree from my pocket, I sunk the sharp end of the pendant into the soft spot just below her collarbone. When Astrid’s gaze fell, horror filled her eyes.
Bright red blood trickled from the wound in her chest, but it was her hands that transfixed her. The tips of her fingers bubbled as if dipped into a boiling pot. I had no idea how or why, but my blood, red and hot, had become fire to her flesh, slowly melting her skin and turning the shell of her fingers to ash.
Where I’d stabbed her, her flesh congealed and melted around the Y that still impaled her.
“What is happening?” she choked out, mirroring my own thoughts.
