Page 11 of Vow of the Undead
How had the Y Tree burned her? How hadmy bloodburned her?
Perhaps Freya was watching over me. My mother always said witches were given the most divine opportunities. But she also said witches helped others, they never hurt, and yet my blood was melting this woman’s fingers.
My heart slammed into my gut.
It wasn’t just my blood hurting her. I’d stabbed her. I’d chosen to commit the very violence that I’d been trying to forget about, to resist.
Astrid’s body crumpled, and only then did I remember my other captor.
Expecting the worst, I stooped and ripped the Y Tree from her flesh before spinning around to protect myself from Sten. He stood stunned, frozen, horrified at the sight of blood—not Astrid’s, but my blood—trickling down my arm where her sharp fingernails had cut into me.
For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to hurt me. That I’d be able to run. But I dared to blink, and in an instant, he lunged at me. When I turned to run, my heel caught on slick leaves and we went down together, wrestling until I thrust the end of the Y Tree into his neck.
It didn’t stop him.
In a mess of limbs and dead leaves, I couldn’t see what weapon he’d wielded when something sharp sliced across my face.
I cried out, the sound piercing through the forest.
When his skin bubbled around the pendant, his strength waned and he quickly grew limp. I rolled out from under him. His lifeless eyes were left peeled open, staring into the realm of the dead.
I turned to see that his partner looked the same. Astrid gazed at nothing while her spirit roamed the underworld, claimed by Hel, the God of dishonorable deaths. They were dead, which had to mean they weren’t the undead or strong monsters my frayed nerves had led me to believe.
And I’dkilledthem.
Scrambling to my feet, I only stayed long enough to rip the Y Tree from his throat before I ran, praying to the Gods I wasn’t supposed to believe in that nobody would ever find out what I’d done.
The Gods were my only hope. The vision they’d granted me of the king was just enough to guide my next step.
I knew where Odin wanted me to go—back to Skaldir, back to the king whose courtiers I’d just murdered.
Night passed shrouded in shame. When the next day descended into all-encompassing darkness and early snow dotted the ground in crystal white, I finally dragged myself back to the edge of the village.
Nearly two days had passed before I could bring myself to show my face in Skaldir again.
I’d just shed blood, royal blood.No, worse,I’d murderedtwo people. Their limp bodies and unseeing eyes filled every corner of my mind.
Their deaths confirmed they weren’t the monsters I suspected. They must have been people from Mara’s royal court who sought to drag me before the king after I’d ran from his guards.
Monsters didn’t drop dead so easily, and neither Astrid nor Sten looked like the beasts of rotted-flesh that the sagas described. I’d practiced in the dugout to fight and kill creatures like that, not people, but I’d let out the evil I kept beneath the surface.
My twisted darkness had once again emerged, twenty years after I’d buried it and had sworn I’d never let myself do something so unforgivableagain.
They had to be people because now they were dead.
There was no escape from this memory no matter how deep in the forest I’d left them behind, or how far I walked. All I could do now was hope to follow the Gods’ guidance so I could forget myself in pursuit of what they wanted.
And what they wanted was for me to surrender to the king who’d come to kill me.
I paced the edge of the forest just behind the rotted ash tree. Beyond the trees, Skaldir was quiet. No screams rang out from the executioner’s punishments, and no shouts of glory nor echoes of celebration filled the air.
The autumnal revelry had been cut short by King Drakkar as much as the now falling snow.
“What can the king do for me?” I whispered as if the Gods could answer now. Even a witch had to sacrifice a piece of herself to hear them.
Perhaps if Midgard was closer to where they resided in Asgard, it’d be easier for them to reach us, but the Nine Realms spread vastly across Midgard’s sky, with Jotunheim separating us. The realm of giants and trolls, battle and chaos. No wonder it was so hard to hear Freya’s voice or see through Odin’s eye.
Come to me.I recalled the words I’d understood from the vision.
