Page 126 of Vow of the Undead
Weeks after the wedding, I glimpsed the one vampire who dared come after me knowing I was with the true king of vampires.
Kayn, my mother, and I sat around an open fire while Stasia slept peacefully beneath Kayn’s fur coat. We couldn’t keep running like this. My mother was well again thanks to the medicinal concoctions and food Stasia seemed to produce out of sheer magic, but she was still worn from the stress and demand of constant movement.
“We can’t survive in the wasteland,” she argued.
“I don’t see any other option,” I said.
“Lux is right.” Kayn nodded. Something flickered behind him. I blinked and narrowed my eyes, trying to make out the shape among the trees.
Sadness tugged at the corners of my mother’s eyes. “I still don’t believe Silver would hurt you if we could just talk to her.”
“That’s not an option either,” I said, focusing my thoughts on the army she’d gathered to distract from the pain striking my heart. Since my sister wanted me dead, she’d claimed a small victory over me, because something inside me did die when I saw her. Or perhaps it was King Drakkar’s words that scarred me. Had my father known of vampires and planned to give me over to one all this time?
“That’s a shame.” My mother’s vacant voice was distant to my ears.
We couldn’t waltz into an encampment with that manyvampires when I wasn’t even the huntress yet. I couldn’t accept Kayn’s help, not after what Odin insisted. And I’d never defy the Gods’ Calling again.
So I’d have to find a way to do this alone—or as alone as I ever could be. Loki would sear through my temples with the resistance to my Calling while Freya and Odin beared down on me to kill. This continuous battle within me left my head aching. Only the calming incantations and grounding practices cleared their voices from me for long enough to drift into a few hours of restless sleep.
How long would it be until they drove me as mad as Ingrid had become?
“Once you complete Odin’s trial, I trust you’ll have the strength to enter the encampment.” Kayn added as a reminder of why we were so close to Mara again.
Visions of Astrid hiding out in Mara’s lower villages nearly led us back to the heart of King Drakkar’s kingdom.
“I’m trying. But this is tricky, and—” I shook my head, cutting myself off. It wasn’t a vision from Freya or a rumor I’d heard. My fear was simply an inkling. Astrid was leading us straight to Silver’s encampment where they could ambush us.
Without the huntress, they could wage war on humans far easier. But I didn’t want to speak this aloud, because my only other option would be to accept Odin’s trial by killing the one vampire I had within my reach. Kayn was the only one I wasn’t itching to destroy.
My heart skipped at a flicker among the leaves in the darkness. A shadow darted between the trees. Had a vampire dared to come to me? I stooped to pick up the stake at my feet and found myself drifting into the woods.
“Lux?” Kayn’s voice trailed me.
“Odin says I have to do it alone,” I repeated the phrase I’d reminded him of a dozen other times he’d wanted to be at my side since we’d been on the run. Each time I hoped to catch a vampire in the dead of night, and each time it’d only beenanother creature lurking through the woods, a wolf searching for prey, a vulture feeding on a deer carcass.
Tonight, I sensed a difference. Though I didn’t get a vision, I knew Freya walked beside me, tracking the vampire who’d dare come near me.
A twig snapped beneath my boots. My skirts rustled over the dead leaves that coated the forest floor. The dense woodland kept Mara separate from Torstad but neither village claimed the land as their own since executioners cut down every single man who dared to fight for control of the game-filled forest. Torstad suffered from the lack of meat while Mara’s farmlands flourished and produced enough food for half of Vylheim. But suffering never mattered to the Blood Council. As long as the people were alive with blood in their veins, they didn’t care. It all came down to one twisted truth, we were just never allowed to waste a drop of blood.
Drops of blood were what I trailed now. Dark spots among the leaves, a streak of red across a tree trunk. Someone was hurt, and despite this, they darted through the trees with the speed of a vampire. My skin prickled as the figure stooped in the shadows. They were waiting for me to come to them.
This was a trick, but when I crept closer and caught a ray of moonlight filtering through the branches above, I didn’t care. Her cold eyes reflected the silvery glow of night and the cut of her cheekbone was indistinguishable.
My captor had come for me again. Though instead of ambushing me with Sten, she was alone. Since he was destroyed and gone, she lured me to her where she must have thought she’d overpower me. Perhaps Sten was the wiser one of the pair and without him, she wasn’t thinking clearly. Why draw me out here when she was already hurt? What had hurt her? Or was the blood part of the trick?
My heart skipped and I had my answer. Each drop of blood was supposed to bolster me to run toward her believing this would be an easy fight.
I knew better. I had Freya’s wisdom, Odin’s strength. I was almost the huntress.
The screech of a raven echoed from above and I gripped the stake tighter, ready to pass Odin’s trial once and for all. If his messengers, Huginn and Muninn flew overhead and tracked me from tree-to-tree, they could return to the Allfather and tell him I’d cut down my first vampire. Eradication of the Draugr was about to begin.
I took another step, pausing to wait for her impatience to overwhelm her. If I remembered correctly, Astrid would rise to the occasion. Her temper easily pushed her over the edge with only Sten’s shouting to snap her out of her and make her realize…my blood had made her burn. She couldn’t drink from me. None of them could.
Wind rushed through the trees like an applause for my final trial. I barely breathed as I froze in the shadow of an ash tree’s trunk—a tree just like the one Odin hung from to gain knowledge. He’d sacrificed himself and it was time I did the same.
Don’t give in.The memory of a deep voice echoed in my head, sending a shudder down between my ribs. Was it Loki’s will warring within me, or had King Drakkar’s words sunk into my skull and made a home where they didn’t belong? It didn’t sound like Loki, and more of the king’s words filled in my memory.
I’d rather be dust than lose you to the Gods.
