Page 67 of Vow of the Undead
I almost laughed as air escaped me in a huff.
His brows lifted in tenuous impatience. “He wants to use you since you are Volva.” I snapped my attention back to him. “A witch.”
“I know what Volva are.” I considered trying to use the compulsion I wielded over the king, but he wasn’t hurting me and I couldn’t deny the curiosity welling within me. His interest in my betrothal was odd at best.
Besides that, I didn’t need to show him just how much of a witch I was, in case he intended to get me exiled.
Even if he spoke of witches, it didn’t mean he approved of magic.
I’d witnessed my mother communing with the Gods in an enchanted divination and then seen the aftermath at her doorstep. Magic—or witchcraft—had always been like a distant cousin whose name we refused to say aloud beyond the safety of our own walls. A living force that we were both proud to call a part of our family and yet a curse to be ashamed of since it was an old belief attributed to our simple-minded ancestors. The same ancestors who scarred the earth with the wasteland after centuries of battles incited by purposeless wars passed down from the conflict between Gods Odin and Freya against Loki.
“Then perhaps you know that you’re the most potent of them all,” he said.
“You say that as if I am a poison.” My mind flickered to my mother’s face. Perhaps shehadintended to hint that I was a weapon. His eyes dipped to my throat again, his blunt fangs were still exposed between his parted lips. “Must I lay beneath you while you tell me what I already know?” Though he was the one with the fangs, I was the one with a bite in my voice. He’d pinned me easily and I hated that after years ofrunning and practicing defense with Ragna, I was still overpowered.
His mouth curled in a faint smirk. “If you do not run, or stab me.”
“I make no promises to anyone but myself.”
“Then you’ll never know the potential the Gods are trying to give you.”
I frowned. “A Draugr speaks of the Gods?” The sagas said otherwise. Draugr were the only beings cut off from the Gods, since they were never living and could not die and go to Folkvangr or Valhalla.
“I told you…” he held his small smile. “I prefer Kayn.”
I forced a smile, mustering feigned respect for the man pinning me to the ground—or rather the shape of a man in Draugr’s skin. Another monster who sent my stomach fluttering. What the fuck was wrong with me?
“Kayn, will you alleviate your hips from mine so that I may move and we can discuss why someone like you would even acknowledge Odin and Freya when neither created you?”
His smile flickered, too quickly. I wanted to see it again. “It is true, they did not have a hand in my creation. But your kind did. What if I said you can both make and unmake someone like me?”
I narrowed my eyes, and it was then he finally picked himself up, freeing me from the weight of his body. He held out a hand to pull me to my feet. One moment I was running from him, then fighting him, now we were in discussion. My mind could barely wrap around it.
Like the Polar Nocturne, each day, each moment, melted into one another like a blur of memories with no defining features to track the change in time. The sun wouldn’t rise for several more days.
With the pendant still gripped in my fist, I stood in front of him. As long as he made no move to hurt me, in my fist itwould stay. “Get to the truth,Kayn.” I elongated his name to show I was listening. “Why are you following me if you already know I won’t marry the king?”
“I want you to pass the trials so the Gods may reach you.”
I had a hundred questions but only one came out. “Why?” Why would he want the Gods in contact with me?
“Because it is crucial for the survival of humanity.”
A leaf crunched behind him and my gaze dropped from his eyes to the darkness beyond.
When another figure cut through the shadows, my shoulders went taut and my legs ached to run. If he’d brought more monsters, like Astrid brought her partner to drag me through the trees, any chance of escape was a distant dream.
But when the figure crept closer, they came with the confident gait of Stasia’s swaying hips.
“Cavorting with the enemy, are we Silver?” she said. “I should have known someone named after riches was not to be trusted.”
“Then why did you return?” I asked, refusing to mask the disappointment in my voice. She’d helped me escape Mara’s Keep, but it hurt to see her spot empty when I’d stayed awake and on watch for us.
“To save your sorry ass,” she said. Kayn twisted to see her, and she merely folded her arms, lifting her chin as if daring him to come at her. Stasia was truly a force to be reckoned with. Just like my mother. “Once I recognized who it was, I knew you were in for a good time.”
“You two know each other?” I asked though it was likely a stupid question. If they both resided in Mara’s Keep, sharing the castle with the other servants and royals, they’d have crossed paths many times. But Kayn didn’t dress like the other royals. He prowled the celebration with the air of authority like the royals but clothed himself as a commoner.
“I know of him,” she said. “He is the only royal to ever have been exiled. And here he is again.”
