Page 91 of Vow of the Undead
“I can only compel one vampire at a time, so yes. Him first, then I’ll track down each member of the council.”
I palmed my hand to my stomach, willing for the contents of it to stay within me. Sour bile sloshed and pushed up my throat but I swallowed it back down and finally dipped to my knees. The soft earth bent beneath my legs as I prepared to raise Kayn from his sleep. Ever the loyal friend and handmaiden, Stasia kneeled beside me.
“You look worried,” She said with a frown. “Need food?” Using the Valkyrie’s broken wing to pull herself up. I glanced up at her, shaking my head. She stood over me now, casting a thin shadow from the light of the moon. “I don’t believe that. Worried looks require food. I’ll skin those rabbits Kayn caught for us and make a stew before you leave.” She stooped over me and slapped me on the back. “I promise, once you have stew in your stomach, that frown will turn over.” When she straightened she patted her stomach and turned around, hiking in long strides to the front of the temple.
She wasn’t gone long when a scream split through the night. The silence of the Polar Nocturne carried the chilling sound across the cloudy sky and it seemed a drop of water slipped down my back, trailing over my spine. My blood went cold. Had I lost myself in a dream—a nightmare—again? Was it in my head or real? I pushed out a slow breath but cut it short when I recognized the tone of Stasia’s voice. This was real and happening right now.
I shot to my feet and gathered my skirts in my fists. Running across the graveyard proved difficult when I had to weave through headstones and my every step sank into the soft grass. Snowflakes caught on my eyelashes and, when I blinked them away, the moisture left my vision blurred.
The scream fell away as I cut around the edge of the Hall of the Gods. Stasia stood several feet back from the templedoors, her chest heaving and breath ragged. Before her lay a body with blood pooling on the stone around it.
I drew a sharp breath and slapped my hand to my throat where overwhelm squeezed me tighter and tighter. Dragging my feet forward, I made my way to my friend, my hand half heartedly lifting to land on her bent arm and comfort her.
“Forget food,” she said, spitting the words out. “I’m never eating again.” She hinged forward with her hands on her knees as she cupped her hand over her mouth.
I ripped my eyes from her and finally took in the dead person lying across the temple’s steps, like a sacrifice, as her blood seeped into the cracks along the stones.
Holding my breath, I dipped to a crouch and carefully shifted the scraggly hair from her face. Stasia screamed again, the pitch piercing in my ear. The shrill sound cut off abruptly when she spun around and spewed everything in her stomach over the snow-flecked grass. I scanned the dead woman’s face, the sharp point of her nose, the pale skin, a slackened mouth with splits in her dry lips.
“Embla,” I said, releasing my breath with her name. The young servant woman in the castle. No wonder Stasia had screamed, they’d likely known one another. Perhaps they were even friends.
Two distinct holes were pierced into the curve of Embla’s neck where a vein bulged.
She’d died by vampire bite, and it was messy.
Waking Kayn wasn’t like raising the vampire who’d been buried for so long. Instead of being dizzy and afraid, I simply waited for him to rise up. Was it due to our connection or had this strange magic become easier?
He climbed out of the grave with plenty of strength and none of the bloodlust and snapping jaws of the woman who’d wanted to consume me.
A strange combination of relief and exhaustion had me rubbing my hands over my face. He stood over me, hand out to help me to my feet. Perhaps the moonlight illuminated the distress on my face because he wrapped his arms around me and held me in silence. I let my head dip into his chest as he encompassed all of me and held my drained body upright.
The dwelling and overthinking always left me hollow, like my mind had cycled every thought possible and then they’d spilled out of my body where they crawled away to take effect into the world. The only part left was the erratic thump of my heart, striking pain across my chest with every beat.
After an indeterminate amount of time relishing his embrace, I gathered the strength to speak. “King Drakkar leftme a message. He killed one of my handmaidens and dropped her outside The Hall of the Gods.”
Kayn released me just enough to look down at me. I turned my face up to him. The sight of his mouth and the smell of him, fresh soil and a crisp wine, struck me with sudden clarity.
Kayn lifted his hands, cupping my arms in his grip as he leveled with me. “King Drakkar is strong, but you’re ready.”
Am I?I wanted to believe him. Those were the same words my mother had said to me when she sent me outside of the tent to keep watch for patrolling executioners. They killed us for any act of violence, but they punished us for any hint of a belief in the old ways.
More than once, I’d run screaming inside the tent when fear rattled me—when my nerves frayed and the thoughts became too much. I’d picture the executioners stripping the skin from my body, setting fire to my hair, whatever other horrors my father said they did to those who dared whisper the Gods’ names.
More than once, I’d failed.
Tears pricked my eyes, stinging hot and heavy where they gathered in a pool at my eyelids. I squeezed my eyes shut and let them fall. I cried not for what lay ahead, but for causing my mother’s exile. Surely, if she’d been in Skaldir, she’d never have been struck with the sickness that poisoned her veins. If only I’d not succumbed to dwelling. If only I hadn’t screamed at the images in my mind and shouted Freya’s name into the busy village, calling attention to my beliefs and the woman who’d taught them to me.
Kayn brushed a tear away with his thumb and then gave my arms a gentle squeeze. “Freya will grant you a clear path. You know where King Drakkar is so tracking him will be easy. Killing him may reveal Odin’s trial.” He glanced at my empty hands hanging limp at my sides. “You need to take the stake with you. You are almost the huntress.”
My tongue soured. “I hate that name.”
“It isn’t a name. It is a title, and who you are.”
It was who I’d become. I couldn’t yet claim to be the huntress who destroyed the creatures of the night. I wasn’t half of Sunna, the God who shined light on Midgard with the sun. I didn’t drive away the cursed Draugr with a burning shield. Instead, I’d wield a single cut of wood that I’d have to use to kill one monster at a time.
I wasn’t a God. I was just a girl afraid of her own thoughts. Thoughts that forced me to look at a situation from every angle.
“I can do this,” I repeated. I could track King Drakkar right back to his bedchambers and strike him in the center of his chest as he fed on the blood of another innocent. I could stop him from tormenting humans and taunting me with our betrothal.
