Page 113 of Clash of Storms
"And Sirius?"
Sigurd hesitated.
"Tell me," she ground out. "What did they do to him?"
She was going to rip the queen's heart out with her bare hands if need be.
"They took his right eye and flayed the skin from his back with a whip...."
She'd been wrong. It was worse than she'd imagined. There was a tight, aching fist in her chest, one that would scarcely let her breath. She barely heard the rest: Broken ribs, bruises everywhere, one side of his face swollen beyond all recognition.... The world was spinning around her. "Is he all right?"Drekiwere difficult to kill, but it wasn't impossible while they were in mortal form. His eye. He'd lost an eye, and the queen had threatened to take the other one except she'd wanted him to see the ruin of what he'd become first.
Malin wanted to be ill. "Is he still in the throne room?"
"Aye." Her father squeezed her hand. "Malin.... I cannot help but ask.... Is there something you're not telling me?"
She looked up helplessly.
"The prince told me if I was to see you again I should tell you there was a fire within you. He's seen it. He said you will fly one day, and he wouldn't forgive you if you gave up."
A tear slid down her cheek. Sirius sounded like he'd been trying to say goodbye.
No, no, no. This was all her fault. She'd begged him to intervene in the battle. She'd begged him to be a hero, and he must have known when he flew away from her what he'd be walking into. A scalded sound echoed in her throat. The sort of pain she'd never felt before: guilt.
I know how this story ends....
Why hadn't she listened to him?
"Malin?" Her father's voice sounded so soft, so gentle. "The pendant you're holding belonged to his mother. He wanted you to have it. What is going on?"
"Malin is Sirius's true flame," Freyja whispered. "He told Rurik he'd recognized her as his the second he saw her, all those years ago."
He'd told the prince?
Sigurd looked up in shock. "What?"
Malin's palm squeezed around the pendant. He'd clearly told the prince before he'd told her. She was going to kill him.
Ifshe could get him out of here alive.
It was Freyja who drew her out of her misery. "I've told Rurik that Sirius is badly injured," she whispered, trying to rub the warmth back into Malin's hands. "He's going to set things into motion a day earlier than planned. It all happens the second dawn breaks. Malin? Malin, we need you. Do you think you can do this?"
Her ears rang as all the blood in her veins began moving again. Something was pushing beneath her skin, fighting to win its way free.
Not now. I need to rescue him.
She could barely stand the coppery taste of guilt in her mouth. The queen. The queen and her wicked brother had done this to him, and she was going to make them regret ever harming a hair on his head.
"I can do this. I will make the queen rue the day she ever dared lift a hand against him," Malin hissed.
Freyja sighed. "Good. Because we have a lot to do. And not a lot of time to do it."
* * *
Stellan strodeinto the Hall of Mirrors where his sister resided, her arms wrapped around her as she stared into a mirror that held the image of snow falling on the far distant slopes of Krafla, where Rurik's lair resided.
She was thinking of their grandmother's prophecy again. He could sense it through their bond.
"You wished to see me?" he asked.
