Page 99 of Storm of Fury
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The sudden soundof Princess Solveig’s exhale echoed through the court, as if Marduk had driven a fist into her sternum, but there was no sign of it on her face as King Harald looked her in the eye and lifted a hand toward her.
Instead, her features merely smoothed into a mask of nothingness, as she accepted his hand.
Tormund couldn’t help feeling a chill run down his spine. That was not the expression of a woman walking calmly to her doom. No. That was the mask of a woman who was plotting revenge.
“Excellent,” the king purred, offering his daughter’s hand to Marduk. “Let us begin the ceremony.”
“Now?” both Marduk and the princess asked.
“What better time?” Harald said smoothly, clapping a hand on Solveig’s shoulder as though he sought to stop her from fleeing.
Marduk stared at Solveig’s hand as though it was a dead rat. But he grudgingly accepted it.
They both looked like they were sentenced to the gallows.
“Árdís said to protect the treaty,” Haakon muttered grimly, “but I’m not sure this is what she expected.”
“Árdís is a romantic. She’ll be overjoyed her little brother is mated.”
“To the woman who tried to kill him?”
“I don’t think she tried that hard.” Solveig didn’t strike Tormund as the kind of woman who failed when she set her mind to something. “Relax, cousin. Enjoy the feast—these events always have a feast. We can let him play the dutiful son-in-law, then kidnap him and slip out the back door when everyone is deep in their cups and snoring.”
“Your plans always have a fatal flaw in them.”
“What flaw can you see?” he protested.
Haakon looked across the room, his gaze as sharp as a hawk’s. “You didn’t count upon a certain redhead showing up.”
Tormund’s head whipped around.
Bryn slipped through the crowd, her gaze locked on the unhappy couple. She still wore her hunting leathers, but her hair had been braided into a coronet for the occasion.
She must have sensed his stare, for she suddenly stilled, and her head turned inexorably toward them.
The world froze.
The court dropped away.
And he was right back there in bed with her, the taste of her skin under his tongue and the sound of her moans in his ear.
"By Fire, I bind thee.” The ancient lore master bound Solveig’s and Marduk’s hands together with a golden cord.
Tormund’s head whipped back to the couple on the dais. “What is she doing here?” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.
“Find out,” Haakon said flatly. “If Solveig is up to something—"
“In the Goddess's name, I name thee mates, and let nodrekistrike thee asunder.” The lore master snapped his fingers, and flames bloomed in the small pit beyond him. "May you seek forever in each other's arms.”
The distant rumble of thunder echoed through the hall, as though thedrekigoddess heard the vows.
But there was no fierce clap, the way there had been at Sirius’s mating ceremony.
No shiver through the air, as though the goddess personally blessed the union.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who noticed. Dozens ofdrekiwhispered behind their hands and looked around as the lore master sealed the bonds of the cord around their hands with wax.
