Page 165 of Master of Storms
“Kill me,” her mother whispered, her breath rasping through her torn lungs as she tried to twist the knife in her own chest. “It’s the only way to… stop him.”
And she sobbed as her mother’s hands guided her own to the hilt of the knife.
“No, no, no, please no, please no….”
But menacing footsteps crunched through the snow behind her, and as she met her mother’s eyes one last time, she saw the truth in them.
The only way to protect her sister was to twist that knife and finish what her mother had started.
She sobbed on the floor of her bathing chambers as her mother’s body was burned. Siv was safe, and she would heal, but something inside Solveig would never recover. And she couldn’t let her father know, she couldn’t let anyone know how much it hurt, but then Aslaug was there, her little arms circling Solveig’s neck as they cried together, and this one time she wasn’t alone….
She hated being alone.
Not again, and not like this.
Because she knew she would remember this too, one day, and it almost felt like she was hovering over her body and watching herself cry.
The room was dark and warm.
She could barely remember being brought back to theZilittucourt, but someone must have carried them. Haakon, perhaps? She vaguely recalled snarling at him when he tried to lift her to her feet.
Hours slipped by. Maybe days.
And Marduk barely stirred.
“She’s losing him,” someone whispered, and Solveig shut them out, shut it all out as she curled her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder.
She held him in her arms and stroked his hair in the dark, humming an old lullaby under her breath. The candles burned low, and whoever was standing guard finally left, but Solveig didn’t falter.
“Please come back,” she whispered, biting her lip hard enough to stop the tears. “I don’t want to be alone again.”
She’d spent so many years thinking no one could ever hurt her again if she didn’t let them get close enough to her.
But it was a lie.
Because somehow, he’d slipped beneath her skin while she wasn’t looking, and now he was wedged deep into her heart.
He’d promised to chase her forever.
But she was the one who couldn’t surrender.
And it was going to kill him.
She closed her eyes and pictured them winging through the skies together, racing each other through fierce chasms. “Let me explore forever at your side. Please.”
In her mind’s eye, Marduk shot a glance back over his shoulder, his golden scales gleaming. He shrieked with delight when he saw her chasing him, and then he shot into the skies, his enormous wings thrusting hard.
Solveig chased him until she was almost close enough to catch his tail.
Down and down they went, circling each other in a languid spiral until they were practically body-to-body, soul-to-soul.
A tug snatched at her temples.
“Solveig?”came a whisper on a thought-thread.
“Mmmm.”She breathed in, digging her claws into his skin. At some stage during the night, she’d partially shifted, and now her teeth and claws were razor sharp. “Fly with me. Forever.”
She was back in the skies, soaring wingtip to wingtip with him. Still circling each other. Dew claws touched. A horrifically dangerous spiral, unless you were in perfect harmony with the otherdreki.
