Page 39 of Master of Storms
He needed it today, more than ever.
“Three days,” Harald had said last night. “I have been patient, Your Highness, but no longer. I will have your answer by the morning of the third day. Choose, Marduk.”
And then he’d pushed away from the table, leaving Marduk to get thoroughly, absolutely drunk by himself.
Choose.
Marduk closed his eyes. He felt like he had a noose around his neck. There was no more putting this off, no way to avoid the jaws of his mother’s trap.
Aslaug had approached him last night and made it perfectly clear she’d be receptive to his advances. He’d tried to insist she deserved better than someone like him, and while he thought she might have understood, she’d cried a little.
He hated making women cry.
But no matter where he looked, his options for escape were narrowing.
“What the hell are you doing?” an angry voice cut through his distraction.
Mother goddess. “Solveig?”
What was she doing here?
She’d been avoiding him all week.
Marduk’s heart skipped a beat, but the look on her face wasn’t that of a woman who’d finally sought him out. No, she looked furious. He ducked beneath the water.
Slinging her leg over the back of her horse, she dismounted. “Zilittuwarriors were seen in our skies. Nobody was supposed to leave the court. My father’s had half the guards out all morning, searching for you. How selfish can you be? I was starting to think you might have been taken prisoner.”
In Iceland, he was free to come and go as he pleased. “The guards saw me leave.”
“Exactly. Otherwise, my father’sdrekiwould be turning the castle inside out. What were you thinking?” Anger smoldered on her brow like a thundercloud. “No, you weren’t thinking. Clearly. You didn’t give a damn about anyone else and whether they had matters to attend to this morning.”
He skimmed his fingers over the water, grateful it cleared his navel. Nakedness rarely bothered him—particularly when there was a kissable woman in front of him—but for some reason he felt a little vulnerable when it came to her.
Maybe it was the look in her eyes that said if she had a knife in hand she’d use it.
Or maybe it was the fact that despite her chilly rebuffs, he couldn’t help the yearning feeling in his chest when he looked at her.
“The guards saw me go,” he repeated loudly and clearly. “The same way I’ve been coming and going for the last two weeks. Nobody has even mentioned that such things aren’t done in your court.”Ah, but then Harald has just given me an ultimatum, hasn’t he?Marduk breathed a soft laugh as he realized exactly what the canny old bastard was up to. “Did he send you this way?”
“What? Who?”
“Your father. Did he send you to search for me up here?”
Solveig’s eyes narrowed as she tied her horse to a birch. “I know the northern passes of the mountains better than anyone. Of course he sent me.”
“Alone? With all theseZilittuin the skies?”
Something about her expression told him she was starting to wonder herself. “TheZilittuwouldn’t dare touch me. I’d tear them from the skies.”
He’d seen her abilities in wielding Air.
She’d been lobbing boulders into the mountains one morning in a display he was fairly certain was for his sake. She hadn’t missed her target once.
“But he thinksIcan’t defend myself?”No. Marduk shook his head. “You’ve been played, Princess.” He started wading toward the shore. “By your own father.” And so had he, by the sound of it. If he’d run—which Harald clearly thought was likely—all thoseSadu drekiwould be searching for him. If he hadn’t run and was merely taking his usual swim, then Solveig was bound to stumble across him.What’s the bet that noZilittuhas even been seen?“Now close your eyes or you’re going to get an eyeful of what the goddess gave me.”
Solveig crossed her arms over her chest and deliberately met his gaze as if to say she wasn’t concerned in the slightest. “She had to gift you with something. Your brother clearly got the lion’s share of theZiniintelligence.”
His smile turned thin as he cleared the water.Fine, then. Look all you like.“My brother is hibernating in a bloody cave somewhere, so no, I don’t think he’s the smart one.”
