Page 103 of Master of Storms
Marduk and Solveig broke apart guiltily.
His sister was standing in the hallway, practically beaming at him, with Haakon at her side.
“I knew it!” Árdís clapped her hands together. “I knew you had feelings for her!”
He pushed to his feet as Solveig scrambled off his lap, scrubbing a hand through the back of his hair. Ignoring Árdís, he arched a brow at Haakon. This was twice now. “We need to discuss your sense of timing.”
“Don’t blame me. You’re in the hallway. Anyone could have chanced past.”
“Everyone is gathered?” Solveig asked Árdís, brushing off her leathers and ignoring him as best she could, despite the ruddy glow in her cheeks.
“Everyone is within my rooms,” Árdís replied, shooting him one last curious look. “We came to see what was taking the pair of you so long.” Her nostrils flared. “I see there shall be no more issues with scent-marking.”
“Árdís,” he growled.
His sister laughed as she headed back to her rooms. “I think this is a lovely development. I’ve always wanted another sister.”
The flash of panic in Solveig’s eyes stalled him. Marduk shook his head at her. “Ignore her. She’s spent her entire life trying to make mine miserable.” And then he raised his voice for Árdís’s sake. “There’s nothing happening between us beyond a mutual shared attraction.”
“I get to plan the mating ceremony,” Árdís threw over her shoulder.
“We’re already—”
“Not properly,” she insisted. “The real one, not the political one.”
“Is she always like this?” he demanded of Haakon as he stormed after Árdís.
“Always,” the dragon-slayer replied with a faint smile.
* * *
“So Scorpius is keptin a trance-like state in the cellars,” Sirius mused, as Marduk laid out what he and Solveig had discovered so far. “I didn’t think Draco had it in him. Scorpius, yes? But Draco? He was cut of a different cloth when I was here last time. To a degree.”
“Drekichange when power is on the table,” Elin pointed out, which was the first time she’d directly spoken to her brother-in-law, that Marduk could remember.
“That’s horrible,” Malin whispered.
Sirius shot her a look. “You’ve never met Scorpius.”
“Nobody deserves to have their soul bound within a blade,” his wife countered. “Do you think the blade in his chest iskunuk la’atzu? This soulstone that Andromeda told Solveig about? It was an emerald, wasn’t it?”
The rest of the group looked troubled. It was the first time the entireZinidelegation had been able to get together in private under one roof since they’d arrived.
“How did Draco get his hands on one of these soulstones?” Haakon asked.
“Or more to the point, does Andromeda know about it?” Árdís asked.
Marduk glanced toward Solveig. She’d know better than he would. Though she seemed distracted, and was staring at Malin.
“I don’t think so,” she replied slowly. “I think she knows more about these soulstones than she mentioned, but she’s an honorable woman. And the concept of the soulstone bothered her. I think if she knew it existed, she would have tried to destroy it.”
“It’s lovely to know these things,” Elin pointed out, “but our focus is on the key. Have you made any sort of advance in finding it?”
“Ishtar and I think it’s hidden beneath the keep,” Marduk replied, then looked toward his twin. “There are two major pulses of Chaos power left to uncover. I’m leaning toward the one beneath Draco and Andromeda’s tower, but my sense of it is not strong enough. If we can manage to slip Ishtar into the tunnels beneath us….”
“I can try and find it,” Ishtar said. “I could use a portal—”
“Not alone,” he countered, for she hadn’t yet managed to transport more than onedreki. He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “We don’t know what’s down there. It might be the key. It might also be a trap.”
