Page 170 of Master of Storms
“I hereby renounce my—”
Sirius clapped a hand over his cousin’s mouth and shoved him against the wall. Once upon a time, he’d yearned for this. He’d longed for the power and hungered to be the one alldrekifeared.
And then Malin had stormed into his life and turned everything on its head.
But she wasn’t the sole catalyst for his change of heart.
Rurik could have had him executed for the death of his father, King Reynar. He could have exiled the pair of them. Sirius had heard the whispers around court—some of theZinihad argued for it. They wanted no part of him and the shadow of the previous queen’s reign.
But he hadn’t.
He’d pardoned Sirius. He’d offered Sirius a chance he’d never had before, and in that moment, Sirius had realized power wasn’t the reward he’d yearned for.
Acceptance was. The chance to be a part of something that was so much bigger than he was.
And even if Marduk got on his nerves and Árdís drove him crazy in the council chambers, there was the growing feeling this was the sense of family that had always been missing.
Nothing was going to take that away from him. Not now. Not ever. Even if he had to storm Álfheimr itself.
Or hold Rurik together with his bare hands.
“My apologies for laying my hands on the king,” he hissed, “but if you complete that sentence, I’m going to have to hit you. Hard. You are not stepping down. You are not going to crawl off into some mountain somewhere and hibernate again. Weneedyou.”
“I can’t—”
He had two fistfuls of Rurik’s shirt. “Yes. You.Can. You want to play these games? Fine. Then name me regent. You focus on getting your wife back while I hold your court together. But the second the queen is back, you are going to sit your ass on that cursed throne and you are going to stay there. And I will go back to glaring moodily at everyone who dares threaten you.”
There was a defeated look in Rurik’s eyes that nearly broke him. “Ifwe get her back.”
“I know how you feel right now.” When Malin had been attacked during the court uprising, his heart had been in his throat the whole time, and the very idea that maybe he’d be too slow next time kept him awake at night. “But your court needs you to hold yourself together. You promised Freyja you would build something special together. You gave her youroath. And she might not be here on this world right now, but she’ll expect you to uphold that oath. No matter what.”
Rurik collapsed against him with a gasp, gripping his wrists. But he finally nodded. “I need to get her back. Promise me we’ll get her back.”
Sirius couldn’t look him in the eye.
Becausedrekicouldn’t lie.
And he didn’t dare give that promise, in case his magic twisted the words and he cost Rurik the chance to ever hold his wife again.
“If I need to break apart Álfheimr piece by piece, then I will do so,” he compromised.
“Without Ishtar….” Rurik’s voice trailed off to a whisper. “Or the key….”
Without Ishtar, there was no means to open the gates from this side.
“As I said, we need to sit down with Harald and Draco. Árdís doesn’t have the training to open the gate. But theZilittudo. We have the key. And Andromeda is the only one with the power to maybe do it. We need her. We need theZilittu.”
Rurik breathed out a bitter laugh, but his spine was slowly stiffening, a bit of his old self coming into his eyes. “The only problem is… will Andromeda risk it?”
30
“The gates are closed, and Ishtar is gone,” Draco said. “To even speak of trying to open them again…. I know what you have lost, but are you out of your mind? We risk war. And this is not like the wars of the past. Now eachdrekicourt stands alone, and who knows what sort of army the King of Álfheimr commands, or how organized they are?”
It was playing out almost exactly as Solveig had predicted.
Marduk leaned forward, a dangerous edge in his eyes. “They have my sister, and with her, the ability to open the gates from their side. War is coming, whether we will it or not.”
“And when it comes, we will be ready,” Draco grated out. “Our mists protect us.”
