Page 40 of Master of Storms
“What’s wrong?” Her eyes narrowed as if she sensed a weakness. “Jealous?”
“Of Rurik?” He snatched at his towel and dried his face. “Hardly.”
“Then why—?”
A growl escaped him. “Is there a reason you’re obsessing over my brother?” He lowered the towel and wrapped it around his waist. “He murdered my father, so I don’t want to talk about him. If Rurik was such a clever bastard, then he wouldn’t have been caught kneeling over my father’s body with his blood all over his hands, would he? If he was innocent then he would have stayed, instead of tucking tail and running. He would have fought those accusations.” Marduk shook his head. “Though what was the point? What is it the Scots say? Guilty are those that are caught red-handed?”
Solveig’s silence held a weight of condemnation, and he realized he’d almost been shouting there, at the end.
Loki’s ass, he could see the judgement in her eyes.
“What?” he demanded furiously.
Solveig picked his shirt up, and instead of throwing it at him—which he’d expected—she crossed toward him. “It’s just… my father doesn’t think your brother killed the king.”
Of all the things he’d expected her to say…. Marduk stared at her. “There was blood all over his hands…. There were witnesses—”
“We know. We heard. Your mother’s loyal subjects all swore that Rurik was the last one seen in your father’s chambers.” She nibbled on her lower lip. “My father was friends with yours. He never did trust your mother.”
Marduk froze.
He’d been young when it happened.
All he could remember was the rush of guards’ feet on the tiled floors of the court; his mother screaming at his uncle Stellan that they needed to find Rurik and take him into custody; and blood soaking into the rugs in his father’s room when he’d finally stolen in there when no one was looking, desperate for answers.
He’d only found his mother, staring down at that rug with her hands clasped over her mouth.
The sight of all that blood had transfixed him.
It didn’t feel real…. It couldn’t be all that was left of his beloved father. He’d started choking on the sensation crawling up his throat and that was when his mother noticed him.
“Get him out of here,” she’d snarled, as Niels hauled him out of the room. “I don’t want him to see this.”
Only later, after hours locked in his room, his breath catching in small increments at every sound, had she sent Stellan to formally inform him that his father was dead.
“Murdered,” Stellan had said coldly. “By your brother.”
It wasn’t possible.
Rurik loved their father, and Marduk adored the both of them.
But Rurik was gone.
The world had fallen in on him in that moment. He’d wanted to see Árdís, but the princess was “being protected.” They were both being protected, because who knew what plans Rurik held in his deceitful heart?
And he waited.
A thousand nights he’d waited, staring at the stars, certain that Rurik would return for him to tell him the truth….
But he never came.
And Marduk was forced to accept that his brother—the hero he’d spent the first half of his life worshipping—was no hero at all, but a patricide.
“What did you say?” he whispered to Solveig.
And she repeated the words, but the ones that stayed with him were those last few.
“He never did trust your mother.”
