Page 68 of Master of Storms
Solveig, who was used to maledrekiand their ambitions, arched a brow. Of course, he would have been a threat. Amadea was aZilittuqueen, and if she ruled as Queen Regent, then she might have been able to hold theZinicourt together in the wake of Rurik’s exile—but only through aZiniheir.
He looked back at her, cold and hard, and as tempestuous as any storm. “That was when the dreams began. Every second night I would wake up gasping, certain the cave walls of my bed chambers had collapsed down upon me. I was crushed in rubble, trapped under granite…. I’d scream and beg for help, but no one came. Earth is not one of my gifts, and it would fail me, again and again, until the oxygen would finally run out.
“Dream-walking was one of my mother’s skills, but I didn’t know that. Sleep became impossible under the court roof. Leaving—even if it was to venture to your court to assist with a treaty—was an opportunity I leapt at. I hate going back there even now. It’s not my home. It’s never been my home. I hate it.” His voice roughened. “My mother…. She gets inside your head, and she makes you believe all the worst fears you have about yourself.”
Solveig wrapped her arms around her knees. Fear was a currency she traded in. Her father had always said that to find adreki’sgreatest fear was to find a means to bargain with him. And she’d never been able to work out Marduk’s weakness, for he shrugged everything off with a smile or a laugh.
But this….
“You’re afraid of being underground,” she whispered.
“I’m not afraid…. I managed to break into theIkkibucourt to rescue Ishtar….” His eyes were a little wild. “But the only way to do that was to let the song overwhelm me. If all I knew was her and Chaos, then it wasn’t… it wasn’t so bad. I was awake, the roof was holding, I could get out.” His breathing roughened. “But to venture underground for any other reason?No. I would rather throw myself off a cliff without my wings a thousand times than voluntarily claim a volcano.”
She could destroy him with this information. It was troubling to realize she didn’t particularly wish to. “I put you in chains in a cell underground.”
He closed his eyes. “I know.Trust me. I know. It was the worst thing you could have done to me.”
And she’d mocked him once for wanting to run off and be a pirate.
A foolish dream. A boy’s dream.
It went against the grain of everything she’d fought for in her life—to protect her family and sisters and court—and she’d thought him selfish at the time.
It all made sense.
No brother.
A murdered father.
A sister who’d been kept away from him unless necessary.
A mother who’d driven him from his court.
I’d scream and beg for help, but no one came.
No one came….
Amadea had done a masterful job in isolating him from his court, from his family and even from his own heart.
He had no yearning to fight for theZinicourt, because to him, they’d been… a weight around his neck. Not family. And despite all she’d lost, she’d grown up with pillow fights with her sisters, and stolen dresses, a mother who’d sing to them at night as she stroked their hair, and a father who put a sword in her hand when she was eight, because he’dknownthat was what she’d desired most of all.
She would kill to protect everything she had.
He was trying to find his feet within his court after years spent in self-imposed exile.
No wonder the gulf between he and his brother existed.
It felt like she’d just unlocked the key to his heart—and her vengeance.
“Tell me a secret,” Marduk whispered, and she knew he needed to regain the equilibrium between them.
Solveig released another steady breath. “Do you remember the night my sister was crying?”
“Aslaug?”
“I saw you with her in the gardens,” she admitted. “It was the night before you tried to kiss me. But all I could think of was the way you took your cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders, then sat beside her and talked her out of her tears. You had your arm around her shoulders, and my sister looked at you as if you’d hung the moon in the sky.”
Every inch of him stiffened. “Is that why—?”
