Page 73 of Master of Storms
“And then my mother tried to have me assassinated.” This time the words were sharp. “It all began to make sense. I knew then that Rurik was innocent.”
“And so you fled. Why did you not go to him?”
He paused at another intersection, before taking the right turn. “I just wanted to escape her rotten court. And Rurik had been gone many years. He’d never…. He’d never once come for us.”
Ah. So there was resentment there.
Or no, perhaps hurt.
She tried to think how old he would have been when his father died….
A boy, waiting for his brother to come back for him.
“Perhaps he didn’t think he could,” she said. “Your mother was very good at isolating those who might cause her damage. And she had many years to seed such guilt through all three of you. I think she made sure that Rurik found himself very alone, and uncertain of the outcome should he dare defy her. Maybe you weren’t the only one who found himself with no allies. Maybe your brother felt that too, and felt it best if he retreated.”
Marduk turned on her. “Maybe he did. But that doesn’t explain why he forgave my father’s murderer and stood him at his right hand.”
From what she’d seen of Rurik’s court, she’d thought it unusual that a male with as much power and strength as the Blackfrost submitted to the king. “The Blackfrost?”
The muscle in Marduk’s jaw flexed as he looked away. “I found out the truth barely a month ago. Mother twisted Sirius’s dreams until he didn’t know what was real and what was not. She made him kill my father.”
Solveig took one final step down, until she was on a level with him. She wanted to see his face. “You don’t forgive him?”
“I don’t know what to feel. I know what she could do to you. Iknow. But…. Sirius killed my father. He….”
“He?” The word came out softer than she’d intended.
“Every time I look at Sirius, all I can see is my father’s blood splashed all over the tiles.” His voice roughened. “They said his heart had been torn out of his chest.” Another pause. “How can Rurik forgive that? How can he trust him?”
It was more than that, she suspected.
From what she’d seen of theZiniclan, they were trying to weld themselves back together after an enormous fracture within the court. Rurik ruled, and Sirius allowed it, but it was clear the two stood side-by-side.
If she pictured the enormous round table they’d sat at, she could almost see it again. The king on one side with Árdís and Haakon, and then Sirius and Malin…. And Marduk, deliberately taking the seat opposite them all.
Ah.
He thought there was no place there for him. And worse, his anger over his father’s death prevented him from taking that step, and making a place there for himself.
If she’d wanted to destroy Marduk, this would be how she’d do it.
His guilt was a knot around him. Resentment stirred like a hot coal in his gut. It would take very little to push him over a certain edge.
But she was not Amadea.
No. She had her own rules and morals. She was merely able to see pathways within him.
Solveig sighed. “You trust me too much.”
His gaze sharpened.
“You keep forgetting I have vowed to destroy you,” she said with some disgust. “You spill all your secrets like a boy with his first love.”
“Are you trying to say you’re my first love?”
“Oh, please. Do I look like some sort of gullible fool? I am saying…. You shouldn’t trust me like this. You’re virtually handing me the keys to your doom if I chose to take it.”
“Maybe that’s because I don’t think you’re going to destroy me at all.”
