Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
My blood flashed cold. “What happened to the rune?”
Her gaze slid to Sebastian, who had stiffened. “Tell her what happened while you were playing happy family.”
Resolve and fury frothed inside him, flowing into me until my own hands curled. He stood, standing me up with him.
“Sebastian.” I searched his face. Found nothing, which told me everything. “What happened?”
He didn’t answer. He crossed to the glass wall, pressed his palm against it, and the surface darkened, sharpening into an image the same way the cave walls had. A rocky shelf. Torn tents. Bodies in shifter armor, arranged with a care that made my stomach turn—laid in a circle, feet inward, like the spokes of a wheel.
At the center of the wheel sat an empty stone plinth.
The floor tilted beneath me. “What am I seeing?” I whispered.
“Jon and a hundred of his best men were on their way here with the rune. Jokull intercepted them just before their arrival.” Sebastian’s voice held nothing at all, which was how I knew what it cost him. “He killed all but a handful. That handful were spared in exchange for the rune.”
Horror hollowed my stomach, and I went cold all over. That monster had the rune?
“Or Jon colluded with the primordial all along,” Harpa pointed out.
The details landed and kept landing, each pass carving deeper. No rune, no weapon. No weapon, no dead primordial. No dead primordial, and every soul under this dome—Sebastian, Soley, Freyja, the boy from Blodholm, the woman kneeling in the wreckage with her dead in her arms, me—became a potential dish for his table.
Harpa rotated in her seat, looking straight at me. “Jokull has invited us–you and me–to dinner. Our attendance in exchange for the rune. Sebastian is forbidden. Jokull has offered a blood oath that he cannot break, vowing that if we accept, we will leave alive, whole with what we came for.”
“The answer is nei,” Sebastian snapped, something terrible moving behind his eyes. “There will be no discussion. It’s a trap. Obviously.”
Ja. Jokull must believe he could gain something from us, despite the vow. “My answer is ja,” I said, already nodding. “I accept.”
“You are not—”
I met his gaze and refused to look away. “He’s held that rune before. Gave it to your mother. Saw what it made her, just as you did.” My voice remained firm. I would not be backing down. “He might have information we need. So, ja. I’ll attend his dinner. I’ll accept his blood oath. And I will take every word out of his mouth apart until I find the one that saves you.”
He shook his head. “I would rather die than send you into his midst. My mother died for that rune. My wife will not. I will get it back.”
“And let you fight your worst nightmare before the real battle begins, when strength matters? Nein. That’s what he wants. You have been exhausting him, ja? Just as we discussed? This is probably payback.”
“I will not change my mind on this, Brona. You stay.”
“Wrong. I go.”
Harpa stood, and for the first time since I’d met her, the Raving Pearl appeared her age. “If you wanted a doormat, Basty, you would have married someone else. We leave in one hour.”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
He will keep every word of his promise. That should frighten you.
–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival
Sebastian stopped me at the door of our chamber. He didn’t touch me at all; simply filled the doorway, hands in his pockets, fury and fear crackling in his eyes.
“Don’t do this, Bronwyn.”
I winced. He’d used my name rather than a nickname. “I must.” I fastened the last clasp of the traveling cloak Soley had laid out for me. My fingers shook, but I forced them to still. “Bastian—”
“Would you like a list of reasons I’d like you to stay?” he interjected, cutting me off. His voice remained perfectly level, every emotion locked behind the iron discipline of a king. “You will be underwater, outside my dome, beyond my immediate reach. Seated at a table with the thing that ate my father, pieces of my mother, my finger and yours. And when he springs the trap hidden inside his oath, you’ll be hurt.” His jaw flexed. “I’ll be here, where I’ll feel every second of your pain.”
The bond carried all the things he hadn’t said. Not just fear, I realized, but terror. Old and bottomless, born when he’d stood helpless in his mother’s blood.
My darling Bastian. I crossed to him and flattened a palm over his heart, over the rune. “Harpa is the best warrior in Krakenströnd. Those are your words. I’m not too shabby myself, I’ve learned. We’ll be okay. And before you protest, don’t. This is my home too,” I told him, quiet but firm. “Its king is willing to die for it, and so is its queen. Not that I will die,” I rushed to add when his expression promised a truly spectacular argument. “I want Jokull destroyed without having to sacrifice the man I love.” The words slipped free, but I meant them. I loved this man.