When she wavered on her feet and dropped to a knee, I ran to her, throwing an arm around her waist to keep her upright. “That’s enough, Your Majesty! She’s too drained.”
My father stepped back from the soldier he’d just healed, and an elderly woman wept over the man’s repaired thumb. He never would’ve held a tool or a weapon again, and now it was working normally.
“Enough,” I said, grateful for what Sigrid had done, but worried about her.
“Captain Elric,” she said, lifting her head like it was heavy. “We aren’t finished until his shoulder is healed.”
Elric shook his head vigorously. “Not necessary. I don’t want her Viking magic.”
Of course the stoic bastard would refuse what he’d insisted on for others. He’d sacrificed his shoulder to save my life.
Sigrid, fought her way to her feet, and I held her steady as she crossed the room to him. “Your shoulder is broken. You’ll never fight in a shield wall again if you don’t let me fix it.” She rolled her eyes. “Can’t even mock your silly wall anymore. It held true, Captain.”
He pursed his lips, but nodded to my father.
The king placed his palm on Elric’s shoulder, and Sigrid stiffened an instant before Elric did, his dark hair falling over his face as he ducked his head against the feeling. With a crack, his shoulder snapped back to a normal angle.
This time, Sigrid went limp, collapsing into my arms. She was still conscious, but panting heavily.
Elric rushed to get her a chair, sliding it under her so I could lower her onto it. “Thank you,” he said with quiet awe, testing his shoulder. “I won’t forget what you’ve done.”
I knelt in front of Sigrid, urgently trying to assess whether she was okay. “Will your berserker recover? Or will all of that power return to him now that he’s channeled it?”
My father faced the other way, accepting the gratitude of the soldiers, but it wasn’t hard to see he was listening to us.
“I’m not sure,” Sigrid said breathlessly, taking a cup of water offered by a serving woman.“All I know is that she’s not likely to try and rip me apart again anytime soon, so I’ll take that as a win.”
My father resumed his place on his throne, calling for order. “Silence! We must discuss a counter-offensive to respond to the violence Daneland has brought to our doorstep.”
“Bullshit!” Sigrid surged unsteadily to her feet. Getting this woman to rest was going to be harder than besting her in armed combat. “They were sent to specifically kill me. The Banamaðr are the Viking king’s personal assassins, gifted with powers from Odin, but they are only sent to kill a single target. His intent may have been to instigate war, but he wants you to declare it. If you attack now, you’re playing perfectly into his plan.”
A commotion at the back of the throne room cut off my father’s angry response. A line of guards carried severed heads, and people were understandably appalled at the grisly sight.
Sigrid, however, hobbled towards them, eager to take one and show it to the king. “Ah, here! Let me show you these were no normal Danes!” She reeled back when she got closer to the guards. “Those…are not the heads I asked for. The fuck is wrong with you?”
The commander bowed deeply, his face etched with worry. “The Shrikes, Majesty. They mounted them to the gates. Heads of the villagers who left for the pass yesterday. Couldn’t afford to pay the Shrike King’s toll.”
Shocked silence followed his news, followed by everyone talking at once. If it had been chaos before, now there was pandemonium. I stared in horror for a moment at the heads of an innocent family of merchants, our people who should’ve been protected from bandits on the major Saxon trading road. How had we allowed it to get this bad, where our people either paid an unreasonable toll or paid with their lives?
The bandits had been bold coming all the way to our gates. “They must still be on this side of the pass,” I said loudly, drawing the attention of the room. “We can catch them before they make it back to their safe hold in the mountains.”
My father rose to his feet. “We will do nothing of the sort! They’re likely trying to lure us into a trap or they’re in league with the Danes. We need time to levy a tax to oppose them.”
Elric stepped forward. “Another tax, Your Majesty? The people have nothing more to give.”
The king gave Elric a look that made him shut his mouth.
“We have an army,” I pointed out.
The king turned his glare on me. “One that we need to prepare to strike back against the Vikings. They could attack any day. I can’t split my forces.”
Sigrid rubbed her temples in irritation. “They won’t attack. I’ll make sure of it.”
Further commotion at the back of the throne room drew her attention. “Ah, the heads I did actually send for.” She grasped one of the gruesome trophies by the hair and held it aloft for my father to see, not caring that it was making people run from the room. “These aren’t Viking warriors. Look at their eyes. See the mark of Odin. They’re assassins sent with the singular mission to kill me. In the hundreds of years of their death cult’s history, there had only ever been one time one of them was defeated and failed in his mission. For four of them to fail? Unthinkable.”
She lined the heads up at the base of the throne. “It won’t occur to him that your men rallied to defeat these creatures. That these soldiers were willing to protect me against such a foe. He’ll believe I did it single handedly, which means I’ve either escaped your leash and staged a coup. Or I did it with mortal speed and strength, an unfathomable feat. He won’t dare to strike until he sees what my next move is.”
Her strength seemed to be returning with each passing moment, and she was looking dangerously like the queen in this situation, despite my father’s place above her on the throne. We hadn’t faced his reckoning for Father Benedict yet, and now she was backing him into a corner.
