Look around.
Men are dead. Men are bleeding. Screaming. This is the cost of my choices. A hearth has spilled. Coals everywhere. Flames licking the floor and coloring it black. The hall burns. I brought it to ruin. It’s all fucking over.
Ari is still reaching through the hole in the wall. Too large to enter. Too stupid to expand the hole. Fuck… he’s grown even bigger.
Sigurd and two other men are trying to fight him back.
Fucking idiots.
“Run!” I shout at Sigurd.
He hears me. He turns. A brave smile on his face.
Sigurd can’t flee his hall. Of course. He’s a proud man. A proud stupid fucking man. As I think the thought, as Sigurd andI make eye contact, Ari’s arm swings in. It connects with Sigurd’s side. He flies through the air, crashing into the wall and landing in a lifeless heap. Thyra, Njord… now Sigurd. How many corpses do I leave in my wake? His body starts convulsing. His last breath.
Honor. The price we pay.
Sigurd can’t flee. He can’t run.
But Kilda can.
CHAPTER 79
The forest swallows me whole. I stumble into its darkness.
My lungs burn like the roof of the longhouse. Leaning over to catch my breath, I peek up at the devastation I have caused. The sky is colored with the orange light of the raging inferno. This is where my choices have led. Flames swallow wood, memories, history. Men. Women.
Folk flee in all directions. Some toward me. I step forward, screaming at the top of my lungs.
“Not this way!” I wave my arms frantically. “Turn now!”
I know what I have to do. Lead him away. I have to help. The thralls. My girls. I just need to regain control of my lungs.
Ari pulls himself back from the shattered wall, his enormous body silhouetted against the flames. For a moment, he looks confused. Lost even. His legs buckle and he falls on his rump with a thunderous crash, sending a shockwave through theearth. Sparks drift around him like fireflies. Frost steams off his skin in angry plumes.
“Ari!” I scream, choking. “Ari!”
I lift the hammer out of the satchel and hold it above my head. As soon as I touch it, the hammer reacts. Pulsating and hungry. A leashed wolf that smells blood. It vibrates like it wants to rip itself free of my grasp. To return to its rightful owner.
My Ari.
“Fucking thing,” I hiss, tightening my grip on the haft.
Its energy crawls up my arm like a thousand cold needles. My stomach turns. I shiver from its unrelenting chill. My teeth chatter. The hammer longs for its master. It wants him more than anything. I’ve never felt such energy.
Ari knows. He turns his head. He sees me, even if he doesn’t. He feels the hammer’s greedy lust. His eyes lock onto me. There’s no Ari in them. Only chaos.
The frost around his body returns. Shards escape his skin like haunted armor. Sharp ice, glittering like broken jewels. The ground beneath him freezes as he raises himself. He releases a shuddering growl. Lower and deeper than before.
“Ari!” I shout, stepping backward. “Come on, you troll bastard!”
The hammer pulls at him. I get the impulse to run to him. Give it to him. Give in to the hammer’s incessant demands. Its weight draws forward, like it wants to escape my fingers. But I refuse. Fuck the curse. Fuck the Queen.
He straightens his back and steps forward. Slow, lumbering. Still growing. His muscles swell with every step, then harden again. A ghastly pulse. Ice crackles along his skin. His jaw distends as his eyes flash a brighter white. He’s coming for the hammer. He’s coming for me. He’s coming.
Fuck fuck fuck.
I run.
