“Rest, kona. I will keep you safe. Always,” he murmured, hoping she heard him.
With slow steps, Njáll closed the distance between him and the creature who longed for her soul.
A guttural roar rumbled behind his sternum, and Njáll sliced the blade clean against the corpse’s torso.
For a long moment, no one breathed, the earth itself waiting with bated breath.
The latent heat in the dust erupted, bursting into the draugar with an igniting spark. A horrifying spiritual shriek rattled the trees as a golden fire consumed death itself. Bones clattered, ash mixing with cold mud.
Victorious shouts grew in the distance, but Njáll remained rooted to the spot, watching the cooling ash. Sweat slid into his eyes, his chest heaving.
The toe of his boot kicked the remains, ensuring it was truly over.
Exhausted, Njáll collapsed, rocks tearing through his trews and digging into his knees.
Uncaring of what others thought, Njáll crawled to her, too weak to stand, but needing to get to her. Njáll would crawl through the valley of death if she waited for him on the other side.
The world shrunk into the space between his kneeling body and her eerily still one. With trembling fingers, he reached out, brushing the wet, golden ash from her forehead.
Her skin was like ice, the color of marble, devoid of the fierce inner flame he lived for.
No. No. No.
She cannot go. She cannot leave me.
Figures moved nearby, warriors running past, their faces drawn and their voices hushed. He ignored them.
None of it mattered. None of them mattered.
All that mattered was the promise he’d made to her. The oath he swore to cherish and worship the one woman he couldn’t live without.
Stagnant scents of burning flesh still lingered in the dusty air. He leaned in close, resting his forehead against hers, praying desperately to any god who would listen to make her chest move.
Painful seconds dragged on, and nothing happened.
Nothing.
Dread rolled in his gut, spreading up to his heart, freezing it in a wall of ice that would never thaw if she didn’t breathe again.
Didn’t speak again.
Didn’t love him again.
Resolve hummed in his veins. He’d made a vow to her, one that did not extinguish in death. A promise that death wouldn’t stop him, only the end of the world could keep him from her, and he meant it.
There was nowhere she could go that he wouldn’t follow. He’d follow his flame into the blackest realm of Hel if only to hold her in his arms and feel her lips on his one more time.
As selfish as it was.
But Njáll had never been pure of heart.
He never pretended to.
He took what he wanted.
And ever since that day when she stared down his blade, all he wanted was her.
He’d never give her up.
