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Herja’s youngest daughter had only turned thirteen, and sobbed against Lili’s shoulder. She’d watched everyone—her parents, her older brother Dain, and Laila enter the battlefield. No mistake, the girl knew Gunnar would be locked in some unknown battles in the Southern Isles.
We all had bid farewell to half our families. There was no telling when we’d be reunited, or if we’d be reunited.
“Lili,” I said desperately. “You must get them to the peaks. You’re the only one who knows Old Timoran. You’re the only one who can get them to the shore on the other side.”
Some of our folk, the elderly, the Timorans still untouched, or those with children or tiny infants, had already been led away by three dozen warriors to the Northern Peaks, right near the passage to Old Timoran. The only place the cursed folk seemed to avoid.
Lilianna was a mother to me. She was fierce, she’d taught me how to be queen with gentle instruction and patience as we navigated Etta after the battles. She doted on her grandchildren, she loved her family fiercely.
But it was written in her eyes, as much as it was mine, she knew this kingdom was being torn apart in a way none of us ever could have expected.
She swiped tears off her cheeks and forced a smile to the littles. “All right, loves. You know what we’re to do. We talked about it.”
“No!” Livia made a rush for me, but Aleksi gripped her hand.
“Come on, Livie,” he said, his voice soft and soothing. Broken. A sweet temperament of a boy, but I’d watched every night as his skinny shoulders had racked in silent sobs since Sol and Tor had both kissed his forehead and left to join the fight. Now, he was trying to be brave and bold for his cousin. “We’ll meet ‘em all over the peaks.”
Big, heavy tears dropped from Livia’s lashes.
I gave her a small smile and mouthed,I love you.
“Stick together,” Lilianna told them. Her voice was a wet rasp as she battled fear, a need to stay, to fight beside her husband and children, but also the knowledge that as Timorans we all were more of a liability than an aid here. “We keep to the shadows, loves. It’s going to be cold in the peaks, but we’ll be back . . . we’ll be back before you know it.”
Agony ripped through my chest. Kari choked on tears as her four children followed Lilianna toward a narrow doorway that would lead them out through the furthest tower of the castle. She told each of them she loved them, she promised seats in the great hall if that was where they next met.
Aesir pounded a fist against his chest, eyes wet, and vowed to protect his sisters, to make his mother and father proud.
“I love you, my boy,” Kari said, voice soft and broken.
Perhaps it was the distraction of our hearts snapping in two, but I’d lost attention on the door. Long enough I did not notice the pounding had ceased. The shouts, the splinters, they’d gone silent.
Until it was too late.
The back door where Lilianna led the children crashed open, forceful enough the wood sagged on the hinges. Men and women, eyes red as the blood moon, shoved inside. Their mouths and teeth and fingers were soaked in dried blood.
Lilianna shouted for the littles to get back, drew a dagger, and rammed the point through the throat of a slender woman. A woman who looked a great deal like the former queen. Hair like golden sunlight, a torn gown that likely had been lovely not so many days ago.
The children shrieked. Aesir gripped a knife. Metta struggled to reach hers and had a large Timoran man rushing for her, teeth bared.
Metta screamed, but the man fell forward, a knife in the back of his skull. Aesir shoved the young princess aside and ripped his knife out of the bleeding Timoran’s head, shouting at his sisters to hide.
There was nowhere to hide. The door near me and Kari, again, rattled as the cursed folk surrounded us. Still, there was only a drive to protect our children.
“Get down!” I cried out, swiping my blade across middles, throats, chests. “Down!”
Livia and Aleksi hugged Halvar’s daughters in an alcove. Kari leapt in front of them and rammed her seax through the belly of a stout woman with bloody lips and graying hair.
I spun and met the broad body of a tall man. His auburn beard was soaked in days-old blood; his eyes were lost and wild.
“Egil.” My blood chilled. Egil Lysander. One of Calder’s younger brothers. A cousin of mine who’d hated his father and brother for their cruelty. A man we discovered after the Ettan wars had secretly harbored Night Folk and Ettans in a longhouse on his estate near the old quarries.
Egil was a cousin who’d helped unite our people when Valen and I ascended the throne.
“Egil, no!” I let out a cry of anger, of rage, of hate for what was happening here. My cousin no longer recognized me, all he saw was blood and the need to tear the Night Folk apart and force me to join him. Tears blurred my eyes as I slashed at him.
He hissed and tried to grip my hair. My blade struck his wrist. I struck his ribs. His thighs. I brought him to his knees, only pausing when he lifted a trembling hand.
“Elise.” His voice was strained. He clutched his side. “Elise, please, cousin.”
