Fire and Lies (29 page)

T
he grains of the planks bore into Rune’s forehead as he rocked his head back and forth on the table. He tightly clutched the near empty flagon as his insides writhed with loathing for his cousin. A hard thump announced the arrival of his next drink, and a chair scraped the stone as Geirolf settled himself beside Rune.

“I hate that room,” Rune grumbled into the wood. “I’ll have it burned before Bergen gets back, I think.”

He listened to Geirolf’s gruff sigh.

“Rune,” Geirolf said. “Might I interrupt your self-brooding and speak plainly?”

With his brow still mashed into the table, Rune rolled his head to the side to better look at Geirolf. The wood grains left their mark imprinted into his face. His hand still clutched the flagon.

“With the men from the south arriving, and thousands from the north on their way with Bergen… How do I put it…”

Geirolf rubbed his heavily stubbled chin as Rune stared blankly at him.

“Kallan glistens like a new, foreign sword…” Geirolf bobbed his head to his own story. “Refined, unseen, and honed to perfection with a fuller that just…shines in the sun. They’re all gonna want their turn to hold it,” Geirolf said. “They’ll fight and bicker and pass it around, each wanting it for his own as they admire its hilt and test its balance. They’ll give it a few practice swings and they’ll turn it about to read the inscription in the ricasso… Hel, a few may even name it.”

Geirolf exhaled, shaking his head in admiration as Rune still lay with his head on the table, staring.

“Get your ass down to the blacksmith and close the deal or you had better get mighty used to your sword seeing some action before you have your turn to hold it.”

Geirolf’s chair scraped the stone as he pulled himself up from the table.

“And Odinn only knows what condition the sword will be in by the time you get your turn,” he added and shuffled himself off to Torunn and the kitchens.

Rune heaved a long sigh and pulled his head up from the table. He glanced about the empty Hall and slowly decided to agree with Geirolf. Leaving the flagon at the table, Rune trudged to the door beside the kitchens and glanced down the three steps past the larder.

In the kitchens, servants buzzed with a healthy excitement as they whisked food off to the barracks where Roald’s men had settled in. Among the bustle, Geirolf sat at a table nursing a mead beside an empty chair usually reserved for Bergen. Rune pulled open the door leading to his brother’s chambers. A conspicuous twinkle from the old man’s eye almost went unnoticed as Rune closed the door behind him.

Despite his sour mood, Rune couldn’t help but admire Bergen’s insistence that his chambers be next to the kitchens.

“For the sake of the food and the wenches,”
Bergen had added while groping the cook and a mead.

Slowly, Rune started up the steps, not bothering to compose an excuse for the rude interruption he was rearing to give.

The stairwell curved with the wall as Rune passed the lone window and glanced out across the gardens. Paying no mind to the waning moon or Kallan’s subtle grunt outside, his foot touched down on the next step. He looked to the platform at the top of the stairs and stopped.

Another grunt from the window forced him to lower his foot back down to the step. He waited and listened.

A third unquestionable grunt confirmed he had heard right. Holding his breath, Rune poked his head out the window and looked down to the vacant gardens. A fourth grunt directed his attention up.

For a long while, he stared up at Kallan, who hung fastened to the wall of his keep. Her fingers and toes were poised with slivers of Seidr secured from each digit that, he could only guess, she used to secure her grip. Curious, the Shadow Beast lifted its head within Rune.

Rune waited to be flummoxed, then wondered why he wasn’t, and watched for a moment longer as she shifted herself to the next run of stones. It was with a furrowed brow and a head full of questions that Rune inhaled slowly.

“Kallan.”

Kallan gave a jump that lost her footing and stopped Rune’s heart all before pulling herself flat against the stone. Panting from the adrenaline rush, Kallan snapped her head to the window where Rune’s head protruded.

“
Uskit
!” Kallan exclaimed and proceeded to scale the wall.

Rune forced the calm in his voice steady. “What…are you doing?”

“I’m…” Kallan guided her foot to the next stone and grunted. “…escaping.”

Rune cocked his head at the obvious and tried again.

“Yes. I can see that.”

The moonlight caught the silver of her gown. He glanced down to the gardens and up again to Bergen’s window.

“But why are you escaping?” he asked. “I mean…” Rune blew a ‘pshaw’ and rolled his eyes. “I figured it would come to this, but…Why aren’t you taking the stairs?”

Exasperated, Kallan growled and gave a subtle nod to the wall, accompanied with an eye roll.

“If I could…” Kallan lowered her hand, directing the Seidr between the next run of stones. “I’d burn you.”

“Yes.” Rune nodded in agreement, unable to suppress the grin that tugged at his mouth. “I’m sure you would.”

He assessed the sixty pace fall she would suffer if she slipped and twisted his neck uncomfortably back to Kallan.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with my cousin now, would it?”

“Roald?” Kallan grunted against the stone. “Oh, no. He’s lovely.”

She lowered her foot to the next run.

“Just a bit too forward,” she said, bringing her hand down.

Rune nodded, the smirk pulled tight on his face.

“He kissed you, huh?”

“He tried.”

“Where’d you leave him?”

“In Bergen’s sitting room,” Kallan grunted. “I slipped into Bergen’s bedchambers…and took the only path of escape.”

“The window?”

“Obviously.”

“You couldn’t just blast your Seidr at him?” Rune asked, amused at the conversation.

“An attempted mating ritual hardly warrants a death sentence.”

“You could’ve just declined his advance.”

“He didn’t seem the type to slow down long enough to hear it,” Kallan said, and Rune nodded. Kallan gasped then held her breath.

“You don’t seem surprised by any of this,” she said once she found her footing again.

“This isn’t the first time a woman has scaled the walls to get away from Roald.”

She paused for a moment as she studied the wall for her next foothold.

“Besides,” Rune said with a shrug Kallan couldn’t see. “I figured he’d try.”

Kallan gave a grunt as she lowered herself to the next run.

“You were so sure?” she asked, watching her grip.

Rune nodded, rethinking his answer.

“Well… You’re alive.” Rune glanced up at Kallan, allowing himself the rare opportunity to relish a glimpse of what little flesh the wind permitted among her many skirts. “And you are a woman.”

Kallan stiffened against the wall, suddenly aware of Rune’s perspective. She tried to look down to confirm her suspicions. Failing miserably, she flattened her stomach against the wall, inhaled, and released an irate sigh, then returned to her climb.

“There really is little else that Roald needs to think he has a shot with you,” Rune said, not bothering to take his eye from the view.

“So…arrogance runs in your family,” she said, descending the last two runs. Extending his arms, Rune welcomed her waist into his hands and guided her safely through the window.

Kallan threw her head back. Heaving, she sighed and extinguished her Seidr. She paused to regain her breath. “And I can safely assume that any sons of yours will be as arrogant and as conceited as you are.”

Rune eyed the lock of hair that fell to her waist.

“As much as any daughter of yours will be as stubborn, temperamental, stubborn, difficult, and as stubborn as you,” Rune added a grin.

Kallan took a step closer as if sparring.

“Well, if she’s your daughter, she’ll most assuredly be bossy, irrational, and rude!”

“Are we discussing our children?”

Shock jolted Kallan into check, and Rune delighted in watching her skin flush red.

She shoved past Rune, purposely slamming her shoulder into his, and started down the stairs. Instantly, Rune lunged and, pulling her back, closed his mouth onto hers, no longer preserving the sense to let go. He held her in place while he had his fill, bearing down deeper, his mind and body aching with want of more. He felt her respond as she pushed into him.

For a brief moment, both abandoned their senses, twisting their arms around the other and not bothering to care about the repercussions or the impossibilities that plagued them as they clawed tighter, needing to be closer.

Rune wrapped his arms around Kallan’s waist and pulled her up from the step below him. Together, they fell back onto the steps still having their fill. In as much time as it took Kallan to claw her way down Rune’s body and succumb to undaunted recklessness, Rune flinched with an unease that shook the appetite right out of him.

His grip relaxed and he clutched her arms, prying her away with trembling hands as the reality of their situation sank in. With her face fallen and betwixt with horror, Kallan shook her head.

“Why?”

Rune shoved his hands through his hair.

“Is it the war?” she guessed. “My people? Me?” she whispered this last word.

Stupefied, Rune stopped and stared wide-eyed at the hurt already building in Kallan’s eyes.

“You think I stopped because of you?” he asked.

“Why else?”

Her voice quivered. For the first time since he had known her, she appeared helpless and frail, as if she would break from a strong, passing wind.

Engulfed with sudden understanding, Rune shoved his fingers through her hair and rested his forehead against hers as if willing the tension from his mind.

“Kallan… Get to your room.”

She didn’t move, and her disobedience taunted him.

“If you don’t leave right now, I will deduce that you want me to continue, and I won’t stop. The stairwell isn’t exactly comfortable.”

Her cheeks renewed with the red Rune was quickly growing fond of and, obediently, she forced herself out of his embrace and off of him. Holding herself upright against the wall, Kallan proceed down the steps.

“And Kallan…” Rune recovered the control in his voice.

She looked back.

“Next time Roald pursues you, take the stairs.”

Wordlessly, Kallan left Rune still sitting on the steps, shifting uncomfortably in his own body as he forced himself not to follow.

C
lenching her skirts in her hands, Kallan stiffly walked up the steps from the Great Hall, all the while cursing Rune for pulling her through the window. In the corridor, she dropped her skirts and shuffled to her chambers as she pushed open the door of her sitting room.

Torunn had the fires crackling against the late summer chill that had settled in. The first of the snows were drawing near. At once, Kallan busied her fingers with the unlacing of her bodice as she moved to the bedroom chamber and froze at Roald standing against her door frame.

“Good evening, Your Majesty.”

The heat on her neck returned.

“Evening,” she replied, wishing more than ever for a cloaking spell on hand.

With a long sigh, Roald sauntered across the sitting room and came to stand before her.

“I get the impression,” Roald said with a sly grin, “that you had an entirely different motive for agreeing to see me alone tonight.”

Kallan stood, forgetting that her hands still clung to the lacings of her bodice.

Roald stared sternly down at her. “When you didn’t answer the door from Bergen’s bechambers, I took the liberty to enter. I never would have believed a woman would climb out of a window to escape me.”

Kallan lowered her hands from her gown. Her chest expanded, forcing her head high as she inhaled.

“Perhaps I’ve done you some good.” Kallan smiled.

“Perhaps,” Roald said, taking a few steps closer.

Kallan cocked her head, unsure if he would shout, rage, laugh, or coninute where things left off.

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Your Highness. I am going to leave you now and report to the barracks,” Roald said. “I suggest you hunt down my cousin. I think we both know to which one I am referring.”

The tension melted from Kallan.

“Thank you, Roald,” she said. “But your cousin—and we both know to which one I am referring—found me in the stairs.”

Roald nodded. “Good. And now, my sweet lady.”

He planted an innocent kiss in the open palm of Kallan’s hand and escorted himself to the door as fast as Kallan could say, “One moment.”

Curious, Roald turned back to Kallan.

“Your Majesty,” he said.

“There is something I’d like to ask you.”

“Ah.” Roald nodded. “This must have been your true intentions then?”

“What happened to Bergen?” There was no smile on Kallan’s face.

The words wiped all joviality from Roald’s face and he came to stand at full attention, studying her hardened face for a hint of amusement.

He spoke only after her cold eyes convinced him she was serious.

“You bring up a dark topic, Kallan Eyolfdottir.”

She reserved her focus, refusing to back down without an answer.

“It’s his eyes, then?” Roald asked. “You noticed the unchanging black of his eyes.”

“Among other things,” Kallan said, remembering the scarring that spanned his bare back and his unusual loathing for tunics.

Roald sighed and glanced about for a flagon of mead.

Empty-handed, he sighed again and composed the words to move on. He ran his hand over his mouth several times, as he collected his thoughts on where to begin.

“Where I begin depends a lot on how much you know.”

Roald paused, giving Kallan the chance to back out.

“Have you stumbled yet upon the maids ranting about Swann?”

“Swann?” Kallan asked, thought for a moment, and then shook her head. “No.”

“No, I didn’t’ think you would,” Roald said. “Mention of her name is almost banned within the keep. Well, then… I guess I should start at the beginning before Bergen’s eyes changed.”

“He wasn’t born like that?” Kallan asked.

“Oh, dear lady, no,” Roald said. “Bergen was made like that. Let’s see. You’ve met the twins, Rune and Bergen. I doubt very much you were ever acquainted with their father before the war began. Your father would have known him, but neither you nor your kin would have laid eyes on the queen mother, Caoilinn.”

“K-Kw-Kway Linn?” Kallan practiced the foreign sounds for herself.

“Aye. Caoilinn,” Roald said and gazed out the window at the moon as if pulling the stories from ancient thoughts nearly forgotten.

“Have you ever heard the stories of the maidens who hide deep in the forests across the sea, cursed with incomparable beauty and blessed with the freedom to change forms?”

“You speak of the Swann Maidens of Eire’s Land,” Kallan said, remembering the tale told to her so many times by Gudrun. “Born with a beauty so rare that any man who lay eyes upon them would be driven to madness. In most cases, any man who saw them would instantly become so smitten that he would not eat or sleep until he had her. He would spend every waking moment looking to keep her for himself.”

“In some cases,” Roald said. “In the weak-hearted, a man’s desire for the Swan Maidens would outgrow his senses, and he would attack them. Until one maiden, desperate to end the rapes of her sisters, begged for mercy from the gods. And Kara reached down from Odinn’s halls and granted them the ability to change form and fly.”

“So they might escape their assailants and fly to where none could find them,” Kallan said.

“Yes.” Roald sighed. “Having heard of these women, Tryggve set out to find one for himself. He had just reached his elding and was as restless as Bergen. He believed none but a Swann Maiden was suited to wife the son of the great Lodewuk.”

Too easily Kallan could see Bergen making the same declaration for himself.

“Tryggve arrived upon the shores of Eire’s Land and scoured the forests until he found himself a bevy of Maidens,” Roald said. “He had sailed from Alfheim equipped with a plan to capture one, but made no preparations for what happened next.”

“What did happen?” Kallan asked.

“He was so smitten by the beauty of one so fair that he came to love her in that instant. So much so that he couldn’t bring himself to force himself upon her. Instead, he sat and watched from a distance lest he approach and frighten her. Unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to leave her side, Tryggve sat and watched and waited, all for the sole chance to gaze upon her beauty.”

Roald paused to smirk, amused at the irony before he continued.

“He had been so intent on capturing a lady of Eire’s Land that he failed to foresee his own captivity. He sat and watched so often and for so long that the Maidens grew curious of their sentinel. Most grew accustomed, until they unlearned their fear, forgot their hate, learned to trust Man.”

Roald grinned.

“I embellish of course. It always sounds better this way. One evening, long after the Maidens had grown used to Tryggve’s vigilance, there was an ambush. A faction of men had come to claim their brides. There was a brawl. Tryggve jumped in to save the women, but although he proved victorious, a sword had pierced the heart of the one who had enthralled him, his Caoilinn. Mortally wounded and lacking the skill to save her, Tryggve carried her from the wood and sought out a village for a healer. He was successful in this endeavor and stood by her night and day, ensuring her heart was mended.

“Several weeks passed before Caoilinn was well enough to travel and return to her sisters. But upon their return, they discovered Caoilinn’s bevy had gone.”

“Where did they go?” Kallan asked.

“From the devastation Tryggve described, another faction had come in his absence.”

Kallan’s face fell and Roald continued.

“Lost to her sisters, Caoilinn implored Tryggve to keep her. So it was, after five years, Tryggve, son of Lodewuk, returned to Gunir with his beloved Swann Maiden. By then, her adoration for him had grown and that midsummer, they wed. In less than a year, Rune and Bergen were born. Roughly seven winters after that, sweet Swann followed.”

“Swann?”

Roald nodded.

“Named for her mother’s gift and blessed with a beauty that paled Caoilinn’s. She was a precious, little thing,” Roald recalled with a weighted grief in his eyes. “The family’s jewel.”

“What happened to her?” Kallan asked.

“That year our war began, the year of the massacre. While gathering the willow branches for the Feast of Austramonath, Swann was slain. The boys found her in the dalr.” His voice cracked.

“Dalr.” Kallan spoke the word in comprehension. “Swann’s Dalr.”

“Swann’s Dalr.” Roald nodded. “We heard the boys howling and we came running. Bergen was kneeling on the ground cradling what little was left of Swann’s little, perfect body. She was stripped down to her bare bones and drained of her blood—” Roald swallowed a tight knot in his throat. “After being broken, stripped, and raped, she was gutted and left to die in a pool of her own blood.”

Roald tightened his jaw as he blinked at the burning in his eyes.

“Swann’s death shattered the family. Caoilinn was devastated. Right there on the steps of the keep, she pulled every bit of her powers to save her daughter. But she gave too much. She drained the power of her own life source and it still wasn’t enough. Instead of saving her daughter, Caoilinn killed herelf. Her death marked the end for Tryggve. His grief consumed him. The man was too far gone. His heart, too broken. With madness, Tryggve rose up from Caoilinn’s death and, with sword in hand, vowed revenge against the Dokkalfr who killed his Swann and destroyed his Caoilinn.

“He was gone so quickly… There was no time. We tracked him, too late, to the main road that leads to Lorlenalin. All we found when we got there was the massacre left in Tryggve’s wake: the mothers hewn as they clasped what little was left of their children’s bodies.

“We returned to Gunir to find Tryggve still drenched in the blood of the Dokkalfar babes, weeping at Caoilinn’s side and begging her lifeless corpse to forgive him…and when she didn’t answer, he shoved his own blade through his heart.”

For some time now, Roald stared beyond Kallan, who silently wept, unable to meet her eyes.

“The tragedy struck Bergen hard. After taking up his father’s vow, Bergen fled to Svartálfaheim to rally the Dvergar against Eyolf and finish what his father had started. We would not see Bergen again for one hundred years.”

“A hundred—” Kallan gasped.

“Rune,” Roald whispered. “He ascended the throne without father, mother, sister, or brother. Suddenly orphaned and alone, the King of Gunir stood against Eyolf’s wrath knowing someone had to answer for the Massacre of Austramonath. Rune had no criminal to hand to Eyolf and no Dokkalfr to name for Swann’s slaying. Desperate to survive, Rune matched Eyolf’s rage as his own grief formed a hole that began with the image of Swann’s gutted body. The grief-stricken mother so absorbed by sorrow that it killed her… Caoilinn’s death taking the heart of Tryggve until a shell of a man rose against the Dokkalfar in a berserker state…and Bergen, his only brother, lost to an unknown fate.”

Roald’s voice had started to shake, forcing him to pause to recollect his nerve.

“The one hundred years,” Kallan whispered. “Where did he go? What happened?”

Roald met Kallan’s eyes.

“We’ve been trying to figure that out for centuries. Bergen’s story came in pieces after years of silence. What little we know, we managed to piece together in between the tales he spins. Instead of hearing him out, the Dvergar captured Bergen and imprisoned him in the bowels of Svartálfaheim for nearly one hundred years. Enslaved and forced to work in their mines, he endured the Dvergar’s prisons until even the shirt on his back reminded him of the hole in the ground where he lived all those years.”

Kallan closed her eyes, remembering her own imprisonment. Those two weeks shackled in the Dvergar caves had felt like a lifetime. She couldn’t begin to imagine one hundred years of that Hel. She returned her gaze to Roald.

“Long after his silver-blue eyes formed to the sunless caves,” Roald said. “Long after the thick walls of his cell closed in on him, Bergen escaped. When he returned…darkness pervaded his core. The black of his eyes would no longer adjust to the day’s light, clothes proved a constant reminder of the cell that suffocated him, and the cold…the intolerable cold of our winters no longer fazed him.

Roald shook his head. “But something else…something else happened within those caves. Something changed him. He will speak of it to no one.”