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I studied him, looking for a lie in his story, but I didn’t think he would know if he was lying. It was all folklore, tales passed down through the ages, twisted over time to suit the teller’s fancy and presented as truth.
I had a vague memory of Bane telling me that some believed Wargyr was Fae, and that he didn’t believe it.
How interesting that the Rift-kin might be right on that score, but my mind kept returning to the thought of the Mother’s charms, the blood and tears, the willingness and love that seemed diametrically opposed to the creation of wargs…
Did I have a potential weapon in my hands?
Then why murder my family? I asked, guiding the questions away from my dangerous line of thought. Why take land so far to the south?
“Because their land is rich and will feed my people.” Hakkon shrugged. “It has taken many long years to gain a foothold in Veladar. Your land will feed our strength until we’re ready to bring down the walls of the keeps, and then we will take it all.”
He laughed when I stared at him a little too long. “The war taught me something, little red one. Never rely on one plan, for it will surely fail. I will destroy the fiends here, and create nests for my pack all over your country. Even if others choose to rise and replace the Lifegiver, the Soulbreaker, the Nightstalker, the Heartpiercer, none of them will matter. Those four were gods among men, titans on the earth, mortal enemies of great value. My people will overrun the pretenders as one.”
A quavering howl rose from outside, filling the twilight sky. I started, almost tipping my chair back, but Hakkon’s eyes lit up, almost turning him into another man.
“A warning cry. They’re on the move again.”
I felt sick, my empty stomach churning. I’d hoped Bane would let me go.
I should’ve known better.
Bane will kill you. I held Hakkon’s fever-bright gaze as I spoke. You’ll cease to exist before you even know what happened.
“It’s heartwarming, redling. Your love for your husband. Your absolute faith in him.” His lips stretched in a smile. “Come. Look.”
He lifted me from the chair and dragged me to the window, forcing me to look over the side, down the steep, sheer drop.
I had spent several days doing my best to not look outside that window, not wanting to see the barren fields hosting a parasitic brood beneath its skin, not wanting to see if they had brought prisoners.
But Hakkon kept his grip around my neck, forcing me to look with implacable firmness.
I gritted my teeth as several wargs rose from the grass, too-long mouths split open all the way to their ears, panting as they watched in the distance.
There were stands of scraggly trees out there, stunted and bare, the same dull color as the grass. Above it all, the sky was a formless, maddening gray.
But from the top of the tower, I could see that the grass had been torn away all around us, radiating a thousand yards in every direction. The base was nothing but churned soil, and under that lay the endless pack, waiting for prey to step into their domain.
They would drag Bane down. They would feast on his flesh in the darkness below the earth.
“Do you think he can survive that?” Hakkon’s voice was strange; from the great distance of my emotions, I thought he sounded almost sad. “He will step onto ground hallowed to Wargyr, and he will die. Your faith is misplaced.”
He shook me once, hard, and finally released me. I closed my eyes, sinking back against the wall by my table.
My people had no idea of what lay under the field. How many lives Hakkon had sacrificed to ensure an endless swarm of death. They had told me he was making new wargs, and I didn’t believe our enemy was stupid, not in the slightest.
I thought I had likely seen a mere fraction of his pack, that Hakkon had examined every facet of Bane’s character, his strategy, and had accounted for it.
This was my moment. The brief calm before the storm, before my loved ones walked right into hell. I could send the pack into disarray and leave them rudderless, easy pickings, and my family would never need to step foot near this killing field.
The pen was cool against my sweaty hand as I surreptitiously palmed it from the table. Cool and reassuring.
Not entirely solid, but it was only one blow that counted; after that, I would be dead.
Hakkon exhaled slowly, turning back to the window; I remained slumped against the wall, the portrait of defeat, my clenched hand hidden in the folds of my skirt. I didn’t have to fake the single tear that rolled down my cheek. I hadn’t wanted Bane to come, and yet he’d come anyway, because he loved me.
“You were a better gift than I could’ve anticipated. He is hunting you. He will finally find the tide that turns him back, and drowns him. I will howl in memory of him when he is gone.”
I forced myself upright, wiping the tear away with my free hand. Hakkon stood at the window, feet braced, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out at the trap.
His neck was open, naked, unguarded. I tensed, accepting that I would have to kill a man, and put all my strength into the blow.
The nib skated over his shoulder, opening a line of dark blood, and Hakkon’s hand snapped up before it plunged into his throat. He gripped my wrist, squeezing, the bones grinding together. The pen dropped to the floor; I opened my mouth, and no sound came out, though I screamed on the inside as he gri
“There it is. I was wondering when you’d find it in your heart to kill me.”
Hakkon drove me backwards until my back slammed into the wall, the stones driving the breath from my lungs. He had both of my wrists, nails digging between the tendons, splitting skin. Blood seeped between his fingers, and still I couldn’t scream, only kick and thrash wildly.
His bulk trapped me there, making my struggles useless. A terrible smell emanated from him, the reek of hot metal and blood, and his body heat was burning.
Hakkon’s panting breath touched my ear, raising goosebumps on my neck. “I smelled it on you.” He took a deep breath, his nose buried in my hair, and I squirmed away. “I saw it in your eyes. No part of you is a mystery to me.”
I turned my head away, gagging silently at the carrion stench of his breath, unable to look into his mad eyes: his pupils had eaten the brown iris, merging into the sclera, and the white pinpricks in their centers were growing brighter.
“I am an honorable man, despite what you may think. If you had not struck first, I would never have touched you, but you have let anger overcome your better sense.”
His face was warped, pushing outwards under his human skin.
“Our pups will be ferocious wolves,” he said with no small amount of pleasure, his brogue thickening. “But, little one, you forgot a terrible and very important detail.”
I bared my teeth, wishing I had Bane’s fangs, that I could rip his throat out myself.
Hakkon chuckled, and whispered in my ear. “You don’t need your hands to bear my children, redling.”
Icy terror emanated outwards from my spine.
Breath frozen, knees shaking, he tore me from the wall and slammed me into the table. Pain radiated through my ribs and my chin, my mouth filling with hot blood as I bit down on my tongue.
And oh, it would become so much worse.
“Daniil!” he called cheerfully, and I felt his hardness press against my hip, the bastard getting excited over what was to come.
The door opened, and the tattooed warg in a man’s skin gazed at us with dead eyes. No surprise, no shock, only expectation.
“Bring me a hammer.”