The hellcat was staring up at him. Her eyes pierced him like she could pin him to the wall if he tried to run. Oh, but he didn’t want to run. Not really. At last, she’d asked him why he was here. At last, she wanted to understand him.
This moment had to come on its own. He couldn’t force his bride to take an interest in him, to have any investment in him whatsoever. He’d ached to know her from the moment he’d declared her his own. And, as he’d expected, and even delighted in at times, she’d done everything she could to be rid of him. But now? Now she was asking to see his soul.
If only there was something grander to show her.
As soon as the euphoria of her interest wore off, Magnus felt the weight of the mountain upon his chest. He leaned against the side of the tunnel and laid his head back against the wall as he gathered his thoughts to answer her. He rested his hand atop the head of his axe and wondered how many details he needed to reveal.
“His name is Arvid. One of my clansmen. We grew up together.” Flashes of youthful mischief played through his mind. Arvid had always been the leader, Magnus the one who’d charm them out of trouble. They’d taken an oath of brotherhood when they’d been boys, giving themselves secret idadi marks to seal the bond. They thought they’d been so clever, putting them under their arms to keep them hidden. Then they’d learned there was a reason no one put marks there. Arvid had nearly died from blood loss, and Magnus had nearly died from the whipping his father had given him for their collective stupidity. Magnus’s smile grew at the memory. “I was closer to him than I was to any of my brothers.”
Nadine nodded slowly, and her voice came out tentative. “He was . . . your lover?”
Magnus’s head jerked toward her. “What?”
Nadine blinked, and the corners of her mouth pulled down slightly. “Azolirum, he said something before your match.”
Magnus choked out a laugh. So she’d guessed that Arvid was the one who’d been taken from him in the pits. “You’re getting ahead of the story, kandiri.”
She bit her lip, and the sheepish gesture looked bizarre and foreign on her. “Sorry.”
The muscles in the back of his neck eased. Better a foolish remark by that Nozverak ass than something he’d done to make Nadine think he preferred men. Magnus swallowed, and his mirth dissipated. “My people discovered the Soul Thieves on the same day Arvid was made one of their thralls.” Magnus’s chest began to tighten. “To our knowledge, he might have been their first Dokiri victim. I watched it happen.”
The memory of that day still haunted Magnus’s nightmares. Some nights it was the centerpiece. They had all been so afraid. Like a pile of shrinking rats scattering to get away from the blight of a torch. Magnus had been no different. Not until it was too late. The Soul Thieves had sent their guards to select a victim from among their number, and they had chosen Arvid. Magnus had been helpless but to rail and curse as he watched his greatest friend’s soul get ripped from his body. Captured as easily as an egg is stolen from an unguarded nest. There had been nothing any of them could have done.
Hadn’t there?
“It could’ve been me.” Should have been me. “But I was cowering, and Arvid was standing on the outside of the pack.”
Nadine watched him and, just as he knew she would, spoke too quickly. “It wasn’t your fault, Magnus.”
He answered just as quickly. “I was standing right next to him.” They had always been standing right next to each other.
She shook her head and shrugged. “And they took him.”
Magnus clenched his teeth and looked away. “I was standing right next to him.” How easy it would have been to trade places. To step in front of his friend. But he hadn’t. Because he’d been afraid. Terrified.
Nadine’s boots scraped against the rock and Magnus cringed. Was she about to come around and stand before him? Force him to look at her? She didn’t. She stayed on the same side she had been and merely leaned up against the rock wall beside him. She cleared her lungs with a heavy sigh before speaking. “Instinct rules us in battle, savage. You know this. That doesn’t stop when we’re trapped with our backs against the wall. I think you know that, too.”
Magnus’s face went hot. As though accepting that he had no response, his mind immediately jumped to a different tact. “He has a hamma. A son. And another one on the way. You’d think, knowing all that, the fact that I had none of it, would have counted for something.”
She gestured around them. “Didn’t it?”
Magnus gave a laugh that was more of an angry scoff. Horror wracked him as a hot tear slid down his face. Glanshi. At least it was on the side furthest from her. Even so, he gave himself away when his shoulder came up automatically to shrug it aside. “It didn’t make me save him.”
“And yet, you’re here.”
Magnus was silent. He was here. What would it amount to? Every time he slept he wondered if he’d wake up again as himself or if he would join Arvid in the ranks of the Soul Thieves’ army. His own survival aside, what if he never saw Arvid again? What if he never happened upon his friend in the never-ending depths of this mountain?
“What is it you’re hoping to accomplish, barbarian? You’re here for your friend?” There was a softness in her voice, accompanied by an almost tentativeness that made Magnus risk turning his face to gauge her expression. She eyed him intently, as though his answer were the last round of some test he didn’t know he was facing.
His stomach tightened, and defensiveness edged into his own voice. “Yes.” He looked away from her, away from the chastisement he knew was coming.
“I understand.” she said.
Magnus relaxed the barest of inches until she went on. “When we meet him, I’ll do everything I can to help. To make sure he gets a clean death.”
Magnus shoved away from the wall. “Regna, woman. Does your thirst for blood never rest?”
Nadine stayed against the wall, but her shoulders stiffened. “Do you imagine some other outcome for him?”
There was no cruelty in her voice, no challenge. But Magnus couldn’t help himself. He reacted as though she were suggesting they chop the head off a man who’d lightly bumped it in the night.
“Why do you think we tried so damn hard to work with you people? We have the Eye now. It has to be good for more than just getting into the Soul Thieves’ lair.”
Something he said seemed to strike her. He could tell by the slowness of her response. Her hand went to the Eye, and she fingered it the same way she usually fingered her lancet. Her gaze searched his, and he could practically see the thoughts twirling in her mind. But what were they? Her expression was nigh unreadable. When she finally spoke, Magnus realized he’d been holding his breath.
“The Eye won’t save him, Magnus.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
There it was. The words that had been haunting him since the day at the vault. Everyone had told him so. Everyone who knew about Arvid. But Magnus would not, could not accept them. He had too much to answer for. And Arvid too much to live for.
Magnus met his bride’s gaze and resisted the urge to tell her she was wrong. What good would it do? It didn’t matter what she believed. Regna, it didn’t matter what Magnus believed. All that mattered was finding Arvid and giving him his chance. No matter the cost. And when Magnus finally did get his opportunity, he swore to himself he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.