“Something brought us back together, Reyker. Against all odds, we are here, on Iseneld, in your home village. We didn’t find each other after all this just to lose each other again.”
“Are you so certain?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t, and he knew it. But we wanted to believe the lie, so we did.
The ride to the sea took several hours, yet they passed like minutes, just as our time in the cottage had. There was still tension between us, but it mattered little. My arms were around his waist, and Reyker held the reins in one hand, his free hand linked with mine. Every so often, he looked at me over his shoulder, assuring himself I was still there.
Darkness had fallen once more by the time we arrived. We skirted the fishing village, heading straight for the pier we would set sail from at dawn. Andrithur was supposed to have returned to Vaknavangur to warn us if something had gone wrong with the ship or its crew. But as we got closer to the pier, my chest tightened. My stomach sank with dread, chilling me down to my bones.
There was no one on the pier. No one on any of the longships or knarrs docked there. No lights or sounds coming from the village. A thick fog had settled over the water.
“It’s too quiet,” Reyker said. “There should be fishermen up and about. Andrithur should have been waiting for us.”
Victory sensed it, too, sniffing at the briny air, snorting and shaking her head.
Reyker dismounted, drawing his sword. “Go back to the cottage and wait for me.”
“No.”
Someone whistled, the sound low and grating, echoing across the water as a knarr appeared out of the fog. There was no mistaking who was on it.
A tremor rippled through Reyker. “Don’t fight me on this, Lira, please. You must go.”
The only thing that frightened me more than facing Draki was leaving Reyker to face him alone. “He’ll find me. There’s nowhere for me to run. We do this together.”
Reyker cursed under his breath. He took hold of Victory’s reins and led her to the end of the pier, where the knarr waited, a stone’s throw from the pier’s edge.
Draki stood in the bow, watching us. He held the ship still upon the sea, letting waves and wind pass by without moving the vessel out of place. There were a handful of Dragonmen with him, and two dozen others on the boat whose faces were unfamiliar to me. But not to Reyker. He inhaled sharply, his eyes widening, and I understood.
These were the survivors of Vaknavangur, men and women, some older than me, some younger, some no more than children. They had gags in their mouths and their wrists bound behind their backs. Rope was tied around their ankles, and on the end of each length of rope was a large stone. They looked at the lord who had fought the Dragon for them before, pride and hope shining through their fear: their Wolf Lord would save them.
“Leave them alone, Draki,” Reyker said. “Your quarrel is with me, not them.”
“Do you hear yourself, brother? You sound like a silly little boy who still believes honor matters more than strength and goodness triumphs over evil. No matter how many times I try to smother that boy, he lives in you still. Maybe we will change that tonight.”
I slid from the horse and moved to Reyker’s side. “What do you want, Draki?”
“Little warrior.” His gaze shifted to me. “Did you enjoy your last day of freedom? Did you think I did not know of your plans?” He kicked a wooden chest in the bow onto its side, and Andrithur rolled out. “You bewitched another one of my Dragonmen. Such betrayals cannot go unpunished, as you are well aware.”
Andrithur glanced at Reyker and me. He nodded once—a salute, a farewell.
There was a rope slung around the top of the mast. Draki looped one end around Andrithur’s neck and pulled on the other end so Andrithur was jerked into the air, his legs kicking futilely at the sail.
My hands balled into fists. I pushed wind at the knarr, testing it, but the ship didn’t shift an inch. Draki’s head swiveled toward me and he wagged his finger.
The life ebbed out of Andrithur, his complexion a spectrum drifting from red to blue to violet. When he stopped moving, Draki dropped the rope and Andrithur’s body crashed to the deck.
“You took something that belongs to me, Reyker. You will return her.” Draki stepped over Andrithur and grabbed one of his captives, a broadly built young man with dark yellow hair. Draki forced the man onto the railing, setting the rock beside him. “For every minute you make me wait, I will take something that belongs to you.”
Draki let go of the rock. It wobbled. Fell. Splashed into the water.
A single second passed—enough time for me to gasp, enough time for the children to scream through their gags, enough time for the man to look at Reyker and for Reyker to look back, to shout, “Hamund!” before the rope went taut and the man was dragged off the railing into the sea. Hamund’s frightened face was a blur below the surface, and then it was gone as he sank into the dark.
Reyker tore off his coat and sword-belt, checking that his knife was secure in the sheath at his ankle, about to dive in.
“Take another step, and I’ll shove them all in at once,” Draki called. “That goes for you as well, little warrior. I feel you reaching out with your gifts, thinking to buoy that drowning boy up on the waves. I have been very tolerant of your rebellions thus far, but if you test my patience these children will pay.”
He grabbed a girl who couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Tears streaked her cheeks as Draki pulled her to the edge and propped the rock she was tied to up on the railing.
“Wait!” Reyker and I screamed at the same time.
Draki paused, keeping his hand on the rock.
“Please, Draki,” I begged, searching for the shred of a soul that lingered within him. “Don’t do this.”
Reyker didn’t bother begging. He’d spent far longer than I had trying to find mercy in the Dragon and was more certain than I was that none existed. “You’re a gods-damned monster!” he shouted. “These are your own countrymen, scions of Iseneld, children of Sjaf! How can you do this and call yourself our king?”
“Do not waste your righteous indignation on me,” Draki said. “I am high jarl because I make choices no one else has the stomach for. A ruler must be willing to do whatever is necessary to keep what is his. Lira is mine. We all know how this ends. The only difference is how many of these sad little remnants of Vaknavangur will lie at the bottom of the ocean when you two finally give up. You have ten seconds to decide.”
I took Reyker’s hand. “I have to go.”
“No. No, we can find a way out of this, there must be a way.” Reyker looked at the girl Draki held, her life dangling by a thread, then back at me. He couldn’t let her die. He couldn’t turn me over to the Dragon. Caught between those damnable options, he was paralyzed.