Chapter 2

“Y ou cheated.” The hulking, ale-stinking man before me reached out a hand as he grunted the words, his dirty fingers hovering over my black playing piece.

His eyes moved up to meet mine. They were red-rimmed and slightly glassy from all the ale, mead, and wine he’d consumed.

“Cheated? You are a sore loser, Skegin,” I told him, batting his hand away.

“And you are a freak,” he answered, casting a glance at my hair. Once, his words would have cowed me. Now they made me sit straighter, and a grin play on my lips. I lifted my hands, running them through my long copper hair.

“Rather a freak than a loser,” I smiled at him.

He’d actually almost beaten me. For all his stench and disheveled appearance, he was one of the better players in Upper Krossa, the closest town to the Palace of the Gold Court. He was drunk, though. Something I was sure as Odin going to use to my advantage.

His eyes darkened at my taunt. “If I had hair that color, I’d cut it off,” he snarled.

His own hair was a tangled mess of brown — the same shade of brown as all the other humans in Yggdrasil . I had never, ever seen another human with hair like my own.

“If I had no hair, then how would I show off all the braids I’m going to earn?”

He snorted at my reply. “You’ll never earn braids. You must fight to earn braids.” He banged a hand against his chest, sloshing ale from the tankard in his other hand over his already stained furs. The few men gathered around us in the alehouse slammed their own chests, cheering, then drank from their tankards.

I could fight, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. And besides, to earn braids through fighting, you had to be honored by your clan. I had no clan.

I was owned by the palace.

“There are other ways to earn braids,” I said. I needed to keep him talking, keep him distracted. If he spotted how easily he could defeat me, then I would be in trouble. I’d wagered far more than I could afford on this game.

This time, his eyes went to the gleaming golden rune etched into the skin on my wrist. “You are a thrall, just like me.” His tone had turned harsher, the friendlier banter slipping away. “That rune doesn’t make you any better than the rest of us humans.”

It was true. The golden rune on my wrist didn’t make me any better than other humans, but it did make me more valuable to our fae masters. I nodded slowly. “I’m better than you at this, though.” I pointed casually to the board. “How about a new wager? I’ll earn a braid before you will.” He gave a big belly laugh and swigged from his drink.

“You will never earn a braid.”

“Then take the wager.” The tiniest flicker of doubt crossed his face. It was all I needed. “No?” I leaned forward, trying to ignore the pungent smell of livestock and ale. “You fear I would win, Skegin?”

The expression of doubt turned to anger, and I knew I had him where I wanted him. The rickety chair he was sitting on clattered backward as he stumbled to his feet. “You help the fae! You copper-haired witch, thinking you can leave the palace and treat us warriors like the shit on your boots! You’re as bad as they are,” he hissed.

I schooled my face, determined to keep any emotion from showing.

He was right though, my conscience screamed at me. I enabled the greedy, cruel, brutal fae of the Gold Court to treat my whole race as slaves.

I stayed sitting on my own chair and shrugged nonchalantly. “You are too stupid to win this game, and too cowardly to take my wager.” My pulse quickened, knowing what the response would be. “To be honest, most small children are smarter than you. The actual shit on my boot might even give you a good challenge. Are you a veslingr? ” Fury took his every feature as I used the ancient insult.

Unlike the greedy fae, the humans of the Gold Court still valued what Odin had instilled in the court centuries ago: valor, honor, and knowledge. If there was one way to goad a Gold Court human, it was to accuse them of being a coward, or of being stupid.

He kicked a foot out, sending the playing board flying toward the next table.

Victory surged through me. “That’s a forfeit then,” I said, standing quickly. I only just ducked the punch he threw at me. He had nearly a foot on me in height, and hadn’t aimed well, so it was an easy dodge.

He gave a gurgly roar and tried to pull something from his leather belt, but his thick furs were blocking his clumsy scrabbling.

I took a risk and turned my back to him, to the wager-master sitting at the table behind us. I held my hand out.

“My winnings, please.”

The younger, quieter man gave a coy look. “Well done, Reyna,” he said. “It wasn’t looking too good for you there.” He knew exactly what I’d done. I flashed him a grin and he handed me a small pouch of jingling coins just as there was another shout from Skegin. I spun in time to see that he had extracted a small axe from his person and was aiming it at my head.

I gave him a small wave and a final smile, then ran.

Running may not have been the brave thing to do, but it was sure as Odin the smart thing.

I had no shield and was only wearing cotton clothes and workshop leather — I was in no position to defend myself. And besides, I had the coin I’d left the palace for.

I ducked past more uproarious drinkers and out of the doors to the alehouse, not pausing for a second before sprinting up the golden cobbled path toward the palace.

I knew he wouldn’t follow me. He was too drunk, and he would find somebody else to fight with soon enough. It was the Yggdrasil way. Drink. Fight. Fuck. Repeat.

At least in the human towns, that was the way. The fae, they drank, they fought, they fucked. But fates, did they do it differently.

I glared at the glittering Gold Court palace as I raced toward it. The fae had built their home upon the central peak of the land that made up the whole of the court, so that it towered over the villages and towns below.

More than twenty towers made of pure gold rose majestically from the beautiful, tiered courtyards, wrapped in staircases shining with gilded carvings, and peppered with magnificent stained-glass windows reflecting the gleaming golden light of the rest of the Gold Court.

It should have been breath-taking.

Not to me.

It was the finest prison a girl could possibly despise. A gleaming noose around my neck, choking the life out of me.

The guards at the palace gates didn’t bother stopping me as I ran past. My copper hair gave away who I was, and regular bribes meant they let me past reasonably often.

Hope burned in my gut. With the money in my new purse, I might finally have enough to get out of the Gold Court.

Enough to buy my freedom.

The same niggling doubts I always had crept into my mind in the form of Kara’s voice. “Reyna, you can’t leave the Gold Court! You’re rune-marked — every other court would try to kill you!”

But when you’ve spent your life humiliated, used, and beaten by greedy, vicious fae, the prospect of death loses some of its bleakness.

It wasn’t that I wanted to die, not at all.

But the dangers beyond the Gold Court had started to look different over the recent years, and things that had frightened me into obedience before, and still frightened my charge, Kara, no longer held the same terror. The Gold Court offered me protection, sure. But at what cost?

The stories about the Shadow Court still made my skin crawl, but surely I could find a place in one of the other three courts where I could be free?

My feet flew over the gleaming tiles of the enormous stairways carved into the tiered gardens, until I reached the level that housed some of the lesser fae courtiers, and the gold workshop. The golden spires reached up toward the sky above me, casting a shimmering glow like a cat’s eye. Every step sent rays of light bouncing off one another, and I shielded my eyes from the gleaming gold walls and sent an angry look at the main gates of the palace two tiers higher, before ducking through the thrall’s entrance. I slowed down to make my way as inconspicuously as possible through the gleaming hall. A few courtiers cast uninterested glances my way as I moved toward the concealed thrall quarters.

When I reached the workshop where I lived and worked, the guard frowned at me. She had smears of blue war paint on both cheeks and numerous braids in her brown hair, signifying that she was a human warrior of high respect. She was still a thrall though. A human slave.

“Where have you been?” Her barked words pissed me off instantly.

“Your husband’s place.”

Her spear thwacked me in the gut before I could react.

“You are pathetic, and a freak,” she hissed at me.

“Uhuh. Better in bed than you though, according to your husband,” I answered, trying to stay standing upright through the pain in my stomach.

Truth was, I was unlikely to be better in bed than anyone, based on the paltry and not particularly enjoyable experience I had in that area. Nor would I ever sleep with another woman’s husband. But she didn’t know that.

She stepped toward me, a nasty gleam in her eye. “You’re wanted in the grand hall.”

Icy cold trickled down my neck as a true fear took me. “The grand hall?” I failed to hide my concern and her smile widened.

“Yes. Lord Orm is making his selection today, and guess what? You’re one of the lucky final few.”

My stomach flipped, and my pulse pounded in my ears.

Lhoris had warned me this may happen. My mentor had told me to keep my head down, attract no attention.

But apparently, I had failed.

There were a number of fates worse than death in Yggdrasil .

But an indefinitely long life as the bound concubine of the Gold Court’s most cruel Lord? Other than being ripped apart and eaten by the Starved Ones, I couldn’t think of any worse.