Chapter 25

DAELLA

Awet nose nudged my arm, but it was the stab of pain that woke me. I opened my eyes just as Skoll bounded onto the bed. My skin still burned from where he’d shoved his snout on me, but a quick rub of the blanket and it was fine. I closed my eyes and started to drift back to sleep. Until he started whining.

He paced across the quilt, bits of his dark gray fur floating through the air. The volume of his whine increased as he suddenly went still and stared at me with those luminous eyes.

“Skoll, what’s wrong?” I asked, before throwing my legs over the side of the bed.

My worst fears rushed through my mind. Somehow, Isveig had arrived in Wyndale, and he was locking every single person here in chains. He would drag them back to Fafnir and throw them into the hot, humid dungeons beneath the castle. They’d never again see daylight.

But no, that couldn’t be right. I knew his scent as well as I did the Draugr, and I would smell him the second he stepped foot on this island. I took a sniff of the air and only found smoke.

“Fire.” I ran to the door, barefoot, and followed the scent into the hallway. Around the corner, orange flames danced. Skoll’s paws pounded the floor behind me as I raced into the living space. Flames engulfed the parchment on the desk, and Rivelin was lying face down with a trail of blood snaking across the floor.

“Fuck.” I fell to my knees and placed the back of my trembling hand against his cheek. Steam hissed from the contact, and a groan rumbled from his chest.

I blew out a breath of relief and sat back on my heels, trying to understand what had happened, but the crackle of flames drew my attention once more. The fire had spread to the wall. Soon, it might engulf the entire room.

I ran into the kitchen for some water. By the time I’d returned, Rivelin had rolled onto his back and was staring up at the ceiling with a very familiar, very distinct scowl. Skoll was licking his cheek, still whining.

After I carefully doused the flames, I returned to Rivelin’s side and got a look at the wound on his forehead. A purple bruise had formed, swelling up like a stone. There was only a small gash in the center of it, and the blood had already started to slow. I heaved out a very long sigh.

“You look like you’re about to cry,” Rivelin muttered.

“Why would I cry? This is a perfectly normal way to be woken in the middle of the night. A fire, a little blood, an unconscious blacksmith. What’s the problem?”

Rivelin coughed out a laugh, then groaned. “I can’t believe you’re making a joke at my expense.”

“I can’t believe you set fire to some parchment and then…what, exactly, did you do? Run into the wall?”

Rivelin winced and started to sit up, but I was there by his side before he made himself pass out again from expending too much effort too soon. I slid under his shoulder and hooked my arms around his back. Slowly, he climbed to his feet, his formidable weight bearing down on me. He teetered for a moment, clearly struggling more than he wanted to admit. Before he could object, I helped him over to the sofa and gently tried to sit him down. The way he landed on the cushions was anything but light, however.

For a moment, he just sat there blinking. Skoll had abandoned whining for frantic sniffing around the spot where I’d found Rivelin.

“Your vacant stare is beginning to worry me. Is there a healer in the village?” I finally asked.

“There’s an apothecary down the road, but she won’t have anything to help this. I’m just stunned and dizzy.”

“From what, Rivelin? You still haven’t told me what happened.”

“I got hit on the fucking head.”

I frowned and joined him on the sofa, folding my bare legs beneath me. “What are you talking about? Someone was here? In the house?”

“I was looking at my desk, and then I heard footsteps. Thought it was you, of course. Turns out some bastard came into my home and took a hammer to my head.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “Did you get a look at their face?”

“No.” He blinked again, and I frowned.

“You need to lie back and close your eyes. I’ll get you some water and a cold compress for your head.”

“That will hurt your skin,” he said roughly.

“I can manage.”

As I stood to go, he reached out and grabbed my hand. “Daella, were you using my parchment and ink to write a letter to someone?”

I bit the insides of my cheeks. So that was why he’d been looking around his desk when the intruder had attacked him. He’d noticed, though I could have sworn I’d put everything back into its rightful place.

Rivelin cracked open his eyes when I didn’t immediately reply. His gaze scanned my face, and then he sighed. “You did. Are you going to tell me to whom you were writing? Because from everything you’ve told me, I didn’t think you had a friend back in that shit city you’ve been trapped in all your life.”

A familiar set of walls rose around me, protection from him and everyone else I’d ever faced. What would he do if I told him the truth? Would he even believe me?

I sighed. “I wrote a coded letter to Thuri, Isveig’s sister.”

“I thought you said she was on that ship with you.”

“She was, but she’s a strong swimmer. If I could make it out of the Elding alive, maybe she could, too. I sent her a note to find out if she somehow made it back to Fafnir.” And I could discover if Gregor had been telling the truth. “Don’t worry. Even if Isveig intercepts it, he’d never understand what it means.”

Rivelin looked at me for a good long while. The dying embers from the hearth warmed my back, but there was a chill in the air that made strands of steam curl from my skin. Even in the dead of summer, the night’s cool kiss awakened the fire in me.

He finally said, “I want to trust you, I really do.”

“And I want to trust you. Where were you tonight? When I got up to write my letter, you were gone.”

“I was in the Archives, searching for a way to melt that damn ice shard stuck in your hip. Turns out, we need fire. That’s what you’ve needed all this time. And to think it never occurred to me until tonight.”

Hastily, I stood. “What?”

There was a roaring in my head as unadulterated hope rushed through my bloodstream like flaming oil. Rivelin, despite his wound, looked so certain, so confident. I’d accepted my fate a long time ago. Hoping for a different future had hurt more than the quiet acceptance of the truth: I would never rid myself of the shard, and one day it would take my life. The only way out was Isveig’s offered freedom, and deep down I’d doubted I would truly gain that.

To even consider there might be a different path ahead made me feel as if I’d been running across a battlefield for miles.

“It’s fire, Daella,” he said. “I think we use it to melt the ice.”

“But the ice is inside me. To burn it away, you’d have to burn me, too,” I said, barely louder than a whisper.

“You’re immune to fire, I’m certain of it.”

I shook my head and backed away, heading toward the kitchen. I needed a moment to think. Tonight’s series of events felt as peculiar as a dream. Could there truly be a way out of this? Was this why Isveig had kept me away from flames? I’d always assumed it was because he was fearful of them—and he likely was—but this was so much more.

How could I have been such a fool?

After filling a glass with water, I returned to the living space. Rivelin had abandoned all attempts at recovery and was now poking at the embers in the hearth. Then he took a bellow to the sparks. Brilliant orange light flashed across his stern face as the flames roared to life. I pressed a hand to my heart, hating the deep-seated fear that slashed at my hope. What if Rivelin was wrong? How could we be certain this wouldn’t boil my skin? My parents had faced the flames once. And they had not survived.

But that had been the flames of dragon magic.

Rivelin caught the look on my face, crossed the room, and gently took my hands in his. “It won’t burn you. Can you trust me on that?”

Could I trust him? I wanted to. Deep down, I knew his idea was a good one. I’d touched some hot tongs in his forge, and they hadn’t burned me. And yet, I could feel the weight of my fear in my bones. My palms were sweaty, my chest tightened, and my head felt as if I were the one who’d been hit by a hammer.

But I knew what my mother would say if she were here: Ris upp fyrir ofan, Daella.

Rise above, Daella.

A tremor went through my heart, but I lifted the bottom hem of my nightdress and exposed my scar. Rivelin’s eyes sharpened on the puckered skin and the faint blue glow. The skin around his jaw tightened. “Every time I see what he did, I want to forsake my quiet island life and feed the emperor my sharpest blade.”

“What kind of wine would you pair it with?” I asked.

A vicious glint lit his sun-gold eyes. “Whatever the dreck is that comes from his veins.”

“Are you just talking like this to distract me from the fact you’re about to put a torch against my bare skin?”

“Only partially,” he said with a smile that was far closer to an orc warrior’s feral grin than an expression I would have expected from a village blacksmith. “Did it work?”

“Only partially.”

Rivelin turned back to the flames and stuck the end of a torch in the hearth. Sparks scattered into the air above our heads, and the roar intensified. Skoll chose that moment to exit the building. I didn’t much blame the wolf for that.

When Rivelin pulled the torch out of the hearth, the end blazed like an inferno. Fire licked the air, the dancing forks bleeding into a deep, terrifying red. I swallowed around the painful lump in my throat.

“Trust me.” He inched closer, his brow raised in question.

I nodded and reached for something to steady me. He passed the torch to one hand and held out the other for me to take. When I slid my fingers into his palm, he squeezed tight, as if he truly understood how difficult this was for me to face.

And then, without warning, he pressed the edge of the torch against my skin.

I braced myself for pain, but instead, a soothing heat curled through me. The fire lapped at my skin, its greedy tongues searching for purchase. But my body seemed to reflect the fire on itself, as if my hip was coated in a protective material. Similar to oilcloth, but for flames. Rivelin had been right all those days ago. Fire didn’t burn me.

All it did was make me feel warm.

With an awestruck laugh, Rivelin pulled the torch away from my skin. His eyes darted across my hip, and his expression dimmed. “Ah.”

I glanced down. The scar looked the same as it had for years—a healed yet rough patch of bumpy pink skin covering a faint blue glow. The torch hadn’t burned me. But it hadn’t melted the ice shard, either.

There would be no escaping Isveig. He’d made certain of that.