Chapter 8

8

RIVELIN

“Here, boy.” I plucked a slice of bacon from where I’d been cooling it beside the fire, and I tossed it toward Skoll. He caught it midair, his teeth crunching into the crispy meat. He wagged his tail and looked at me expectantly. With a chuckle, I ruffled his fur and turned back to the fire.

The hallway floorboards creaked, and I stiffened. Daella had taken a long damn time in the bath, but now she was coming. Skoll let out a low growl as he sniffed the air. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a visitor who wasn’t my sister.

Daella walked into the room with a brilliant, though obviously fake, smile on her face but froze when she caught sight of Skoll. His lips curled back to reveal his sharp canines. I expected to see a hint of fear, even if she tried to hide it. Her throat would bob as she swallowed or her hand would shake. Much to my surprise, her eyes brightened. This time, it seemed real.

She knelt and held out a hand toward Skoll. “You have a wolf?”

“A fenrir. His name is Skoll.” I kept a close eye on his fangs as he took a sniff of her hand. And then he wagged his tail and licked her fingers. “Huh. He likes you. I’d take that as a compliment. He can be pretty grumpy with strangers.”

I knew what was coming the second the words left my mouth. I’d walked right into what she’d say next.

She snorted. “It sounds like you two have a lot in common.”

I lifted a brow. “Did you just snort?”

Ignoring me, she turned back to Skoll, ruffling his gray fur. “He’s very cute and fluffy. So maybe you don’t have that much in common, after all. Where was he last night?”

“Out hunting. He likes to roam the nearby forest at dark.”

She stood, and it took me a moment to remember what I’d been doing. I hadn’t noticed when she’d first walked in, too focused on what Skoll’s reaction to her might be. Then she’d been crouching, so I hadn’t seen but…fate be damned, those trousers hugged the curves of her long legs, and that tunic accentuated a pair of perky breasts I hadn’t noticed in the shadowy night. And now that her hair was no longer plastered to her long, slender neck…

I frowned at myself. None of those things mattered. She was not unattractive, but she was Isveig’s murk, and appreciating even a hint of her felt like a betrayal to everyone I’d once loved.

I turned back to the bacon sizzling on the skillet above the fire. “You hungry?”

“Famished,” she admitted.

Feedingthe enemy also felt like a betrayal. I hoped my parents weren’t rolling in their graves back in our homeland, the Kingdom of Edda.

Still, I couldn’t very well starve the girl if I wanted to keep her on my side, so I tossed some bacon and eggs onto a plate, along with some freshly baked bread from Milka’s shop down the road, and passed it to Daella before making a plate for myself. By the time I sat at the kitchen table I’d built myself a few years ago, she’d already finished half her food.

“So what’s the plan?” Daella asked between bites. “We’ve got four challenges to do, right? When do we get started?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, I have to get chosen for the Games. The opening ceremony is today.”

Her chewing slowed, and strangely, I could have sworn a flicker of disappointment went through her eyes. “You mean, we might not even get to compete in these Games of yours?”

“Suddenly eager to help me now, are you?”

“Well, we have a deal. If you don’t get chosen, then what? Going to make me sleep curled up in the stables, after all?”

“Then you’ll help me out in my shop for the summer until the next ship arrives.”

“Hmm. I don’t really know anything about smithing.” She stabbed her last piece of bacon with her fork and popped it into her mouth.

I folded my arms and leaned back in my chair. “No, I suppose not. Your skill is more on the murdering side.”

Her fork scraped against her plate, and she glanced up at me with narrowed eyes. But then the tension vanished, and she smiled—fake again. “Keep talking to me like that, and I’ll give you a first-hand demonstration of just how skilled I truly am.”

“Careful. Skoll doesn’t take kindly to strangers threatening his master.”

“Ha. Then why is his tail wagging?” Delight danced in her eyes as she lowered her plate to the floor to let Skoll have the crumbs. He greedily licked them up, and his tail was in fact thumping away with wild abandon. The traitor.

“Skoll,” I called out.

He lifted his shaggy head, and I tossed my last slice of bacon toward him. With glee, he snapped his teeth at the air and gobbled it up, and then immediately went back to Daella’s plate to thoroughly inspect it for any crumbs he might have missed.

“Competition aside,” Daella said, lacing her hands on the table and leaning forward. She blinked her big brown eyes at me. “I have an exceedingly important question. How in fate’s name do you have water coming out of a spout?”

“Ah. I should have known you’d wonder about that. It’s called running water. We got it after one of the Games a few years back. The winner, our baker Milka, asked the island for an easier way to bathe. It gave us this, far beyond anything we could have dreamed up ourselves.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re telling the island gave you something as significant as that?”

“I told you,” I said. “It can give us anything.”

“Then why not ask it for something bigger? Something that could change the world?”

“Most people here don’t want to change the world. They just want to improve our lives bit by bit each year.”

“You could ask for the death of the emperor.”

I draped an arm across my knee and eyed the distance between her hand and my knife. I hadn’t given her one with her own plate for very obvious reasons. And now she was trying to lure me into saying I wanted the emperor to die. According to her laws, that would be worth my head. Isveig was a fucking tyrant.

“You can’t ask for the death—or even harm—of anyone,” I said carefully. “But especially not of someone who isn’t on the Isles. The magic only works here, like I said.”

“But that would solve all your problems, wouldn’t it?” she asked. “The death of Emperor Isveig?”

“You speak very casually when your words could get you killed.”

She raised her brows. “So you have heard about what it’s like in the Grundstoff Empire these days.”

I knew better than most.

Nodding, I shifted my hand to the left so that my palm covered the knife. “Every now and again, someone washes up on our shores, and that someone is usually from the empire. We’ve heard about his laws. He forbids anyone to even speak of his death. Doing so puts you on the wrong end of a scythe.”

A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. “The Isles of Fable are not a part of the Grundstoff Empire. So his laws do not apply here.”

“You’re one of his murks.”

“Not by choice.”

I sat up a bit at that. “It’s in the name, Daella. Mercenary. You’re his hired blade, doing his bidding for coin.”

“You’re right. I have a chest full of ice pennings and a bit of gold. Isveig has tried to keep me happy over the years, and he thought he could buy my loyalty. That doesn’t mean it was ever my decision.” Her cheeks were bright pink.

My heart pounded as I took in that fire in her eyes. Could I have been wrong about her? Surely not. Daella was infamous around these parts for doing whatever her emperor asked of her.

“So you never signed a contract?” I asked.

She loosed a breath. “No, I did sign a contract, but—”

“Then it was your choice.” I shoved back the chair and stood, gathering my plate and hers, before she could try to weave her words in a way that might get under my skin. I knew what she was doing. Fates be damned, I understood because I’d planned to do the same thing to her. She was trying to gain my trust by sharing just enough about her that I’d see her in a different light. Her words could be truths or lies. At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter. She was here to hunt down Draugr, but she had nothing to go on yet. And so she wanted to reel me in so that I might reveal something to her—accidentally or not.

“You know, for someone who hates the emperor, you don’t seem to have much empathy for a girl who has been forced to work for him against her will,” she quipped.

“We should talk about the Games.” Ignoring her, I moved over to the basin and dropped in the dishes before grabbing an old rag from the wood countertop. “As soon as the ceremony is over, the contestants are thrown right into the first challenge. We’ll have to start immediately if we get a place, and I’ll need your help.”

Daella came over to the basin and leaned against the countertop with crossed arms. “Let me guess. You need my sense of smell.” She tapped her nose.

Orcs were well known for their heightened senses, particularly when it came to fire magic. Sometimes, that extended to the other elements as well, but usually only earth and air. They clashed with water in more ways than one.

“I don’t think your sense of smell will help us with this first challenge,” I said. “We’re dealing with water, and I’ll have to go out on the lake in a boat.”

She flinched. “A freshwater lake?”

“That’s right. Last year, the contestants had to search the lake for the best fish, dive, and capture it in a net. The entire village feasted on the catches at a midnight party afterwards. It likely won’t be that again, but it will be something similar,” I said, scrubbing the dish and then setting it down on the fresh towel beside the sink. “But you don’t have to get in the water. I just need you to help me build the boat and make sure no one tries to sabotage us.”

“You mean to tell me your idyllic utopia has saboteurs?” she asked with a laugh. “And here I thought HeartHappy was all sunshine and rainbows.”

“Hearthaven,” I corrected, wiping the soap suds off my hands. “And we’ve only had one saboteur over the years. Knowing his luck, he’ll probably get a spot in the Games again.”

“Again? Sounds like a cheat.”

“In more ways than one,” I said wryly. “The second time he won, he asked the island to gift him a new paramour every year and then make the previous one forget he binned her, just in case he ever wanted to have her again.”

Daella’s eyes went wide, her lips curling into a snarl. “And the island gave that to him?”

“Absolutely not. It’s against the rules, as that hurts someone. A lot of someones. The problem is, he refuses to accept it.” A simmering fire went through my gut. He’d tried it, partially, to gain my sister’s affection. “So I’d watch out if I were you.”

“Oh, don’t you worry.” She frowned. “If he broke the rules, shouldn’t he be banned from the competition?”

“If only. His mother is Head of the Games, and she’s convinced everyone in Wyndale to give him another chance. But mark my words, he won’t be able to help himself.”

Daella let out a light, tinkling laugh, though the smile on her face was still strained—still fake. I couldn’t help but wonder when the last time she’d truly smiled was. Not even Skoll and his wagging tail had brought one out of her.

Her words whispered through my mind, though I knew I couldn’t trust them. Still, I wondered…was what she said about Isveig true? Was working for him not her choice?

But as she moved away, she rubbed her hand along her hip—right where a dagger would normally reside. The dagger I’d taken from her and tossed into the sea. My heart hardened, and I shoved away all my softening thoughts. I couldn’t trust anything she told me.