Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

I cursed him to be gone and let me die.

“It’s in your hands.” Quieter now, the image more faint.

Snorri struggled to get to his feet, using his axe for support. Somehow the big bastard was actually doing it—too dumb to know when to quit. Still, it didn’t do for a prince of Red March to be outdone by a northern hauldr. I rolled, cursing, set the point of my sword into the gap between flagstones, and tried to heave myself up. It was too hard. Somewhere in the back of my mind Grandmother loomed, tall, regal, scary as hell in her scarlets. Get up! And, roaring with the effort and the pain, I did.

A step back and my shoulders were to the wall, the crack a yard from me, sacks splitting as it fractured the stone beneath, corn kernels leaping into the air and turning inside out with curious popping sounds.

When there’s nowhere to run you sometimes have to resort to extreme measures. Baraqel had kept talking about my line. The Red Queen’s image dominated my imagination in that moment, commanding, fearless, but over her shoulders I saw Garyus and the Silent Sister, and before her, my father. I’ve taken his name in vain time enough, called him a coward, a drunk, a hollow priest, but I knew deep down what had broken him and that he had stood his ground when my mother needed him and not surrendered to his demons until she was past saving.

I stepped towards the fracture, that crack between worlds, knelt before it on one knee, reached out.

“This is mine—I made it and the enchantment from which it spread started with my line; an unbroken chain of blood joins me to the one that set the spell.” And I reached out with my hand and with whatever else lay in the core of me and I pinched it shut.

All along its length the fissure flared, darkened, flared again, and shrank back upon itself until only a foot of it remained, bright and dark, leading out from the point where I pinched it between finger and thumb.

The fracture flexed and groaned, miniature breaks spreading up from where I held it, out across the back of my hand, the pain excruciating.

“I can’t hold it, Snorri.” I was already dying, but my great-aunt’s spell seemed ready to make that happen immediately rather than an hour hence.

He had to crawl, heaving himself over the sacks, the thick muscles in his arms trembling with the effort, black blood spilling from his mouth. But he made it. His gaze met mine as he reached to close the other end.

“Will it die with us? Will this be an end to it?”

I nodded, and he closed finger and thumb on the other end.

THIRTY-ONE

The crackle of logs, burning in a hearth. I relaxed. In my dream it had been the fires of hell waiting to feed on my sin. I lay for long minutes just enjoying the warmth, seeing only the play of light and shadow through closed eyes.

“Run!” I jerked into a sitting position as I remembered the strong-room, the unborn, the doors opening.

“What the hell?” I looked down at the furs that had slid from me, at the smooth skin where I’d been skewered through, no doubt puncturing several of the squidgy, vital organs that men are packed with. I pressed the region, and apart from a little tenderness, nothing. Running my hands over myself, patting and pinching, I found no injury worse than the odd bruise.

I looked around. A hall in the Black Fort, Tuttugu walking towards me with a slight limp.

“You’re dead!” I cast about for my sword. “I saw you hit that wall!”

Tuttugu grinned and grabbed his belly. “Padding!” Then, more serious, “I would have died if I hadn’t been healed. You would too.”

“The unborn?” Snorri had said there were a dozen or more. The spit dried from my mouth, and spread hands were all I could manage to frame the question.

“Any of them that weren’t destroyed have fled. Necromancers, Red Vikings, corpse-men . . . all gone,” Tuttugu said. “How are you feeling?” He seemed a touch apprehensive.

“Fine. Good. Better than good.” Fingers pressed to where my thigh had been cut produced no twinge at all. “How is that possible?”

“You’re not feeling . . . evil . . . then?” Tuttugu pressed his lips into a line, his face a mask.

“Um, no . . . not especially.” I looked around for Snorri but saw nothing apart from heaps of furs and some supplies tight-bound into bails. “How did this happen?” I couldn’t heal myself.

“Snorri did it.” Tuttugu sounded grim. “He said a valkyrie—”

“An angel?”

“He said valkyrie. He said the valkyrie helped him. There was more but he couldn’t speak much at the end. He said . . . but there are no male valkyrie . . . I think the valkyrie was a god . . .”