The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War 2)

“Interesting.” Kara didn’t seem disappointed at being outshone. “I can see why the Silent Sister chose you. Jal, you try.” She held the bead for me to take.

“I’ve had enough of heathen spell-mongering.” I kept my distance and hid my hands beneath my armpits. “Last time we did something like this I ended up being stabbed.” In truth I didn’t want to be shown as dull before her. Tuttugu might seem pleased at sparking nothing from the metal—but a prince should never be seen to fail. Especially by a woman he’s hoping to impress. And was that a grin I saw on Snorri’s face as he outshone me, yet again? Aslaug had said the northman sought to usurp me, and now the whispers rose at the back of my mind to confirm it. For a moment I imagined that the Red Vikings had killed him. Would that have been so bad?

“Frightened?” Kara still held the orichalcum toward me.

To change the subject I asked, “Chose him? Nobody chose him—or me. It was accident that wrapped us in the Sister’s curse. A chance escape, a meeting against the odds.” I’d been expendable, a minor princeling left to die in her fire, an acceptable price to pay for ending an unborn. And my “meeting” with Snorri had hardly been planned. I’d run straight into him in a blind terror whilst trying to escape the crack spreading from my great aunt’s broken spell.

“I don’t think so.” Kara said no more as we struggled up a rise. At the top she continued. “The Silent Sister’s spell wouldn’t fit into just any man. It’s too powerful. I’ve never heard of its like. Even Skilfar was amazed—she never said it in so many words, but I could tell. A spell like the Sister’s needed two people to carry it, and to grow its strength from the first seed. Two people—opposites—one for the dark part, one for the light. It wouldn’t be left to chance. No, this must have been planned an age in advance . . . to bring two such rare individuals together.”

I’d heard enough. Opposite to Snorri. Coward to his hero, thief to his honesty. Lech to his fidelity. Magic as mud to his shining potential. All I had to console myself with was prince to his pauper . . . I was glad at least to find myself as suited to sorcery as a paving slab. Magic always struck me as hard and dangerous work . . . not that there are any words you can put before “work” that makes it sound attractive. Certainly not “dangerous” or “hard.”

•   •   •

Our marching order changed as the miles passed. The boy grew weary and fell back with Tuttugu whose burst of energy from being healed now seemed spent. Snorri, Kara, and I, however, shed our tiredness. I found a dark excitement building in me. Each time I trod through the shadows cast by standing stones I heard Aslaug, her message now a simple promise—“I come.” And, although I feared her arrival, the threat of it bubbled through me like black joy, twisting my lips into a smile that might scare me if I had a mirror to see it in.

Cresting a ridge somewhat higher than the rest we paused, and turning back saw the enemy for the first time since the hut. We waited for Tuttugu and Hennan to struggle up to our position.

“I count twenty of them,” Snorri said.

“There were that many at Arran’s roundhouse before they attacked,” said Tuttugu, panting. “Close on a score.”

“Didn’t you manage to kill any of them?” I didn’t try to keep the complaint from my voice.

“Six, I think,” Snorri grunted. “They’re following us with the others.”

“Ah.” I turned to Kara. “Did you remember the necromancer when you said magic was our only hope? Because it looks like she’s following us in.”

Five or six hundred yards across a broad vale our enemy came on in a tight knot, their pace unhurried but relentless. I took a few steps to put more distance between Snorri and me. The skin along the side facing him burned and I swear for a moment I saw cracks reach out toward him from my arm, like black lightning forking into the air.

We pressed on, hurrying down the far side of the ridge, the heather catching at our ankles. At the bottom we waited for Tuttugu to draw level with us again.

“The sun will set soon. We’ll make our stand then.” Snorri cast a sideways glance my way. “Baraqel will lend me strength then too. He comes closest at dawn, but the dying of the light is another time when he can draw near—especially here.”

I nodded, suddenly not trusting the Norseman an inch. Every word he uttered sounded like a lie and when I blinked I could almost see Baraqel’s wings spreading from Snorri’s shoulders. Even so, ahead of us lay the Wheel and every nightmare ever whispered of in fireside tales. I wouldn’t run into it to avoid an axe. Besides, once Aslaug showed up I had the feeling that she wouldn’t be letting me run anywhere other than straight at the foe, whoever they might be.