My lip curls in a snarl. “She is not my wife yet.”
Of course. I cry your pardon. In all the chaos, I forgot that the wedding was interrupted. Now that things have calmed, shall we pick up where we left off?
“She’s gone,” Lovia says to her.
“Hanna is gone?” Kalma says in surprise.
I narrow my eyes, trying to bite back the anger. The chain I have around it is getting shorter and shorter. Not long before it snaps. “She is gone,” I say gruffly. “Rasmus took her. I have created a storm to the north which should stop them.”
“You have to go after her,” Kalma says, his hands together as if in prayer as he walks toward me, his robes flowing behind. “You have to bring her back and marry her. You need to do this for the prophecy.”
The fucking prophecy.
I grunt. “I know what I have to do.”
“Are you planning on saving her?” Lovia questions, folding her arms across her chest. “Or punishing her?”
“Depends on how I feel when I see her,” I admit.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Lovia warns me. A flash of worry comes over her bright eyes. “Maybe…maybe you should just let her go.”
I balk at that, defiance flaring inside me. “Let her go? She made a promise to me. I am making sure she upholds her promise. Let her go? What is wrong with you daughter? You’re the one who was wanting this.”
“Don’t forget about the prophecy,” Kalma interjects.
“If, when, I find her, I will find out what her intentions were,” I add, making a fist. “If she meant to leave, I will not let her go. I will drag her back here, make her marry me, force her to uphold her end of the bargain. She will not be rewarded for being disloyal to me, for being a liar, a fucking traitor who goes back on their word. She will be punished. Severely. Don’t think I don’t know how.”
“And if she was coerced by Rasmus?” she asks.
“Then I will kill Rasmus,” I tell her. “Sorry to have to do that to a brother of yours, but I will have no mercy.”
“Brother?” Kalma asks, brows raised.
I wave at him dismissively. “It’s a long story.” I nod at Sarvi. “It’s time to go.”
I grab hold of Sarvi’s mane and pull myself up on its back. I adjust my mask, looking down at Lovia, Kalma, and Raila.
“In the event that they haven’t gone far, keep the Deadhands on alert and the castle surrounded. I’m taking no chances.”
And at that, Sarvi flaps its wings, the force blowing back the hay, and we fly off into the sky.
Not a hint of sunshine to be seen.
Chapter 3
Hanna
“The Bone Stragglers”
I scream as my world goes black.
The sound is immediately muffled by a boney hand that stretches across my mouth. The fingers that grabbed me are slimy, cold, and smell like decay, the fumes going up my nose like gasoline, making me want to retch. More hands are wrapped around my wrists, my elbows, my waist, my ankles, and others pull at the lengths of my wedding dress, ripping it, and I’m absently trying to figure out just how many creatures have hold of me as they pull me under into the darkness, further and further into a dank hole.
Fight back, I think to myself, even though I don’t know where I am except probably underground, and I don’t know who has me. Fight back.
I try to conjure up the will, the power, that side of myself that lays just beneath the surface, the one buzzing with electricity and sunshine. But the skeletal hands are wrapping in my hair now, and pain is coursing through my body, and I can’t concentrate on anything much except trying to scream for Rasmus to help me.
Finally I feel air on my face, like the space around me has opened up, and all the hands let go at once. I fall on to hard-packed earth, the wind knocked out of me.
Whispers fill the void. Male voices, ragged and harsh, punctuated by the occasional clack of bones.
Jaw bones.
I immediately picture the Deadhands that served Death and wonder if he’s sent his army out after me. For a moment there’s a touch of relief, that it’s Death that has come for me and not something else. Better the devil you know and all that.
But then a match is struck and in the flickering flame skeletal bodies come into view. There must be a dozen of them, all wearing ragged clothing that hangs off them in shreds. Literally living dead people. Most of them have swords or axes that are pointed my way, crystals or stones tied around their neck, and they’re in various stages of decay. Some have flesh sticking to parts of their face or hands, hanging off them like their clothes, others are just smooth bone.