“Vhalla, you are poor with your numbers.” The man chuckled. “You forgot our two Northern friends who escaped the Night of Fire and Wind. The same two that we decided to help smuggle West in order to try to bring you to us later.”
Her arm trembled. The Knights were behind the Northerners who’d killed Larel at the Crossroads?
“And you’ve forgotten again, or didn’t really look, I came with four men.”
She turned to the Knights holding Jax. Jax’s eyes looked down the stairs.
“There is no way out of this, Vhalla Yarl.” Major Schnurr took a bold step forward. “If you attack me, he dies. If you think you can save him by attacking the two holding him first, he dies from the archer and Waterrunner at the foot of the stairs.”
The major rounded on her. Vhalla tried to put together an alternative solution. A different approach than what she was handed.
“Or you kill us all, and accept his blood on your hands.”
She stared at the axe. Kill them all. She could save Jax. She would kill them all. Vhalla looked up at her friend. She’d be gambling with his life, and the odds weren’t on her side.
“Or—give yourself to us and save your palms from being washed in more blood. Let your friend live.”
Vhalla looked down at the axe. It seemed to shine brighter, as if it knew it could soon gorge itself on life. Vhalla wanted to give in, to satiate its need—her need—its need.
Then her eyes found Major Schnurr, in all his joyous triumph. If she gambled with Jax’s life, win or lose, she’d be no better than the men she loathed. She’d be trading in whatever scraps of humanity she still clung to.
Jax scowled at her and shook his head, making muffled protest noises.
With a soft sigh she closed her Channel and dropped the axe. Live or die, she’d do it with some shred of principles.
Major Schnurr slammed his shoulder into her back, knocking her forward. Vhalla caught the table to try to right herself, and he quickly grabbed her wrists. Vhalla felt the sickening, unnatural cool of shackles, and she was forced to watch as they were clamped once more on her. The shackles buzzed quietly, the crystals activating, blocking her Channel and even the faintest possibility of a magical resistance. Of course they still had crystal cuffs in their trophy room.
Fire rode on a scream up Jax’s throat, hissing through the ice. Vhalla couldn’t stop herself from trying to reach him, but Major Schnurr kicked her down, placing his boot atop her temple and causing her to see stars.
“He’s a liability and a smear on Western nobility,” Major Schnurr mused. “Kill him.”
“You said you’d let him live!” Vhalla cried. But her words were lost as a Knight buried an ice dagger to the hilt between Jax’s ribs. The Westerner wheezed and coughed up blood as he slumped.
“You think . . . that’ll stop me?” Jax laughed and lunged, his side already soaked to his waist with blood.
“Jax, stop!” Vhalla screamed. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to watch another one of her friends die.
A second ice dagger pierced his back. Jax was thrown to the floor and didn’t get up. He wheezed and stared at her with dulling eyes.
“You said you’d let him live!” she raged at Schnurr. “You said you’d let him go!”
“No, I said I’d let him live, never that I’d let him go. And I never said how long I’d let him live, either.” The major laughed. “Leave him. We have the Windwalker and the last crystal weapon. We set out for the caverns tonight.”
Vhalla struggled and fought; she bit and scratched and kicked. She was helpless without her magic, the Bond, and the axe. But she still struggled against her fate. Finally frustrated, the pommel of a Knight’s sword met the side of her head, and Vhalla went limp between the men holding her.
She’d tried to stop the Knights, but she’d failed. She’d tried to save Jax, but he’d died. She’d tried to make a deal with devils, but she’d forgot that devils lie.
VHALLA OPENED HER eyes and heaved up the sparse contents of her stomach.
The light speared searing, blinding pain into her brain, which sent her body into rebellion. The second time she heaved was the moment she tried to move. Now, sitting in her own sick, Vhalla struggled to blink away the blazing sun. Blood coated the side of her face. Her whole body felt like