"That"s it, then," Ridley said, surveying the carnage around us.
Someone whistled loudly from the ditch, and I realized too late that we"d forgotten about Tilda. I couldn"t see anything from where I stood, so I ran closer to the SUV, and then I saw them, standing in the brush just on the other side of the vehicle.
Bayle Lundeenthe former Skojare head guardhad one arm wrapped around Tilda, pressing her to him, while the other one held a knife to her throat. She had her hands on his arm, trying to pull it away, but he didn"t seem to be budging.
"It"s not quite over yet," Bayle warned me.
FORTY-TWO.
avenge Konstantin rushed behind me but I put my arm out to stop him, so he didn"t go charging toward them. Bayle"s knife was poised to slice right through Tilda"s throat, and he raised his arm higher, making Tilda squirm.
Ridley came up beside me, and we stood frozen on the embankment, unsure of what the next move should be.
"You don"t have to do this," I said, trying to remain calm, and I was acutely aware of the bloodied blade clenched in Konstantin"s fist.
"I really didn"t want it to come to this," Bayle admitted, but he didn"t relax his stance.
When I"d been at Storvatten before, it had been hard for me to get a clear read on Bayle. He"d been standoffish but professional when Kasper and I interacted with him. We were never able to entirely discern what Bayle"s role was in everything that had transpired in Storvatten, but as the head guard, he"d definitely had his hand in things.
It had been his guard, Cyrano, who attempted to murder King Mikko, and it had almost certainly been Bayle who falsified the safe records that got Mikko arrested. From the best I could gather, he"d been working with Kennet from the start of the fallen Prince"s plan to dethrone Mikko.
If it hadn"t been for Bayle, I wasn"t sure how much Kennet would"ve been capable of on his own. But I doubt Mikko would"ve been arrested, which meant that Kennet wouldn"t have come to Doldastam to pay Mina for her help, and then Kasper wouldn"t have been killed.
"I worked my a.s.s off for that kingdom, if you can even call it that," he said, his words dripping with venom. "For years. All I wanted was to be paid my dues! And Kennet came up with this plan, and it would all be so simple."
"It can still be simple," I said. "Killing an innocent will only complicate things."
Bayle snorted. "Since Kennet turned against me and deposed me, I"ve been sentenced to doing Viktor"s dirty work. I"m up to my neck in blood! What"s one more b.i.t.c.h?"
"Viktor will turn on you too," Konstantin warned him. "The same way he"s turned on me."
"I"m not an idiot like you. I just wanna get paid," Bayle sneered. "And right now, Viktor is offering a ma.s.sive reward for delivering the three of you." He nodded toward Ridley, myself, and Konstantin. Then he looked down at Tilda, almost speaking in her ear. "What"s one more body to add to the pile?"
"If you hurt her, you will not leave here alive," I growled at him. "I will kill you with my bare f.u.c.king hands, Bayle."
Bayle started to laugh. "Oh, you really think so?"
Something flashed in Tilda"s eyes, and her body tensed up. Her expression hardened, and there was a resolve in her that I knew all too well from training with her. Tilda was a master of restraint, but she could destroy someone if she wanted to.
"Wait," Tilda said in a stilted voice. "This is Bayle Lundeen? Bayle, who conspired with Kennet? Bayle, who"s one of the reasons my husband is dead?"
I nodded once. "Yeah. That"s him."
For the first time, Bayle seemed to realize he might have bitten off more than he could chew, and he looked down at Tilda with new appreciation. Tilda may be pregnant, but she was still tall and strong, with muscular arms and powerful legs.
I was sure that when Bayle had first captured her, she"d been more docile so as not to risk him hurting the baby. But now she was p.i.s.sed.
With one sudden jerk, she flung her head backward, smashing into Bayle"s face. From where I stood several feet away from her, I heard the sound of his nose crunching. Before he could tilt the knife toward her, she grabbed his wrist, bent it backward, and, using her other arm as leverage, she broke his arm with a loud snap.
It all happened within a few seconds, and Bayle screamed in pain and stumbled back. His arm hung at a weird angle, and blood streamed down his face. But Tilda wasn"t done yet.
With a swipe of her leg, she kicked his legs out from under him. He fell back into the mud, and Tilda kicked him hard in the groin, causing Konstantin to wince beside me. Then she jumped on top of him, punching him repeatedly in the face with both fists.
His body had gone limp, but I wasn"t sure if that was because he was unconscious or dead. Either way, Tilda apparently decided that she wanted to be certain. She grabbed the knife that he"d dropped on the ground beside them, and she stabbed him straight through the heart.
And then she just sat there, kneeling on his dead body and breathing hard. None of us said anything or moved. It felt like she needed the moment to herself.
When she finally stood up, she shook her arms out, probably both because her fists hurt from hitting Bayle so hard and also to get rid of some of the blood.
"Do you feel better?" I asked her.
She nodded, still catching her breath as she walked over to me. "Yeah. We have to do something about these bodies, though. The humans will get suspicious."
"That girl is a f.u.c.king beast," Konstantin whispered as she walked by, and he looked at her with newfound admiration.
"You should see her when she"s not pregnant," I said.
Tilda went into the SUV and used a bottle of water and a shirt from her bag to clean off the blood. Eventually, the rest of us would probably want to do the same, but right now we needed to focus on getting the bodies out of here before another car came by.
While Ridley and I went to grab Bayle"s body, Tilda moved all our bags into the backseat so we wouldn"t b.l.o.o.d.y all our things. Konstantin grabbed Drake"s body, throwing it over his shoulder, and then dropping him unceremoniously in the back.
The challenge was not only moving Mne"s ma.s.sive bodywhich took all three of usbut also loading it into the back of the SUV. We had to fold him into a very strange position to get him to fit.
"There"s still one big problem," Tilda said. While we stood at the back of the vehicle, beside the open tailgate, she was still sitting in the backseat and turned to look at us over the pile of bodies. "These guys were clearly Viktor"s men, and they found us. How?"
Ridley shook his head. "When we left Doldastam, we threw out our phones, and we ditched the Range Rover and rented a car. I don"t know how they could possibly track us." Then he looked over at Konstantin. "Unless someone told them where we"d be."
"They tried to kill me too, remember?" Konstantin snapped. "And how would I know that we"d be at this exact spot on this exact s.h.i.tty road at this time while Tilda was taking a p.i.s.s?"
"Then how did they find us?" Ridley asked defensively.
"Probably the same way I found Bryn." He turned back to the bodies and pushed Mne out of the way so he could dig in Drake"s pocket. Then he pulled out a lock of dark curly hair and held it up to Ridley. "He was tracking you."
Ridley"s face fell, and he ran a hand through his hair, as if he"d be able to feel a missing lock of hair. "s.h.i.t."
"s.h.i.t indeed." Konstantin gave him a hard look, then he slammed the hatchback shut. He walked around the car and got inside, leaving Ridley and me alone.
"I"m sorry," Ridley said, staring off at the empty field beside us. "I shouldn"t have come. Mina knew I would lead her right to you. It"s my fault."
"She tricked you," I said. "She"s tricked all of us. It"s what she"s good at."
He set his jaw. "I should"ve known better."
"It"s okay. We"re all okay. You"re the one that got hurt the worst."
His skin had been red and raw, but it was starting to darken as bruises began to form. He just shook his head. "You guys need to leave me here and go on without me. They could have more people tracking me. You won"t be safe with me."
"Ridley, I"m not going to leave you on the side of the road. And even if they do track us, they"d follow us straight to Storvatten, where they plan on attacking anyway. We"ll be fine."
He lowered his eyes, swallowing hard. "I"m sorry, Bryn. I shouldn"t have come. I just..."
"You just what?" I stepped closer to him, and he lifted his eyes to meet mine.
"I just had to see you. I needed to know that you were all right."
I wanted to ask, Then why are you pushing me away? If you just wanted to be with me, why are you being so distant?
But I didn"t think he would answer, so I just looked up at him, wishing I understood the pain in his eyes.
A car door opened and Konstantin leaned out. "We should probably leave before backup gets here."
FORTY-THREE.
crusade This was the first time Tilda had been to Storvatten, and her eyes widened as she took in the palace. With luminous walls tinged in aqua, curving to mimic waves, it rose from the still waters of the great lake like an enchanted sapphire.
Thick fog had left the palace hidden from the sh.o.r.e, since it sat several miles out in the water. Ridley, Konstantin, Tilda, and I walked almost halfway out on the dock that connected the palace to the land before it started to take shape, a shadow looming behind the gray.
And then there it was, in all its glory. Tildawho wasn"t easily impressedactually gasped when she saw it. While I still found it magnificent, all the events of the past few weeks seemed to have left me somewhat numb to its magic.
As we approached the large wooden doors of the palace, they opened before we"d even reached them. The entrance glowed pale white as we walked toward it, and an imposing man stepped forward, reminding me of an alien overlord descending from the mothership.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, especially for a Skojare. They tended to be more pet.i.te in frameMikko and Kennet Biaelse aside. His blond hair was cropped short, and he was clean-shaven.
The uniform he wore was that of the Skojare guarda frosty blue, embellished with the insignia of a fish on his lapel. Even without the uniform, there was something very military about him. He stood at attention, with his head high and his blue eyes locked on us.
"I"m Baltsar Thorne." He greeted us formally but politely. He bowed his head slightly, and I noticed the thick black outline of a fish tattooed on the back of his neck. "I"m the new head guard for the Skojare."
Already he looked like a vast improvement from their last head guard, and I"d only just met him.
"It"s really you!" Linnea squealed, and I heard her voice echoing through the main hall before I saw her. She dashed across the gla.s.s floor, her blue gown billowing around her, and she practically dove at me, hugging me.
When she let go, she stepped back to appraise me. Smiling broadly, she said, "It"s really you. The guards at the shack at the end of the dock called up and said you were coming, but I didn"t believe them."
"Your Highness," Baltsar said, carefully trying to wedge himself between us. "She has been accused of killing our Prince. It seems prudent to"
"Oh, she didn"t do it." Linnea waved him off, then she took my hand. "Let"s go inside and get out of the cold, so we can talk. And you bring your friends"
It was the first time she"d stopped to look at who was with me, but as soon as she saw Konstantin, her jaw dropped and her already large eyes widened.
"It"s you," she gasped and let go of my hand. "You saved my life."
Konstantin lowered his eyes and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, already uncomfortable with her praise. Then she ran over to him and threw her arms around his waist, embracing him tightly.
For his part, Konstantin stood frozen in place with his eyes nervously flitting around. His arms were stiff at his sides, like he was afraid to even touch her.
"My Queen, it"s not advised to ... hug guests before we have a chance to vet them," Baltsar tried unsuccessfully to reason with her.
Incensed, she stepped away from Konstantin and glared at the guard. "This man saved my life! He"s a hero! He doesn"t need to be vetted! They"re all guests of the kingdom, and they"re all welcome inside."
Baltsar sighed, apparently realizing the futility of arguing with her. "If it"s as you wish, Your Majesty."
"Come in, come in, everyone!" Linnea motioned for us to follow her as she walked inside the palace, her platinum curls bobbing as she walked. Her dress was cut very low in the back, to just above her waist, and it compensated for that by having a long satin train that flowed out behind her.
Baltsar bowed slightly again and gestured for us to enter, so I smiled politely and followed Linnea inside.
"Just to let you know, there"s a couple bodies in the back of the SUV you probably want to take care of," Ridley told Baltsar as he walked by.
"We already killed them for you, so it shouldn"t be that much of a problem," Konstantin added.
"Pardon?" Baltsar asked, looking startled. "Who did you kill?"
"Don"t worry," Konstantin said over his shoulder as we entered the grand main hall. "They were Viktor Dlig"s men." When Baltsar still appeared puzzled, Konstantin elaborated. "The men that declared war on you."
Linnea had been walking ahead, intent on showing us all in and seeming to ignore the exchange between Konstantin, Ridley, and Baltsar, but as soon as the word war was uttered, she"d stopped cold.
In the rotunda, sandblasted gla.s.s shaped like waves surrounded usopaque, with a hint of light turquoise showing through. Below us, the floors were gla.s.s, windows to the pool. Chandeliers sparkled with diamonds and sapphires, casting light all around us. It gave the effect of standing in a whirlpool, and right now Linnea was in the dead center of it.
"Well, the Kanin actually declared war," Ridley said, correcting Konstantin in a conversational tone. "If you want to get technical."
"He seems like the kind of guy who"d want to get technical." Konstantin pointed toward Baltsar.
"That"s true," Ridley agreed. "But either way, Viktor Dlig"s men will attack the Skojare. They"re probably helping the Kanin, so it"s all the same difference."
"Yeah." Konstantin looked over at Baltsar. "The point is that we helped you by killing those men."
Linnea still had her back to us, and she turned around slowly to face everyone. All the lightness and playfulness that usually enveloped her had fallen away. Her skin had paled even more than normal, and the translucent gills on her neck weren"t moving.
"Did you say war?" Linnea asked in a voice so soft I wasn"t sure that Ridley or Konstantin had heard her from where they stood several feet back. Tilda and I were right behind Linnea, and even I barely heard it.
"Didn"t you..." Ridley glanced over to me, looking for help, but I had none to give. "Didn"t you get the proclamation? From the Kanin?"
Linnea shook her head once. "No. We"ve received no correspondence from the Kanin since they told us of Kennet"s death."
"I saw it yesterday." Ridley motioned to me. "We both did. At the Trylle palace. Minaum, excuse me, Queen Mina sent the scroll to the Trylle Queen declaring war on the Skojare."
"That"s why we came here," I explained. "We wanted to see if you needed help preparing for it."