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she knew that bad fortune came in threes,
The tales of the girl who sees the unseen?
“Forget your loyalty to this man. He is not even your kin—you share no blood.”
“She has the scar,” he murmured, his gloved finger tracing the tiny crescent-shaped mark beside her left eye. “It’s her.”
“Queen Signe has been searching for you, girl.”
“Mattress.” Her father’s eyes fluttered as he took a ragged breath. “Bed…go to Kopa.”
sister moons rose shortly after sunset—Malla, big and bold and bright, and Marra, small but calm and unwavering.
If Matthias is not my blood father, then who is? she wondered. How did he come to have me? Did he steal me? Are my blood parents alive and searching for me?
“But I don’t know how to do magic. I am not Galdra.
She’s simply a spirit friend.”
One leaf per day had been her ration for the past ten years. But tonight was different.
Even without her Solacer intuition, Skraeda would have known the men hid something.
The Galdra had an emotional signature—angst mixed with fear and a touch of excitement. But the true test was when a Klaernar warrior walked past—fear looping brighter, revulsion weaving in.
The rabbit comes easily to the clever wolf who waits.
Wait Is she the grimwolf
Skraeda, A target has slipped us. We search for a woman of twenty winters with curly brown hair, a small scar at the corner of her eye.
Brought in at all costs. More information to come.
murderer has been hunting along these parts.”
The Slátrari, they are calling him.
Bodies found tied to posts or pillars or trees in the Reykfjord area, burnt from the inside out.
“Then you must travel the Road of Bones,”
Jonas settled beside the headman of the Bloodaxe Crew, Reynir Bjarg,
Rey could throw a look so cutting, he’d earned the name Axe Eyes.
“A murderer prowling this region.” A vein pulsed in Magnus’s pale temple. “Burns his victims from the inside. ’Tis unnatural. Between us, we believe he must be Galdra.
The locals claim it is a thick white mist.”
They say the mist has the sound of a beating heart.”
“The farmers claim that this mist pulses with a strange rhythm, like the beating of a heart. That it starts low and grows louder and louder. And then it simply stops, leaving blood and missing people in its wake.”
The Klaernar’s bodies were discovered in Istré’s town square. They were…secured to Ursir’s pillars by strange-looking vines. They’d been stabbed through the heart, though by something wider and rounder than a sword or dagger.
And all around the bodies, a symbol was written in blood, over and over. A Spiral Stave.”
Axe Eyes?”
Sounds like ass eyes
Ilías made a space on the bench beside him, Jonas nodding at his younger brother as he took a seat.
Sigrún inhaled sharply from across the table, the surprise plain in her penetrative brown eyes. Her long blond braids were flipped to the left side of her head, exposing the glossy burn scars that climbed up her neck and along the right side of her skull.
“Certain you can manage, Wolf?” Jonas straightened,
With the push of a button, silver claws protracted from her prosthetic arm and grazed dangerously against his throat.
Hekla
Only one of the great Volsik line had survived the sacking of Sunnavík—five-year-old Princess Saga, raised as Ivar’s ward and future bride for his son Bjorn.
A small but violent crew who could take on anything from outlaws to dark creatures, and who left no survivors.
Bloodaxe crew
With the exception of Kommandor Thord, the rest of these Klaernar did not know her as Galdra,
Shes a witch
Skraeda had an arrangement with the Klaernar of Reykfjord—she would wrest confessions from those they brought in, and in exchange, she claimed the most interesting among them for the queen.
mastering her Solacer skill. She could enhance or dampen emotions, yes, but when she pulled on a thread tightly enough, she’d discovered that memories associated with that emotion could be drawn forth as well.
The woman sent Skraeda a glare that could shatter stone. “You are a traitor to your kind,” she spat.
“I am an opportunist,” mused Skraeda, mastering her own emotions. “I do what I must to survive.”
Hands wrapped around Silla’s waist, and she was pulled away from the girl. She opened her own mouth. And screamed.
“Here are the rules. One: You do as you’re told. I say stay, you stay. I say run, you run.
“Two: You’re honest with us. In our line of work, if you cannot trust the men and women beside you, you’re already food for the corpse vultures. No lies.
“Three: You speak of this to no one.
Kraki’s words echoed once more. When you get soft, people get killed.
That man needs to hug a baby or pat a dog, she thought.
He’d died to keep her safe yet had lied to her all her life.
“Because it takes a small man to be ruled by fear and a large one to show mercy. And anyone can see you are no small man.”
there was also something wrong with Rey. The look on his face as he’d sliced that man’s fingers off.
enjoyed it,” said the little blond girl, lying on her back in the grass beside Silla. “That man is dangerous.”
