I cry out as Flemming steps into the circle, his tan skin glistening with sweat. He is no taller than Thyra, but he is wiry and fierce, all sinew and strength. Like her, he has two daggers. Unlike her, he looks steady and smooth as he approaches.
And for the first time, she looks like prey. Her chest shudders and sweat drips from her chin. Her beautiful face is twisted with pain, and her left sleeve is soaked with blood. Flemming does not joke or preen, but the determined look on his face is just as bad. Heat blazes across my skin even as ice runs hard along my bones. I begin to tremble with the effort of holding them inside.
Flemming lunges, and Thyra staggers away from him. Their blades clash together, but Thyra isn’t strong enough to hold him back, and he pushes inside her guard, the tip of his blade arcing toward her throat. She kicks him in the stomach, and he huffs, his eyes wide, but he’s still able to block her next strike and shove her off balance. She stumbles over her own feet and falls onto her rear. As he advances, Thyra hurls her dagger, and it slices along his thigh as it flies past. She rolls away as he tries to stomp on her rib cage, so he stabs both of his blades down. One misses, but the other cuts along her flank, and she can’t quite stifle her scream. She stabs up with her only remaining blade and sends Flemming arching back, then blocks one of his daggers as he sends it flying at her.
Thyra heaves herself to her feet, clutching at her side. Blood flows over her trembling fingers.
“No,” I whisper.
Flemming walks toward her, unhurried, unconcerned. He doesn’t look like he’s exerting himself at all as he blocks and parries her next desperate strikes. Finally, he slams his blade against hers, and her dagger flies out of her grip. Before she can scramble for it, his fist crunches into her stomach, sending her to the ground.
She’s on her knees, right in front of the wooden benches.
“This is it,” whispers Sander, and even as Nisse’s warriors scream their satisfaction, I hear him so clearly, each word penetrating my heart. I am paralyzed with disbelief. This cannot be happening.
Thyra raises her head. She must know Flemming is behind her. She must know what comes next. “Uncle,” she says, and all go quiet. Will she ask for her life, even if it means banishment?
Ask for mercy, I silently beg. I’ll leave with her. I’ll follow anywhere she goes.
Nisse stands. “Yes?”
She lets out a pained breath and squares her shoulders. “Treat my warriors and andeners with respect after I am gone.”
Flemming grabs a handful of Thyra’s short hair and wrenches her head back, his dagger rising to cut her throat.
I cannot let this happen. I will not let this happen. As the curse bleeds through my skin, begging release, I stop trying to hold it back.
Instead, I embrace it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
All the noise of the warriors falls silent, smothered by the rush of fire and ice in my mind, the swoop of it along my bones, its roar as it invades my very soul. I am barely aware of stepping into the ring, only that suddenly the rope isn’t there anymore. Its ashes flutter in the air around me like moths.
I am the flame. It bursts from my palms as I stalk toward Flemming, who whirls around, perhaps when he feels the heat at his back. “You will not touch her,” I say, and my voice is monstrous, teeth and claws and blades and hate made sound.
Flemming staggers away from Thyra, his arms reeling, his mouth gaping in a silent scream as I come after him, liquid fire in my veins. “Witch!” he screams.
It is the last word he ever utters. I hurl the flames, all my hurt and rage fueling an inferno that devours Flemming instantly. His cry is desperate and shrill and now it’s gone and I don’t care. I won’t stop until he is cinders at my feet. This feels good and right and savage.
I raise my head at the flash and glimmer of a dagger blade, but the mere thought of wind brings forth an icy gale that sends it flying off course, its master thrown back into the churn of warriors with his eyes frozen wide and horrified. I turn in place, glaring fire at the tribe that was so eager to kill my chieftain. “Challenge me,” I say.