Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Meanwhile, my cage is barely tall enough for me to kneel in. There is no possibility of standing in here. It is made of iron bars, and was probably intended to hold an animal of some kind. A dog, perhaps. They have a few around the place, big wiry, rangy things with powerful jaws. I pet one or two reflexively as I was carried around, and they seemed surprised at the affection.
I cower in the cage and I am grateful for it, because it means I cannot see the funeral pyre. The dinner ensues and Drako gives a speech.
“It is not often our enemies deliver themselves to us so conveniently,” he says. “But I like to think we provided them with convenience too, in the form of a quick death.”
A roaring laugh goes up around the table at what seemingly passes for Vikar humor. He cuts the speech short, raises his horn of brew to all assembled, and gives the order for the pyre to be lit.
There is a rumbling of drums and a short burst of trumpets, and then even behind Drako, I both see and feel the pyre being lit. There is a flash of light, and then a heat that washes over everything as the accelerant they used goes up in an instant, sending a bright flame towering high into the sky.
I turn my head away from it, and I close my eyes and try to think of better times. I think of playing with Mila and Freya when we were kids, when we thought our father would always be there, before they began to make new families of their own and somehow weaken ours in the process. That’s not how it’s supposed to happen, I think. I wonder where we went wrong.
The feast goes on for hours, and the revelry gets more raucous, and the drinking gets more intense. I am not a part of any of it, though Drako does give me a cup of water, and a little meat I do not eat.
Then, in the middle of the worst party I have ever been forced to attend, I hear a voice I never thought I would hear again.
“Don’t make a move. Don’t say a word.”
That voice, delivered close to my ear is quiet enough to go unnoticed by the revelers, and familiar enough to send a shiver up my spine.
Thor.
He’s alive. He’s here.
Or I just went full crazy, which would be very understandable given the circumstances.
I want to ask him how he is alive, or if I’m hallucinating him, but I don’t. If he is alive, then both of our lives are in immense danger right now. I sit very, very still, and I hear a light clinking as he works on the fastening of the cage.
He gets the door open pretty quickly, takes me by the hand, and the two of us sneak out of the Vikar camp under cover of darkness. Behind us, the party continues and the pyre burns, and I cannot believe he is not on it. Did fate really spare just the pair of us from death? Or are there more of us? We might never know. It’s possible that some survived and have gone into the depths of the bush or similar to avoid being caught by the Vikar.
We travel for a few minutes before Thor stops and turns to me. “Okay,” he says. “We can talk for a moment. I know you’re dying to…”
His sentence is cut off as I wrap my arms around him and hug him so tight I feel like I might never be able to let go.
“I thought you were dead!”
“I know. I thought you were too. Then I saw them capture you.”
“You saw that?”
“I had been moving through the wreckage looking for survivors, just like the Vikar had. I was trailing them to avoid detection. And then I saw you running and… I knew I had to rescue you.”
“Thank you so much,” I say. “Is there anyone else alive?”
Thor shakes his head. “I don’t know. They might have gotten away from the wreckage if so. We might never know. We might not find them if they do exist. What I do know is that there were a lot of bodies on that pyre.”
I keep holding onto him. He feels like the one thing in this world that is right. Everything else is so deeply fucking wrong.
“They got me,” I tell him.
“I know. I saw…”
“No, I mean they’ve got a tracking chip in me,” I tell him. “They can find me anywhere. Leave me, or they’ll hunt you down and hurt you before they kill you.”
“I abandoned you once,” he says. “I won’t do it again. Don’t worry about the chip. We’ll deal with it when the time comes. For now, let’s just keep moving. Distance is our friend. From what I can tell, the Vikar are limited to foot travel as well.”