The soldier in front of her smiled widely, the humor glittering in his eyes. "What would you suggest?"
Liv chewed on her tongue as she thought of her next steps. This soldier could be a cruel man, or he could find her knowledge useful. Either way, she needed to make sure she survived this encounter without being imprisoned. Aeric was counting on her intelligence of Ahland.
As she contemplated what sort of person the soldier in front of her was, something sparked in her chest. Her mind went quiet as the familiar sensation settled deeper into her heart. She had only felt this one before— the day she arrived in Nida, lost and alone after her family had been murdered. She trusted it then, so she would have to trust it now.
"How much time do you have?" she responded slowly, her smile growing with each word as the soldier in front of her grinned.
"Liv?"
She snapped her head up as she was pulled from her memory. "Hm?"
"Did the refugees settle in okay?" Aeric asked, his dark brows knit together.
"Yes," she replied, clearing her throat as she joined the two men in front of the map. "Have you mapped out our journey, then?"
Gunnar, who was focused on scribbling a few coordinates down, nodded. "I think so. We should be able to leave in the morning and make it there in three days. Hopefully, Herrick and the others can hold off Helvig long enough for us to get there."
Worry gnawed at her gut again. The Kingdom of Rivers had a strong army; Herrick would settle for nothing less than the greatest soldiers in the area, but Helvig had the numbers. The Kingdom of Flame had always been larger, and with the involuntary draft Helvig implemented a few years ago, Bryn said their numbers could be in thehundreds of thousands by now.
Her friend glanced up at her, the black veins of his scar shining in the low light and reminding her how close they had come to losing him. Anxiety that reflected her own shone in the lines of Gunnar's face.
Their friends were strong— they had Maude, who was a force of nature on her own, and Bryn, who held back her strength from watchful eyes but knew their enemies more profoundly than the rest of them.
But Liv could see the question in Gunnar's eyes just as it surfaced in her mind.
Would that be enough?
46
Bryn slid under Maude's swinging blade, the muted surface of theleifrHelaswallowing the light from the setting sun as well as the blood of the Flame Soldier that had been on her heels.
She didn't like the blade or that Maude had to be the one to wield it. Her sister's temper was infamous, but even Bryn had noticed Maude's recent odd behavior when she got too invested in the bloodshed. Before they had decided to capture the sergeant— one Bryn was not familiar with— Maude had been lost to Hela until Dahlia helped bring her back.
Herrick and the others were acting as if this was an unknown evil that was afflicting Maude, but Bryn had heard what Hildr had said when she revealed the blade.
Maude was under Hela's thrall.
That didn't mean she wasn't in control of her actions, but it was becoming evident that the goddess of Hel had her claws deeper into her sister than the others understood.
As she rose to her feet, Bryn sliced her axe upward to catch another soldier in the belly before dragging her knife across his throat and moving along to the next soldier. Herrick covered her and Maude, his sword brutal and deadly in his hand, even though he seemed out of sorts using the blade. Ahead of her, Hakon and Dahlia were just crossing the bridge that led them into Veter, the now unconscious sergeant slung over Hakon's shoulder after Bryn had dealt him a blow to the back of his head to shut him up when he was shouting for the Flame Soldiers to rescue him.
Moron, Bryn thought, the annoyance in the word not enough to convey just how irritating the sergeant was.
Though she was excited to be in this hidden kingdom— her curiosity was always something that could overwhelm her— Bryn tried to focus on the fight at hand.
Since their first collision with the soldiers, they had encountered two more groups, both smaller than the first. She and Herrick handled each skirmish quickly and efficiently. Her growing respect for the General of Rivers started to outweigh any ill favor she might have had for the man who ensnared her sister's heart. It was her job as a sibling and future General of Flame to protect Maude from anything that might have hurt her.
That's what Bryn told herself anyway. Surely, it had nothing to do with the fierce protectiveness she felt for her sister because she loved her so much and wasn't quite ready to let her go yet.
This was the third group they'd crossed paths with and would hopefully be the final one, as it was twice as large as the first encounter.
"Cross the bridge!" Hakon shouted from across the canyon that held the roaring river thirty feet below them as he dumped the sergeant onto the grass unceremoniously. "We need to destroy it!"
Fuck.
"Did I hear him right?" Bryn panted as she backed up into the small circle she, Maude, and Herrick had formed.
Even with their backs to each other, Bryn could sense how exhausted they were.
