Page 57 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Ylva gasped as control flooded back into her limbs, kneestrembling beneath the sudden weight of herself. The memory of that helplessness lingered, cold and crawling beneath her skin. To lose command of one’s own body was a violation she would never forget, and never forgive.
The warlock did not even grant her the courtesy of a glance this time. His voice drifted back to her, idle and bored.
‘Undress.’
Ylva swallowed the surge of fury clawing up her throat and forced it down, locking it behind her ribs where it could not betray her.
‘No.’
‘Very well,’ the warlock replied calmly. ‘Then you will remain standing there until I grow tired of you.’
Ylva clenched her hands, aching for the familiar weight of her sword, and wondered when they had stripped it from her—where it now lay, discarded or claimed. Her bow and arrows, too, were gone, and the absence of them felt like the loss of limbs. Yet it was not her weapons her thoughts returned to most.
It was Freya.
She had tried not to think of the valkyrian since they had been torn apart, not least because the memory of Freya’s strange, unsettling power lingered like an unanswered riddle. Could Freya also have something to do with the gods? Still, Ylva hoped that she was safe. That she had found her way back to their people. That she was gathering help, sharpening steel and resolve alike.
Ylva straightened her spine and lifted her chin.
If she was to stand, then she would stand unbroken.
‘Yourfriendkilled my horse,’ Ylva said suddenly. ‘As well as two Fae and a giant wolf.’
The warlock went still, as though her words had struck himharder than any blade. Clearly, he had not expected her to speak at all. He had told her to stand, never to be silent.
‘She is not my friend,’ he replied at last, one dark brow lifting as he glanced up at her from his desk. ‘That was a witch named Theodora who surrendered her body to a god. A goddess named Eris. And if I were you, I would tread carefully around her, unless you have a fondness for losing your head.’
Ylva’s breath caught.
A goddess.
She had not been taken by a mere witch, nor even by a warlock’s pawn, but by a god wearing mortal flesh. And not just any god. Eris.
In her rebirth, Ylva had learnt the names of the divine, their domains etched into memory like warnings carved in stone. Eris was infamous among them all: the goddess of chaos and ruin, of fractured worlds and delighted cruelty.
She did not merely bring pain.
She revelled in it.
‘Are you not afraid of her?’ Ylva asked.
The warlock fixed her with a stare, plainly unsettled that she still possessed the audacity to speak at all. ‘Did I not tell you to be silent?’
‘No,’ Ylva replied evenly. ‘You told me to remain standing until you grew bored of me. You said nothing about keeping quiet.’
He opened his mouth, clearly prepared to retort, then thought better of it, snapping it shut with a click of teeth.
‘Continue speaking,’ he said at last, his voice cold and deliberate, ‘and I will put a leash on you.’
‘You can try,’ Ylva whispered, the words pitched low enough that they should not have carried.
Butthey did.
She saw the faint curl of his lips, the flash of something dark and pleased passing through his eyes. As though he had heard every syllable. As though her defiance, her refusal to bend, was not an irritationat all, but a quiet delight.
I have discovered magic that should not be used. I found it in a book, in one of the old libraries in Velmoria. I have no idea who wrote this. But the magic it contains… It could change everything. It is forbidden, of course. For it is grave. I am to become a healer. I will not bloody my hands with such magic.
But the things I could do with this…
