Page 125 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
‘Moving?’ Arden’s voice sharpened with concern from beyond the wall. ‘Why would we be moving?’
‘I think they may try to attack Velunthar.’ She swallowed. ‘I heard Eris is planning to go there. I don’t know if she means to take the witches with her or not.’
She had told Arden everything about the dreams. Every whisper overheard. Every shadowed exchange. She kept him tethered to the outside world through fragments of sleep.
‘Why wouldn’t she take the witches with her?’ Arden asked.
‘Because she’s after her mother,’ Ylva replied. ‘She may prefer to go alone.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘I could tell Hagan. If he knows what she’s planning, he’ll want to go as well.’
A beat of silence.
‘Ylva… That’s risky.’
‘I know.’ Her fingers curled against the stone. ‘But we’ll never escape from here. Not like this. We need movement. Chaos. An opportunity.’
Before Arden could argue further, light poured into the darkness as the heavy doors to the cells groaned open. A witch strode in, sharp-eyed and impatient, come to fetch her.
Ylva did not resist.
She rose calmly and followed, her steps quiet against the warm floor. They did not even chain her any longer. There was no need.
They knew she would never run.
Not while Arden remained caged below.
Ylva crossed the chamber swiftly and changed into the gown Hagan had laid across the bed, its fabric cool and foreign against her skin. She no longer protested the ritual. There was no point. He summoned her every day, and she had learnt that obedience, at least on the surface, made things simpler.
When she returned to the desk, she seated herself without being told. As always, Hagan hooked the leg of her chair with his boot and dragged her closer until their knees nearly brushed.
He slid several scrolls towards her without glancing up.
She did not mind his indifference. It was safer when he pretended she was nothing more than a tool.
Silence settled, broken only by the whisper of parchment beneath her fingers.
After a time, she spoke.
‘If the gods can be killed by the God-Killer, does that mean the God-Killer can also be killed?’
Hagan answered at once, as though he had been waiting for her to ask something of interest.
‘Of course. Nothing is eternal.’
Ylva’s eyes moved steadily across the inked lines. ‘Then how does one kill a God-Killer?’
‘No one seems to know.’
She tilted her head slightly. ‘If no one knows how, how can you be so certain it can be done?’
That made him look up.
Those purple eyes, sharp and bright as amethyst struck by flame, fixed upon her with something dangerously close to fascination. He liked when she pressed him, when she forced his mind to move. At first her questions had irritated him; he had demanded silence, insisted he required quiet to think. But timehad revealed something else.
He enjoyed it.
He enjoyedher.
And Ylva, watching the flash of intrigue in his stare, wondered whether Hagan’s greatest weakness might be his loneliness.
