Queen's Shadow || Kingdom at the End of the World - Book II

[15] Lightning

The sun was reluctant to rise. Dusk clung to the land, the horizon a thin line of gold that grew no fatter as dawn aged into proper day. Swollen clouds gathered in the distance. Their bellies were white, the edges dark as smoke. The promise of some unpleasantness or another hung over Elsendorf. Its arrival was a matter of time rather than chance.

Victor grunted. The sound echoed in the silence, accompanied by the meaner thud of steel biting into wood. A halved log fell at Victor's feet. It joined a pile of cut wood as its place on the chopping block was taken by another log. The axe descended again and again, picking up speed until it swung with nothing waiting for its blade.

Victor stilled. The axe was embedded deep into the tree stump he used as a stand. Victor let go of the handle. His hands were stiff with cold and prolonged tension, his forehead wet with sweat. The wind burned his back. Victor barely felt the cold. His eyes were on the sky, leeched of all color.

There would be no work in the village today. Elsendorf would hunker down until the storm passed, not unlike a rabbit in a burrow. Victor planned the same for his household. There were tasks enough to keep all three of them busy, and well away from any danger the weather may pose.

The thought did nothing to calm Victor's blood. A familiar restlessness itched under his skin. Victor smiled without humor. He had thought age might dull his need for risk and adventure. That, or death. But a man did not change so easily and death had played uncharacteristically coy. Victor's life was, at present, as picturesque as it got – forced isolation and persecution from the highest law in the land aside.

A loud crash sent crows rising from the nearby fields in a storm of feathers and shrill shrieks.

Victor broke into a dead run. His feet beat at hard land, then stone, then wood as he burst in through the front door. The initial disturbance was no more. A different commotion was taking place inside the house; the intruder had attempted to enter through the back.

Victor followed the noise to its source. He saw Sofia first. The girl pounded on the back door. Her voice emerged as stifled screams, as awful as the crows' garbled cries. The door shook. Not from her assault, but due to something being repeatedly slammed against it from the outside.

"Sofia," Victor called.

The girl threw a wild-eyed look over her shoulder. She did not seem to recognize Victor for a moment. The fear in her eyes was incoherent. Victor was prepared to move her bodily, but she darted away before he reached her, giving way. Victor wrenched the door open.

Malik slammed into him, the boy's back colliding with Victor's chest. Victor took the cub's weight without slowing his own advance. He wrapped an arm around the boy and flung him into the house, blocking the door with his own body.

A woman with red hair and sharp teeth grinned at him from beyond the threshold. Her eyes were hollow. They pierced through flesh and muscle, seeking something far more precious.

"We have a debt to settle," the demon purred.

"I have made no deals with your kind," Victor told her.

The demon ignored his words. Her eyes slid down Victor's body. "Perhaps you could lose the axe? It is a good look on you – very masculine – but it does give a lady pause."

Victor had not been entirely aware of the axe still in his hand. He gripped it now, expression hard. Unenhanced weapons were of little use against the woman's kind. Nonetheless, Victor had no intention of facing the demon unarmed.

The woman let out a theatrical sigh. Her haughty expression did a poor job of masking the tension running through her body. Victor reevaluated the situation. Demons chose their words and mannerisms carefully, both as false as the skins they wore while threading the lands Above. They did not betray genuine passions. Victor was certain that the creature before him was unaware of her own state, or the ease with which Victor could perceive her exhaustion.