Throne of Scars by Alaric Longward Page B

sending us all there to keep an eye on each other. And like all the dead, I have my compulsions, my hidden goals, and some you will never know about, even if you know about some.” She gave me a coy smile. “It was a good night.”
    “What did you do to me, when you pricked me?” I asked, spoiling her mood.
    “Marked you as my own,” she muttered angrily. “Don’t worry about it. Is that the tenth time I’ve said that today? You are becoming tedious, even to a patient undead.”
    I walked after her, or rather, was dragged, and spoke frantically as the door got close. “Perhaps Shannon is sending me, because she thinks she cannot trust herself. Maybe she hoped I would return the thing to the gods on my own?” I said.
    “If you try, I’ll kill you,” she said sweetly. “Go in. I have to go to the city.”
    “Which city?” I asked, fidgeting at the doorway. “And what for?”
    “The one across,” she answered. “To do what I must,” she added and a darkness enveloped her. She disappeared from sight, and I sensed rather than saw a shapeless darkness shoot across the wall.
    I turned to the doorway.
    It opened and the light of candles shone inside.
    “Enter, Ulrich, my friend, and let her feed in peace,” said a tingling voice I knew to be Shannon’s.
    Feed?
    I went in.
     

CHAPTER 5
     
    T he room was furnished, unlike much of the keep. No draugr had laid their hands there, but curiously, they had brought a tithe of their treasure to their Queen. I stopped at the doorway to stare at the scene before me. A pair of candles burned lazily on the desk. Shannon was standing in the doorway to an adjacent room, looking at an incredible sight. In that room, heaps of gold, artifacts of silver and other precious metals glittered in a huge pile that was not unlike a small house. She was humming to herself, moving gently from side to side, as she stared at the loot. It was the robbed riches of the high house of Safiroon, and it bothered me.
                  Some of it was obviously bloody.
    Apparently, none of that bothered her. Perhaps she, like the dead, coveted such treasure. It looked like that was the case.
    She kneeled down and let some treasure drop through her skeletal fingers. Coins and jewelry fell with metallic clinking sounds to the floor. She was nodding to herself as she spoke. “Enough to buy an army.”
    Army? She was thinking about hiring mercenaries. “But no army to be had, eh?” I asked. “We are stuck.”
    She picked up a ruby the size of her hand, and stared at it with a squint. “Most of it comes from Svartalfheim. It’s the place for riches, the land below.”
    “Below,” I agreed and walked to stand in the middle of the room. “I heard of Below. Svartalfheim is close to Aldheim, Ittisana said.”
    “And so,” Shannon whispered, and I saw she clutched Famine, the black dagger of Hel, “I shall do as you ask, my lady. I will hate it, I will weep in my strange dreams, since I cannot weep while awake, and I’ll do it. May they all forgive me.”
    “Shannon?” said, wondering if there was someone else there in the room. I paced across the red carpet, trying to see into the room, but saw no one.
    She got up, and turned to look at me. She nodded, as if noticing me for the first time, and put away her dagger, though reluctantly, it seemed. She glanced around her study. “How do you like it, Ulrich?”
    I looked around. It was splendidly furnished and richer than any king’s, no doubt. And yet, it was, like the rest of the north Himingborg, dead and lifeless, bereft of joyful laughter and life, save for the mice, spiders, and rats. The room would have been cozy enough, like a forgotten and dusty living room, if not for the dark spirit living in there, and I felt sorry for thinking like that. “It is nice, I suppose,” I said instead, and hoped she didn’t search my thoughts. She moved to the bed, and sat down. It was made, never used. She let her hand rest on it and she