Culach sat in Gerda’s favorite hard chair, thinking about his great-great-grandmother. Mina had told him the news and, at his insistence, accompanied him to Gerda’s chamber. He still wouldn’t believe she was dead until he touched her fine, silken hair and felt the coldness of her hand. Then he’d broken down and wept, to everyone’s surprise—Culach’s most of all.
Gerda could be selfish and cruel, but she was one of the few people who had showed him kindness as a child. Well, her own brand of kindness at least. She wasn’t the type to coo or cuddle, but she would tell him stories about his mother, which Eirik never did. If not for Gerda, Ygraine would be a faceless ghost.
Personally, Culach believed Victor’s claim that Gerda had murdered Halldóra. She was entirely capable of it, and he knew how much she would have loathed the thought of an alliance between Valkirin and Danai. But Victor was the only witness and he didn’t deny killing Gerda. Any chance of peace between the clans was destroyed. The holdfasts would unite against Val Moraine now. There would be no more parleys—not after the last one ended in a bloodbath.
So Culach sat in Gerda’s chair, his eyes dry if a bit puffy, listening to the swish of Mina’s skirts as she paced up and down. He might have wept for Gerda, but Mina was preoccupied with one thing: her son, Galen.
“That mortal took him, I know it,” Mina burst out.
“He might have gone willingly,” Culach said. “I bloody would have, if I were him.”
“She’s a maniac. She murdered the other girl. I saw the body. It was no fever! Who knows what she wanted with my son?” She paused, her voice full of foreboding. “You don’t think—”
“No, I don’t.” He held out a hand and she drifted over, leaning against him. “Be glad Galen got out. I’m hard-pressed to think of a worse place to be right now than the Maiden Keep.”
The surviving Dessarians, who numbered less than a dozen after Katrin carved a swathe through them on her way out, were taking turns guarding the ice tunnel. The moment the holdfasts attacked, they would use earth power to collapse it again. But they hadn’t done it yet—Mithre wouldn’t allow it. He held out some naïve hope they could still cut a deal, though Culach knew better.
“Rafel is missing too,” Mina said. “I don’t understand it. I’ve searched the keep from top to bottom. How did they escape?”
Culach sighed. “I’ve no idea. If you find out, let me know so we can go too.”
“How can you be so cavalier?” she demanded.
“I’m not,” he muttered. “Have you spoken with Victor?”
“No. Mithre told me what happened.”
Culach took the end of her braid, stroking it gently. “I passed him in one of the corridors earlier. He didn’t speak, but I know it was him.” Culach hesitated. “He didn’t smell right, Mina.”
“What do you mean?”
He wouldn’t say it to anyone but her. It sounded crazy.
“He smelled like my father, at the end. Bitter and old.”
She let out a breath. “That’s not good.”
“No,” Culach agreed. “Not good. But he’s all I’ve got. Halldóra might have seen her way to letting me go, but Runar and Stefán?” He laughed. “I’m sure they’ll devise a most unpleasant end for me.”
She touched his face. “But they can’t get in, can they?”
“Hopefully not.”
She kissed his lips. “They won’t. But I don’t want to stay in this room. You can’t see it, but there’s blood.... It’s awful, Culach.”
“I have to take Gerda and Halldóra down to the crypts,” he said. “We can’t leave them here.”
“I’ll help you.” Mina moved away from him, her footsteps receding to the far corner of the room. “I won’t pretend I liked Gerda,” she said quietly. “But I understand. She was your last living relative.” He heard her poking around. “Would you like a keepsake? Something to remember her by?”
“That would be nice. She had a spinelstone she used to show me as a child. It turns colors in the starlight. Not that I’ll ever see the stars again, but—”
“What’s this?” Mina muttered.
“What’s what?”
“I think…it has power in it, Culach. A talisman of some kind. It rolled under the cabinet.”
She came over and pressed an orb into his hands. It felt smooth, like glass. Culach turned it over and ran his fingers across faint ridges that might have been carved runes.
“A globe?” he asked.
“Yes, it has that shape. But I see clouds inside…They’re moving!”
Culach felt a sharp pang at the loss of his elemental power. He tried not to dwell on it. But if Mina hadn’t told him, he would never have suspected it was a talisman.
“Keep it if you want,” he said roughly, thrusting it back at her. “I prefer the spinelstone.”
“Of course,” she said. “But I’ll study it. Perhaps it can be of some use.”
Culach rose, suddenly weary to the bone. “Let’s get this done with. I’ll take Gerda first.”
He shuffled over to the place where Gerda lay and lifted her in his arms. She felt as light as a child.
“Are her eyes open?” he asked Mina.
“No.”
“Open them then. Valkirins face death with courage.”
Mina did as he asked. Culach was turning to the door when he heard heavy footsteps in the corridor. He knew the tread—and the scent. Iron and leather and old sweat. Mina placed a tense hand on his arm.
“What are you doing?” Victor asked.
“Laying my great-great-grandmother to rest,” Culach snapped. “You’ll not be feeding Gerda Kafsnjór to the abbadax—”
“I had no intention of it,” Victor replied evenly. “I came to see to their bodies.”
Culach bit back a cutting response. What was the point? As much as he despised Victor, it was a long way to the crypts and he didn’t relish making the trip twice. As long as he didn’t lay hands on Gerda. It might have been self-defense, but he wouldn’t let her killer touch her again.
“You can take Halldóra,” he said. “Treat her gently. She was among the best of us.”
Victor paused. Culach could hear him pacing the room.
“Did you find anything with Gerda’s body?” he asked.
“Such as?”
“A talisman. It’s shaped like a glass orb.”
Culach scratched his head. “Sorry.”
“She used it to… Oh Gods, never mind. It must have been a trick.”
“To what?” Mina asked.
“She claimed it summoned one of the legendary fire daēvas.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “Halldóra saw him too. It’s why Gerda…. Forget it. I’ll search later.”
The three of them repaired in a grim procession down to the lowest levels of the keep, and from there to the catacombs. Gerda probably had a prime spot picked out for herself, but Culach didn’t know where it was. The crypts were simple rock shelves, so he directed Mina to find an empty space and arranged Gerda on it with her arms at her sides. Her limbs had just begun to grow stiff. Soon, the bitter cold would petrify her completely and preserve her from decay.
Victor laid Halldóra out in similar fashion on the next shelf.
“Do you speak some words over the bodies?” he asked in a strangely deferential and un-Victor-like tone.
“No,” Culach said. “Normally, we would have a feast to celebrate their lives. But under the circumstances, I think I’ll just get quietly drunk.”
“I’ll join you,” Mina said, taking his hand.
They started down the tunnel. Culach expected Victor to follow, but he stayed where he was.
“I’ll come up in a while,” he said vaguely.
“Why?” Culach snapped. “What do you want with them?”
“I won’t interfere with the bodies, I swear it on my honor. I just want to think.” Victor paused. “Alone.”
Culach disliked the close feel of the tunnels and decided not to stay and argue the point. Victor had kept his word so far.
“Suit yourself,” he said. “I suppose it’s as good a place as any to meditate on your mistakes.”
Victor didn’t bother responding.
So Culach and Mina left him alone there, among the generations of Valkirin dead with their frost-rimmed eyes and white skin, and returned to Gerda’s chamber, where Mina found the spinelstone and also three bottles of terrible wine.
They toasted Gerda and her late husband Albert and, by the end of that long night, even Eirik Kafsnjór, who no one liked but was rich as sin and did know how to throw a party.