Throne of Scars Read Free Page B

suffered with us, watched us, and utterly failed Euryale as Ittisana learnt to admire Shannon. I partly wished she would feel closer to Thak, since Thak was also a shapeshifter, an inherent ability of many of the jotuns, but no, she hung on to me. Perhaps she deserved the right. There were not many live ones with Shannon, and she was faithfully stuck with us in this trap called Himingborg.
    I glanced at her and she smiled, her fangs needle sharp behind the innocent, pretty face. Her snakes were strange. They changed color. Most snakes were venomous, and one could say what each did by the color, but hers had many. Each beautiful gorgon held a man’s eye easily. Their limbs were lithe, their bodies muscular, powerful, and still feminine, and perhaps even the snakes did not bother one, after one spent so much time with the dead. I let the snakes touch me, and dreaded a bite, but none came.
    I cursed myself and looked to the mirror. I was going mad. Dead and gorgons? And on the other side, elves and men. Shit.
    “They’ll do better this time,” Ittisana murmured, “but not much, I think. They’ll not take the southern shore.”
    With such powers like Shannon’s, it was a miracle the southern part of Himingborg, the great Jewel of the North, once the capital of House Safiroon and the gate to the Freyr’s Seat, the Holy Continent, had not fallen yet.
    I didn’t want them to fall , I realized. They were alive. That’s all it took. They were natural, even if they were haughty and didn’t grant humans the rights they should. Equal rights and respect were lacking in elven hearts. Especially in the south, where they were all slaves under House Coinar and Daxamma. There Albine, our lost companion was probably making life miserable for the elves. If she lived. Gods, I could use her there.
    I sighed. I wanted the dead to succeed as well, because the Safiroons and the Bardagoons, the mighty elven nations were gathering, and Shannon, despite what she was, how she had changed, despite the terrible, unnatural allies was vastly outnumbered.
    “Are they there? The elves?” I asked, but the skeletal lords didn’t answer, as if a question pointed at them by a living thing was an affront, or it was an obviously stupid thing to ask.
    Of course, the elven army would be there . The dead didn’t easily get nervous. I was a wreck.
    Thak, the jotun, a fire giant of Muspelheim and Shannon’s friend—and hopefully mine—answered to ease my loss of face before the dead. “The elves must know they are coming. The ships are gathered in the harbor. They are not stupid, even if they act like it. They should have attacked the city already. But no, the Regent is still gathering his army to the north.”
    Ittisana smirked. “He will attack when the southern elves flood the southern part of the city. He’ll risk nothing.”
    “He’s dying,” I said softly. Shannon had given him the Rot, the wasting disease, flesh-eating spell only Shannon might heal, having been the Hand of Life before her death. “Probably trying to figure out a way to force Shannon to retract the spell.”
    “I doubt there’s anything she holds so dear now,” Thak said sadly. “It’s a tragedy, really. Almheir will come, one day, and we’ll fight him off.”
    “Hundred thousand elves?” Ittisana said softly. “Draugr or not, we’ll die .”
    I turned away from the depressing discussion. I spoke with the dead wizard. “What about that terrible maa’dark?” I asked Coodarg. “Has there been any sign of her?”
    At that, the dead finally found a worthy question to answer. Coodarg spoke, his voice like a lisping whisper. “She will hide again when the army appears.” His skull was turned my way, dark, spotted, and ugly and I shuddered at the sight of it. “But we shall be ready this time.”
    Thak waved his hand across the Straits. “That’s what this is about. Getting her killed.”
    Last time it had not been so easy. In fact, it had been a