The Beast of Salt (Saga of the Gods #1)

53. Sigvid

53

SIGVID

January 12th, Year 1, 10th Era

Toftlund Jail, Salt Province

T ime agonizingly crawls, and Sigvid knows he is gradually losing his sanity.

Mali materializes outside his cell thrice daily with a twisted smile as she slams him with false yet sickeningly lifelike scenarios involving his little Queen. At first, he fought back, staring at the wall and frantically muttering reassurances that the illusion is not his Avina.

Nightmares quickly infested what little time he found to slumber. Avina’s cries of agony plague his every waking breath before haunting his unconscious. Every single fucking day is a sickening repeat of the day before!

It is a mind trick—Mali’s creation.

“Sigvid, please, save me!” Avina’s voice is as perfect as she sounds in his head.

Each time, she appears differently. Sometimes, her hair twists into a messy bun. She is furious at Sigvid or in love with Thrain in other instances. She always gives him the false hope that she is genuinely outside his cell each time.

By the end of the first week, Sigvid found himself tapping each of the bars, counting the types of fish in the sea, and exercising his muscles nearly every second to keep his mind stable.

After almost three weeks, he finishes his morning push-ups and collapses against the criss-crossed iron of his cell walls.

“Briny God, shield her from misfortune and death. I call upon you to go against our enemies.” Sigvid repeats the prayer for every day he has known Avina. On his thirty-third prayer, he hears a soft pad of feet along the stone floors outside his cell.

He does not even open his eyelids, refusing to give Mali any more attention.

“Oh, my Goddess, Sigvid! My love, it’s me. Your little Queen. Grim and I have come to rescue you.” Avina appears outside his cell in black-scale armor.

She looks beautiful.

She always looks beautiful.

“Will you give it a rest? Gods dammit.” He drags his hand over his face, unhappy the bitch ruined his prayer time.

“Sigvid,” her voice wavers. “Please, look at me.” She grips the cell bars as she has in almost every illusion.

“Begone, Mali! I have fallen for this enough.” He slams his fist against the cage wall, raining rust off the iron.

“What are you saying? What is he saying?” She flips toward Grim.

Grim is a new addition. Will Mother be next? Perhaps my hounds will come to torture me with Carrot Chubbs?

“Fucking leave me alone.” Sigvid sits, stumbling to his feet. His instant reaction to the illusions tends to rid them quicker than when he ignores them or allows himself to drown in their realness.

“No, Sigvid, it’s me. Your little one.”

This Avina is different. She looks decisive, more determined than he has seen her before, and more like the Queen who led Timber against Salt.

“Do you not think I have heard this bullshit? ‘Sigvid, it is me Avina.’ ‘Look at me, I am here for you.’” His mocking tone tastes bitter.

I would rather die than witness her raped and murdered again.

“Grim, tell him.” She folds her arm while kicking the cell door .

“Beast, it is us.” Grim appears over her shoulder. Concern riddled his usual content features.

Sigvid throws a cup at the bars, showering them with stale water. “What did I say?” He snarls. “You cannot fuck with me anymore, Thrain. Get out of here!”

“What have they done to you?” She reaches through the bars, trying to get him in the corner.

“You cannot force me to watch it again,” he mumbles.

“Touch me! Feel me! I am real!” Her pleadings are enough to force him to relent.

“I have watched my Avina raped in every horrific way imaginable. There’s nothing I can do to save her. They kill my love before my eyes.” His tone is empty, an endless void of sorrow.

“Sigvid,” she throws herself against the bars, untying the bracer on her left arm. “I have your name carved into my skin. You did that after you saved my life from the frozen lake. Remember? You held me naked to conserve body heat. Surely, this misrepresentation of me does not know all of our secrets!”

“I will not allow you to torment me anymore.” His voice cracks.

“Sigvid, I sent you a lock of my hair during the war. The Battlemaster burned it in the Arena with your clothes. You cut another curl while I slept. This one,” she removes the hair tied with ribbon and slips it through the iron bars.

He stands abruptly but does not move toward her outstretched arm. To his knowledge, Thrain does not know about the lock of hair, even if he does know she sent him gifts, which means Mali could not have known how to torment him with it.

Sigvid steps hesitantly up to the cell door. His hand shoots through the bars and wraps around her throat, forcing her to sputter. Grim hastens to her side but hesitates when she signals for him to wait.

“I see you are a real person this time.” Sigvid tilts his head to the side, enjoying the touch of warm flesh under his grasp. The fluttering of her vein is a knife twist to his gut. A reminder that his little Queen is alive and that he may never hold her again. “If you are here to help me, release me from this dark Abyss.”

She nods to Grim, who withdraws a set of keys on a ring and unlocks the door. Sigvid maintains his hold on her column, stepping with the door as it creaks out.

He moves swiftly, pinning her to the dungeon wall. He gropes her curves before tugging the bracer of her left arm until he exposes her skin. The light of the sconces dance across the scarred ‘SIGVID’ in her skin.

Tears burn in his eyes as his hands clutch her face, his thumbs caressing the apples of her cheeks.

My Avina!

He wraps her tightly and kisses her anywhere his lips can brush. He pushes her back again to examine every detail.

“Not a figment of my imagination but my living, breathing Queen!” He kisses her lips deeply. “Thrain will pay for what he has done.” He tightens his hold, inhaling the floral scent of her hair. “My love.”

“Please accept my apologies for my delay.” She fists his ragged tunic.

He touches and kisses her as if she might vanish. He will be damned if this is another illusion.

“Hey, lovebirds,” Grim interrupts. “I am delighted you are alive, Beast, but we must leave. The lack of guards is an obvious trap, and I am ready to spring it.”

As they round the corner to ascend the steps to the blessed sunlight, Mali, flanked by three soldiers bearing the nautilus shell of Salt, waits for them.

“When His Majesty, King Thrain, realized the seidr around your cell door shattered, I hoped to see the infamous Avina Bloodstone.” Mali descends the stairs with slow, measured steps. “Can you imagine the visions I can grant her, Sigvid? Infidelity, betrayal, or your death on a loop.” She smiles wide.

He catches Avina’s glances between him and Mali. Her eyes narrow, and he is sure she understands the bitch has become his newest torturer.

“Mali, dear, long time no see.” Grim positions himself between her and them. “Last I heard, you were a shriveled-up harlot living in a backwater part of Timber.”

She bristles slightly as nasty recognition flares behind her mismatched eyes. “You seek to demonize me and my ability, yet I have punished many who deserved a terrible fate!”

“Horseshit! You used your sister’s death as an excuse to torture people. Look at you now!” Grim snarls. “Evie would be ashamed of you.”

Oh shit .

“Evie, as in your Evie, Grim?” Avina gasps.

Grim nods, his shoulders tense, and his stern gaze refuses to lift from Mali. “She began using her powers to perpetuate her own gain. Hurting people, selling her ability to the likes of corrupt nobles like Thrain.” He spits.

“You know nothing of my pain, Grim! I have done what I needed to stay alive. Anything to avoid settling down with a nobody who gambles our life away. Why was it Samson’s men showed up? To rape Evie because of your debts!”

Grim snarls and leaps at her, only for two soldiers to slam him to the ground. The third angles himself to grab Avina, but Sigvid punches him in the face before he can move any further. Grim is soon dueling with his two while Sigvid spars with the other.

Sigvid knees the man between the legs and then twists his neck to the side, snapping it.

Damn, that was easy.

Avina grips an axe in each hand and, with a shriek, sinks both blades into Mali’s chest as she builds an illusion scene. It is unclear if her target was Sigvid or Grim.

Avina snarls, ripping the axes away, spraying scarlet red over herself before slamming the blades back into her flesh. Repeatedly.

Sigvid and Grim’s soldiers lay dead at their feet while Avina proceeds to hack away at Mali until her chest and face are a bloody, unrecognizable mess. Sigvid thought Ives’ fate was an act of a desperate woman. He grins, realizing his little one has more to her darkness.

“Did I get her?” Avina smears blood from her face with her arm. She looks as if she bathed in crimson.

Sigvid chuckles. “Yes, I think you got her.”

“Sorry, Grim.” Avina pats his back. “I imagine you wanted to deal the final blow.”

He shrugs. “Mali was always a bitch, and her actions were sure to claim her one way or the other. ”

Sigvid wraps an arm around Avina, and they follow Grim up the steps and emerge onto the empty street.

“Where the fuck is everyone?” Sigvid blinks against the first light he has seen in nearly three weeks.

“Lying in wait.” Grim drags him toward the gate when an arrow lands at their feet.

Surrounding the trio are no less than twenty archers along the city wall and an equal number of swords on the ground. All fighters direct their weapons at them.

“Daughter!”

Avina whips around as King Ceowald shoves through the warriors.

“You are alive.” His arms spread at his sides as he strolls toward her, his long emerald-green velvet cloak billowing in the morning breeze.

She fists at her side, and he swears her hand twitches over her axe shaft. “Do not play games with me, Father. When the Timber Army arrived, you knew whose hand penned the letter to activate them.”

Ceowald stops his pursuit toward Avina to sigh visibly. “Have you lost your senses, child? After that silly war, what possessed you to act as his sponsor in the Arena?” He gestures toward Sigvid. “To stand at his side after he captured you? Had his way with you?”

Sigvid’s shoulders roll back, and he prepares to sink his fist through this man’s face. No matter how often Ceowald questioned him in his dungeon cell, he refused to share anything about Avina.

She steels herself against Ceowald with a soured sneer. “He is my Beast, Father! Every action I have taken is of my accord! I chose to embrace the man I love.”

My Beast…

Ceowald chuckles mockingly. “You have always been lost in your mind, girl. Think of your duty, your people, for even a moment.”

“Duty? When is the last time you thought of someone other than yourself? Was it when you broke the marriage accord with King Thord and threw him off the high garden? Was it when you sought advice from Thrain when you should have respected my wishes as Queen of Timber?”

She closes the distance with her father. “You accepted Thrain’s words without validating anyone else’s. You have betrayed me, your daughter, and the good my union with Sigvid should have been years ago. You subjected me to abuse at the hands of an unhinged man and then set me up for failure again. I want nothing to do with you.”

“How dare you! I gave you everything-”

“You gave me nothing but loneliness and a dead mother.”

Ceowald’s fades into a sickening shade of purple. “This is your final chance. If you come with me now, you will live a comfortable life as a wife to King Thrain of Treland…”

Oh, so we are already using that title .

“...Should you force a war, I will hold you down myself while Thrain pumps a son into your belly. Then you will be locked away in a tower just like the rest of the Redwoods.”

Over my dead body.

“I have only one thing to say to you, Father.” She steps backward until her back bumps into Grim.

“Shield wall!” She screams so loud that Sigvid’s ears start to ring. Her grip tugs him into a crouched position, and the swords around them shift into shields, protecting them from the archers above.

“Move!” She commands.

Damn, I think I am hard right now.

The slow-moving force shifts toward the gate that bursts open with more shield-bearing Drengr. The shields lift upward, creating a tunnel for Sigvid, Grim, and Avina to run up the road, protected by Drengr on all sides.

Once Toftlund fades at their back, Slode joins them. “My brother in arms! It's good to see you alive!” Slode pats a hand on Sigvid’s back and tugs him toward Blackwood, which should now be under their control.

“What happened to you?” Slode questions. “You look haunted.”

“Thrain found some kind of mind witch to fuck with me.” He omits any more details.

Life will never be the same for him.

“Well, I am glad you are alive, my brother.” Slode embraces him in time for Kar to catch up to the group.

“That was stupid of you to allow them to capture you.” Kar scolds. “ What happened to the Sigvid who slew forty men in a pub while in berserker mode all because someone spilled his ale?”

He fell in love with something more significant than ale.

“It was necessary for Thrain to hang himself, for the people of Salt and soldiers to see his true colors.” Sigvid tightens his arm around Avina.

He allows them to pull him into Blackwood, where Healer Svanlaug waits to care for his wounds. A horn of mead and a slab of grilled meat already sit ready for him on the table in the central section of the inn.

“How long have you planned this?” He groans as he settles into one of the chairs beside his mouthwatering food.

“Since the day of your imprisonment.” She unbraids his hair. “You need a warm bath after the healer sees you.”

“Your Queen is the brains behind most of the operation.” Kar begrudges.

Sigvid smirks, not doubting that sentiment.

“I will find Bertie and alert Timber to our good news. Kar, it would be best if you told the other Drengr not involved in the rescue. They’ll want to know our prince is safe.” Slode guides the lingering Drengr out of the room.

“Happy to see you are not dead, Beast,” Grim adds before leaving Sigvid and Avina alone.

“Is that armor new?” Black is an attractive color on Avina. Add in her golden curls, and she is stunning.

She pauses, and he catches a blush on her cheeks. “My Timber generals surprised me with it. Too much?”

He tugs her into his lap. His heart calms just to be able to hold her in his arms. “You are the sexiest warrior I have ever seen.” He is about to remove her cuirass when he pauses.

“Timber generals?”

“Yes, I summoned my army. Oh, and I am in honorary control of the Drengr. They all swore a blood oath. Quite a surprise, I must admit-”

He pulls her off the chair and takes her toward the steps to the second floor.

“Sigvid? We need to have you examined.” She vainly tugs away as he nearly drags her up the stairs. “Your food is hot now. ”

“My love,” he turns to watch her confused expression, “you are going to allow me to fuck you over and over and praise your perfection until I can sleep soundly again. Do you understand me?” He doesn’t allow her to answer and slams his mouth against hers.