Winterskin (Book One of Wrath & Winter)

Beholden to It: Part Two

She gave her life.

For me.

The guardhouse is where I'm deposited. Still shaking. Still bloodied by Hagen's blood, the vampire's, and my comrades—my shieldsiblings.

"You," Commander Giroux swaggered from side to side, though something was missing from his usually over-confident gait. A crowd hewed us into a circle inside the wide wooden chamber. Red banners hanging from the walls seemed to taunt more than pretty the place, "you are the only one that survived."

"It's her fault they were attacked!" someone squalled.

Why did she do it?

Why did she die?

"Remember what she swore to her mother?"

It shouldn't have ended like this.

A trio of shieldsiblings part the crowd and shoulder up to the commander. Black paint covered their faces in sharp dashes and curling patterns.

"Attention!" the commander called out, "Vampires have been sighted by east and westpost!" he lowered his voice, "Along with the remains of the rest of the younglings." Those eyes cut deeply into me.

Every single one of them.

Gone.

I am cold. I am cold. I am freezing.

You let them all die.

You did this.

The voices around the room seemed to converge into this black-bellied monster that screamed and snarled at me from all angles. The commander is its eyes. Its voice. Its mind.

"There was a high vampire as well!" one of the shieldsiblings reported.

"He is correct," the commander said, "Another Hunt must be called."

Fearful silence. Icy silence. Silence that doesn't know when to end.

"As for you, Katell Maeva, Coward of the Black," he flicked his eyes toward the trio. Two of the women came to other side of me. Ripped off my shield. Slipped my ax from my belt. "Your name will be expunged from the Hall of Honors but the jarl will decide your ultimate punishment." His nostrils flared, "You knew—knew what you had promised the dead. Yet you went against their wishes, choosing to become a shieldmaiden regardless. Putting countless lives in danger!" he snarled, lowering his voice to the tiniest sharpened sliver, "You will live with what you have done here, Maeva. You and the rest of your family."

***

Please excuse my tardiness! Hurricane Florence forced my family to evacuate and we're only just getting back to normal. Truth is, after a storm this devastating your normal changes. Some of us can't live in our homes anymore because they were completely underwater. Others have lost all of the possessions they've worked so hard for. A great many of us had our lives wash out into rivers that bloated out onto our doorsteps. Please consider volunteering or donating to Florence victims. Whatever you see on TV, it's ten times worse for those of us that are currently living it and may be living it for months or more.