Page 96 of Lost in the Dark
Breath caught in her throat.
Would her new strength be enough? What if she failed here, where her entire plan hinged?
One hand holding up her skirts, the other holding to the central column for guidance, and both were trembling. For all she’d hunted for food with her father, she’d never gone after anything harder than a pheasant. Certainly nothing with tusks twice the length of the largest boar, and the strength of a cave bear. He was huge, filling the arch of the stairs and ducking to get himself around each bend.
He did not make this house, he stole it,that’s what the oldest mora had said.
That’s why she’d chosen the stairs.
The one place where her small stature was an advantage.
I will not fail. I cannot. She lifted her chin and willed her hands to steady. As they followed the steps around, she gripped her skirts and swirled them, flicking her train forward so it fell beneath his feet.
“Dear husband?” she asked sweetly.
Pausing on the stairs, he glared at her over his shoulder, beard bunched and blue against his velvet doublet. He leaned toward her, mouth stretching into a cruel slash, tusks framing her face. “Don’t waste your final breaths on pleas.”
She dropped her gaze, noted he’d put his weight on the top step—and the stone covered with her train.
“What?” He grunted, a wave of hot, fetid breath washing over her. “No begging?”
She lifted her gaze. “No.”
“Hah!” Spittle dotted her cheeks. “What then?”
She held his gaze and slipped her hand into her pocket, pulling out the broken tip of Enulf’s tusk. “I was simply wondering…” Smiling sweetly, she angled herself to the right, leaning forward so the side of his tusk brushed her neck and her lips grazed his ear: “How you’ll taste.”
The hollow pits of his eyes widened. “What did you—”
She drove the broken tip of the tusk into his throat with all her might—aiming where her father had told her, the thin flesh beneath the jaw where she could see his pulse. And gods, she was close enough to see that pulse. Hot blood spurted around the tusk, poured over her hand.
He gave a muffled bellow, like the trumpet of a falling stag.
Mouth twisted with fury, he swung at her.
Using her short stature, she ducked down and yanked her skirts out from under him. Fists like foundation stones grazed her cheek. Then his arms were windmilling as he struggled for purchase.
Hurry, a voice whispered.Now.
Drawing on everything she had left, she brought herself up and slammed her shoulder into his groin.
“Argh!” His feet lost purchase on the fabric-covered steps. He fell backward, his head striking the carved top of the stairwell with a sharp crack. Then his body was tumbling to the floor below and he disappeared from sight. The cry that followed trembled through the staircase, making stones turn and dust rise.
Letting out a shaky breath, Anna gathered her skirts.
Carefully, testing each step as if the bones of the castle might betray her, she made her way to the bottom.
And there lay Rathbytten—bleeding and gasping upon her freshly polished floor. His enormous, green-skinned body bent at strange angles, the sharp point of Enulf’s tusk still embedded in his throat. His limbs flopped against the stone without any hope of gaining purchase, like a fish on the river bank. And just like that fish, his mouth gaped helplessly, gasping for air that would never come.
Satisfaction swelled her bosom.
Her lips curved.
“Now, Rathbytten,” she said, “you will know what it is like to be a toll.”
“Anna…” Hunched and bruised, Enulf shambled from the shadows of the hall.
Every movement spoke of pain. Between his injuries and their time that morning, she was surprised he’d been able to rise from his bed. His gaze darted between his brother’s broken body and her face.