Page 60 of Soothsayer

“Where’s Sören?”

He laughed, but it was an ugly, angry sound. “He’s out communing with nature. Both of them were rather upset after the frankly ridiculous stunt you just pulled. I thought you had aplan.”

“I did!” I weakly tapped my chest with my own hand and then ran my fingers up to my neck where I remembered stabbingmyself. The skin was smooth, completely healed. “I’m here, you’re here, yay, we’re alive. Hooray for plans.”

“No thanks to you trying to make yourself into the sacrifice. What the hell do you think would have happened if Sören hadn’t transferred his intent to you?”

Transferred his intent?I’d have to figure out what that meant in a second, but first things first. “I assume I’d have died.”

“Everyonehere might have died if the battle between Ólafur and the landvættir had continued. You got extremely lucky,” Jakob snapped. “Ólafur destroyed one of the vættir’s trees when the madness took him. That went directly against the contract between them and gave the vættir room to maneuver.”

He sighed. “When you killed yourself, Sören—and I’m referring to my brother here—was apparently so distressed that he took his opportunity as your second to change his allegiance. He altered the nature of his sacrifice so that instead of giving himself for the sake of our family, he made his intent solely aboutyou. Because my father had already broken the rules, the vættir allowed it.”

My blood went cold for a second. This wasnotwhat I’d been expecting. Sure, Sören had told me a few times that I wasn’t expendable, that I needed to be careful in picking my sacrifice, but I’d taken it as a caution, not a rule. I’d thought the vættir would acceptmeas a sacrifice and come share my body. I hadn’t been looking forward to it, exactly, but it had been worth it to free Sören. Instead…

“So nowI’mresponsible for keeping Sören and the vættir tied together.”

“Exactly.” Jakob smiled thinly. “Congratulations, my brother’s enslavement is now partially your responsibility. Thankfully, after the vættir managed to subdue Ólafur, I had the authority necessary to negotiate on the spot for its continued assistance with our geas. Now there aretwosacrifices.”

“Wait?you sacrificed your ownfatherto the landvættir?”

“What did you thinkmyplan was all along?” Jakob said. “Did you think I was hoping that the frankly disturbing codependency between you and Sören would somehow manifest in a boon for the rest of us? Magic doesn’t work like that. There is always a price to pay, and Ólafur was meant to be my coin. I don’t leave things like the survival of my family to chance, unlike some of us.”

“It wasn’t chance.”

Jakob scoffed. “Oh, please, spare me your—”

“It wasn’t chance.” I knew that as strongly as I knew anything. “It’s Fate. However this worked out, that’s how it was meant to work out. I can’t see my own future, but I wouldn’t be here right now if I wasn’t meant to be.”

“Forgive me if I find your argument for fatalism less than compelling.”

“Look, you think I liked killing myself?” I asked, my energy finally risen enough to give me a bit of a boost. “You think that was fun for me? I came into this figuring I was going to die, and that if things worked out, Sören and the vættir would save me. I didn’t offer up another sacrifice because I’m not anasshole,and it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Honestly, whether or not I was the sacrifice, do you think your own cards would have played out the way they did if Sören and the vættir didn’t think I was worth their time?” Now it was my turn to scoff.

“Maybe you did have your own fallback plans in place, ways of getting Ólafur out of the way, but that man craved complete control. I’m betting he’d have hung onto his power any way he possibly could have. At least one of your brothers would have probably sided with him, so you were looking at a possibly failed coup.

“Am I an asshole? Absolutely.” I completely agreed with that assessment. “Could I have figured this out better? Almostcertainly. But did I doeverythingI could to make it work, with a considerable amount of trouble from you and your goddamn family? I sure as hell did, so you can take your attitude and fucking shove it, because from where I’m sitting, things aren’t perfect, but they’re not completely shit either.” We stared at each other in complete silence for a long moment.

“Well,” Jakob said at last. “I suppose it could be worse. Although Sören is furious at you. You’re going to have a considerable amount of groveling to do. And your friend Andre is still hanging around, so I suggest you deal with him first.”

“What? I told him to run.”

“How generous of you,” Jakob drawled. “What he did instead, thanks to your little trick with the charm unlocking his handcuffs, was incapacitate one of our men, take his gun, and proceed to shoot my brother Art?r in the leg. Which?” Jakob shrugged. “?I can’t really blame him for. Art?r was tasked with his keeping and was rather impolite about it. Sören has declined to heal him, so he’s out of the picture for the moment. Rolf is looking after him.”

“Oh. Nice. And?you said your dad was accepted as a sacrifice. Is he possessed now too?” Becausethatwould be awkward.

Jakob chuckled. “No, Cillian. He’s dead. His corpse is lying at the bottom of the vættir’s lake, and long may it rest there.” Jakob got to his feet and then hauled me up as well. “I’ll send in Andre.”

He left through the gaping, splintered entrance where a door had been, and a minute later, Andre entered. He still had the pistol he’d stolen in one hand, but his face had been cleaned up some. He looked at me, shut his eyes, and sighed before he came the rest of the way in and punched me on the shoulder.

“Ow!”

“You deserve worse, you big baby.” He stared at my neck disbelievingly. “I don’t know how your guy managed to get youback, Cillian, there was?I’ve seen people die in the field, and you were way bloodier than most of them.”

“Magic.”

“Fuck your magic.”

“Hey, my magic got you released!” I pointed out.

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