Page 91 of A Dawn Of Blood

I watch Dryden frown.

Gritting my teeth, I lean a little closer. “It’s because, no matter what she does, it will forever be a jumpdown. Because she’s already had and lost the most powerful man alive. Because my father will never want anything to do with her ever again.”

“Again?” I hear MacArthur Junior ask. “What do you mean,again?”

I turn to look at her. “Ah, your precious Aurora never told you, did she? She somehow failed to mention that that mortal enemy of yours used to be the man she welcomed into her bed?”

There’s a moment of silence during which all they do is stare at me. “What did you just say?” the witch herself whispers as she comes to stand between me and Dryden.

I take a step back, content with the reactions I managed to elicit. It’s with a smirk that I walk around her and head straight for the Main Hall. But the moment I turn my back to her, the contentment disappears.

“Isthatwhy you hate me so much?” I hear her call out after me.

I don’t answer. I just grit my teeth, because the hole in my chest is still there, and I have no idea what to do with it.

Chapter 63

Itake my seat at the table along with the rest of the team, but I’m not exactly registering my surroundings. Everything in me is resisting the very possibility that what Cain just said is true, but I can’t help the images starting to flash before my eyes. They’re images of Baldur smiling at me after knocking me off my horse, holding a hand out for me before entering my father’s hall with me, leaning in to kiss me below the oak behind the village temple.

Then there are the even more troubling ones — images of him gritting his teeth when I told him about finding my one true love, refusing to negotiate when he waged war against me, going out of his way to hurt my mate in our final clash…

“Anna,” I hear someone call out.

Blinking in confusion, I snap back to reality, finding everyone looking at me. “Yes,” I say. Then I shake my head, frowning. “What were we talking about?”

“We were wondering why we didn’t find anything,” Nuala tells me. “Ideas?”

I force myself to put the flashbacks and my emotions aside and think. “I don’t know,” I say in a flat, hollow voice. “I’m positive it’s true, what I told you about Baldur being Egyptian, not Norse. And judging by everything we’ve learned so far, thatwassupposed to be his family’s temple.”

“How are any of you surprised by this?” de Groot demands with a sneer. “Baldur is very secretive about his past. If he was willing to go to the trouble of destroying Libraries across the world, what would erasing information from a single temple be to him?”

“Then he moved the bones as well?” Dryden asks. “Or worse, destroyed them?”

“Well, that’s whatI’ddo if I were in his shoes,” she replies. “But why don’t we ask his son? Ah yes, he’s only here to eat our food and sew dissent, isn’t he?”

I ignore the bite to her tone and shake my head, because it’s become very clear to me that of all the people here, including Cain, it’smewho knows best what Baldur would do.

“No,” I tell the group, however hesitantly, “I don’t think he’d erase his past completely. And the reason Icanbe so sure is the fact that Cain was right. I did know Baldur intimately.”

There’s a murmur around the table. Nuala senses the tension and takes over.

“Look, people,” she starts in a commanding tone, “the personal drama is not what really matters here. I just had a meeting with de Groot and Raven yesterday. Shadowcurse infections are becoming rampant. We don’t have much longer before Baldur conquers the rest of the world. I propose we start thinking about an alternative solution to stopping him, maybe even giving up on the sword.”

“No,” I protest, instantly snapping out of my own petty feelings, “wait a minute.” My mind buzzes in search of a way out. Then it hits me. “The carvings on the tombs were chiseled away, right?”

“They were,” Nuala says with a nod.

“Isn’t that something ancient Egyptians would do to people they concluded weren’t deserving of the afterlife?” I offer.

Dryden frowns. “Meaning?”

I’m suddenly flooded with excitement. “ThatwasBaldur’s family’s temple,” I insist. “But for some reason, Baldur’s family was banished from Egypt.”

Nuala lets out a laugh. “How does that help us?”

“Well,” I say with a smile, “we know where they eventually ended up, don’t we? So the next step is simple — checking the Old Norse temples again.”

“There were no bones,” Raven reminds me.

---