Page 8 of A Court Bright and Broken

Suddenly there was a blinding pain in my head.

My pleasant visions of the woman were replaced with a close-up view of the muddy pathway. Instinctively reaching back to touch my scalp, I felt wetness.

When I brought my hand back around, it was covered in something red.

What was happening? Was Ibleeding?

I couldn’t seem to get up, so I rolled over. Hovering above me were the sneering faces of the four thieves.

Apparently they’d decided to move on to adifferenttarget, no doubt irritated by my interference in their plans for the young woman.

Better me than her.As I’d said, I could take them.

Once again, I tried to get up, intending to do exactly that. But before I could manage to regain my feet, the ringleader lifted a club and brought it down hard against my temple.

That must have been what he’d used to strike me with the first time.

My head throbbing and spinning, I collapsed back into the mud.

Once, years ago, I’d made the mistake of getting too close behind Malo when he was feeding. The huge horse had kicked me in the head, and I hadn’t been able to think straight for two days.

This was like that. My usual strength was gone, sapped by the head wounds.

The pain in my skull was soon compounded by blows to other parts of my body. A boot connected with my rib cage, and I heard the crack audibly as well as feeling it like a lightning strike electrifying my nerve endings.

As I folded forward in agony, another foot connected with my chin and snapped my head back, slamming it into the ground.

The strikes seemed to come from every direction at once, the four men working in tandem to stomp, kick, and club me past the point of fighting back.

At some point it occurred to me… I might never make it to my feet again.

A delirious chuckle left my lips. How fitting.

After all the shameful things I’d done in service of my father, this was the death I deserved.

Of course he’d be mortified to learn that my immortal life had ended in such an inglorious manner, at the hands ofhumans, of all things.

He’d lament that if I’d only been born with a better glamour, likehisfor instance, I wouldn't have died in the mud like one of the plentiful market rats.

Before I lost consciousness, I thought of my brother, who’d have to take the throne in my stead, and to my sister, who’d mourn me.

And then my thoughts turned to the young woman.

Has she concluded her business and left already? Or was she still here?

I hoped not because it was highly likely that once I was dispatched, which wouldn't be long now, the hoodlums would target her next.

Abruptly the beating ceased.

Am I dead?

I thought not because if I were, I wouldn't have still been in such pain.

Of course, after the things I’d done, I didn’t deserve an afterlife spent in the paradise of Alfheim. Maybethiswas what the opposite of heaven felt like—unending suffering.

But then, I still heard the sounds of the marketplace, smelled the pungent scent of discarded fish heads and entrails emanating from the back of the fishmonger’s stall.

With great effort, I lifted my eyelids, and the vision swimming before my eyes made me think Iwasin Alfheim after all.

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