Chained by Hades, the Underworld King novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Winter Rite
At noon on the frozen lake before both courts, with the knife at her throat, Ingrith names every person who sold her, and black cracks run from the standing stones.
They locked her in a room with no hearth.
Ingrith did not sleep.
She sat on the stone floor with her back against the wall and turned the black coin over in her fingers.
It was warm now, though the room was not.
At dawn two women in white fur came and stripped her.
They scrubbed her with snow until her skin burned red.
They dressed her in a thin white shift with no sleeves and bound her hair with a band of ice-blue silk.
"Where are my boots?" she asked.
"Brides go barefoot," one of the women said.
"Why?"
"So the lake knows you came honestly."
They walked her out onto the ice with her feet bleeding.
The frozen lake lay wide and flat under a hard white sky.
Two courts stood on its shore.
On the north side were the Frostland lords in their furs, a hundred of them, silent as pines.
On the south side stood the household of Skarnholt.
She saw Sigrun in a gray cloak, standing close to her father.
She saw Leif beside them in his steward's coat, his chin lifted.
She saw her father weeping into his sleeve.
In the middle of the lake rose a flat black altar.
Beside it stood Hrodmar with a long curved knife.
A priest in white began to chant in a language Ingrith did not know.
Two guards took her arms and walked her to the altar.
They pushed her to her knees on the black stone.
The cold went through the shift and straight into her bones.
Hrodmar stepped behind her.
He gathered her hair in one fist and pulled her head back.
The knife touched her throat, light as a feather.
"Say your last word, little bride," he said, loud enough for both courts. "The lake likes to hear it."
She looked at the sky.
Then she looked at the shore.
"I have a lot of last words," Ingrith said.
Her voice carried over the ice.
"First, to my father, Lord Aldric Halvane."
The chanting stopped.
"You signed my name to save your wife, and you didn't even ask me. You stood at her bed and told me I was honored."
Aldric covered his face.
"Second, to my stepmother."
Sigrun's mouth tightened.
"You told Lord Hrodmar which daughter to take. You smiled while you did it. You have smiled at every funeral in my house."
A murmur ran through the Skarnholt household.
"Third."
Ingrith found Leif's face on the shore and held it.
"My fiance. Leif Brandvik. You sold me for a steward's chain, and you ate my mother's bread the week you did it."
Someone near the front hissed in disgust.
Leif went white.
"That's enough," Hrodmar growled, and pressed the knife.
A thin hot line opened under her jaw.
Ingrith did not stop.
"Last of all, to the lord of the Frostlands."
She twisted against his fist.
"You put the frost on my mother. I felt it the moment you touched me. It is in your ring."
For one breath the whole lake was silent.
Hrodmar's hand tightened on her hair.
"Quiet," he hissed.
"I will not be quiet. Every lord here should hear what the Rite really buys."
The Frostland lords looked at each other.
Some of them stepped back.
Hrodmar lifted the knife.
"Enough of this," he said. "Let the lake drink."
He raised the blade high above her throat.
And the ice cracked.
It was a single sound, like a giant bone breaking.
A black line shot across the surface from the far shore.
It ran past the Frostland lords and past the guards.
It ran straight to the altar and split the stone.
Hrodmar stumbled.
The black line spread into a web, and from every crack came a cold wind that smelled of old iron.
The torches along the shore went out one by one.
The household of Skarnholt screamed.
Ingrith's hand closed around the coin in her fist.
It was burning hot.
The ice opened in front of the altar.
A man rose out of the fissure.
He was tall, in a coat of black wool, with black hair that stirred in the wind.
The scar on his ribs showed through a torn shirt.
His shoulder was whole.
He stepped onto the ice without a sound, and the water at his feet froze solid.
His pale eyes found Ingrith, and the gold ring in them blazed.
Then he looked at the knife at her throat.
His voice was low, almost soft.
"Who put a blade near what is mine?"
← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend