Glaeverssun spun about, thrusting forward. The black blade penetrated the chest of Queen Favner as if she were a thing of air and not one of flesh and bone. Her terrible scream filled the chamber, and despite the gloom, he could make out her face: the look of disbelief, eyes widening in horror as she stared first at the weapon she was impaled upon, and then at the ugly darkness that was quickly spreading outwards across her white cotton nightgown, like some night flower opening its inky petals.

‘Cold,’ was all she managed to say as she reached out for him, pulling him into a terrible embrace, as if she were set on stealing his warmth to make it her own.

It was this bloody scene that greeted the guards, alerted by the dreadful scream, when they burst in through the door of the royal chamber.

‘The queen!’ the first man roared, hurrying across to the pair and drawing his own sword. ‘He has murdered the queen!’

‘No! It was the sword. It made me think—’

Glaeverssun spun around, the bloodied weapon held out before him.

Faced with a blood-soaked murderer brandishing a blade, the captain reacted in the way any soldier would. Metal met metal, and the murderer’s explanation died on his lips as the captain buried his own weapon in his queen’s killer.

Glaeverssun sank to his knees. The guards paid him no attention now, intent as they were on saving their queen. He could hear their cries for help as if from a long distance away, his hearing deserting him. His vision too was fading. A dark fog moved in, slowly obscuring everything.

As his life ebbed away, he remembered where he’d heard those whispered words before. The Gudbrandr boy had spoken them in the square, moments before he had bested the mercenary.

Kurum-na murt.

That’s what the boy had told Oknhammer.

‘Death is coming.’

Astrid nudged Lann awake as a soldier came into the jail, heading for their cells.

The man looked weary, with dark shadows beneath his eyes, but it was the knife he drew from his belt as he approached them that held their full attention.

‘What? No wedding for us?’ Astrid angrily asked him. ‘I thought we were to be the queen’s guests?’

‘There is to be no wedding today.’

‘No? What then?’ she spat. ‘Our execution?’

The man frowned, and looked down at the knife. ‘I have been sent here to free you, not harm you,’ he said, beginning to unlock the cages. ‘This is to cut your bonds.’

‘Who ordered this?’ asked Astrid, still eyeing the man with distrust. ‘I can’t believe Glaeverssun would willingly let us—’

‘Glaeverssun is dead,’ Lann said, raising himself to his feet and wincing as the blood flowed back into his legs. He offered his hands, allowing the man to sever his ties. ‘Isn’t he?’

The soldier gave him an odd look, but nodded his answer.