My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 449

Fenris

Halvard drained his cup, his eyes flicking to the fire. "The North's not what it was." His voice was low, heavy with resentment. "We kept the South out, kept our bloodline strong. But look at us now."

I kept quiet, watching the flames lick at the logs.

"We were wild, once," Halvard continued. "Undefeated. Unconquerable." He snorted, a bitter sound. "And the North now? It's dying. Turning soft anyway."

The fire spat, embers scattering. I shifted in my chair, listening to him.

"We forbade the South's machines, kept to the old ways. And for what?"

He set the cup down. "Those packs that fell. Redhand. Thornwood. They were east of here. Northern packs, both of them. Bred the same as you were bred, carrying the same blood as you and me."

I said nothing.

"They still couldn't stop what came for them." He let that sit. "That says something."

I felt the chill down my spine.

"They've grown stronger over the centuries," Halvard said. "We've grown weaker. The gap's been closing for a long time, and now..." He drank deeply, his eyes glittering. "Now it's closed."

The fire crackled. Halvard's words hung heavy in the air, a cold weight settling into my gut. I had learned tonight what I was bred for.

And now I may never be enough to defeat the very thing I was created to fight.

That those like me might not be enough.

"Corwin is dead," I said. My cup was empty. I set it aside. "I sent Jace in to him alone. I stayed out by the fire so the sight of me wouldn't finish what was left of him."

Halvard watched me, his eyes blank. I knew that look. It meant he was thinking, and I would hear it when he was ready.

"He cut his own throat," I said. The fire crackled and spat, but Halvard did not react. I turned to face him. "He couldn't live with it. The chance of ever seeing another Lycan."

Halvard nodded slowly. "What are you trying to say?"

"Everything you have told me tonight is centuries old. Passed down. Half of it you cannot even be sure of." I set my hands on my knees. "Corwin died this week. I was half a day's ride from him when he did it. Not a century ago. This week."

"And what does that mean to you?"

"It means whatever is out there is worse than anything you have told me tonight."

Halvard raised his cup and took a long drink. He lowered it and met my eyes. "You want to go on east, I won't stop you. You can ride out to the packs there and look at what's left of them." He shrugged. "But I doubt it does anything at all."

He set the cup down. "You'd have ground to cross to get there. Bjarke Lofstrom holds the river land, from here south. Einar Hammerhand has the country east, where it climbs. And Vidar Sarn holds north of them both." He lifted a shoulder. "None of them will trouble you. Not you."

I said nothing. The names meant nothing to me and I let them go past.

Halvard's eyes held my face, not passing over it as his words did. They hunted something in my expression, probed for a flicker. I met his gaze, puzzled by the intensity, and could not grasp what he sought. At last he looked away, and left me with the unsettling sense of having been pored over.

"It won't be an easy ride," he said. "But you'd get there."

I set my cup down, my knuckles white around it. "All this," I said slowly. "You already knew."

Halvard watched me, his eyes steady. "I did."

I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. "Then why send me out to Corwin?"

Halvard set his cup down and stared into the fire for a long moment. He took a slow breath and let it out. Then he turned to face me.

"To see it for yourself," he said plainly, not looking away. "Corwin could show you what I could only tell you."

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