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“Not just that,” she whispered now, eyeing those who might overhear our traitorous plans. Not that the captives cared what happened to the queen who’d use them as slaves and sacrifices, but in case the wind carried our voices to the Goat, and Raven, and others behind animal masks. Stasia tucked a curl behind her ear. “These explorations will continue and expand as she makes more vampires and intends to feed them. What was truly troubling was her aim to make others endure pain for as long as she did. I wish I could understand why you don’t want the throne. I’ve been obsessed with taking it since Finan became an executioner.”

A strange, joyless laugh escaped me. “I wish I could give it to you.”

“I’d take it if I could, but Vylheim doesn’t see a cook as their queen.” Her pink lips tilted into a sweet smile that failed to hide the ferocity in her eyes. “You and Drakkar are our sovereign rulers.”

I don’t want this. I never did, and neither did Drak. His goals were never to sit on that throne for the rest of his existence; he only wanted control to play out his revenge. The truth slipped out of him when he lay beneath Odin’s stake, ready ‌and willing to die, and at the moment before his death, he’d told me he wished we’d never left Old Skaldir. That was our home, building ships and collecting stories of our people for the sagas. That was us.

I blinked up at Axel and Stasia, my gaze drifting between them. Stasia returned it with a hopeful smile, but Axel was as expressionless as ever, with only a hint of concern creasing the forehead beneath his flopped hair. “Did Drak tell you he never intended to be king forever?” I asked. Axel’s eyes dropped to the crystal in my hands. “What if I bring him back and force him into a life he didn’t want?”

A resolute smile flicked across Axel’s face. “Drakkar will do whatever it takes to provide a stable and safe life for you, Lux.” Gratefully, he didn’t call me his queen or Drak king, and I knew it was intentional. “And he’ll agree that will require dethroning Silver.”

I nodded.

My stomach twisted as the crystal flared again, hot as a flame this time. Peeling it away from my torso, I stared at the white heat radiating from within.

What was he trying to tell me?

“You should know…” I drew a sharp breath, my body still chilled from my wet braid and the flyaway hairs clinging to my face and neck. “I’m doing everything I can ‌to bring him back as fast as possible, but I don’t know how to find the next shard of his soul.” What made the most sense based on Brynhild’s journal was that Drak’s most treasured memory was at Mara’s Keep because he’d spent almost all of his human life there, and the entry specified that the memory came from the Draugr’s life before they turned into a vampire. The shard was there somewhere. Though I couldn’t claim to guess at what his most important memory was, and the only line that specifically mentioned the soul was the restoration of the mind shard, which was in Drak’s life as Rune. The first shard didn’t specify soul and came from his most recent human self as Drak, so my best guess was that this was a memory from his time as Drak, too, unlike the second shard. “I believe it might be at Mara’s Keep, but I wouldn’t know where.”

Axel forced out a sigh, revealing a hint of the distress he usually refused to show. “I believe I have someone who can help with both finding a soul and determining the best way to move about Mara’s Keep in the shadows. We just have to find him.”

“Who?” I asked.

“My son.”

My heart skipped. Drak had briefly mentioned Axel’s missing relative, but I had no idea it was his son. “He can help?” I echoed his words as if I couldn’t process them. What would Axel’s son know about this power? Had he studied Brynhild’s journal?

He nodded only once, curtly, and with a grim smile plastered to his face. “He is uniquely…gifted with souls. He has a way of tracking them, especially once they’ve broken and become lost from the vampire. This can speed up Drakkar’s restoration. Finding him shouldn’t be too tricky since I had a lead on Soren that he’d returned to Mara before Silver sent us to sea. Lux, with Odin’s foresight, I believe you will be able to locate him quickly. If you’re willing, I can help you hone this foresight during the rest of our days on this ship.”

My lips parted, leaving my mouth hanging open like a child who’d just witnessed a simple magic trick. “I had no idea about your son, Axel.”

“As you shouldn’t have. I kept Soren a secret for his own safety for a long time. His disappearance was his survival, but when Drakkar returns, Soren can be free again.”

Stasia clapped her hands together and beamed. “That settles it. We train your foresight, find Soren, get Drak back, and Drak takes his throne, and then I become Drak’s advisor and tell him exactly how I’d run this kingdom, so that everyone has food and freedom. As simple as meat pie,” she said. “I mean, the recipe is actually complicated, and getting the shape of the crust to fluff instead of fall flat can be tricky—Hel I’d kill for meat pie right now. I’m sick of fish.”

I stifled an unexpected and inappropriate giggle. Perhaps Soren had a gift for souls, but Stasia had a gift for making me smile even during the darkest hours. With this plan agreed upon, we fell quiet again as exhaustion took its toll.

Night shrouded us, and with the clouds blocking the moon’s glow, Drak’s soul was the brightest source of light. I shot a look at the Grimward, still feeling the prickle of their watchful eyes before burying it beneath the dry cloak.

Without the crystal, the inky blackness of night consumed us, and the only sound was the unsettling creak of the ship.

Lux

After a full day and night of practicing my foresight, and determining that the Grimward took no interest in our odd behaviors other than to call us stupid and insane, Axel created a lesson plan for me. Quieting my mind was ineffective against the persistent thoughts of failure and fear. Though Drak helped calm me through the warmth in the crystal, my frayed nerves never completely healed.

So Axel dug deeper, relying on what he understood about Odin and how he’d gained wisdom to build my ability. He said that because Odin sacrificed an eye for his foresight and knowledge, learning to hone this foresight required the loss of sensation. As Axel secured the blindfold, a glimpse of the next two seconds flickered before my eyes.

Blinding myself on a ship full of people who had threatened and attacked me set my nerves on fire, but if Stasia trusted Finan to keep us safe from the Grimward, I decided I would too. For now. And Axel was enough guard to protect me if Finan failed us.

When I finally stuffed linens into my ears and blocked my sight, I stretched the ability by hours, though the next few hours only showed more of the sea, and the foresight didn’t seem to reveal everything about the future, only glimpses, like the visions Freya used to grant me. Axel deduced that these fragmented glimpses were because we had no way to eliminate all sensations. With the ship swaying and gliding over the waves, the constant rhythm of the sea and the brisk sea wind brushing against me distracted my focus.

As the world tilted to the right, I gripped the smooth wood at the edge. Axel’s careful grip on my elbow steadied me against the ship’s gentle, repetitive rocking that echoed around us, grounding me in the now and making it tougher to push into what lay ahead.

Still, I was grateful the waters weren’t worse. Witches muttered that Drukna allowed us a safer passage since the last storm because like a cruel god, they said The Drowning was satisfied with the sacrifices of the sick—those who passed on from an ailment or injury acquired during the battle at West Anglor’s shores. When they tossed the sick overboard and saltwater swallowed their bodies, the water immediately calmed.

My mother would be thrown over next if her steady breathing slowed to a stop. Our only advantage was that her role as a powerful witch and seer made her less likely for the Grimward to cast her out at the first sign of illness. Anyone useful, or anyone considered precious to the gods, as explained by Silver, had a better chance of survival. For that, I clung to a twisted sense of gratitude.

I huffed and tried to focus on the instructions Axel gave as he handed me the blindfold. “Try seeing beyond yourself and into the future of someone you’re close with.”