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Silver must have planted the seed.

The gods would be back soon to torment and punish us, or if Silver had her way, she’d use them to torment and punish us. A shiver stole through me despite Axel’s thick coat and the crystal in my pocket keeping me warm.

I pulled my mother into my chest and rocked ‌her as I whispered for her to come back to me. “Please, Mother.”

She burned with fever after the vision had drained her body and pushed her deeper into the sickness that plagued her.

I shot a look at the Grimward gathered at the front of the ship and raised my voice. “We need a healer.”

“Reindeer has it covered,” someone grunted. “The witch is his problem. Besides, there’re no healers here with enough resources to help now.” They laughed.

Reindeer? The executioner who abandoned ship? Fuck that. Not that it mattered, the executioners were right; nobody on these ships could help my mother now. Her illness had long blown past the point of simple cures.

My mother needed a skilled healer, and I intended to find the most skilled one as soon as we hit land. I tied the blindfold over my eyes again and stuffed my ears with linen. Inching away from her, I let nothing but the ship and my clothing touch me as I focused on Soren, determined to make this power work for me and reach him now. If I found him, I found my way to the healers inside Mara’s Keep, too. Because if anyone could move through royal grounds unnoticed, apparently it was him, and we were only a day out from land, which meant we’d be at the castle soon enough to help her.

I became vaguely aware of the ship tilting, water splashing, and a shadow cast across me. Peeling the blindfold away, I frowned at the Reindeer standing over us with a captive man from West Anglor at his side. The man dripped with Drukna’s salty water, and horror tinted his eyes to a near-vibrant violet. I stared until Reindeer barked at him in a language I didn’t know. He eyed my mother and then took his seat beside her again, forcing the captive to sit with him. Odd. Was this man a healer? He had those same ears with a sharp point, and a hump stretching at the back of his shirt on either side of his spine like he smuggled a pack beneath his clothes. Perhaps something their people had adapted to for their environment.

The prisoner took her hand in his, but that was it; he offered no healing salves to rub on her chest, no vials of herbal medicine.

As Reindeer and his prisoner said nothing more and made no move to heal her, I returned to practicing the foresight.

For my mother.

Lux

After another half day of practice, I still failed to connect with Soren’s future. Disappointment sagged in my limbs, and my stomach sank with the body of a sick captive thrown overboard.

Frustrated tears pricked my eyes as I let the back of my skull rest against the edge of the ship. Sea mist dusted me with a salty kiss. “I can’t reach Soren,” I moaned, blowing the complaint out with a hot breath. Axel said nothing, only glancing over me without revealing a stitch of emotion. “I need his help, Axel. I need him to sneak us to the healers in Mara’s Keep.”

His mouth twitched with a faint frown, and then his brow creased. “I see that you want to help Laurella, my queen, but if you can’t reach him yet, we may need a more immediate answer to get her aid. The sagas spoke of even more skilled healers than those housed in the royal court. We could look into that while you continue to try to contact my son.”

I sat up. “What healers?”

“I do not know. The sagas were studied by Erik and understood by Ingrid. Drak read them as well, but nobody spent as much time among them as Silver. She had nothing else to do.”

I dropped back down and sighed. “My sister will never help heal our mother. Do you know anything about these other healers?”

He smiled grimly. “They’re inhuman, not natural. Something akin to the craft of magic.”

“Witches,” I said, confident these healers were no one else. “There were many great healers in Skaldir.”

“Yes, it may have been referring to witches, though Ingrid never called them that.”

Salty water flecked across my face as the ship dipped to the right. If only Ingrid were here to ask. Why had Silver protected our mother, but not another powerful witch? I blinked at Axel. “What did she call them?”

“Nothing other than healers. I’m sorry, my queen.” His face matched the apology: stricken, sorrowful, and as frustrated as I felt. Rarely did Axel allow others to witness his emotions, but all this time spent beside him with nothing to do but listen to the waves and wait for land, I’d grown comfortable with his unique behaviors. The emotions wiped away as quickly as they came, and his eyes brightened. “I can tell you more about Odin and Mjolnir, and it will be beneficial for you or Drak—whoever returns to that throne. Though I suspect you already know all about Mjolnir thanks to your mother’s worship of the gods.”

I licked my lips, glancing at Laurella, whose skin faded to a muddy grey. “Tell me.”

“Shall I start with Mjolnir, the hammer, or the throne?”

I remembered plenty about Thor’s hammer. “The throne. Is it magic?”

“As we understand it. Mjolnir represents change,” he said. I nodded, knowing this already. Thor’s hammer was supposed to usher in new seasons as well as other changes. “The throne accepts those who can handle the magic as they sit upon it, and the magic determines this resilience a change in reign.” It wasn’t lost on me that the change of season also brought rain. The sagas were often poetic in that way. The lyricism and beauty of our history and beliefs were half of what I’d fallen in love with when my mother told me the ancient stories.

“Can you tell me anything I haven’t heard about Odin?”

“Let’s start with the prophecy of his death. He can only die at Ragnarok, the World’s End, when Loki’s son, Fenrir, eats him.” I knew this all too well, but after this bit about healers and so much more that Ingrid and Erik knew from the sagas, and Silver too, I couldn’t help wondering what else I wasn’t aware of. I’d prided myself on my knowledge of the ancients, of prophecies, of the gods, and yet, it took me too long to even see the gods’ true nature. What else was I missing? What did my sister learn from the sagas that I didn’t? Even Drak knew about stories I hadn’t—killing gods and absorbing their powers, and taking on their roles. It was only thanks to him that I even knew of it and then accomplished it. Odin wasn’t supposed to die until Ragnarok.