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“They’re souls. Don’t you get it? My mother is going mad because the gods stole her soul, and I want you to steal it back.” He dared shake his head again, and fury raged within me, fiery and agonizing beneath the cage around my heart. My molars ached as I ground my teeth together, staring at him, hating him for what he should be able to do. What he refused to do for me and my mother. “Please, Soren.”
“I can’t—”
I shoved him harder and backed away, my hands in fists, but I wouldn’t hit him. Even if it made him do what I wanted, I wouldn’t hit my friend, but I also couldn’t look at him. He had the power to at least try. I’d witnessed him take souls before, though I didn’t know it at the time, and now that I knew, it changed everything. The boy before me was half-Valkyrie. Valkyries were nothing if not guides and protectors of warriors, and my mother was a damn warrior for all that she’d endured—King Roderic’s ‘love’, being forced into the life of an executioner when the king grew weary of her and found a new vessel to obsess over, and then being chosen by the gods because she was a witch. They wanted her to do their bidding, but she was lost to madness instead. Now she was the king’s embarrassment and the only family I had left.
And Soren wouldn’t even try?
“Get out of here,” I said.
He blinked at me, his freckles burying in the wrinkles of his skin as he scrunched his nose. “What?”
I swung my arm at him, intentionally missing. “Get out of here! I never want to see you again.”
“Drak?”
“These are my bedchambers, which means this is my hallway too. Leave and never come back.”
But Soren never obeyed anyone. That wasn’t the last time I saw him.
He snuck back into the castle, stealing pieces of souls, selling them, pissing off vampires...and occasionally going on the run for months at a time until he finally obeyed his father and disappeared for good. The vampires were thirsty for his execution, and the terrifying prospect of the Blood Council's reaction to a half-Valkyrie was unknown. They beheaded witches for merely existing, and they executed anyone who dared speak the names of the gods. While I wasn’t a fan of Odin, his and the other gods’ existence was undeniable, and trying to erase them the way King Roderic tried to erase me was stupid at best.
The gods would always be there. Until I killed them.
Because if Axel wasn’t going to help my mother, and Soren wasn’t even going to try, I had to save her myself. First, I had to become a monster like the vampires to ensure the gods couldn’t get to me; then I’d be powerful enough to kill them and force them to release my mother’s mind and soul.
Had Soren stolen her soul back, things would have been simpler, but by seventeen, he had vanished so effectively that even Axel and I couldn’t find him.
Maybe he was just that good at disappearing. Or maybe someone else did it for him, but I refused to assume my friend was dead.
Lux
With Einnland’s shore closing in, we hastily explained the future I’d seen to Finan. He just as quickly agreed to sneak us off the ship. Maybe he really was willing to do anything for Stasia—except quit the Grimward.
“Executioners will demand that you prove who your captive is,” Finan said. “Or else you’ll become a vessel or a sacrifice in the stead of the captive you were supposed to bring back.
He pointed to the backs of Raven and Goat and the others as they positioned themselves where we’d all exit.
I gnawed at the inside of my cheek, willing my anxious heart to follow the ship’s calm as it eased into the thick sand.
“And you’ll miscount for us?” I asked. Though Stasia believed him, and Finan had helped me already, it was in my nature to mistrust an executioner. Too many times had I witnessed them cut off a witch’s head. Too many times had I seen a cruel glint in their eyes as they patrolled Skaldir and nearby villages, hunting for anyone who broke the former bloodshed law.
“Yes,” he confirmed, though his darkened eyes shifted behind us where the Grimward shouted for everyone to organize. They herded prisoners, witches and the others Queen Silver had banished from her realm like livestock. The inhumanity of it twisted my gut, and I had to grab onto the side of the ship to steady myself. Some witches obeyed, desperate to avoid becoming a sacrifice to the gods or a vampire’s vessel. Others went moon-white, looking as sick as the knot in my stomach and bile burning my throat. Axel stood with no captive at his side.
I grabbed Finan’s arm before he resumed his duties as an executioner. Breathless, I tilted my chin over at the man I’d come to consider a friend, my protector while Drak was gone, and the only other person in this world that Drak loved and trusted. “What about Axel? He’ll get a pass too, right?”
“I already snuck him onto the boat, didn’t I?” Finan’s eyes flashed, his mouth a tight, grim line. He flicked a frustrated glance at Stasia, who only blinked at him, her expression neither worrisome nor her usual joyful bent, but a curl of hope twitched at her lips. Fixing his eyes on me again, Finan tugged his arm from my grasp. “Stay apart,” he whispered. “I’ll do my best.” As he glanced beyond me again, his gaze landed somewhere farther, and his jaw clenched. “Follow my lead and don’t take what I’m about to do personally.” He snatched my braid. Damp as it was from the sea mist, he squeezed the saltwater out of it like a wrung rag. He seethed and yanked my head back. “You don’t get to make requests, witch scum!” His voice bellowed now, catching in the wind and carrying to the Grimward. Raven and Goat stopped snapping at captives and eyed us.
I released a squeak as Finan jerked my head further back, but I couldn’t tell if he really hurt me because I no longer felt anything. I’d gone numb with cold everywhere that Drak’s soul didn’t touch my skin. With the crystal now in my pocket, my fingertips were a vibrant, icy blue, and my limbs became heavy and useless, perpetually chilled from being damp. My skull only tingled at the roots of my hair.
Finan spoke through his teeth. “On your knees now and beg for my forgiveness.”
Stasia mirrored my scowl as she turned her head, evidently finding Finan's actions unbearable. Even if it was a ruse, she couldn’t watch.
Another wave of nausea stained my bitter tongue. I curled my salt-coated lips inward, sucking on them to rid my mouth of the sickly taste so I wouldn't vomit on Finan’s boots.
After a tense moment, Finan spat on the wooden planks between my feet. “Beg, scum!”
Everything within me recoiled, but one look at my mother told me to stop hesitating. With sunken, yellowed cheeks, her eyes remained closed, and her emaciated body was curled inward, in desperate need of getting off this ship and to a healer. Reindeer and the West Anglan man almost never took their eyes off her, and their fixation made my skin crawl.
