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What could she possibly have done? All I’d gathered from her words was that she left Axel behind, but Axel could defend himself. Lux had nothing to worry about with him. The bastard grew older and slower, but nobody matched his skills as a swordsman. He’d outsmart them every time, and thank fuck for that because Axel’s cunning was the only reason I lived into adulthood.

The only reason I survived long enough to find Lux. He stepped in when King Roderic…

Lux’s voice echoed in the ether, filling the grey space with color and drawing my consciousness from the memory. The color of fire bloomed around me with a hint of burnt red, like her hair. As black as her witch's eyes, the void of color bled through the grey. The soul is unpredictable and odd, both delicate and resilient, only broken by vampirism or Myrah's strength when she first lost me.

“Show me if this is the right way,” Lux said.

Goddamn, I wanted to feel her. I knew she held the pieces of my soul in her hands, but I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel her fingers, or her skin on mine. As delicious as it was to guide her in that dream, bringing her pleasure just from my instruction alone, the tease of not being with her almost broke me. I was nothing but grey frustration.

What do you need, Lux?

Pressing my knowing toward the echo of her voice prodded her to speak again.

“Is the last shard at Mara’s Keep?” she asked.

I didn’t know whether to withdraw or confirm her suspicions, because I had no idea where it was. The most important part of my existence as a Draugr? Fuck if I knew. Overthrowing King Roderic was my only motivation for becoming a vampire; I wanted him to pay for the harm he caused my mother and the harm he almost caused me. My best guess was the moment Lux and I consummated our marriage, when my memories as Rune started seeping back in thanks to our eternal bond—that fate that pulled us together across lifetimes.

It had to be that.

But I didn’t know. I didn’t have proof that this was where she’d find the shard, so I kept my consciousness in place, neither encouraging it toward the physical manifestation of my soul, nor withdrawing so that it sent her away.

The castle was a sensible guess, but reaching it involved danger. Marching into Mara’s Keep for that damn piece of my stupid soul was a torture sentence for the only thing in existence that I cared about. I would not send Lux there unless I was absolutely sure it was worth the risk.

And since I couldn’t tell her where to go, I used this suspended, disoriented moment to reflect on my time as a vampire so that I didn’t explode with the frustration of uselessness. I thought of all the kills, the blood servants I bled dry, and I winced at each memory of my time on that throne.

I lost track of time in reflection. Eventually, my mind grew weary of the blood and gore and drifted back to my childhood, to the day I turned twelve years old. Lost and helpless, I couldn’t stop my thoughts from centering on the moment I decided I wanted nothing more than to turn into a monster.

The moment the king tried to kill me.

I couldn’t resist the pull of my consciousness as it yanked me into the painful memory. When Lux wasn’t speaking, I had nothing to anchor myself. Nothing to hold myself to her.

Damnit. The memory transported me back to a time when I felt utterly powerless, also full of blood and gore...

I woke in the dead of night to the rough, cool touch of thin blankets only to discover my mother was gone. She likely left while I slept, as she often did, off serving the king in ways I didn’t understand, or didn’t want to understand.

A violent shiver shuddered through me. Our shared bedchambers were frigid because the air was always icier and the draft stronger in this room than anywhere else in Mara’s Keep. Last night, when the howling wind woke me, I curled beneath the ragged blanket and cried myself back to sleep, but today I’d survived my twelfth year of life, and Mother said that made me a man. So I didn’t cry for her, or for the painful nip of the crystalline air.

I didn’t even cry for my father.

After missing the day I turned eleven, he promised to come and celebrate tonight for my twelfth year. He swore he’d sneak into the castle with a tart from the village market. I’d only tasted one once, before King Roderic claimed my mother as his righthand vessel—or wife, as he portrayed to his kingdom.

I swallowed through my tight throat, everything raw because of the draft that came through the fireplace. Beyond the hearth stretched a narrow, yawning hall that bored deep through the back of the castle. It wasn’t until the first time my father visited us that I understood why my mother had chosen this awful room. This hidden hall, disguised by a fireplace, was the perfect entryway for my father to sneak in and see his family.

Gods, I missed him.

I twisted the dirty blanket wrapping around my thin legs as I fingered the notches in the wall. Every day that passed since I last saw him, I’d use the sharp pebble I kept under my pillow to carve a line into the wall.

The stone wall burned like ice under my finger as I counted all forty-nine lines. Forty-nine days since my father dared to creep into the forgotten hallway and emerge in our bedchambers. I frowned; if Mother didn’t sing so well, King Roderic wouldn’t have chosen her and we never would have come here. I hated her singing now; it went from ethereal and comforting when she’d sing me to sleep during our time living as peasants, to the sound of fingernails dragged along a stone wall now that she only sang for the king.

The day we stepped into Mara’s Keep for King Roderic to assess my mother was the last day I’d really lived. Since then, my existence was all grey walls, cold stone, and our family torn apart.

I pulled off the blanket and placed my bare feet on the floor. Each step sent a shiver through me, but I crept to the fireplace and peered into the darkness.

“Where are you?” My voice sounded thin, not at all like the robust voice of a twelve-year-old man.

I stacked my spine and crossed through the fireplace. Though we rarely had the wood to light it, the hearth was a mess of ashes and black soot. It still stank of burnt wood, but the further I pressed into the open maw of Mara’s abandoned tunnel, the less I smelled it.

“Father?” I called. No one answered but the echo of my voice. The sound of it curling and pulsing around me caused me to shiver again. “You’re a man, Drakkar. Stand the fuck up and stop shaking.”