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I twisted, focusing on the path where dark red spots stained the stone and dirt. I tore my eyes away from the village and looked ahead.

Our final task was to follow the trees as we went up the hill adjacent to the castle. There, we’d sneak into the old tunnels the vampires built centuries ago. We clung to the hope that they remained as forsaken and overlooked as they were when I arrived at Mara’s Keep.

The tunnels weren’t considered a weakness to the fortress because who dared approach the castle when it was surrounded by executioners?

We did.

Stupid and reckless and desperate, we emerged from the trees with our sights set on the tunnel, but it was something else that caught my attention—smeared black across the castle. Jagged black lines streamed down the side of Mara’s Keep like a poison spreading through the castle’s veins. It snaked down from the windows high above, with streaks dripping from the towers.

The castle was no longer just a mass of grey stone against a slate sky; it was haunting, like a monster’s long, thin claws were clutching the building from above.

This couldn’t be the hand of the gods. I refused to believe they had reached back into our realm this easily already. The black was something else, something alive and moving.

“What is it?” Stasia breathed.

Finan’s throat bobbed, and he opened his mouth, but before he spoke, I understood. Either my foresight as Odin allowed me to anticipate his words, or my mind had finally become clear enough to grasp what I was looking at.

“Blood,” I said. Stasia drew a sharp breath. “Vampire blood.” I swallowed, trying to rid my tongue of the bitter taste of the word.

“That’s good, right?” she said. “The vampires are killing each other? Easy for us.”

I exchanged a look with Finan. “Those heads,” I said, “they belonged to the vampires loyal to Drak, didn’t they?”

He didn’t have to respond. Why their blood stained the outside walls, I didn’t want to know, but it’d be permanently black. My sister forever marred Mara’s Keep, so that it was no longer just an ugly maze of halls and rock, but a mass grave. Thick lines of blood oozed slowly, never entirely drying at the thickest spots.

Vampire blood never behaved the same as human’s. Instead, the substance existed endlessly unless the vampire was properly staked, always wet, forever undead when it didn’t turn to ash. Which meant Silver didn’t destroy the vampires…she did something else to them. I didn’t want to imagine what her powers as their maker could do. Hel, when I had the power to create vampires as Myrah, I used it without a second thought to get to Rune. Silver didn’t have a lover to do this for, but the pull of power was enough to use it again and again, to make vampires, grow in power, and maybe even siphon their immortality if she wanted to live longer.

Centuries of Silver as queen…I shuddered.

The black streaks elongated inch by inch, and like a trick of the eye, it gave the illusion that Mara’s Keep stretched taller and taller as it dripped. The castle loomed over us, bleeding with Silver’s rage.

If she’d killed or sent away everyone loyal to Drak, would Soren have survived? Axel claimed Soren excelled at both lurking in darkness and escaping vampires.

I slipped my hand into my pocket and ran the soft pad of my thumb against the inconsistent edges. Drak was likely beyond my reach now, maybe having been dead for too long. I didn’t know, but whatever the reason, he wasn’t leading me to the last piece of his soul.

“Now you must lead us,” Finan said. “Where are we going?”

I frowned. The throne room where Drak killed King Roderic? Or the moment he chose to become a vampire? Maybe when his mother was chosen by the gods as a huntress? Or the dungeon where Silver shattered his soul?

“I don’t know,” I whispered. Finan cursed under his breath. I shot him a glare at the same time as Stasia. He only crossed his arms and stared ahead, a grimace visible under his mask. “I told you, I have to rest before I can find him.”

“Then in we go,” he said, stepping forward into the pale light of a white moon. “You can rest in the dungeon’s tunnels.”

Lux

“Now, we run,” Finan said.

I used to love running, but after three days and nights of hiking from Einnland’s shore to the castle and dragging my limbs up the mountain, I didn’t have the breath.

Finan pointed at the Grimward in the distance. Several men and women covered with clay predators’ faces led the way. They approached Mara’s Keep, parading their prisoners like a sea of spoils behind them—as if human lives were an object to be paraded.

“As soon as the front row of Grimward are beyond our sight at the front of the castle, we go⁠—”

“I can’t,” I said, barely able to push the words out. My heart danced its way to a premature death, each beat harsh, too fast, and yet too slow. It stopped and then stuttered again at triple speed.

“Time for Pup with a pack,” Stasia said, eyeing the Wolf. He didn’t meet her gaze when he sighed.

“What does that mean?” I asked.