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The beauty sent my heart skipping, and the longer I stared, the less I breathed. Finally, I pulled back my hand and dropped the crystal back into my pocket. Stasia and Finan were arguing, but I didn’t hear their words. I blocked them out and focused on Soren, the roses, and the tragedy of his life as a ghost among monsters.

How did it feel to be the son of a Valkyrie? Axel’s son? My chest ached, and I let my eyelids seal shut, falling into deeper darkness.

As the wind swept through the tunnel, it produced a low, whimpering sound akin to an injured wolf; the gusts finding purchase against the stone and whistling at the mouth of the passage. I pushed that away and named the last sensations I had experienced.

My heart thudding in my ears.

The pain jolting beneath my ribcage.

My breath, raw and warm in my cool throat.

Fear. This connected us. The roses were a symbol of fear and then defiance against King Roderic. Fear consumed me until it was soon replaced by hatred, a fury that diminished and dissolved, mirroring the roses depicted on the right side of the mural. I pictured the angular roses behind my eyelids, reaching for understanding and for Soren’s intent.

Here, hatred and fear were at their peak. But the roses in the middle were perfect, like a real flower, so they must have been symbolic of… perfection? Love? Love for Axel, perhaps.

All at once my stomach bottomed out. My body went weightless, untouchable, and nonexistent all at the same time. I was standing in the tunnel only to fall through the stone and find myself out of my mind and into a stranger’s consciousness—no, their future, their intent, their experiences.

I shaped what was left of my lips and breath around his name, but nothing happened, only my mind forming the word. Soren. Though my foresight had strengthened, I hadn’t been a god long enough to call a half-Valkyrie to me.

Instead, I dipped into a vision. Before me, the tunnel in the vision was no different, except the walls were bare and my boots, black as midnight, matched the dark trousers tucked within them as I moved down a narrow staircase. With every step, the stairs closed in, and my chest tightened.

I fought the urge to rear back from this magic—this experience—and stayed with Soren instead. Where was he going? The grey walls could have been anywhere, but I recognized the hideous stagnation that was Mara’s Keep. He was here somewhere, and in minutes, he’d be descending deeper and deeper beneath the castle.

The staircase tightened and the steps grew smaller, with the walls touching my shoulders on either side. Though I knew this was Soren’s experience, not mine, I still wanted to claw at my throat and beg for air in the small space. I clenched my fingers to keep my hands at my sides.

I had to turn sideways and inch along the next steps because this was no longer a staircase but a tomb with steps. My pulse ramped and drawing breath into my lungs became impossible like I was beneath the surface of Drukna again.

My hand found my throat, and my other hand flew to my mouth. Salty fingers crawled in between my lips and hooked behind my teeth. Desperate for air, I pulled my mouth open more and more. I tried to pry my jaw open wider, but the movement jarred me from the vision.

“No!” I coughed, spitting my ‌fingers out as the tunnel filled in around me again. I blinked, vaguely recognizing Stasia’s voice floating at my side. All I saw were those damn roses, no stairs, and no black boots. “Soren…” I slammed my eyes shut and took control.

This was my magic, my right to see what I needed now that I’d killed Odin. I could grab this power and make it mine the way I shoved the stake into his heart. I could play god long enough to find Drak.

No, focus on Soren. Drak’s childhood friend, and perhaps his only friend other than Silver.

Soren was once a just child playing alongside a companion destined for darkness as he learned how to find souls, like the one I held now. What had become of him? If he were Drak’s friend, why didn’t he track Drak’s soul?

The tunnel faded, and I found myself far beneath where I had stood. As Soren, I was in a damp, dimly lit room, a home to rats and rusted bars, and chains. This was the dungeon—the prison of Mara’s Keep. But Soren wasn’t the one slumped against the wall, sitting nearly lifeless behind bars.

I—Soren—stared at someone locked behind bars, someone with shackles binding their feet and hands, as their dark and silver hair fell across their face. My head spun as Soren approached the cell. The dizziness amplified when he crouched and wrapped a gloved hand around the bar. I felt it beneath my palm, cold and humming with movement as Soren shook the bar.

“Wake up!”

I swallowed a cry, startled by his shouting but not yet knocked from the vision.

“Father, please,” Soren begged, his voice as frustrated as it was pained.

The prisoner lifted his head and those mossy green eyes crystalized. A gasp escaped me, and it was enough to rip me from the vision.

I turned and fell against the wall, letting my spine dig into the stone with the roses draped around me like a melting crown on my head.

Stasia grabbed my elbows and sank to the floor with me. “Are you okay?”

“It worked,” I said, speaking around the pathetic panting that forced me to my knees. “I know where he’ll be in a few minutes.” I looked up at Finan and Stasia through the wild tendrils of my escaped curls. “He’s headed to the dungeons.” An unexpected smile tilted my lips and lifted the bone-tight exhaustion weighing on my words. I pulled out the crystal, squeezing it against the soft flesh of my palm, letting it ground me in the present, and letting Drak pull me back from Odin’s magic. More to him than to Stasia, I said, “Axel’s alive.”

Drak

Fucking Axel. He scared the shit out of Lux. That asshole doesn’t die. He’s a cat, and maybe he was on his ninth life, but I was willing to believe a cat with a sword had ten lives.