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While they fought, I rolled to my feet only to be grabbed by another pair of hands. I spun around with my dagger in one hand and the crystal in the other, ready to slam one of them against my attacker’s face, but I stopped myself as soon as I saw her.

Stasia’s blond curls blew around her face, though it appeared she’d tried to tie them back with a string. “Come with me,” she said, her voice breathless. “Back to the ships.”

“What?” We’d be executed if we returned empty-handed. Though Stasia wasn’t a witch, she was known as one who’d conspired with witches before. Plus, it was no secret she’d plotted to steal the throne for years now, before Silver even took it from Drak. “We can’t⁠—”

She shook her head. “Finan will help us.” The man she’d followed here, a wolf-masked executioner who’d been forced into the role years ago, was apparently our ticket to survival based on the hope that brightened her oversized jade eyes. “He’ll give us a pass. He says they’ll capture enough people that they’ll easily lose count. He’ll lie for us, but we have to go right now before more of the Masked return.” She used the derogatory name for the executioners, even though Finan was one of them.

I let her tug me a few steps through the sand as I glanced from the ship she pointed at with Finan standing guard in his wolf’s mask, to the burning shard, to Axel, who’d knocked out Serpent only to be locked into a fight against two Anglan men.

The enemy finally fought back, flooding the sand in their desperation to defend their kingdom before we kidnapped more of their people.

Drak’s soul glinted brighter, demanding my attention. I halted at the foot of a dead Anglan woman.

“Lux, come on!” Stasia nearly pulled my arm out of its socket.

I resisted. “You go. Go!”

“This is the only chance⁠—”

“I know, but Drak is here.” My gaze flicked to the shard, and hers followed. Recognition dawned with the softening of her face. “I mean, a piece of him.” And one of his favorite people. I snapped my attention to Axel, who was putting up a good fight, but holding his own against two men would eventually wear him down if someone didn’t intervene. Giving Stasia a grateful yet grim smile, I wriggled free from her grasp. “Let me go.”

Hurt haunted her beautiful eyes, but she said nothing as she turned and ran.

Before the second man slashed the tip of his sword across Axel’s tunic, I charged at him, my dagger ready. Too focused on their opponent, they didn’t see me coming, and I had an opening to strike at his ear. My blade left him bloody and falling back. Axel smashed the hilt of his sword into the man’s face, knocking him out cold as he went limp over the wet sand.

The second man fled before we could take him captive, and I could finally breathe again.

“Thank you, my queen,” Axel said. “But you were supposed to run with the cook.” He referred to Stasia’s old duty at Mara’s Keep. “I saw her coming to help you.”

“But you needed help.”

“I’m just an old man willing to die for his queen, but you have to walk away from this. Lux, you must stay safe. Your freedom is our salvation.” His voice grew desperate, something ‌I’d never heard from this poised, confident man. He maintained a calm and controlled demeanor at all times.

“What do you mean?”

“Drakkar would have wanted me to protect you. He would have wanted you to walk free, Queen Lux.” He still referred to me as his queen, however inaccurately, however blasphemously. My marriage to the king of Vylheim had never been real since we sealed our vows with hidden pig’s blood instead of our own. Even knowing this, Axel considered me Drak’s wife from that moment on because Drak had called me his wife every chance he got.

West Anglans on massive horses and armed with lances crested the hill and scattered across the shore. Axel’s eyes were wide as he pulled them from the battle to fix on me. “Whatever you do, don’t get captured, don’t fall in battle. Vylheim can’t lose you.”

‌I stepped back, as if Drak himself begged me to run. The shard burned so bright white it ripped my gaze away from Axel and back to my hand. My pulse skipped too many times in a row, and black spots dotted my vision before I sucked in a breath and steadied myself.

A memory struck me, triggered by Axel’s words, and flashing in a single blink of my eyes. This was the reason Drak’s soul marked this moment as his most important memory.

I’d fallen in battle.

Details filled in with enough fervor that I lost all sight of the present battle and relived the past. The world of today melted away as I held my breath and recalled being on this shore with Rune so many years ago. When I was a young woman hiding behind a shield pierced by dozens of enemy arrows. In the memory, I suffered the slash of a sword across my back; Rune knew I’d die. The enemy had come up behind us, and though they weren’t silent in their heavy armor, they had horses back then too, cavalry that could barrel through our shield wall with hooves and lances. Our fighters recovered quickly, cutting the enemy down from their mounts, but there were plenty of casualties too.

I held fast to the shield, but was losing blood too quickly. The world swayed beneath me, and I could not stand against the man who threw himself at my shield. Though we fell in a heap, I bashed the wooden shield against his skull, but it wasn’t until Rune came for me that the weight of the man’s limp body lifted from me. Weak and losing consciousness, Rune rolled me onto my side and tried to staunch the flow of blood.

“Don’t die on me, Myrah!” he screamed.

“Leave me,” I told him wearily. But he wouldn’t.

He didn’t.

“I love you too much to leave.” Tears pricked his eyes.

And for the first time since we were children, I’d said it back. “I love you, Rune.”