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She pulled back. “There won’t be an Old Skaldir, not when Silver finds out the wasteland is tenable again. There’s nothing left with her on the throne. You must take it. I wish we had never left the farm either, but you have to overthrow her.”
“Fuck,” I breathed. When she buried her face in my chest, I met Soren’s gaze over her head. He tilted his chin back in acknowledgement, and I mouthed my thank you. He nodded again, and I took it as permission to go back to giving Lux my whole and undivided attention. I kissed the crown of her head and held her as tightly as possible. “We’ll figure it out,” I repeated.
My gaze trailed to the valley below us as the unexpected struck me. I was in my human body, so why then, did a surge of a vampire’s desire rise within me? Sick desire. Desire for blood. I swallowed it down, and as quickly as it came, it vanished, and I focused on the world around me now. This new world. The wasteland that was no longer desert and destruction.
I was no longer a creature of destruction either.
Lux breathed life into us both, and that was enough to cling to hope.
Through sheets of rain and beneath fog, the ruins jutted from muddy earth. There was something between us and Old Skaldir that I’d never seen, once veiled by the toxic air that had blurred much of this place from our eyes. With the air almost entirely clear now, I soaked in the view. Shimmering pools of steaming water scattered across the landscape only a mile out from the base of the mountain, and beyond them, Freya’s destroyed statue, the piece of our old temple, and the home we once lived in.
All I wanted to do was return to our home, take what had crumbled and build anew. I’d craft a new library for Lux’s new sagas about this life, and spend our time together at our farm, just us without the chaos of court and gods in a cruel kingdom.
I didn’t want to think about what our next saga would be about because I knew it was all battle and war against Silver’s army.
We had no other choice.
Drak
Another bolt of lightning brightened the valley, and we forced a faster pace down the mountain, seeking shelter at Old Skaldir. I pushed across wet earth with a mixture of relief and misery plaguing me.
Stasia rejoiced at the rain and the growth that it’d bring here. This blessing, she maintained, was Lux's doing, restoring the wasteland and my soul alike. Lux was a god after all.
Despite the rushing water, Stasia chattered on again, lifting her voice above the white noise and listing all the plants that could grow here, the crops, the food it’d bring for Vylheim. Despite the encouraging words, I yearned for silence and some time to myself with Lux. My muscles burned and joints quivered with each step down the mountain. The steep angle and slick earth demanded all of my attention. Descending Yggdrasil’s mountain left us all exhausted, ruined, and in desperate need of recovery.
Every ache in my body screamed for relief, but as soon as Lux’s knees buckled, a surge of energy took over. I scooped my wife into my arms, carrying her with her knees folded over the crook of my elbows and her head dropped against my chest. She didn’t resist; instead, sighing with the weight of centuries-old exhaustion. She said nothing when we continued on, marching ahead with our eyes on Old Skaldir.
Eventually, she slipped into a gentle sleep, and I couldn’t help admiring the soft rise and fall of her chest. It didn’t matter how weak my body had become. Never had I felt more powerful than the moment this woman felt safe enough in my arms to fully surrender herself to rest.
Though each breath was a struggle in my frail, new human form, fragments of my vampiric past flickered within. My stomach groaned for the lamb stew Stasia described as much as my tongue missed the taste of blood. Every memory from being undead stuck with me, returning in flashes like lightning, and striking me with remnants of a life I no longer wanted. Not anymore. That’s not me.
By the time we reached the mountain's base, rain waned, and thunder faded into silence. I tilted my chin to the sky and let the water roll off my hair and down my back. Cold droplets snaked down my soaked tunic.
Lux stirred, looking up at me as she slipped out of my arms and stood before me, eyes brimming with gratitude. “Thank you.” Her whispers brushed over me, warm and soothing.
A half-smile curled onto my face as I met her gaze. “Always.”
Pride swelled within me for her refusal to apologize for what her body needed. With this new weakness, I needed to learn from her not to lament the body I lived in. It didn’t matter if my tendons and tastebuds remembered how broken I was as a vampire, nor that I was now slow and cumbersome without my powers. Being alive with her was enough.
“We stop here,” Soren said. Nobody argued. The hot springs, though not near the ruins, were a welcome relief because it gave us an excuse to stop, rest, and clean up.
Soft cyan water rippled in the wind. Steam rose from the seven pools, all spread apart across a square mile surrounded by rocks dark enough to reflect the black sky above. Thank the stars for the air’s clarity now because this discovery would have been impossible when the gods polluted this land. Now, though, I craved to strip free of my soaked clothes and sink into the warm, inviting water. Something I never thought possible in the wasteland.
We quickly separated, everyone eager to sink into the water for warmth and cleanliness but wanting to preserve privacy too. Soren left us in silence, disappearing behind an outcropping of rock and towards the furthest hot spring. Stasia hurried in the opposite direction.
“Let’s get you warm,” I said, lifting Lux’s colorless fingers to my lips. I pressed my mouth to her fingertips, but I wasn’t warm enough to help her now.
Slowly, she peeled the heavy cloak from her shoulders. It fell into a wet heap on the rock. Her half-lidded eyes dropped to my chest as she slipped out of her skirts and shirt. The clothes joined her cloak on the ground, and my wife stood bare before me.
“Get in,” I commanded. “You’re too cold to waste time.”
“If you come too.” She spun around and stepped one foot into the water. Her legs disappeared under the blue, and the water rippled around her as she sank deeper, to her waist, then her ribcage, stopping just where her breasts met the surface. She turned. With her lips parted and eyes waiting, she looked expectant, maybe even impatient.
I gritted through the pain in my limbs as I stripped off the too-tight, wet fabric. I didn’t miss when her gaze fell to the dip in my groin above my legs. In the water, warmth embraced me, chasing away the chill and washing the caked mud from my ankles.
Lux vanished beneath the surface and then popped up again, her face bared to the sky where the heavy clouds split apart and slowly dissipated. She swiped her palms over her head to brush her wet hair away from her eyes and down her back. An unexpected giggle came from her, and I saw my wife as she once was, lifetimes ago, smiling and giggling as she ran away from me at Freya’s stone feet, tempting me to chase after her and learn her name.
“Myrah,” I breathed. Hel, this all felt impossible, like a dream I was begging for while trapped between life and death. Were we really here?
