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Her smile wiped away when a scream ripped through the crowd.

Past her head, men and women with animal masks marched forward. Panic erupted as the executioners grabbed at anyone nearby. The man leading them barked orders. “Find the shadow man and the sister!”

Fuck. They were hunting Soren and Lux.

Their leader adjusted his wolf mask. “He will witness his father’s death, and she’ll be taken to the queen.” Behind him, another face emerged, one I knew all too well. The Wolf yanked Axel along in chains.

Axel winced at the tug of the metal squeezing his wrists and ankles. His salt and pepper hair had more salt in it since the last time I’d seen him. My empty stomach bottomed out, and human emotion overcame me.

Since I rarely cried as a vampire, all those suppressed emotions surged now that every discomfort was so pronounced. My heart ached with the intensity of a knife through my back. The crowd spread like the Grimward were fire and their fingers were flame, burning at the touch.

The Wolf shoved Axel to his knees and pushed his head down. “Find them!” He screamed. “We’re due for another public execution.” A cruel smile spread across his face, and instinct had me shoving through elbows and shoulders to grab Lux.

I grabbed her wrist and yanked her closer. I would not lose her today.

She stumbled into my chest before I turned and tugged her along. “I’m getting you out.”

“Drak, wait!”

“I know why you hesitate. I saw Axel, but Soren will outsmart them. He may even save his father, but I will not wait and watch them capture you. You may be unkillable, but you can suffer torture, and trust me, coming from someone who was immortal, it’s far worse than the release of death. You’re the only one who matters, Lux.”

“Drak, stop.”

“Fuck,” I seethed, but I listened, only to her. I stopped with The Wolf still in my line of sight. Every vein in my body buzzed with the need to get Lux to safety.

She stared up at me, eyes glittering against the setting sun. Dusk draped Mara in a hazy glow that gave an ethereal edge to the god standing before me. “That was Finan.” My brow furrowed. “Stasia’s Finan.”

“So he betrayed her and all of you?”

She shook her head. “It may appear that way, but I believe Stasia. She said he’d never turn on us, and that being part of the Grimward isn’t his true identity.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” She paused and closed her eyes. I squeezed her wrist, and she pulled away. “Give me a moment. Let me make use of this foresight…” her voice faded and moments later, her eyes sprang open. “I think it’s all a ruse.”

“What?”

“This is Finan’s way of smuggling Axel out.”

“You know this executioner well enough to see through his eyes?” I asked, having learned of the power she was honing while we hid in Old Skaldir. She’d shown me how she projected her foresight into Soren to find him, and then asked Soren to help find me. I was indebted to both of them.

She swallowed. “No, but I know Axel well enough.”

Lux

Ilet them take me. I let the Grimward capture and bind me because of what my foresight showed me: that Axel wasn’t afraid. Not only that, he looked up at Finan as he knelt for his execution, and victims never look at their executioner before they die. I’d seen enough executions to know that.

But what if I were interpreting Axel’s emotions wrong? What if he was just as stoic and as brave facing death as he was having a casual conversation?

I put all of my trust in Stasia’s claim that the Wolf wasn’t cruel, and it almost broke me waiting to see what Finan would do to Axel. Learning to trust Drak and Axel and Stasia took everything, and this required believing that not only had she told me the truth, but that the truth was accurate. That Finan wasn’t a traitor.

My entire body stiffened as Axel bowed his head forward, baring his neck. Just like the many executions I witnessed before the Blood Council fell apart, Finan lined an ax up with the nodules in Axel’s spine. Heavy chains dragged him further toward the dirt with his agony and exhaustion evident in the stoop of his shoulders and the tension knotting his back.

Soren shuffled beside me, the metal of his chains clanging as he held his hands clasped in front of his hips. He tilted his head back, staring at the sky before a cat-faced executioner forced his head down.

“Watch, criminal,” she hissed.

Seven Grimward surrounded us. A horse-faced executioner stood at Finan’s side while the others posted up between Soren and me. Drak watched from the obscurity of the smoke puffing from a fish vendor’s booth with Stasia beside him. They did not reveal themselves as part of our group to stay free of chains. Soren and I were the targets, anyway. Nobody even knew Drak was alive.