Page 7

I turned my hand over. Clumps of wet sand and dark blood muddied the brilliant crystal, but it looked as beautiful as ever as it beckoned my attention from the sickening sounds of battle.

As children, Rune and I played at a battle not unlike the one unfolding before me. We dreamed of defending and expanding our village. And then years went by. We grew into ‌young men and women, and our dreams became more about touching one another in every way we could explore.

We trained to return to West Anglor and make a stand against the kingdom that threatened to claim our land. Before embarking, we sat in the sand, Rune scraping his hands through it and watching the beige grains run through his fingers, faster and faster as the weight of the world pulled the sand back to the beach.

“Whatever happens, Myrah, we’ll be there together,” he’d said.

I never asked how that was possible if one of us ended up dying that day.

Screaming ripped me from the past, and I was grateful for it. Safety demanded I stay in this moment because the cover of trees didn’t promise protection.

Axel was only ten feet away. Moonlight glinted off his sword as he brought the hilt down against the skull of a man who’d thrusted a knife at his belly. When the enemy collapsed, Axel abandoned the man rather than dragging him back to the longship.

While masked warriors threw women over their shoulders and carried them into the water, or stuck their weapons at the backs of men who’d tried to fight back, Axel fought to keep them away from me, and himself alive. All of them. Anglans, warriors from Vylheim, the enemies on both sides.

I squeezed my eyes shut and thought of what I’d learned from Brynhild’s journal. With my mother’s help, I learned how to call forth a shard of Drak’s soul from the ether.

The first part was done for me. I stood where his most important moment had occurred. Now I needed to create a rune based on the piece of the soul I was restoring and a word that represented this memory.

Meaning and love.

My eyes popped open, and I used the tip of the glowing shard to press against my palm. The soft flesh was riddled with bumps and stretched skin from the last time I scarred myself to produce a piece of Drak’s soul.

I swallowed a cry as the sharp shard broke the skin. Blood flowed to the surface, pooling in my palm as I cut the shape of the rune Mannaz, for meaning. Biting my lip, I pressed the shard into my hand again, now drawing two crossed lines over one another and on top of the other rune. Salty air stung the open wound. Before I lost my nerve, I squeezed my fingers over the new rune and bled into the earth.

I had no clue how the shard would present itself this time. When I found the first piece of his soul, I’d bled into the sea and then the crystal bobbed to the water’s surface.

Now, nothing happened.

“Hel,” I breathed. “I’m doing this the same way I did last time, so why isn’t it working? I know this is right because the shard is so bright.” The sounds of the battle echoed my frustration. “This has to be right!”

The dark blood produced nothing but a stain on the sand and earth, another bloodstain among many.

I snapped my chin up, scanning the battle that quickly swung in our favor. The Anglan men that came to fight back began fleeing—those still alive, and not taken as captives, anyway. The masked warriors slowly came together from their scattered places and trudged back into the sea toward the ships.

“Come on,” I begged. “Drak, give me something. Some kind of sign. Please!”

I switched the shard into my bleeding hand, and though it hurt like Hel, I squeezed harder, as if this was Drak’s hand and he could squeeze back.

I had no idea what I expected to happen. Maybe that the shard would form from the sand, like lightning striking the shore creates glass, but nothing came from the ground where I bled.

Holding up the shard, I watched as the shore emptied behind my fist. The beach was nothing but lifeless bodies strewn on the sand now, dark and empty and quiet as the waves lapped.

The only people I cared for in this world set sail in ships now crowded with twice as many bodies. From here, I could see Stasia and Finan scanning the shore, searching for me.

“What’s not right about this?” I whispered. “What am I missing?”

I must have lost my mind, because I spoke to the shard as if it were Drak himself. And it was, in a way, right? Hel, I didn’t know, but saying it aloud comforted me.

The warmth radiating from the crystal had to mean something, because it ebbed and flowed, heating with a definite simmer when I breathed my thoughts aloud over it.

“I remember the first time I told you I loved you,” I said. But that memory was missing something. Even then, as Myrah, I’d held the truth too close to my chest, living a lie because I was too afraid to say it before we were going into our first raid.

What if one of us didn’t make it out alive? Something about admitting my deepest feelings felt like a curse upon us. That if I said it aloud, fate would rip us away from one another. And it had—no, the gods had separated us—but not at that first raid, not until years later. Years before that were wasted without me just having fucking said it back to him. I drew a shuddering breath and pressed the warm shard to my forehead. “But I have to confess something, Drak. That wasn’t when I knew. I loved you so much sooner. I loved you as a person when you defended Kayn. The first time I ever saw you. And then I fell in love with you when you told me we’d always be together before we even left Vylheim.”

Tears pricked my eyes, and my knuckles went white as I held firmly to the crystal.

It burned brightly, and then, pressing against my hand, the shape expanded, pushing harder against the resistance of my closed fist. My confession worked because the truth was what he needed.