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“Skald?”

I looked back at him, a sad smile twisting my lips. “You’re not dead yet, Drak, and Vylheim is fighting for you to be their king. Is that winning?”

He shook his head gently and peeled his eyes open. Red shot through the veins, clouding the whites of his eyes. “Not until I build you that library.”

Something about his promise flooded me with relief. He acknowledged a future—a life together, and all at once I absorbed the truth that we were both actually alive. He was not taken from me.

Despite the fates being against us, we survived the second Battle of Sundered Sky, but only if I kept him alive.

“You’re losing too much blood,” I said.

He blinked, but the glaze of pain still coated his eyes. “Lux, have you heard of the fae?”

“You’re not making any sense, Drak.”

His tongue snaked out over his lower lip, and though his eyes closed again, he pushed out a few more words. “From the sagas. Do they ever mention winged people who can heal? Silver used to talk about them, but I thought they were just part of the stories she fabricated until I saw those captives here today. I didn’t realize they’re real…” he took a shaky breath, his head lolling. “She said she wanted wings like them so she could fly away, but she claimed only half-fae exist now. Do half-fae have wings, Skald? Do they…” He licked his lips again. “Do they still heal?” His voice faded, and my pulse stuttered with the rhythm of his words: people who heal, wings. I snapped my eyes back to that altar, stretching my neck to catch sight of the folded leather at the dead man’s back. It couldn’t be wings, could it?

Silver’s words came back to me.

My knowledge of Midgard’s history and the sagas concerning those beyond Vylheim was incomplete. I didn’t live among the sagas as she had, after growing up beneath Mara’s Keep. What had she learned that I hadn’t?

“Fae?” I whispered. I’d heard the word before, in some other lifetime, perhaps. In this life I’d seen their violet eyes and witnessed the man shouting about bloodsuckers on the shores of Mara. Our fall at the first Battle of Sundered Sky made sense now. We’d lost to powerful, preternatural people. They had won that battle, killing Rune too easily because they were full fae then, powerful, winged, and tricky to kill. And now that they were only half-fae, they were vulnerable—easy to capture. Dragged back to Vylheim by Silver’s orders, they were forced to heal my mother before being sacrificed to our gods.

It seemed my understanding of this realm would never be complete. Maybe I needed to live until the World’s End; maybe then I’d have all the sagas, not only Vylheim’s.

“Get help, baby,” he begged. “I can’t feel my body.”

It took everything within me to pull my hands off him and step back. I turned and pushed through the throng, stepping over fallen bodies in my search for someone with violet eyes. Though I doubted they’d help the kingdom that had taken them here as slaves.

Instead, a hand wrapped around my wrist, and I whipped around to the angelic sight of bright blond hair, pure eyes, and my best friend.

“You’re okay,” Stasia said.

“No, Drak is dying.” A lump lodged in my throat. “He’s losing blood. I need to find someone from West Anglor because I think—I think they’re healers.”

“Oh, Lux, they’re gone. I helped the West Anglans escape while the vampires and Grimward were busy with the battle.”

I clutched her hand. “Bring me to them, please.”

Shaking her head, she whispered, “I freed them, Lux.”

“Fuck! He doesn’t have much time.” My temples throbbed as tears stung my eyes again. “I can’t lose him. I can’t!” Grief clawed at my throat at the mere thought of our separation.

“Then we’ll do our best to treat him,” she said. “I can help. I treated many blood servants during my time at Mara’s Keep.”

It had to be enough, so I grabbed her arm and led her through the crowd as the battle subsided. Villagers cried out with their grief over fallen loved ones, but the clash of steel no longer echoed through the temple. If I couldn’t swallow back the sorrow slicing through me, I’d join the rhythm of their cries soon.

Drak lay motionless at the foot of the altar, like a sacrifice as Stasia stooped over him, scrambling at her belt for bandages and a vial of salt water to clean the wounds. She produced yarrow to amplify the cleaning, and I gnawed on my cheek, pacing at her side the entire time.

“We have to cauterize the wound now.” She looked up at me. “Take the cleanest blade you can find and grab a torch. Hurry.” I did as she said, returning with a dagger I’d wiped clean on my trousers. “Run it through the flame and then press the blade flat against both wounds.”

“Burning him?”

She nodded. “And closing the wounds.”

I gritted my molars and obeyed, slicing the dagger through fire and then pressing with all my weight against the wound at his chest and then at his shoulder.

“Now what?” I asked.