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“Well, you’re not doing a great job. If I’m feeling it, what’s she going through?”

I narrowed my eyes at his insolence. Skadi answered for me, his face turned my way. “I have siphoned much of the pain away, brother. It is why I am weaker than I should be. That and the wound from her blade.”

“Brother?” the selkie rasped.

The boy surprised us all by speaking at last. “Her blade?”

I pulled the knife out of my hair, though a few more strands fell to the rocks as they were cut. “Yes.”

To my shock, he held out a shaking hand for it, though the selkie warned in a whisper, “Dustin, no.”

“Alexios taught me a p-prayer to say over it,” the boy stuttered. “He said it was important, so every time one of us could say it when she wasn’t wearing it.”

I handed him the blade, fascinated when he began to speak in a language I was almost certain he did not understand, as his accent was terrible. It was an ancient tongue, one I hadn’t heard since my early days. As he whispered, I translated.

“Goddess of the Moon, Bringer of Light, enfold the shadow that lies within this blade with Your power. Bless the hand that holds it and keep the bearer safe from its evil within and the world’s evils without.”

As he spoke over it, the slight heaviness I’d felt carrying the blade eased, and the odd feeling of wrongness dissipated.

“A short prayer,” Lachlan murmured.

“A powerful one,” I said, the tension that had coiled in my body easing by the second. “I believe it was made more effective by the moonlight.”

“It’s an old prayer,” Skadi said stiffly. “Changed somewhat.”

“What was it before?” I asked, feeling something odd in our bond.

“God of Ice and Wind, Bringer of the Storm that cleanses, encase the fire within this blade with your ice. Protect the priests who guard it from the flame that seeks to cover the world, and the flame that taints the heart.”

“It was a prayer to you?” Lachlan made a choking sound. “You have priests?”

Skadi snarled. “Had. Why would that surprise you? I never sought them out. But my majestic presence would of course attract a few. I sent them away to the south when my brother began to slaughter our lesser siblings. Those humans carried one of the three blades with them. They were to destroy it.”

“I found shards of one in my domain.” When his blue eyes narrowed, I assured him, “Those pieces are buried in the deepest ocean trench.”

He accepted that. “The second was broken in our battle. The third is the one you blessed.”

“I met Rada at Drakonspear, but I didn’t sense the dagger there. I first felt its power in the Southern Seas,” I mused aloud. “Near the island where she met her Beta friend.”

“The world grows smaller every day,” the boy said, bowing.

It was true. It felt like the entire world was contracting around us, time moving faster and players in some larger game being pulled together around Pict.

Around my beloved.

Something shivered in my bond, and a new presence slid gently into my awareness, as well as the Omega’s. The selkie pressed a hand to his mating mark. “Kellin! Oh, thank the Goddess.”

Skadi stiffened as he felt it through me. “She took another mate? Why would she need two selkies?”

I could not risk her feeling pain by opening our bond to communicate with her, or to examine the new claim. But in the distance, a pillar of fire shot into the sky. Skadi’s thoughts told me what he feared. That this was Edan, expressing his anger.

He has forced his foul bond upon her, he reminded me. He will know also when she takes powerful mates.

The urge to leave immediately washed over me, and I stood. The boy handed me the dagger, which I placed back in my hair. Skadi ate a few more fish, stretching his mouth to fit them in whole.

Lachlan laid a hand on my arm, and I blinked in surprise. “You’re not healed from your fight,” he said softly, “and Skadi’s wound isn’t improving. We aren’t meant to arrive until tomorrow night to evacuate the Omegas, but I think we should go now. With you. Time is running out.”

“You feel it, too? That sense of dread.” When he nodded, I began to pull on my power again, sending out a call. “Gather up your supplies, and get in your boat. I will find you a steed.”