Prologue Balthazar #3
I rose and pulled her closer, pressing my lips to hers—softly at first, then with deepening urgency.
I kissed her until her body melted into mine, until her trembling ceased, and her breaths came deeper.
I poured everything I felt into her—love, devotion, the ache of knowing I had to leave her behind.
Only when our energies were aligned, connected like threads in a single weave, did I pull away.
“Are you feeling better now?” I murmured, brushing a thumb along her cheek.
“A little,” she breathed, her cheeks flushed, eyes shining.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” I promised.
But she shook her head, the firelight dancing in her golden hair.
“I can’t keep living like this,” she whispered. “You leave for weeks—sometimes months—and I’m alone, carrying on with everything by myself. We must find out who we are… and why we were made this way. We need to know.”
Zara gripped my tunic fiercely, her nails biting into the fabric. “We can’t stay here and pretend everything is fine,” she hissed, sounding desperate. “Our children deserve the truth. We deserve the truth. We must find out who we are—before it’s too late.”
Her eyes locked onto mine, pleading for me to understand, to listen. “I’ll find someone to watch them, to keep them safe while we search. Please, Balthazar. Trust me.”
Her fingers curled into my chest, aching with urgency.
“No,” I said, prying her hands away. “It’s not safe to leave. We should keep living the way we have. Keep them protected. Stay hidden.”
“You’re such a stubborn man!” she snapped, stepping back. “Every day, it gets harder. We kill to survive—but they don’t. Our daughters don’t have to feed like we do. Don’t you see that means something?” Her voice faltered. “I need answers. And every time we get close, you vanish again.”
I said nothing. After a long beat, I knelt back down, the sharpening stone already in my hand. It rasped against the blade in methodical strokes, filling the space between us like a warning drum.
Then it hit me.
A chill crawled up my spine. Goosebumps rose on my arms. The visions were back—slivers of shadow bleeding into my mind. Something had shifted. I turned toward the window.
The trees beyond swayed in an unnatural rhythm, and the leaves whispered like old tongues in the wind. The air felt wrong—thick, like the moment before lightning split the sky.
My gut clenched.
Something was coming.
Something unstoppable.
Zara wrapped her overwrap tightly around her slender frame. Her voice softened, but it held firm. “I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t hunt and leave the children behind. And I can’t keep watching you disappear into war without answers.”
I stared at her.
Where is this coming from?
She had never reacted like this before—never so fierce or afraid. This wasn’t just frustration. It was something deeper. A storm was rising not just outside… but within her.
“Surely you haven’t forgotten about our stable boy, H?kon? He’s a responsible lad,” I said, returning to the steady rasp of stone against steel.
“What? No—of course not!” Zara replied, though her gaze flickered away with a trace of guilt. “But H?kon isn’t a parent, Balthazar. He’s still just a boy. He doesn’t understand the proper discipline to care for children.”
I paused, the sharpening stone hovering above the gleaming blade. “But you’re only asking him to watch them while they sleep. Is that too much to ask?”
She didn’t answer. The silence that followed was cold and deliberate.
“Never mind,” she muttered, throwing up her hands before turning from me. “I need to start dinner.”
I watched her go, confused by the sudden chill between us.
“I won’t need supper tonight,” I called after her. “I’ll be out carousing with the others.”
She didn’t turn. “There are others in this family who do need to eat,” she snapped, her voice tight as she marched to the provisions’ cupboard. Her brief and scorching glare lingered in the air long after she turned her back.
The tavern buzzed with celebration, the air thick with smoke, laughter, and the scent of spilled ale.
I sat at one of the long wooden tables, the wattle-and-daub walls flickering with firelight from the roaring hearth behind me.
The flames fought off the night’s bite as my fellow warriors and I drank deep, long past the point of reason or restraint.
“To victory!” I roared, raising my mug high.
“To kicking ass!” Ragnar bellowed in response.
A thunder of laughter and cheers followed as tankards and drinking horns clashed together, ale sloshing over the edges and soaking the battered wood of the table.
I downed my mug in a single pull and slammed it onto the table with a satisfying thud.
“Ale-keeper!” I shouted. “Refills all around!”
A fresh chorus of cheers erupted. The barkeep nodded from behind the crude counter and rounded it with a jug as wide as his torso. He made his way down the table, refilling mugs with frothy golden ale while I traded insults and boasts with my men, our laughter echoing off the cavern walls.
Then the tavern door groaned open, the hinges shrieking as rusted iron dragged across the stone. I turned, expecting to see Leif or Bjorn stumbling in from the cold.
Instead, Zara stepped through the doorway.
Her golden hair cascaded around her shoulders, wild and unbound, and the firelight danced along the curves of her body beneath a tight-fitting dress that left very little to the imagination.
Her presence silenced the table for a moment, then set it ablaze again with lustful whistles and half-drunken howls.
“Where are the other wives?” Ivar rumbled with a grin.
“Where are the whores?” Thorstein added, earning a round of raucous laughter from the men.
Everyone laughed—everyone but me.
I shot to my feet, heart slamming in my chest as I rushed to her side. “What’s wrong? Are the children alright?”
Zara placed a warm palm against my cheek. Her smile was soft, but her eyes gleamed with something darker.
“Relax, love,” she said. “I did as you suggested. H?kon agreed to watch over the girls.” She leaned in, her breath brushing my ear. “I thought we could share one last kill before you depart.”
My gaze shifted to my men—faces once drunken and carefree, now subtly keen with interest. Would they piece things together when another body turned up tomorrow?
Then again, most would be too hungover to remember their names, let alone connect any dots.
By morning, we’d all be marching toward the ship moored at Havenshield’s fjord, half-dead from drink.
I forced a grin and threw an arm around her shoulders, keeping the tension from my voice. “Ale-keeper!” I called. “Your strongest brew—for the most special of nights!”
Cheers erupted once again, the men easily distracted by drink and noise.
Hours passed in a haze of laughter and spilled ale. When more than half the warriors had slumped over the table in a stupor, Zara and I quietly rose. I offered a few slurred goodbyes to those still upright. They lifted their mugs in lazy farewells, too dazed to ask questions.
Outside, the cold night air met us like a slap of ice. I kept the smile on my face, letting it mask the hunger rising in my chest.
Together, we slipped into the shadows of the village.
And with every step through the fog-laced streets, we hunted.
We found our sustenance among the travelers—those who’d docked on the shores of Havenshield, hoping for warmth, not knowing the night itself had teeth.
We consumed souls until we were sated and the hunger quieted. I helped Zara onto my horse, and she leaned against my back as we rode through the sleeping village, the hooves thudding softly beneath a sky freckled with stars. A rare sense of peace settled over me, unexpected but welcome.
Despite my earlier resistance to her, I was grateful for this night, for the closeness, the bond forged anew in blood.
Zara was everything to me—my soulmate, my wife, the mother of my children.
We were bound by something darker than love, something older than fate.
Sometimes, that darkness turned inward, and we’d unleash it on each other in wild, frenzied passion.
But the question always haunted us—What are we? Why do we exist?
We were not human.
That much I knew.
The longhouse came into view as dread surged like ice in my veins.
Then Zara screamed.
Thick smoke belched from the broken windows. Flames licked the walls like serpents’ tongues, devouring the home we had built, room by sacred room. The stench of scorched timber hit me like a fist.
I spurred the horse forward, heart pounding, a cry of rage choking in my throat.
We leaped from the saddle as we reached the yard.
H?kon lay sprawled in the grass, an arrow buried deep in his chest. His lifeless eyes stared up at the stars, wide and unblinking, as though he’d seen death coming and accepted it in silence.
Raiders from a rival clan—faces I recognized, men I had once fought beside and later against—rushed from the burning wreckage, their arms full of our supplies, food, and life.
I didn’t think. I moved.
I tore the dagger from my waistband and drove it into the chest of the nearest man before he could react. He gasped, choking on blood, and fell.
Zara let out a feral war cry and plunged her blade into another, her eyes blazing.
Then, a shadow passed through the firelight.
A towering figure emerged from the doorway of our fiery home.
Chronosbane.
His grin was carved from ice and cruelty. And in his arms was one of my daughters.
Dead.
He strode forward, smoke curling behind him like a cloak, and dropped Tove at my feet as if she were nothing.
My breath caught.
My world stopped.
And everything inside me erupted into ash and fury.