Chapter Two
Rey
As we pull to a stop in front of the school, Father doesn’t reach for the handle. He waits, as always, for Rowen to open the door for him. Valet. Guard. Pet. Whatever role he’s assigned today.
I adjust my long black coat and put on my black Celine sunglasses, like they’re the only armor I need to walk into the enemy camp.
The notorious Erikson family has its legacy stamped all over campus.
They even have a family sculpture in front of the student center featured on the brochure that came with my acceptance letter.
The founder, Sigurd, holding both of his grandsons in a huddle, Aric and Reeve gazing adoringly into their grandfather’s beaming smile.
I’ve met the youngest brother, Reeve, a handful of times over the years at various social events. Enough times to know I’d rather jump off a cliff than fake a friendship with him.
His older brother, though—Aric didn’t bother with pretending.
He rarely spoke unless forced, and even then it was usually a grunt or a sharp glance meant to dissect every inch of your confidence.
Except for that one time.
The moment I’ve since convinced myself didn’t count. A lapse. A weakness. One I couldn’t afford then and sure as hell can’t afford now.
They’re opposites. Reeve talks until you beg him to stop. Aric barely exists in the room—until you realize you can’t stop wondering what his voice might actually sound like saying your name.
And then there’s his achingly beautiful face.
Jawline like it was carved from granite. The kind of dark, wavy hair stylists try to manufacture for cologne campaigns—except on him, it just falls, effortless while expensive, across his forehead.
“Listen to me carefully, Rey.” Father doesn’t raise his voice now. “Find the hammer or don’t come back.”
“I understand,” I say, nodding. I’d say anything to end this goodbye.
He already spent all night drilling the plan into me:
Find the hammer.
Kill anyone who gets in the way.
Bring it home.
He made it all sound achingly simple. And maybe it will be, because I grew up knowing exactly what we were.
The Eriksons didn’t.
They clung to power out of instinct, circling my family for decades without ever understanding why. As far as they knew, it was all business—territorial tension, inherited wealth, fractured alliances.
But the truth was older. Blood-soaked. Divine.
Odin’s final act at the end of the war between Gods and Giants wasn’t conquest. It was erasure.
He wiped their memories.
All of them.
Everyone but himself, of course.
And the few he needed to remember.
Rowen.
Laufey.
Or those like me who were graced by Odin with the knowledge.
For us, truth is a leash.
Odin never lets us forget what we are—he just dangles our freedom like a promise he never intends to keep.
“If you don’t, it’s not just you who will suffer.” He reaches out and flicks the strap of the blue rucksack he gave me this morning that’s nestled between us on the seat. “This has everything you’ll need. Study the information well and remember who suffers if you do not.”
My throat tightens, and all I can do is nod this time.
If Aric gets in my way, he won’t see it coming. He won’t even feel the knife slip between his ribs until it’s too late. Until I’ve taken everything from him.
I’ll do it because my father’s right. He’s always right about the world and our enemies in it.
Maybe deep down, I’m not much different than the man who sired me—ruthless, willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want.
For a fleeting moment, shame tightens its grip around my throat, regret following like it always does, but I can do this.
I have to do this.
I crinkle Laufey’s note in my hand until my fingers ache, then leave it in my pocket. Now isn’t the time to break down. I keep telling myself I have one job and that’s all I’m allowed to focus on. Because there’s no backing out of this.
As if on cue, Rowen opens the car door.
“Good girl,” Father repeats and climbs out of the car.
I pick up the rucksack, but Rowen’s already there—he swings my door open and takes it from my hand like it weighs nothing.
His eyes catch mine for half a second, but it’s enough.
Enough to see the resignation. The shame.
The quiet kind of defeat that doesn’t scream—it just sits in your chest and rots.
I give him a half smile anyway. A lie with teeth. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
My father once told me Rowen’s family has been serving ours for generations—like that makes it noble. Like inherited chains are some kind of legacy. We were walking the beach, waves chewing at the shore, and I’d asked how long their penance would last.
He bent down, scooped up a handful of sand, and said, “When this is gone.”
“From your hand?” I’d asked.
“From the world.”
And that was that. Life sentence without appeal. Loyalty carved from bone.
He’d dusted his hands on his pants and walked away, stabbing his cane into the sand with every step—sharp, deliberate, like he wanted the beach to remember it.
And that was it. Conversation over.
I knew in that moment that it was the same for me, for Laufey, for anyone in my father’s circle. We’d never be free of him unless he chose to release us.
And Rowen? He just accepts it as his fate because he feels like he failed and has the scars to prove it.
From the stories I’ve been told since childhood, it wasn’t always this way. Where did it all go wrong? When did it become about who held the most power? The most wealth? When did our world get so corrupt? I’ve never asked.
I don’t think I’m scared of the answer anymore. Not really. What scares me now is knowing it won’t matter. Not after everything. The truth won’t save anyone. Least of all me.
Rowen’s already at the open trunk, waiting. I follow, footsteps too steady, breath too measured.
Other cars begin pulling into the lot now. Some parents with tear-streaked cheeks, others fumbling with luggage and half-hearted hugs. All of it too loud, too normal. Maybe that’s why my father suddenly leans forward and wraps an arm around my shoulders—like he’s playing at being human.
I freeze. His warmth presses against me, unfamiliar and uninvited. It feels like wearing someone else’s skin.
One pat on the back. Then he pulls away and flashes that too-white grin that never reaches his eyes. “I shall try to miss you, daughter.”
Now that sounds more like the college send-off I expected from Odinfather.
He turns without another word and climbs back into the car. The door shuts with a soft snick, but it hits like a death sentence. Final. I feel it settle in my chest.
Rowen lifts my other bags and my one large trunk from the car without looking at me. Without looking at anything, really.
As we step onto the sidewalk, the window rolls down just enough for my father to urge, “Ticktock, Rowen.”
And then the glass slides up again.
“Stay safe,” I say to Rowen as he settles my luggage on the ground. I can’t help the crack in my voice or the feeling that I’m walking into an empty grave, one my father dug for me. “This is where we part ways. Stay alive. Don’t text.”
I hate being cruel to him, but it’s easier to cut ties now before I get in too deep. I know myself. I’ll want to pull him down into the depths with me, and in a moment of weakness—a cardinal sin in this family—I’ll ask him to save me.
And Rowen will. He always will. And then he’ll pay the price for it, the same way he did last time. When everything was taken from him.
Rowen scratches the scars that run the length of his right arm, and though he doesn’t respond, I can see what his silence is costing him in the grimace tightening his jaw.
I focus on those scars. Though I can’t possibly fathom what he’s been through, I understand enough to know he gave his all and had the most precious thing that made him him stripped away.
That’s as much as he’s been willing to share. To this day, I have no idea what he lost. I just know the guilt he feels over it must be massive for him to work for my father without killing him in his sleep.
My stomach drops as Rowen pales, realizing what he’s been doing.
His blond hair shifts in the breeze, and his eyes meet mine.
He’s effortlessly beautiful and the perfect example of what actual sacrifice looks like.
He’s given himself to our family for life, and he still won’t tell me what my father did to earn such loyalty.
Tears burn my eyes.
He’s always been my anchor. And now…I need to force him to live a life where we can’t rely on each other any longer.
His eyes focus on the blue bag, full of my father’s secrets. I know what he’s thinking. Run. Run away. But that’s not an option. My father, his…people, they’re relentless. Ruthless.
And then there’s my stepmother.
I’m afraid my father’s going to ask us what’s taking so long, so I quickly grab my bags from the sidewalk and the handle to my trunk. I nod toward Rowen. It’s the best I can do. “It’s been great.”
It’s been sad.
It’s been the seventh circle of hell, actually, and now I’m walking into another circle without him by my side.
His eyes are so big, it feels like they’re going to swallow me whole. “You’ll be back. Right?”
For the first time since my father pulled me aside a few weeks ago, I want to cry.
I’d felt almost happy, getting ready to attend Seattle University as a psych major.
I’d allowed myself to feel excitement for the first time, over new beginnings, over possibly being truly free.
From him, from the intense studies, the martial arts, the endless training—and then he’d forced me to accept a sudden offer to attend Endir instead.
I was heartbroken.
At first, I’d assumed the last two years of training and torture, beatings when I failed, a meal when I didn’t, were all designed to punish me for being rejected by an Erikson.
My humiliation needed penance. I’d assumed even the curse of my Aethercall was given so my father would never feel the bruise of anyone rejecting me again. How wrong I had been on all counts.
But these are pointless thoughts now. I am here, and I have a job to do.
So I conjure up a semi-chipper tone and offer Rowen a half smile. “Of course. I could never leave my best friend.”
Rowen doesn’t smile back. “See you on the other side, then?”
I’m not a fool. Neither is he.
He knows the risks and has the scars to prove what happens when things don’t go to plan.
I choke out my next words. “The other side. I’ve heard it’s not so bad.” Death might actually be the only escape for both of us.
He swallows, then his smile is so big, so convincing. “They probably, at the very least, have heart-attack-level greasy fries.”
Gods, what I would’ve given to have sat next to him during the drive here, listening to his dry jokes and getting all of my fears off my chest. Honestly, just sitting next to him would have made me feel better.
“I love fries,” I finally say.
“I’ll make sure they’re extra crispy when I see you again.”
I smooth an invisible wrinkle from my cashmere sweater, desperate to stretch this moment until it breaks. The only words left are “good luck” and “don’t die,” but luck’s never been mine, and an early death is the likeliest ending for us both.
“You’ll be bored without me,” I finally say.
Rowen lifts his hand but then drops it, fingers balling into a fist at his side like he wants to cup my face but knows he shouldn’t. “You know I will, because I’m impatient.”
“Aren’t we all?” I tease.
The horn honks, making us both jolt. The fact that my father managed to reach toward the front and honk means he’s beyond irritated.
Rowen inclines his head. “To the other side, where there is no war.” He lifts his hand to the right side of his face, then brings it down his cheek until he hits his chest, flipping it over in an ancient offering of the Gods. “No war with them.”
Mouth dry, I whisper, “Only life for us.”
“Only life,” he whispers. “Hunt well, daughter of—”
I shake my head.
I don’t need his damning words cast into the world. I don’t think I can bear the weight of them. Everything already feels heavy. Everything already feels wrong.
Maybe because it is.
“Everything will be fine,” I say.
I hate that I lie so easily now.
I hate that I actually want to believe the lie even more.