Chapter 3
Lux
For once, the gods were silent, but even in a quiet library among the sagas, I felt no relief, something I desperately needed after battling another vampire in the throne room.
Dozens of erratic thoughts raced through my mind.
Only a few months ago, the world knew me as Silver, a simple girl from a seaside village.
Now, all of Vylheim knew I was a huntress named Lux, and that I’d lied about my past. The real Silver had been buried in a dungeon beneath Mara’s Keep, two levels below where I sat today.
In a brand-new library, built for me—Lux, the huntress.
Living this truth was as intoxicating as it was terrifying.
Heavy expectations came with my life as a huntress: divine pressure and the weight of a kingdom.
I’d tried erecting a wall in my mind to ease the strain of Odin’s presence, but it seldom worked to quiet his powerful voice. And when the Gods left my skull silent, my own thoughts continued racing, tripping over one another.
A low rumble of thunder shook the stone like an angry hum. It was clear that the gods disapproved of my hideout. They didn’t want me relying on a vampire king, but Freya’s visions only came when I pushed my body to the point of collapse.
Even when I had visions, they were vague, rarely clear enough for me to follow a straight path to Yggdrasil. Drak was the only option for finding the tree, and Mara’s Keep was my only option for refuge. So the Gods were just going to have to deal with it.
I brushed my fingers over runestones stacked on the shelves, feeling my mind slow as I touched something solid.
I relished every second here, even when the wind thrashed against the stained-glass window Drak had installed.
It overlooked the former king’s graves and the forest behind the castle, and he’d had it built knowing how much I hated the lack of windows in Mara’s Keep.
For the past hour, I mulled over his suggestion.
Marry him, or rather fake it, and become the pretend wife of a cold vampire king to convince my sister that I was helpless.
She would come to kill me the moment she believed I couldn’t take down her army, and if we cut off the head, the body would fall.
But I wouldn’t gut my sister, even if she was Hel-bent on ending my life. We’d have to take her captive, then destroy her army. To do any of it, I would have to accept Drak’s hand and vow myself to him.
Even if it was all a ruse, the thought of coming so close to sacrificing my tether to the Gods—everything I’d been as a witch, now as a huntress trained by Kayn—made my temples throb, worries piling up like stones.
Inexplicably, this return to Drak and Mara’s Keep had calmed me, but anxiety still raged whenever I thought of Kayn.
Even if this potential marriage to Drak were fake, it felt like a betrayal to the vampire who had taught me how to fight.
But I dealt in betrayal and lies, didn’t I? I was fucked up that way…
“Stop,” I said aloud, commanding my thoughts to halt before I spiraled out of control.
Lightning struck outside, illuminating the dim room through the tinted red and black glass. After one sudden flash, it vanished and dropped the library back into shadows, where the only light came from the glow of the candle in my hand.
With one finger hooked into the bronze holder, I lifted the dancing flame toward the shelves.
An orange glow draped over stones and the leather spines of old journals.
I moved past the ancient runestones and to the journals of skalds who either gathered information of their era or interpreted old stories of the gods.
Poems filled half of the journals with lyrical words about Odin.
Others recorded the daily lives of our ancestors.
Another rumble followed the next strike of lightning, and the raging wind threw fat raindrops against the window.
As the storms grew worse, Drak had claimed it was the gods’ anger, but I wasn’t so sure.
Yes, Thor was the god of thunder, and as Odin’s son, he’d be faithful to his father’s plans.
But these storms were hurting the people of Vylheim, not the vampires, so I couldn’t fathom that the worsening winters were one of Odin’s ideas.
A soothing voice crooned at my mind’s edge. “You are what hurts vampires, huntress.” Odin’s words confirmed my thoughts, and a warmth akin to pride swelled at the base of my skull, spreading down the back of my neck with prickles.
They chose me to protect the people from monsters.
And here I was, doing a terrible job of it against my sister and her vampire army.
My pulse skipped. I drew a slow, cleansing breath and accepted the truth: I wasn’t protecting anyone by hiding in Mara’s Keep.
Training just wasn’t progressing fast enough, especially with my exhaustion interrupting every session.
And to face Silver, I needed to understand her better.
These records Skalds kept about the first witch from whom Silver received her powers were my best source of insight.
After sliding a journal off the shelf, I padded to the rug in the center of the room.
My skirt fanned out around me as I took a seat on the ground with the book in my lap.
Deep brown shelves surrounded me in the circular space like towering sentinels, looking over me with the protection of knowledge.
This was all I’d wanted when I first came to Mara’s Keep: the histories, the truth of witches and gods, and the story of our people.
Now all of it was mine, thanks to Drak.
My heart skipped again. Ugh. These episodes always worsened after a fight, but this skip didn’t come with a painful halt. Humming with extra beats, it danced as I thought of him building this library for me.
“It’s a ploy,” I said to no one. Rolling thunder replied, my only response.
Rain splattered the glass at irregular intervals, matching my erratic pulse.
I let my head fall back and my eyes slide shut.
“This gift comes with strings attached.” Though Drak had never once referred to the library as a wedding gift, even if he’d been begging for our marriage every day since I returned to Mara’s Keep. He swore it was in my best interest.
“Drak will not win me with gifts,” I uttered into the stillness, like a vow made to the divine.
“I wish you’d told me that sooner,” a deep voice answered. My eyes flew up, and I snapped my head toward the door.
Drak leaned against the doorframe, the door wide open, his forearm raised beside his head. Shadows darkened his thick beard, and loose strands of hair framed his face.
“So having your servants build this for me is just one of your many ways of trying to control me?” I straightened my spine, stacking my shoulders as I raked my gaze over him.
A boyish smirk lifted his mouth. Shoving off the wall, he strode into the room. “Wrong, and wrong again.”
I frowned, but it didn’t deter him. He marched to the closest shelf, eyeing the space on the stone wall beside it. Even with Drak’s height, the shelves dwarfed him.
The library was one of the tallest and roundest rooms in Mara’s Keep.
Narrow shelves hugged the curve of the walls, lined up side by side, though they didn’t cover every inch.
Half the room opposite the entrance was filled with them, except where the window pierced the stone.
Near the entrance, walls remained unadorned, mirroring the dull grey of connecting hallways.
“Excuse me?” I asked, my muscles tensing at his cockiness.
He ran his palm against the shelf, examining it silently for a second before glancing at me. “You’re wrong.”
“So you would have had your people build all these shelves even if I wasn’t here?” I asked, barely holding back a scoff. “Every one of these records was buried before I arrived.”
He chuckled. “And now they’re not. Now they’re on display in a library, for you.”
“What are you doing here?” I switched the subject, not wanting to argue about his tactics to sway me toward him and away from the Gods I worshiped.
“I thought every evening you went to sit with your mother.” Ingrid had lost her mind to the gods long ago, but according to Drak, she’d occasionally recognize her son.
His smirk drifted into a sad smile. “She’s sleeping. Even down in her hideout, she can hear the storms. She knows it's the Gods’ anger, and it frightens her so much that she wears herself out. Since the thunder started, she’s been sleeping twice as much as usual.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Apologize for his loss?
That didn’t feel right considering it was only her mind that was absent.
So instead, an argument edged to the tip of my tongue.
I refused to believe the Gods would punish us, especially now that witches were coming out of hiding and people were more comfortable invoking Odin’s name and speaking of Freya and Thor and the others.
With most of the executioners having defected to Silver’s army and Drak not upholding the Blood Council’s plans and systems, Vylheim slowly returned to the beliefs of their ancestors.
Before I could say anything, he cleared his throat. “And I thought you’d be sleeping after that fight.” He stood over me with his arms crossed. “You need your rest before we train tomorrow. Axel will join us along with Sif and Mista.”
“Two vampires?” I asked, referring to the two women.
Two fanged women who’d remained loyal to Drak.
Like the other vampires still in Mara’s Keep, they drank from kept vessels, some courtiers or servants who fed their blood to monsters because they’d befriended them before the Blood Council dissipated.
“You need to practice fighting multiple at a time.”