Chapter 15
Drak
The attack on Mara’s Keep left both sides bloodied, but Silver’s army would heal—those who survived, at least. Lux had destroyed a dozen of them, maybe more; I hadn’t tracked her every move as closely as I wanted.
And while the enemy retreated to tend their wounds, we did the same, though under the shelter of stone. Deep in the castle, where I carved the petal of a rose into the wood panel. Lux would appreciate the flower for her shelf, but this was in honor of Axel’s son, too. I missed his paintings.
Thunder rumbled through the castle, but thick walls masked the crack of lightning. Although the weather had delayed our departure by two days, at least we knew Silver and her army wouldn’t be moving either. Not even the wasteland was spared from the storm.
No one dared venture out in this, not even the undead. Lightning hurt like silver, and Thor seemed to know exactly how to aim. Or at least that was my guess. Maybe he simply hurled so many bolts that getting struck was not as rare as it should have been, and the fires they sparked were pure agony.
Sure, vampires healed, but that did not mean we did not feel every second of it.
I shaved a curl of wood from the panel and blew it away.
It drifted to Axel’s feet as he returned, continuing his reports from our network of spies, as he had done every few hours.
The enemy had taken refuge in their camp at the base of Mara near the sea, biding their time until Thor grew weary.
After all, even gods were not limitless.
He reported on the new vampire too, about how Ragna awoke in a fury and had torn her bedchambers to shreds, seeking blood, trying to kill herself, then screaming for answers about her new status as an undead person before falling asleep again.
I had no doubt that Lux heard Ragna’s shrieks and was quietly building a case against me. She had already given me an earful the moment I finished turning her friend, and then for the past two days, she went silent.
Unnervingly silent.
Axel finally got to the good news, and I focused on him again. “The masks and alchemical stones have been tested and returned. They’re ready for the wasteland.” He hesitated, waiting for…something.
“Axel?”
“My king, I’d like to make a request.” I raised my eyebrows and gave him my full attention, urging him to continue. “While you’re in the wasteland, will you keep one eye open for him?”
That was the only place Axel’s spies did not venture, at least not deeply enough, so it made sense that he believed his son could hide there. But it had been fifteen years since anyone had identified Soren, and it broke my heart to think that if he was in the wasteland, he might no longer be alive.
“Of course, Axel.” I nodded and offered him a promising smile. “With Odin’s foresight, that will be my first order of business.”
Axel bowed in gratitude. After I thanked him for the intel, clapping his shoulder with reassurance, I stalked down the dark hall. Storms inspired me, so I abandoned the workshop for a room with a window: my study.
I snagged one of the masks I’d created for the wasteland and turned it over in my hand. Kicking my feet up on the table, I ran my thumb over the smooth ridges of the mask as my gaze wandered out the window. Blinding bolts struck deep into the village.
Thor was a bastard, but I admired his performance even if I hated the gods used their powers to fuck with us. He could intimidate an entire village with a single strike.
I squinted at the jagged shaft of white light.
After a few moments, thunder growled loud enough to shake the foundations of the fortress.
Even Mara’s Keep was not entirely solid against these new storms, each one growing steadily worse.
We were once a kingdom plagued by crop failures, buried under heavy snow and bitter freezes.
But the gods grew impatient with this tactic because starvation was neither fast nor effective enough.
Even if it weakened us vampires, it did not kill us.
Another bolt collided with Vylheim, closer to the castle now. The thunder overlapped, and the ground where the Exile executed Ragna burned. The charred pattern rippled out several yards, stretching in a single second as the spiked lines scarred the earth.
The mark looked far too familiar.
I dropped my feet to the floor with a thud and sprang up. With my hands splayed on the cold stone windowsill, I bent over and scanned the ground below. The jagged lines almost matched the lifeless branches of Yggdrasil.
After a moment of staring, I shook my head. “It’s not Yggdrasil,” I said. “I’m going as mad as Lux.”
I flinched. My wife refused to believe the gods were destroying her as easily as Thor’s lightning set fires and slaughtered livestock. She would see the truth soon enough, in the desolate, terrifying wasteland.
She would see the same things I did: that we were meant for each other and that she was not meant to play the gods’ games.
I shook my head, letting the tension roll through me as hair fell into my eyes.
It had grown long and unruly over the past few weeks.
Since becoming a vampire, it grew exceptionally fast, so I usually shaved the sides and tied the rest in a knot at the back of my head.
Now it hung loose, and I almost welcomed the curtain of dark brown that blocked my view of Thor’s mark on the land.
It would remain there, a reminder that the gods were at my doorstep.
I curled my hands into fists and pressed against the windowsill until the rough stone bit into my knuckles.
Another crack of lightning lit up the sky and struck just outside the window.
Intense brightness left my vision temporarily dark.
Thunder shook Mara’s Keep so violently that I had to scramble blindly to grab onto something.
My heel hit the chair behind me, and I caught myself on the table to my left. The masks clattered to the floor.
“Fuck,” I breathed. “I hear you, Thor.”
I bent down and grabbed the mask at my feet, my vision clearing. The black clay was molded to cover the entire face, with gauze stretched across the mouth and strips of leather layered over it to hold the mask’s shape.
The same black gauze framed the eyes and covered the forehead; it was attached to the clay to block as many of the thick, tainting particles in the wasteland air as possible.
Lightning exploded at the corners of my eyes, and I glanced at the window. “Tell your father I’m coming to kill him.”
“Drak?”
I spun around to see Lux in the doorway. Beneath the thick cloak I’d given her, glimpses of her white nightgown hung loosely over her curves. Her wavy hair was left untethered from her usual braids and cascaded over her shoulders, reaching to her hips.
I grazed my fangs over my bottom lip as I took her in. “You’re supposed to be resting. We’ll be leaving for Yggdrasil as soon as the storm passes.”
I didn’t doubt the gods would try to trick me first, muting the weather just long enough to lure me out—the same way we’d lured Silver here, but I was prepared to deal with Thor’s storms with our protective tents.
Lux’s bare foot peeked out from beneath the gown as she stepped into the small study. “I’ve been watching Ragna sleep. I hate that you turned her.”
“So you’ve said. I’m sorry, Lux, but she’s not dead, so she can move and speak and even return to her family.”
“And now I have to kill her. Plus, she’ll hate herself.”
“I doubt that,” I said. “Yes, it takes time to come to terms with this existence, but like I said, she’ll be able to return to her family this way. And I saw the way she looked at her children when Kayn was about to execute them all. She’d do anything for them, even if it means becoming a monster.”
Lux’s frown merely twitched, but she knew I was right. “That doesn’t change the fact that it sickens me to hear her screaming for blood. And if it upsets me, what do you think it will do to her family?”
“The panic will calm once she gets used to the bloodlust. She’ll be herself again, just faster, stronger.”
“She was plenty fast and strong. She always won every race I ran against her—” A sudden choking in her voice cut her off, and sadness filled her eyes. “Even in sleep she mutters about blood.”
“I told you to leave her. When she wakes again, she’ll be ravenous and won’t have the self control not to attack you.”
She nodded, toying with the ends of her hair and twisting the waves around her bluish fingers. I wanted to comfort her, but after turning her friend, now wasn’t the time.
After a long moment of silence, she swallowed hard and met my gaze.
“I know she’ll be better off guided into this by the vampires who remain here,” she said, padding past me to the window.
She stared out at the storm and let out a sigh.
“Also, I came to you because I can’t stop thinking about your… episodes.”
“Memories,” I said. “They’re memories.”
She turned on her heels and tilted her chin up to me. Pitch-black eyes searched mine, the ferocity in them always causing a pleasant jolt to my senses. “How do you know?”
“I can’t explain it. That’s how they feel.”
“Memories from when?” she asked.
I forced out a breath. “Another life.”
“You truly believe that? I thought you believed the gods didn’t give second chances, and that’s why Myrah took it upon herself to attempt rebirth.”
“I saw you, Lux,” I said. The hint of a wrinkle appeared between her brows before quickly vanishing again. “In a battlefield. Like yesterday’s fight, but so much worse. You crawled over a mass of bodies to get to me.”
Her mouth dropped open as she drew a sharp breath. “That’s in Brynhild’s journal.” The wrinkle on her forehead deepened, and her hands suddenly shot to her temples.
“The lightning is in your head right now, too, isn’t it?” I ground out between my teeth. As powerful as I was as king, I couldn’t take away her pain. I couldn’t stop the Gods until I became one.
She blinked slowly. “What was I saying?”