Chapter 26
Lux
Two midnight eyes stared down at me, seeing what I didn’t want to acknowledge. He was right; I was losing myself…
I drew a quick breath, desperate for any relief, and for help to gather the courage I’d need to admit the truth. I was so terrified. Terrified of being alone again.
I’d clung to those who’d accepted me: my mother, Stasia, Drak, and even Kayn when he sought me out and trained me.
But losing my mind would lose all of them.
My mind would erase all memories, and I would be submerged in the solitude of my own world.
Except, I supposed, I wouldn’t be entirely alone, not with the Gods’ screams echoing through me.
Suppressing Odin’s demands and Freya’s vague statements proved tricky before, but now…now I didn’t know where they ended and I began. And should it even matter? Beyond them, I didn’t know if my life had purpose, or if I should even want for that purpose and an existence outside of them.
My mother raised me to worship Odin, revere Freya, and be cautious of Loki. But my mother praised all the Gods, especially the Allfather, even if she did so in secret.
This was for her.
I held onto my resolve and imagined my mother’s face as she was finally free of my sister and the vampires she’d employed, but by then I’d be living in fear, my mind frozen, jarred, and in an eternal state of confusion like Drak’s mother.
“I’m sorry, Lux,” Kayn said. He sounded sincere, but the hard line of his mouth remained flat. Specks of black fluttered around him, and the thick air pressed down on my shoulders and chest.
He pulled me into him again, embracing me with all the warmth of a vampire who’d just fed on a human. But Kayn had broken off his fangs and sworn himself to a life of animal blood.
He was a good man because even without his soul; he wanted to make this world right again. Myrah’s desperation and grief sentenced our realm to the existence of the vampire she created in him, but Kayn created the others, who then created more. He plagued Vylheim with the undead crawling across it.
Kayn may have made a horrible mistake, but I didn’t blame him. Who hadn’t made a mistake? Who was I to judge Kayn? Who was I to want to pull away from him when all he wanted was to correct his mistake?
He was even sacrificing himself. He knew that he, too, had to be staked and destroyed like the rest of the vampires in order to make the Gods happy and completely wipe this realm free of monsters.
The undead monsters, at least.
Despite it all, I still didn’t want to meet his gaze.
Good man or not, a dull ache throbbed behind my eyes whenever I had to listen to him urge me to push harder and move faster.
I swallowed, my throat raw and dry as the wasteland’s dirt.
My voice came out gritty, rasping like sand dragged across the edge of the tumultuous southern seas. “I’m scared,” I whispered.
“Then you have to do it scared,” he said. “The Gods will do everything to keep you alive.”
As victorious as that sounded, it wasn’t the entire story, and I knew my saga ended in tragedy, in the shadows of my own mind.
“I’m not afraid to die, Kayn. I’m afraid of everyone else dying.”
Drak made a sound behind me, something between a grunt and a gasp.
I glanced back at him to see his bottom lip curled inward and darkness swimming through his icy eyes.
It took me too long to realize the shadow in his gaze was sorrow, because if it were anything else, he wouldn’t be holding back right now.
His hands clenched into fists at his sides, a sign that Drak resisted the urge to strike the one he blamed for my madness. When he lifted one fist, I held my breath, but he simply relaxed it and let his fingers brush over Sten’s ring, a silent reminder of his promise to protect me.
Unaware of our silent exchange, Kayn’s voice cut through our gaze.
“You’re saving the humans, not actually killing anyone because undead cannot die, again…
This is merely a cleansing.” I closed my eyes and turned back to him.
Relishing the blackness behind my eyelids, I drew a deep breath, already difficult through the mesh pressed against my lips.
Once I peeled my eyes open, I fixed my attention on him.
Before I could speak, he continued. “You knew this was where your fate would lead. Drakkar and I are monsters, and you hunt us. That is the way of this. There is no way out—”
“That’s not true.” Drak spoke low, his voice gritty and quieter than usual.
“There is no way out,” Kayn repeated.
“Listen to the one who stands in front of you.” Freya joined the conversation, though Kayn could not hear her support of him. If he could, he would take joy in the Gods still acknowledging him, and maybe even hope they would help him forge a new soul.
Her voice left a dull ache digging into my temples.
There is no way out. Old nerves that I’d learned to contain rose with a wave of bile, and my heart fluttered with scattered thoughts that I wasn’t good enough, I couldn’t do this, I hated myself for being this huntress, and for not being enough of a huntress. I didn’t know which.
The back of my neck prickled with Drak’s gaze.
I tensed, holding back from spinning around to look at him again as I silently repeated what he’d told me.
Everything you choose to be is you. That was my way out.
I would do this on my terms, following the plan I had already laid out, no matter how much Kayn pushed.
Tears welled in my eyes as my stomach recoiled.
A swath of sadness mixed with frustration for Kayn’s impatience.
Drak and I had crafted a delicate plan that had given me a sliver of hope, but now it felt as if Kayn had ripped it apart by voicing the Gods’ demands aloud.
Giving breath to their words made it so much more real. Do it now.
My head was already shaking. “No,” I breathed.
His deep brown eyes darkened. Thick, dirty blond hair swooped over his forehead, where wrinkles bunched in shock. His expression finally fell into disappointment. “No?” he echoed.
Shaking my head more firmly, I repeated myself. “No, I will do this carefully. I can survive this. I will survive this and come out whole, both of us together. I’m giving you the end you deserve, with me.”
With that inhuman vampire speed, his hands shot to my shoulders. Gripping me tightly, he shook me once, enough for me to tense every muscle in my body.
“Wholeness isn’t an option for you or me, Lux. Do this, and you’ll be welcomed into Valhalla where you can be whole at Odin’s feast.”
“And until then?”
“You will suffer; no one can take that away. Give yourself fully to the huntress—”
A blur whipped between us, and in the blink of an eye, the pressure of Kayn’s grasp vanished.
Fog swirled from the rush of movement, and once I processed what I was seeing, Drak had Kayn pinned against the massive square slab beneath Freya’s stone feet.
Drak’s fingers bit into Kayn’s throat. Both had their fangs out and their eyes burned as red as the stains in the ground beneath us.
“I can,” Drak breathed. Kayn’s strangled voice gurgled something unintelligible before Drak continued. “I can end her suffering.”
A grimace contorted Kayn’s flawless face. “No,” he managed. “It’s too late. You know this. Because of Ingrid, you know this.”
Drak hissed. “There are other ways besides a binding.”
“There is nothing but our fate, Drakkar.”
Drak tightened his grip, pressing the back of Kayn’s skull against the hard stone. Perhaps I should have moved to free him immediately, but none of the urgency I once felt to save Kayn stirred this time. He was already free of Silver…
I frowned at Kayn. “How did you escape Silver?” Without a word, Drak released him, letting him speak. “Don’t lie,” I said.
“I slipped away after she was weak from the siege on Mara’s Keep.”
“Did you try to save my mother? Stasia?”
His hesitation said enough, and my stomach sank. Still, he had the audacity to admit it aloud. “If they do not survive, their sacrifice will not be in vain. I had to find you and help you—”
“Fuck you,” I said. Instinctively, I stepped back to put distance between us, though Drak’s actions had already separated us. I shook my head, fighting back frustrated tears. “Tell me, could you have at least tried? Was there any opportunity?”
Instead of answering, his dark eyes drifted to the black specks hovering in the fog at my feet. Hot grief simmered alongside a fury rising in my throat. Tears threatened to sting my eyes again, but I swallowed the emotion.
“All you speak of is sacrifice, yet you always get exactly what you want.” My voice tightened with every word.
“Sacrifice is what a warrior does.”
“No. A warrior doesn’t just throw themselves away without cause.” From the corner of my eye, I caught Drak’s head whipping toward me. “They do it to protect their people, their land. You’ve cared for nothing but killing all the vampires.”
“The Gods—”
“Exactly,” I interrupted him. “You only want to impress the Gods. That’s what it was when you came to me at Mara’s Keep and told me you’d had a change of heart about taking my soul, wasn’t it?
To impress the Gods. To show them you didn’t act like the monster you are.
” Again, he stared at my feet, refusing to speak.
Silence was in his best interest, with the rage climbing up my throat.
My fingers flexed, reaching for the stake at my thigh.
“Did you think you didn’t need my soul because behaving as if you had one was enough? ”
“This is our fate. We were always both doomed for exile, and now to serve the Gods. You and I, Lux.”
“Call her by the name you know,” Drak said.
My spine shot straight, and I drew a sharp breath. What was that supposed to mean? Kayn was well aware of the fact that I didn’t go by my sister’s name anymore.
Kayn slid his eyes to the only other vampire strong enough to kill him. His jaw rippled with consideration. Finally, he peeled away from Drak and faced me. “Myrah, this is your fate.”
My fingers unclenched from around the stake and shot to my mouth. “What?”
“He knows,” Drak said. “He’s always known who you really are.”
“Not always,” Kayn said. “If it’d been clear sooner, I would have found her years ago.”
I couldn’t process this extra layer they piled onto this conversation, so I shook my head and steeled my resolve. “Get the Hel out of here, Kayn.” I spoke through my teeth, but he didn’t listen.
Instead of leaving, Kayn shoved past Drak and stepped up to me again. Everything within me withdrew, but I remained steady. “Myrah—”
That was enough. I dropped my hand to my thigh and slid the stake from the leather scabbard.
Lifting the weapon, I stabbed the tip into the center of his chest. Even if it was fashioned from Yggdrasil, the stake wouldn’t kill him at this angle, but it was enough to show him that I was willing to hurt him.
“Leave, Kayn. Before I turn you to ash.”
Of course he didn’t listen, because when had he ever listened to me? And why the fuck was I just now seeing it? Was it the Gods’ influence? Before I could form that into a full thought, the Gods interrupted again.
“Just kill him now.” Loki’s laugh followed the snake-like voice slithering through my head.
“Heed his words, but I agree with Loki. You’ve heard what he has to say, so now you will kill him.
” Odin immediately amended Loki’s words.
“Do it now. Now! Be the weapon you were born to be. I won’t wait much longer.
You will do as I say, because if I must walk the ground of Midgard myself, you will regret it.
” His voice turned shrill, desperate, wild.
Odin was basically begging me now, while also demanding. Screaming.
Hel, it hurt. My head throbbed as they spoke, but if I kept my eyes trained on Drak, I could focus on my plan.
Even if it angered the Gods.
No, I am more than your weapon—
“Fuck you, you weak little bitch.”
My mouth fell open and every muscle tensed. I’d done so much for Odin, and this was what he’d called me… The Allfather’s words resembled my own father’s too closely. He, too, had considered me frail and a failure in many ways.
But I wasn’t weak or worthless; Drak had shown me that.
Sadness and shock settled quickly, giving way to something brewing deep within me. Nerves pricked along my spine and the hair on my arms stood on end. Forcing out a breath, I straightened. I would get through this. Selfish as it might be, I wasn’t ready to sacrifice everything the way Kayn wanted.
His face twisted into something unrecognizable, or perhaps I was only now seeing him for the first time. Kayn tried everything to control me: lies, secrets, and now demands, and though I didn’t have Yggdrasil’s stake to destroy him with, he deserved it.
Something inside me seemed to snap as his lips twisted into a haunting scowl, turning his youthful vampire face into one of ancient evil. “Turning to ash is my fate, and unlike you, I accept it gratefully. But before I die, I’ll get my soul back, and since you won’t help, I’ll do it myself.”
What the Hel did that mean? A shiver stole through my bones.
“What are you going to do?” I whispered.
Kayn’s eyes flashed red. “For my soul? Whatever it takes.”
At that, my blood hardened to ice, and I couldn’t take one more second of looking into his blood-red eyes. The cruel eyes of a man who’d abandoned my mother and friend to the enemy, and then claimed to care for me.
Finally—finally—he backed away. With another look at Drak, he peeled back his lips and spoke around his broken fangs, where the snapped-off bone was shaped into an odd curve. “The Gods will do everything to stop you, of this I am sure. I just hope that when you fall, you don’t take Myrah with you.”
Drak opened his mouth to respond, but Kayn vanished into the fog, and we were alone again.
All at once, the grief of losing someone I’d wanted so desperately to trust, and learning he’d left my mother and friend behind to die, piled onto my heart. It hung heavy in my chest, beating once, then stuttering.
The weight of the anger and loss left my legs weak, and Drak didn’t need a warning that I was about to collapse. He simply knew. He darted to me, letting me fall against his chest as he scooped me into his arms.
This time, I didn’t argue when he carried me back to the tent. I couldn’t, not with unconsciousness dragging me into Freya’s vision.