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“Stasia doesn’t want you to die either, so—” he stopped himself. He grimaced and then peeled his lips apart again. “I’m going to help you if you’ll let me.”

I pulled the crystal closer to my chest. “I don’t know.”

“Think about it.” He straightened, and as he strode back to the others like him, several of Grimward turned their attention to me. Glaring, half of them sneered while the others smirked.

Fuck.

They were definitely going to kill me.

Lux

They could try to kill me. Executioners had been hunting me for as long as I could remember. The only differences now? We were trapped on the same ship together, and I was a god.

Dying wasn’t an option for me, but they wouldn't care about my fate since their goal was to inflict suffering upon me and seize the crystal for themselves.

No, I couldn’t hand over my husband’s soul to a near stranger. Even if Stasia trusted Finan—and even if I respected him after he snuck me back onto the boat—I didn’t know him. How likely was he to stay loyal to the Grimward when it was life or death? Many men balked when they looked death in the face. It was reason so many executioners existed. They’d been given the option to kill or be killed, and I’d never heard of anyone faced with an executioner’s life who chose death.

A wave of nausea rose from my belly to my throat as it followed the flow of Drukna. As if mirroring my fear, the sea suddenly raged with a thrash of waves, and our ship tilted to the left, thrown around by the unruly water. Nobody bothered taking up oars and rowing against Drukna’s fate with the weather like this. As the wind finally died down again, we redirected the ship’s path with dozens of oars plunging into the inky black water under the screaming instruction of the Grimward.

As the sun disappeared and sealed the end of our third day at sea, the water shifted from a foamy deep blue to near black under the cover of the night sky. Stars shone overhead with the same glint as in the Grimward’s eyes.

The woman donning a raven’s mask and wearing black leather gloves stared at me; her grey eyes fixed and mouth a flat line of determination. Prickles crawled over the back of my neck, and tightening my grip on Drak’s soul, I shifted it beneath the sealskin and adjusted so that the crystal was beneath my aproned tunic. Jagged edges pricked against my soft stomach, but the warmth—his warmth—flourished across my bare skin. My slight shivering subsided, and not even the icy wind blowing over Drukna could hurt me now.

But the Raven woman could, and her partner, who whispered something in her ear, could hurt me too. The nose on his goat’s mask brushed against her chin-length hair. She leaned against the edge of the boat with her body twisted to face the sea while her head pointed at me. Goat pressed himself against her, and the thought of Grimward relationships occupied my mind. The law said executioners weren’t allowed to love or lust at all because if they did, they could not be trusted to kill anyone at any moment. But perhaps the Grimward were allowed relationships to cross over among their own.

Raven’s flat mouth tweaked, as if her partner suggested something sexy, but when the Goat’s eyes turned to me, it was clear their pleasure came from something I could give them. The crystal? Or the glory of killing the hated sister of their queen?

I shuddered, even though the wind chill did nothing against the soul’s heat.

Goat and Raven must have noticed my reaction because across the length of the longship, their malice was palpable. Raven straightened, stacking her spine and nodding along with whatever her partner said. I frowned as her gaze slipped to my torso. Shit. She knew where I held the crystal. Why wouldn’t she? Packed together on the rising, swaying ship, we found ourselves so close that privacy and secrets were nonexistent.

My eyes flitted to Finan who stood over Stasia. Positioned equal distance between the stern and the front where Goat and Raven stood, his placement felt intentional, likely Stasia’s doing. She’d been looking out for me since I first came to Mara’s Keep.

Stasia’s bright blond curls glowed in the moonlight as the locks framed her heart-shaped face. She chattered away in Axel’s ear, but his attention shifted from Finan to the other Grimward. Across from them, exhaustion kept my mother in a deep sleep that not even Drukna’s anger could wake. The Reindeer sat silent and bored beside her. Her pale skin had become more sallow in the time I’d rested, with her cheeks sunken inward. My heart pricked. The last time she looked this sickly, she’d been on her deathbed, poisoned by the toxins in the wasteland’s air. Only when Drak drew the poison out of her blood with his fangs did she recover.

But that sickness seemed to have returned like a plague worse than poison. Starvation haunted me as my stomach growled and I glanced at the Grimward enjoying their ale and dried meats. Raven kept her eyes on me as Goat offered her food. She peeled off one of her leather gloves and bit into the side of a salted fish, ripping it apart like an animal with the white flesh mashed between her straight teeth. As unappetizing as our stored wares appeared, I grew desperate for anything to fill me.

At least I wasn’t cold. Thank you, Drak.

Raven’s throat strained with the swallow of a too-big bite. I looked away, casting my gaze out over dark water where the waves battered the other boats, causing them to rock violently before the sea suddenly calmed. Only I had this insight into Drukna's unpredictable actions, realizing the waves would intensify and return with twice their strength in a few minutes. I squeezed my eyes shut, sensing and observing, and grasping at this strange and still-new ability that once belonged to Odin.

As if rehashing the story of how he’d acquired foresight would make my use of it stronger, I let my mind wander to the sagas of Odin.

He’d sacrificed an eye and hung from Yggdrasil’s branches for nine days for wisdom. After which, he earned glimpses only moments into the future, and because he’d been a god much longer than my few weeks in this role, he had perfected this skill, allowing him to foresee future events and influence the choices of beings from different worlds, but I didn’t think Odin cared for the elves and giants and dwarven people who lived in the realms beyond Midgard. He kept his eye on humans because he’d created us for his entertainment and he believed we were bound to him.

Something needled across the exposed skin on my neck. My eyes flew open to find Axel’s attention on me. The swoop of his thick salt and pepper hair flattened against his head with the damp mist of the sea spray keeping us all perpetually wet. He was ever the handsome advisor, still sharp with radiant green eyes and distinguished wrinkles that spoke of the stress he endured to keep Drak safe as a young boy and then into adulthood.

As he half-stood, half-crouched, he made his way toward me, gingerly stepping around the captives forced to the back of the ship and curled beside one another for warmth. He held fast to the ship’s wooden lip to keep from tipping and stumbling over someone.

As he eased onto the bench beside me, his eyes flashed to the front where the Grimward grew rowdy. Calm waters brought out the celebration in them, apparently.

“We must speak while they’re distracted,” he said. As unsteady as this situation was, his voice was a stronghold in dangerous times.

“So giving up the crystal was your idea,” I said, ready to reveal the truth of Drak’s soul, though I suspected Axel already knew, because somehow, he knew everything. Maybe because he’d been with Drak since Drak was born.

“No, Stasia’s,” he said as simply as if we were discussing mild weather, but nothing was mild about sailing through The Drowning. “She cares for you as much as I do, my queen.”

My voice dropped to a breathy growl. “Don’t call me that here, Axel.”