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I hurried when Finan signaled the dungeon's path was open, looking forward to meeting Soren and seeing Axel again. Each downward descent swallowed us in stone, tighter and tighter until we had to turn to the side. Finan forced his shoulders through the narrow opening, followed by Stasia. My butt didn’t want to fit, but with Stasia’s long fingers wrapped around my wrist, she pulled me through.

Rusted bars attached to the ground, and the cell stretched into the arched grey ceiling. The draft didn’t reach the dungeon, but a wet chill blanketed the rock and steel, bringing a bone-deep cold different from Vylheim’s wind. Rags with dark brown stains scattered the floor inside the cell, and beside the rags, Axel sat slumped over.

Soren was gone. There was no trace of the Valkyrie son I’d witnessed here just half an hour ago.

Axel didn’t see us as he sat with his chin to his chest and hair hanging in his face. He didn’t bother with the effort of lifting his head as we approached. Jagged lines marred his forearms, which lay splayed upward, as if he were letting the dim light of the torch on the wall bathe them. But the light hardly reached him, only enough to show that the lines were scars—scars that matched several punctures all over his neck. The vampires had clawed him, bitten him, and bled him, and the rags must have been his feeble attempt to soak his blood and stop the flow.

Shadows coated him, blurring the ground around him and beyond his cell. Mara’s Keep housed more prisons, one like where Silver stayed, but just as above, the underground was a maze. Instead of grey, black shadows made it more difficult to find our way.

I took a single step closer, ‌my fingers brushing my lips as the low flame in the lantern reflected off pools of red. At least five shallow bronze bowls surrounded him, full of thick blood.

“Axel?” I said as I gathered the courage to rush over to him. I dropped to a crouch and clutched the bars just as I’d seen Soren do.

Axel dragged his head up and, after a full minute, his green eyes shifted to recognition. To my shock, a slight tilt of his lips gave the impression of a smile. “You escaped?”

I reached through the bars and brushed the hair from his face. His wince broke my heart. The only touch he’d endured in the past few days must have been pure pain. “And you survived.” A hint of a smile touched my lips. I gripped the cold, rough metal of the cell lock, my fingers tightening around it, and yanked at the heavy, corroded chains that bound the door.

“It’s useless,” he said. “Silver’s the only one with the key.”

“We can cut through it,” I said.

“This is a waste of your time, Lux.” His voice waned. A cough escaped him, and the way it wracked his weak body made me wince. Just a few days ago, I saw him expertly duel one, two, even three opponents with his sword. I watched him win, but now and with so much blood lost, he appeared more like a corpse than the man I cared for. His tongue darted out over his cracked lips, where dark blood crusted in the crevices. “Soren will guide you—” another cough cut him off. His throat was likely dry since there wasn’t so much as a cup of water here to sustain him.

“Did you see him again? Your son?” I bit back the rest because Axel was fading as fast as the lantern. I needed to know where Soren was, but rushing Axel was an injustice.

His throat bobbed, and after his tongue darted out over his lips again, he managed a rough demand. “Soren, come out.” Nobody emerged from the shadows, and though I knew the narrow hall continued down past Axel’s cell, no movement stirred there either. Soren had nowhere to hide, and yet we didn’t see him. Axel let his skull fall back against the stone. “Son, these are people I trust.”

Again, nothing happened.

I glanced at Finan and Stasia. I didn’t blame Soren for his nature to hide from an executioner. Particularly if he knew about the Wolf, a Grimward renowned for his extensive kill count.

“Soren,” Axel said again, and then he spoke in a language I didn’t understand with a string of noises that didn’t sound like words.

Finally, the shadows fluttered, and my muscles hardened. My jaw clicked, and everything within me steeled to prepare for the sight of a Valkyrie; a sight I hadn’t seen since I almost lost Drak after Odin sent one of his messengers to torment him. Here I’d meet another Valkyrie—impossible to hear and yet understandable, fierce and terrifying at the whim of Odin—if Soren was anything like the last Valkryie I’d met.

But Odin was dead and Soren never served him, so I willed myself to breathe when the lantern guttered as the darkness reshaped itself.

Soren didn’t step out of the shadows; the shadows sloughed away when he emerged. He was a shadow, a part of them, and I hardly comprehended the manifestation of the intangible man before me. The darkness around his limbs fell away last, and he became a full-bodied, red-blooded-looking human.

Though the black moved around him, like dark waters he’d commanded to dissipate, he never moved. Against the far wall on the right, he leaned against the wall with his arms and legs crossed and a shit-eating grin angling half his mouth. Like his father, Soren’s thick hair framed his face with chestnut waves hanging at his forehead, overgrown, and yet perfectly placed. Dashing, and yet unruly, he seemed nothing like his reserved father. Everything about his stance and expression and the way he commanded the shadows exuded arrogance, and I immediately knew why Drak and Soren had become such good friends.

“Excuse me, what did I just witness?” Stasia said as she stared at him. She bit her lower lip, and the way Finan watched her stare at Soren wasn’t lost on me. The Wolf looked ready to pounce. “Nobody told us Valkyries could…what? Become invisible?”

“Shapeshifting,” Soren said, never dropping that grin as he raked his gaze over Stasia’s disbelieving look. “Odin could turn into a raven. Now cut that power in half for his Valkyries, who could only appear as winged humans. And then cut it in half again for the son of a Valkyrie. Transforming into shadow is easier than becoming a whole-ass bird.”

“Damn, that’s fascinating.” Stasia folded her arms, almost mirroring Soren’s stance.

“Damn, indeed.” He gave a little bow and returned to his tilted lean. “It’s still the same general idea. I can perform a dark and sleek transformation just as Papa Odin did when he shifted into a raven, but—” he raised a finger and shoved off the wall. “Since my father was the only one crazy enough to fuck a Valkyrie⁠—”

“Soren!” Axel had found his strength and, though he never yelled, the demand in his voice was palpable.

“Pardon me.” Soren threw his hands up in surrender. “Since he was the only one crazy enough to fall in love with one of Odin’s messengers, I’m the only known half-Valkyrie…” he paused and took a step closer to Stasia. “Ever.”

With his hand out, he silently requested she place her palm in his.

Finan cursed under his breath. “That’s how you’ve been able to evade us all this time.”

Soren paid him no attention, and when Stasia gave him her hand, he kissed the back of it.