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A sheen of sweat shimmered beneath Finan’s mask as he kept twisting and turning the blade in the keyhole. Stasia stretched her neck above Finan’s head and shook her head slowly. The lock picking clearly wasn’t working, so it was about as successful as my attempt at restoring the last shard, but significantly less bloody.

After a moment, Soren shook his head. He sighed too loudly and clucked his tongue. “Oh, Princess Lux, I see your problem.”

“Do you?”

“It’s like a riddle, and you’re misinterpreting the answer. It’s not the vampire’s memory of something around when they were human, it's the memory of the vampire’s last pieces of humanity.”

“I’m lost.”

“And bloody,” Soren said as he nodded at the piece of his sleeve soaking with blood in my palm. “It’s the memory during their existence as a vampire that made them feel the most human.”

“You’re sure?”

“I deal in souls, Lux⁠—”

“Queen Lux,” Axel corrected.

Soren ignored him. “The point is, I’m not completely sure. I’m not Brynhild, but I’m a Hel of a lot more sure that that’s the correct interpretation than assuming it was during their life. Because didn’t you already get the second shard? That was his most important memory during his human life. Why would there be two?”

Damn, he was right. How did I not see this? Desperation blurred my understanding. I relied too much on Drak’s responses, and now he was…quiet. Gone.

My heart clenched and my hand still throbbed. The ache reached my head, and I was suddenly so desperate for a drink of water. Despite suffering pain all over, my thoughts continued to race.

I spoke calming phrases under my breath until the answer came to me. The most important memory that made Drak feel human…

It wouldn’t have been our consummation, nor our wedding. It wasn’t in this castle at all, which meant it had to be in the wasteland at the tree of Yggdrasil when I finally told him I loved him. When I finally said the truth aloud…

“Go,” Axel’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Leave me.”

My eyes popped open when someone gripped my arm. Stasia was already grabbing my wrist and dragging me back into the darkness at the sound of thundering footsteps echoing from the stairs. “Someone’s coming,” she said. Soren vanished, but I sensed he hadn’t left enitrely. He wouldn’t listen to his father that‌ easily, and Axel knew it.

Axel’s voice ground out another command. “Soren, I’ll be fine. Help Lux for me.”

A grunt from the black was his only response.

“There’s another way out, right?” Stasia asked as the footsteps grew too loud, too fast.

Soren grunted again, but it sounded affirmative, if that were possible for a mere grunt.

“Executioners,” Finan said. “I know that voice. The halls are long and winding, but they’ll close in on you fast. You can’t hide like…” he groaned, eyes on Stasia. “Just go. I’ll stop them.”

Stasia hesitated and then reached out, brushing her fingers against the back of his arm before the shadows swelled around us and gently tugged us into the hall. Soren had his grip on us, and this was our only escape.

I shot Axel a look. As he offered a fragile smile mixed with pain, fear, and hope, the breaking in my heart echoed the feeling of how I imagined it felt for a soul to shatter.

I mouthed a goodbye before the shadows swallowed me whole.

Lux

Escaping Mara’s Keep a second time flooded me with memories and gratitude. This time, I was leaving with a piece of Drak, and running toward him instead of away from him. Hel I needed to feel his hand in mine, for him to warm me and hold me while I rested, and to fall asleep together on the rug in the library he’d built for me.

That seemed a lifetime ago.

Now, we distanced ourselves from the castle. Two days of walking, then resting, then walking, and, fuck, more walking, finally got us deep into the wasteland that was blessedly free of most of the toxic air toward where Yggdrasil burned. Because it burned, we were almost free of the toxic air and free of the gods’ punishments.

Stasia’s heavy breaths panted as she offered me a hand to help me climb over a boulder. Despite the clearing air, the steep climb left even Soren less than witty. Out of breath, he kept his comments quiet since we’d crossed the border.

The wasteland had changed since my last climb up this mountain; at least, it felt that way without Odin's constant yelling. Bloodstains still covered the dirt, but we were no longer edging toward the gods’ domain. They controlled nothing here anymore—at least not until Silver invited them back.