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She pointed at herself. “You’re calling me a predator, and my sick mother bait?” Disbelief wrinkled her forehead.

“It makes sense,” Axel chimed in. “Laurella was always protected by the Grimward while on our journey across Drukna. Silver wanted to punish her, not kill her.”

“That’s fucked up,” the shadows swirling around the campfire said. As a kid, Soren’s shadows always scared the Hel out of me. Imagine a dark hallway stretching and then speaking to you at the age of nine. Soren was only five, but he was already a prankster by then.

“Silver has always been fucked up,” I said. Lux shot me a look, but she couldn’t deny the truth. “And I’m not saying Laurella should be the bait; I’m saying she already was. Silver’s need to torture you both is the bait. Tap into that and I’m willing to bet you’ll see further into what she wants.”

“And you know all this from your friendship?” Lux asked, sitting up. Her voice was so quiet that the crackle of flame almost overpowered her. Shades of a long-past sunset danced across her face, and her cheeks held a lively flush. I’d been tracking her warmth, watching her fingers in case they went pale. I wouldn’t let them get to blue. Hope widened her eyes and her lips parted as she waited for my response.

Something about my friendship with Silver made Lux even closer to me. We didn’t sleep well leading up to this war, so in the quiet hours of the past few nights, when we weren’t enjoying one another, we spent that time talking. Last night, she thanked me for braving the dungeon cells and for keeping her sister company all those years ago, but I needed Silver’s friendship as much as she needed mine. Silver and I used to speak for hours about the revenge we’d eventually enact on those who wronged us. It was as fucked up as Soren said, but it was how the darkness had shaped us. Not all of us could embrace the shadow and still become charming assholes.

I frowned at Soren’s shadows and looked back at Lux. “Exactly. Silver hated your mom, and I joined in that hate for a long time. She told me about how your mom basically abandoned her when she didn’t present as a witch, because you were her prized child—made in her image.”

Her soft throat worked a thick swallow. She blinked only once, and the flutter of her eyelids didn’t fully close as she fixed on me while also looking faraway and unfocused. “I know,” she whispered.

“Come,” I waved for her to turn around and lean against me. “This isn’t about blaming you. I won’t let you slide back to that place of self-hatred. It was your mother’s mistake.” Her skull pressed against my sternum as she nodded slowly. With her body curved into mine and her hips settled between my legs, I ran my palms over her neck and down to her shoulders.

Stasia scoffed, and I scowled at her for disagreeing. She didn’t care for my silent threat. I’d never intimidated her, even when I was a vampire king and she was a servant in the castle’s kitchens. “It’s not just Laurella’s mistake. Silver is the product of a disturbed system.”

“And yet, it’s a system Silver’s trying to rebuild,” Axel added.

I grimaced. “Trauma does strange things to your mind. Sometimes the horrors we know are more comfortable than facing something new.” My words emerged fractured and faint as my own choices confronted me. I hated vampires after what King Roderic did, and yet I became one. My path was the same to godhood, and I hadn’t even known the scars the gods left on my soul—especially in my past lives. I pinned Stasia with my gaze. “Can you understand that?” She stared at me, but her eyes revealed nothing. “Trust me when I say I don’t want to be king this time.”

Her mouth twitched into something of a smile. She was starting to trust me. I didn’t blame her for taking her time after having served in Mara’s Keep for so long. “I’ll take the throne then.”

I laughed. “Be my guest.”

“If only,” Lux muttered, and my cracked soul split even more. How I wished to give Lux the life of peace that we craved.

Eventually, everyone around the fire fell silent. Even Soren materialized as a man again, perched on the rock beside Axel where he’d started. The pale moon hung over us as the fire faded to embers, and most of the camp disappeared to sleep. Despite no vampires having reached this far into the wasteland, several men stayed awake and on watch. Just as Lux said, we simply weren’t a threat when Silver was busy gathering sacrifices for the gods, planning how to source more humans for her army to feed on, and building her empire of terror.

Axel stood and quietly retired to a small home the villagers had worked to rebuild. Like most, he considered buildings safer from vampires, though a few walls were no different from a tent. Stasia disappeared into the temple to watch the stars as she fell asleep, and Finan followed, though reluctantly, acting as if he wasn’t trailing her before he did exactly that.

Soren was the last to leave. He offered me the kindest smile I’d seen on him since he was a boy painting in the forgotten halls.

I tilted my chin in acknowledgment, careful not to wake Lux since her breathing had fallen into a gentle rhythm.

“You were right,” he said, scanning the ruins with his hands on his hips. He nodded for a few seconds before speaking again. “It’s kind of nice here. Homey. Painfully boring, but that’s perfect for you, brother, isn’t it?”

I smirked. “You’re an asshole.”

“Except you love me. Or else you would have killed me the moment Silver made you into that monster.”

My brow furrowed. “Why did you never try to steal the pieces of my soul?”

He laughed. “Well, for one, the pieces weren’t in Mara’s Keep, as we all know now. Being made isn’t like being turned.”

“But tracking the shards would have given you an excuse for adventure.”

With another laugh, he folded his arms. “I didn’t say I wasn’t tempted to look when I didn’t see the shattered pieces. But souls and their pieces are living entities. They can shift and move based on their connection with the vampire who lost it, if a vampire has any humanity left, and you retained at least a little humanity. Plus, I thought maybe half had gone to the underworld and the rest to Valhalla since you’re as fucked up as you are, the noble warrior, and Hel’s tits, I’ve always wanted to see Valhalla and Niflheim, but I never wanted to stray too far from Axel while he’s still alive. I’m probably the only Valkyrie who hasn’t been to Odin’s table.”

“Niflheim?” I tried to recall where I’d heard that name.

“Oh, come on, you read the sagas. Did you forget in your old age? That’s the real name of the underworld.”

“Right,” Soren would know. He’d charted the nine realms in paintings that King Roderic’s servants once found, and the king had ordered to be promptly burned. He never found out who painted them, but the suspected servants were sucked dry of all their blood only hours after the last parchment became ash.

“And if I’m brutally honest—” he took a long breath and shrugged. “I couldn’t bring myself to sell you out, not even the pieces of your soul. Call me crazy, but I never saw you the same as other vampires.”