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I laughed again, but quickly sobered. “Axel will be fine.”
“Did your little goddess wife tell you that?” he huffed. “Did she see his future? I'm confident she's not concerned with whether one old man survives.”
I shook my head. “No, she didn’t see his future. The foresight takes a lot out of her, and anyway, that’s not what I meant. Even if Axel doesn’t make it, he’ll be fine as long as he knows you’ll be free again.”
Soren pursed his lips, considering this as his gaze fell to the fire; his eyes were glazed and unblinking as they fixed on the flames. “I just feel it.” He offered nothing else for a few minutes, but I wasn’t the one to break the silence. “He’s like a cat. He’s survived so many moments that should have killed him. I mean, he was King Roderic’s fucking advisor. How many times did he manipulate that man into keeping you and me, and him and Ingrid, alive?”
A smile lifted my face. “I get what you’re saying.”
“So I feel it. This battle…” he shrugged. “It’s his ninth life.”
“If you don’t want him to go, we can insist he stay here where it’s safe—”
Soren threw his head back and laughed so loud that someone shouted from within the camp for him to shut up. “That’s hilarious, Drak.”
“I’m king. He’ll listen.”
“He’d rather die, and you know it. He lives and breathes swordsmanship.” He rolled his eyes. “I swear he’s more sword than man.”
“That didn’t sound like you intended.” We shared foolish laughter like two little boys hiding in the dark again. The stupid, inappropriate jokes had sustained us, and seeing him again, I viewed him as a child would—the brother I had always longed for, the brother I was so grateful for. I swallowed through a thickness clumping in my throat. “Soren, will you help me?”
He only stared at me. Seconds flicked by with the fire growing weaker while my breath held stagnant. Finally, he peeled his mouth open. “Anything, brother.”
I sucked in a breath and nodded. “I need you to promise me that you’ll take Lux to the afterlife when I die.”
“So she actually is immortal.”
“She’s both human and god. She ages and she bleeds, but she won’t die until the World’s End.” I explained what the sagas foretold, though Soren likely already remembered. He didn’t stick around to read records with Silver like I did all those years ago, but he’d overheard enough of them. “She’ll die only when Fenrir opens his jaws and swallows her, so I need you to bring her soul to me. Bring her to whatever afterlife I’m in, then our bodies can be reborn and our souls can continue forth together. This is a lifelong request I’m asking of you, so I know it’s…a lot.”
Soren licked his lips and fell quiet again.
It was a heavy load to ask of him, but he’d said it himself: he wanted to explore. This gave him the chance to travel to Folkvangr or Valhalla, or even Niflheim.
After a tense wait, I scrubbed my hands over my face and said, “Soren, please—”
“Of fucking course I’m going to do that, Drak,” he interrupted me. “Did you really think I’d say no?” He splayed his hands on his knees and leaned forward. Orange reflections brightened his wild eyes. “It’ll be fun to see you love-drunk kids all grown up. I can’t wait to help.”
I allowed myself to smile and breathe again. “Thank you.”
“Easy,” he sat back and shrugged. “But I have to survive long enough to keep this promise first. You’ll be king and queen with guards, and I’m just a lowly thief.”
“I grant you all freedoms, Soren, you know I will.”
That shit-eating—real—grin curved onto his face. “Even if I steal from you?”
“As long as you don’t steal my wife, I don’t care.”
His eyes tilted back again. “Gods, you’re insufferable. Love looks pathetic on you, do you know that?”
“You’re as much a liar as you are a thief.”
He tilted in a half-bow from his seated position. “Why, thank you.”
“You’re telling me after all this time you’re still a little virgin boy?” I fucked with him, because that was what we did.
He scoffed. “Virgin? No, but in love like you? Also, no.”
I stood and sauntered over to him. With another clap against his back, I looked down at him. “Then you must survive long enough for that, too.”
