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“Drak had his head in the sand at Mara’s shore,” she smiled, but there was no joy. Her tears still hovered. “Are you telling me he wouldn’t fuck over this entire world for you? I’ve known who he is and who you are since I came to the castle and read the sagas.”
“Then why agree to make him into a vampire?”
Her smile stretched. “Haven’t you heard, sister? I control vampires.”
“But you didn’t—”
“Don’t you get it? We both failed. Our mother is nothing more than a hunk of flesh now. She doesn’t love you anymore. She’s dead. She doesn’t love you and she never loved me.”
I sucked in just enough breath to whisper. “That’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it? You wanted her to live long enough to tell you she loved you?” A single tear skipped down her cheek, and she finally blinked. Her eyelashes fluttered and her mouth twisted into a weak frown as I continued. “But you tormented people—witches, even. You lead an army of the very creatures who hated her kind.”
“All to show her that I can connect with the gods too. Vampires are just a stepping stone to get to the point of cutting the gods off, and then inviting them back under my control. Mother would have loved for me to bring the gods right to her.”
My heart stuttered. Finally, she made sense. My mother and I were aligned with the gods because of our identity as witches, but Silver was not, and for someone as devoted to Odin, Freya, and the other gods as Laurella; she had no trouble rejecting her daughter for the divine.
A flash of the future seized me with visions of Drak approaching the altar. He was here. How had he gotten here so fast? I blinked it away.
I frowned. “So you told her then, I assume?” Silver cocked her head again. “That I killed a god?”
“And became one?” She scoffed, and venom slipped back into her tone. “I’m not that stupid. She’d be proud of you for such divinity. But I did tell her how you’d come to hate the gods and how you chose a vampire over them.”
Emotion welled in my throat. My mother died knowing I’d chosen Drak over her, and that I was no longer the girl she’d raised and no longer a believer. The lump in my throat wasn’t the sob I’d expected, but a swell of relief instead, because she died with the truth. As self-centered as I was, she recognized the true me, not the version I attempted to mold, but the woman I always was before returning to Midgard, before I was born again and shared my young life with my twin sister.
A shiver of calm washed over me, filling my chest with air so pure it felt like a miracle, knowing what I could reveal to Silver and that Drak would arrive and turn the tide of battle. I only hoped he brought Soren and Axel and the rest with him. “She died with the truth then,” I said it aloud for myself as much as for her. Silver’s brow twitched, and her eyes darkened. “That you aligned with the gods now, not me. She’d have been so proud of you.”
“Don’t say it—”
“So if she knew this about you, maybe she loved you,” I interrupted.
“She never said it.”
Drak was closer. The air grew heavy with a familiar ache, a quiet understanding that he had entered the temple.
“And what will you do with your army now that she’s gone?” I asked.
She smirked. “You just said it, didn’t you? If she loved me because I aligned with the gods, then I will do just that.” She took a step closer, gaze wholly on me, but her eyes were narrowed. “I’ll give the gods every sacrifice. I’ll invite all of Vylheim to become the gods’ domain. I’ll be the queen they can use, and then when I die, I’ll go to the afterlife where she is. We’ll be together while you’ll live on until the World’s End only to be eaten by Fenrir. You’re the godkiller. I’m her daughter.”
My lips parted, and my pulse quickened. “You can’t give them free rein of the kingdom. The gods are cruel—”
“Oh, I’m aware. I’m looking at one right now.” She laughed. “What a pleasure it will be to break every one of your bones, and yet you still won’t die!”
A shiver struck me, and when she lunged at me, I knew to dodge. I was seconds ahead of her, but I didn’t foresee the blood blooming at her side.
I didn’t see she’d fall to her knees at my feet and in front of the altar. I’d lost track of Drak with my focus on her, and didn’t see him running up behind her with a dagger in his fist.
The dagger penetrated through her left ribs almost as if Drak aimed to destroy a vampire, but the blade wasn’t long enough to reach her heart, and he’d struck low on her torso. His attack was fast and messy, and now she knelt before me, the fallen queen.
All Silver wanted was our mother, and somehow I doubted she’d be chosen for Valhalla or Folkvangr in the afterlife.
I closed my eyes, unable to watch my sister die and knowing I shouldn’t stop it. She wanted to torment me. Her purpose for these horrors didn’t matter now that she’d inflicted them upon us all. She’d killed too many, and the only end for my sister was death, so I resigned.
For the safety of Vylheim, I stilled and let Drak do what I could not, but in the quiet darkness behind my eyelids, foresight gave me a glimpse of her future.
Silver would not die today.
Drak
This human body of mine ached after the pounding ride here on horseback. Every muscle reflected the torment I’d put my arms and legs through: the fight at Mara’s Keep, the ride here, and now gripping the bronze hilt of the dagger with my arm shaking and my knuckles flared white.
