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The bustle of conversation in the village doesn’t always reach our farm, but today it drifts this direction on the breeze, and though walls surround this land, it’ll never block Drukna’s scent of salt and brine. Since Yggdrasil was burned, Vylheim’s shores will always be coveted for the catch. Fish are abundant, but we remain far enough inland that Queen Stasia’s promise holds true. West Anglor came for revenge, but our little corner of Midgard stayed free of bloodshed.

The end of our lives is a far cry from how mine began, and from what Drak suffered in Mara’s Keep and under King Roderic. Life on a farm, surrounded by sagas, is quiet. Perfect.

Surrounded by love.

I bend forward, lying beside him on the rug. Shelves stand tall around us, their secrets kept for the rest of our lives, only to be released upon his death—and my soul’s movement. Queen Stasia had chosen a curator of the sagas long ago, and I know she’ll arrive within the next few days. Days after we’ve died.

After he has died.

Curling up at his side, I drape my arm over his chest. When he grew too warm, I stripped off his tunic and left him bare at his torso with his scar exposed to nobody but me and the books.

His breathing becomes more rapid, and my heart skips.

“Don’t leave me,” I whisper into the hollow of his throat. “Not yet. Soren isn’t here.” Tears prick my eyes, but I don’t cry yet. I have no reason to, unless Soren didn’t survive long enough to keep his promise.

And then I’ll be trapped here.

I’ll be back to where I once was as Myrah, watching Rune taken to Valhalla while Freya split us apart for her own entertainment.

“Please,” I beg. “I love you, Drak.”

His breath rasps and he peels his lips apart, tilting his head toward me. “In every lifetime.”

I can’t stop my tears from dripping over his neck because he doesn’t know that Soren isn’t here yet. He’s not fully aware of anything but my presence.

His wheezing only makes my chest tighten. I can’t breathe, so I squeeze my eyes shut and project my foresight. My power is so much stronger that I can see beyond lifetimes. I’ve practiced looking further and further into the future, beyond the barriers of death and into rebirth, but sometimes this power drives me into the past. Sometimes, in my exhaustion and old age, I slip backward and see the past instead of the future.

The goat’s cry fades away along with the noise of the village. I block out his breathing and the sound of my thundering pulse, and the foresight takes me away from the present.

All that surrounds me now is the grey of Mara’s Keep. I’m witnessing young women dance for a king—a vampire king, and suddenly I know this isn’t called Mara’s Keep yet. The castle is called The Mara, and though this is Vylheim, it’s ancient with a different king on the throne long before King Roderic’s reign. The monster on the throne is unrecognizable and sickening as he pins his gaze on a dancer I somehow know is named Lottie.

A hand slips into mine, and I’m swept onto the dance floor. Drak smirks at me, though he doesn’t go by Drak in this life. Instead, he’s Jayce, and I’m Abi. His crooked grin says something about how he can’t keep his hands off me, rules be damned, he’s going to risk it all. He’s going to risk his job serving in the castle just to touch me.

I smile, but tension buzzes at the back of my neck, signaling that this isn’t the future. My sight has slipped into the past, as confirmed by the vampire on the throne revealing a single fang with a nasty grin. I let my sight of this former life dissipate.

In the present, Drak still breathes, but he’s dying in my arms.

I look away, shut my eyes, and let my foresight take over my senses again.

Snow encases us in a private moment. He stands across from me, holding my hands, smiling as he takes me to be his wife. Even here, my fingers are blue, and he promises to keep me warm for the rest of this life, knowing—remembering—how Freya damned my heart, deep enough to reach my soul and stretch across lifetimes. We’re married under heavy snowfall, surrounded by friends and family, and now I know I’m in the future. None of our past lives, except the first life, reached marriage.

The foresight takes me to another lifetime, maybe two hundred years after the present. I cry as a child dies within me. But he’s there to comfort me. We never tried to have children, but we would have loved our son or daughter if they’d survived. Life is imperfect and dark, but we’re together. It never gets so bad that we’re ripped apart again.

The next life takes me to an unrecognizable place, maybe West Anglor, maybe somewhere else in Midgard. The land is so lush that food drops into my hand as I harvest apples from thick trees. Hands close over my eyes, shadowing everything, and I smell birch and Maplewood on him. Drak drops his hands to my waist and tells me about the castle he’s building, one without a stitch of grey, all warm colors with the same wood he smells of.

Finally, it’s much later, a lifetime even further into the future, and I’m on a ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean. It’s massive, nothing like the longships we traveled across Drukna in. This ship is something different; barely rocking with the sway of the sea. The deck could hold a hundred people, with ample space below for entire rooms and months’ worth of food.

I stand at the helm with a mist of the salty ocean coating my face. Someone comes up beside me, his hand lays over mine as I’m hooked onto the edge of the ship. I tear my eyes from the foamy waves crashing below us and look at him. Drak. He’s returned to his first name, Rune.

“Six hundred years after you killed Odin and sent the gods running, and somehow their monsters are still fucking here in Midgard,” he says as he shakes his head. “Don’t stand too close to the edge. I can’t lose you to Jörmungandr after we just got married.” A smirk, so familiar and beautiful, crooks his mouth.

Six hundred years. We’re alive, together, even six hundred years later.

I pry my hands off the boat and face him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “You’re stuck with me. In every lifetime.”

I don’t witness our kiss as a voice rips me from my foresight, and I’m plunged back into the present moment where Drak and I have aged.

My eyes crack open, and the library fills in around me. Drak’s chest is stagnant, not rising and falling. His eyes remain shut.