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"Did you love her?" Bryn asked as she glanced between the journals he had kept for her mother all these years, all the secrets her mother must have harbored in them. "Our mother, I mean. Did you love Sylvi?"

The Shadow King was quiet for so long that Bryn thought he might not answer. Just when she thought he would hold his silence, he said softly,

"Yes. Very much."

Liv hoisted the Prince's almost unconscious form over her shoulder, slinging his arm around her neck while she strained to keep him upright.

She dragged his large body through the sitting room of the chambers he had been staying in and into the bedroom, where a sizable bed lay untouched.

At this late hour, Liv had figured that Hakon would have fallen asleep, but he seemed to have found himself at the bottom of another liquor bottle instead.

"I'm really ok-kay, Liv," Hakon hiccuped as she threw him onto the bed, fully clothed and stinking of whiskey. "Just reeeally tired."

"Whatever you say, Your Highness," Liv muttered as she tore his boots off and swung his legs into the bed.

"You're angry with me," Hakon whispered, his caramel hair sticking up in a way that looked as if he had run his hands through it all night.

His eyes were swollen and red—he hadn't been sleeping much lately. His beard had grown in, and its darker brown hair made the Heir of Rivers almost unrecognizable. He wasn't in good shape, and Liv didn't know how to pull him out of it.

"I'm not angry," Liv sighed as her heart strained at the sight of her broken friend. "Get some sleep, Hakon."

Liv quietly made her way out of the bedroom when she heard his soft snores rumble through the room.

It was late, almost three in the morning, so he should be able to get some decent sleep and still wake before the sun set in the evening.

Sitting on the couch Hakon had just vacated, Liv hung her head in her hands.

She hadn't been in Nida for years and was having a hard time adjusting to her lack of glamour as well as the shorter days being so far north.

She had never minded the cold weather, even if being a Light Elven made her crave the sunshine.

At the thought of her kingdom, so long forgotten now that even her lies had begun to feel real, light sparked at her fingertips.

This was also hard for Liv to get used to— her galder coming alive under her skin again.

Light pulsed between her fingers and began to swirl up her arms, illuminating her dark skin that was fairly uncommon in the north until their kingdoms had merged after the war.

She spent so long lying to everyone she loved about who and what she was that the need to hide her galder was strong, instinctive.

Before she could second guess herself, Liv let the light inside of her blood pulse once, twice.

She let the warmth of her inner light caress her soul before dulling it.

Next, she sparked a flame above her pointer finger, feeding it more galder so it would grow brighter and burn hotter.

Coaxing a wind from the open windows, Liv blew out the flame and let her galder rest.

While it was common knowledge that the Elven preferred certain galder depending on their kingdom, they could control all the elements.

It made them more powerful than mortals, who only had enough power to control at most three elements.

If Maude ever woke, she would have to find out if she could control more than just her fire and wind.

While her father was Eleven, Maude had a mortal mother and Liv didn't know which half controlled her galder or her lifespan.

She could live a thousand years and never age like the Elven, or she could grow old like other mortals.

So much needed to be explained, so much had to be processed, for all of them.

But with all that needed to be absorbed, Liv worried about the moment she would have to confront Maude about her true heritage; not because she thought Maude would be angry with her, but because she would understand Liv's need to protect her identity in a world that thought her people were long extinct.

Liv wouldn't be able to stomach the sympathy that Maude would show her.

She wanted someone to be angry with her for her secrets.

Hakon was helpful in that regard when he wasn't drowning in his sorrow.

And then there was Herrick. Shame threatened to swallow her whole when she thought about how he had run towards the soldiers who had been intent on capturing them all just so that they could have a chance to run.

He thought his life was forfeit because Maude had died.

No one could have prepared them for the sight of her sleeping, chest whole and healed, in the Midnight Palace. He had no idea that she was alive.

Well, that she was breathing at least.

Groaning, Liv pulled herself off the couch and left Hakon's chambers, choosing to deal with the Prince tomorrow.

She made her way back toward Maude's room to check in with Bryn.

The bright-haired woman never left her sister's side, always close enough to hear any change in Maude's breathing.

It was something Liv admired the most about her: the unyielding loyalty to her sister even after spending a decade apart from each other.

That type of love was not something that could ever be faked or recreated.

As Liv turned the corner, she heard the door gently shut. Aeric was turning down the hall when she caught up to him.

"Aeric, how is she?" Liv asked, breathless.

In the time they had been staying at the Midnight Palace, Aeric hadn't once visited his daughter.

"Still in that stasis," he sighed, removing the moonstone crown from his brow so he could run his hand through his dark hair.

Liv hadn't had the chance to speak with Aeric about finding his daughter in his kingdom, let alone how he was dealing with it.

Unsure of when would be the right time to bring it up, she had opted to remain silent until her guardian spoke up.

They continued their slow pace through the palace until they reached the open courtyard in the center of the building.

Vines climbed up the pillars surrounding the courtyard, the dark green vibrant in the moonlight.

The air was heavy with gardenia and jasmine, the spicy florals warming Liv's heart in a way that only returning home can evoke.

In the center of the courtyard, carved into the pale stone, was the sigil for the Shadow Elven.

The long slopes and harsh corners of the symbol had always fascinated Liv as a child.

When she was still new to the kingdom, she had spent many hours tracing the sigil until it burned into the back of her eyes when she closed them.

Still reeling from the loss of her family, Liv hadn't spoken to anyone except the seer who helped her escape and Aeric, but she had felt a settled sense of rightness when she arrived in Nida.

It was as if the Norns were telling her that she was on the right path for her fate.

It was here that Aeric stopped his quiet trek and looked up toward the quarter moon shining brightly in the dark sky. Ribbons of green and yellow lit up the sky, twisting and billowing on a silent wind.

"She looks just like her mother," Aeric sighed. "When we found her at the city gates, for one moment, I thought— "

His voice broke. Liv remained silent as her guardian for so many years worked through the grief that plagued him when he discovered his great love had died.

She had never seen him so distraught before that day, even if she hadn't known at the time that Sylvi had been his hjartpar — he had only spoken of her in terms of their connection.

Though it had been decades since another connection like this had been made, the concept of was one everyone in Ahland knew about: two or three souls so inexplicably tied together that their fates and their hearts would always find each other.

They were Norn-chosen to be together, their very beings designed to compliment each other in a way that would make them perfect for each other in every way.

Though the idea of hjartparan had grown into love stories passed on from parent to youngling, the Elven still knew the connection was real.

In their culture, as Aeric's hjartpar , Sylvi would have been more than a Queen to them all.

She would have been his equal in every way, his greatest strength and weakness.

And when she died, Aeric had felt it as keenly as if the arrow had pierced his own flesh.

"I never thought I would meet Maude," he continued softly, his anguish never really leaving his words.

"When Sylvi left Nida for the last time, she left a letter for me to tell me she was with child.

How she knew so early, I'll never know, but I remember resigning myself to the fact that I would never meet my child. "

Aeric lowered his head and looked at Liv, his silver eyes gleaming in the deep night.

"And now she is here. And it terrifies me," he admitted. "I feel as if the fates are punishing me for leaving her to the Kingdom of Flame after Sylvi was killed."

"Or the gods brought her here for a good reason that has yet to show itself," Liv offered, resting her hand on Aeric's shoulder.

"I watched her die, Aeric. I watched as a blade sank into her chest. The Valkyries brought her here to you.

Take the time that has been gifted to you, I believe we are only just starting to see the Allfather's plan for Maude. "

Aeric slowly nodded as he looked at Liv, the fatherly affection shining there as it had so often when she was a youngling. But quickly, anxiety overtook him as he guided them back inside.

"That's what I'm worried about," he finally said as they disappeared down the shadowed hall.

Maude was flying.

The wind rushed around her limp form as heat burned in her gaping chest. She couldn't open her eyes, but the weightless feeling enveloping her was unnerving.

Dying shouldn't be this painful, she thought as the temperature plummeted around her.

The dry air of the desert disappeared, and the memory of Bryn and Herrick holding her faded with it.

Bryn was alive; that's what mattered, even if her heart cracked at the sight of Herrick's horrified face as he tried to hold the wound in her chest closed.

Lulled by the sound of beating wings and crushing water, Maude slipped away into oblivion as her weightlessness ceased and her body settled on ice.

Now, she was sinking. Feather-soft cushions enveloped her, and the heat from her skin radiated through the blankets until she thought she was burning.

No matter what she did, Maude couldn't move.

She was trapped within her skin. Using the only senses available to her, she tried to deduce where she was.

Exhaustion still pulled at her, but she was able to focus on the air that scented of night-blooming flowers— jasmine, moonflowers, gardenias.

The space she was in was otherwise silent, the sound of a bustling city drifting in through what she could only assume was an open window.

Footsteps sounded from far away, sharp and frequent like a few people were coming her way.

Panic started to rise in Maude. Her father must have found a way to revive her and trap her within herself. She was a prisoner of Helvig.

How had everything gone so horribly wrong?

The doors opened, and Maude was pelted with multiple scents, all familiar but one. First, the clean rushing water of a raging river drifted to her. Then bright, sparkling citrus followed. Finally, the scent of desert lavender came close to her. Brynna .

Her sister grabbed her hand, the salt from her tears fragrant as they fell onto Maude's skin. Unable to focus on anything other than the overwhelming relief that radiated from her baby sister, Maude finally realized that a man's voice she did not recognize was silencing her friends.

"You can't see her runes from her fate telling, can you?" His melodic voice fit into Maude's mind like a missing puzzle piece.

Soon, chanting started in a language she did not recognize, making something inside of her sit up. Gods above, where the Hel was she?

Knives raked across her chest, her fatemark flaring with heat so intense Maude slipped into oblivion once more.