Page 30

Herrick stirred as he slowly came to consciousness.

The surface beneath him was soft, the feathers within the mattress lining plush and warm. He was slowly rocking back and forth with the currents of the ocean. He stretched an arm out, seeking something… someone.

His long fingers stretched out next to him and found nothing but cold linen.

Memories from the last few weeks barreled through him— the cold floor of the cell, the burning of the iron around his throat, nausea from eating nothing but hard bread and broth, the endless torture from Baldr, the heaviness in his soul because his eldr was dead.

His eyes flashed open as Herrick sat up, the thin sheet that had been covering him gathering around his waist as he searched the small cabin for Maude. Quickly, the air in his lungs wasn't enough, and his vision started to darken around the edges as his breath thinned.

He wasn't dreaming; Maude had been real . She had been breathing, her heart beating under his touch, before he'd drifted into sleep. Surely, in his trauma, he hadn't made that up, right?

Just as Herrick was about to launch himself at the door to tear apart the longship, the door opened, and Bryn stepped inside.

She stopped short when she saw his bare chest, the new burns that ran from his chest to his stomach in varying stages of healing.

Something that looked like horror traced Bryn's features before she wrangled her features under control again .

"Gods," Bryn said, shaking her head as she reached for a loose, white tunic and tossed it to him. "Now I know why she bolted."

Herrick shrugged on the tunic, the cloth hanging off his lean form a little too loosely than it had before. He was already halfway to the door when he asked, "Where is she?"

Bryn eyed him for a moment, her hazel eyes running over his face, scrutinizing him the way Maude did when she was deciding whether or not to be honest with him. Rather than waiting for her response, Herrick let out a growl and turned for the door.

"She's on top of the main sail," Bryn finally answered when his back was to her. "She ran out of here in a frenzy and scaled her way to the top before her galder could react to her emotions."

Herrick remained paused in front of the door, his hand still on the handle. The iron still burned against his skin, sapping the galder from him in a steady stream, but he ignored it. He needed to see her.

"When you see her, Prince, remember that she still has a story to tell," Bryn warned. "As do you, it seems."

The air in his lungs seized at the title, the same one Baldr had used when he tried to force information out of him.

"Call me Herrick," he said quietly, his voice strained.

With that, he ripped the door open and exited the small room before it swallowed him whole, alongside his panic.

The fresh breeze hit him first as he ascended the stairs to the top deck.

Cold air wrapped around him as he surfaced, his eyes going to the horizon first. Flurries were beginning to swirl toward them in lazy patterns, the frigid temperature making itself known the longer he stood on the deck.

To his right, the shoreline consisted of rocks too large to dock up against, a thick layer of snow long settled on the surface.

The snow flurries turned to rain the closer they got to the surface, melting into drops of water that soaked Herrick's skin.

Before the iron band had been clamped onto his throat, the water falling from the sky would have invigorated him.

His galder would have swelled within him at the cool touch.

Now, nothing turned in his chest at the sensation.

Hollowness spread from his chest into the rest of his limbs as he tried to swallow his horror.

Besides the few Elven who were steering the ship across the frozen waters, their glamours dropped now that they were a safe distance from Logi, Herrick felt isolated on the top deck.

His soul searched for Maude, his fatemark pulsing on his chest like it was a beacon leading him toward her bright flame.

Bryn had mentioned that Maude had been on top of the mainsail, so Herrick ran his eyes up the tall structure to find a large concentration of shadows. They pulsed and danced like they were part of a larger entity, independent of the regular elements that those gifted with galder could control.

Remember that she still has a story to tell you.

A chill ran down Herrick's spine as he moved to grasp the ropes around the mainsail to begin pulling himself up toward the cloud of shadows, unsure of what awaited him at the top.

Quickly, the exertion wore on him, and his breath came faster and thinner.

Unease swirled in him as he continued to climb, the rough rope biting into his hands in a way that reminded Herrick that he was alive.

He welcomed the pain into his body if it meant it would banish the memories of the dungeons.

Soon, Herrick broke through the swirling shadows to find Maude leaning against the mainsail.

Her legs extended before her on the crossbeam that held the sail, ankles crossed.

Though the ship bucked and shifted on the harsh ocean surface, she remained still with her chin tilted up to look at the new moon above her.

Herrick paused for a moment to admire her in the starlight, how she looked so right sitting in their beams before he swung himself up to sit on the other side of the mainsail.

Herrick put his back to hers and waited for Maude to speak.

Almost as soon as he settled himself against the smooth wood, the swirling shadows seemed to slow and then stop altogether before they disappeared entirely, fading into the existing blackness.

Time seemed to slip by as they sat in silence, the events that happened between Dagsbrun and now becoming a third entity between them.

When Herrick could no longer stand the silence between them, he whispered, "You died in my arms. "

The agony of that statement cut a new gash in his jagged heart.

"I did," Maude said softly.

"But here you are, talking to me and wielding earth galder ."

"Yes."

Herrick hesitated, feeling the need to say anything that might bring them back together.

For a moment, the soft crash of the waves on the ship and the wintry breeze that pulled the sails taut were the only things Herrick could hear as he tried to think of what to say.

Speaking with Maude used to be as easy as breathing for him.

Their push and pull was effortless, the silence comfortable, but now they were more like strangers sitting at the top of a mainsail with nothing to say to each other.

Now, he tried to absorb everything that had happened since she had come into his life.

Maude seemed uneasy with returning to how things had been before.

Her cool exterior was new to him; the woman he knew would burn with her fury until her dying day.

Except she had died, hadn't she? Maude seemed to have been reborn as something new in the time they had been apart.

Before, he would have teased Maude about climbing up to the highest point of the ship just to get away from him.

Before, she would have rolled her eyes and made a sharp-tongued comment about how he was a beast who acted first and thought second.

But that was before Dagsbrun. Before she had died in his arms. Before Baldr.

Maude knew Herrick well enough to know that his silence was unusual, even for him. She had seen the burns on his skin and how much leaner he looked compared to before. The muscle was still there, but he had wasted away in that dungeon. And it was her fault.

Her friends each tried to take the blame for Herrick's capture when she had spoken with them all after waking in Nida, but they were all wrong.

She had never been the self-sacrificing type, but she felt truly at fault for everything that had happened to Herrick.

He had followed her to Logi when she had tried to leave him behind.

He followed her into the palace when she ran to face Helvig and got captured trying to get to her side.

In a lot of ways, Maude was also irrationally angry with him for following her the way he did. If it weren't for her allowing him into her heart and her body, he never would have followed her to Logi.

He would have followed you into a swift death if that's where you were headed , she thought bitterly to herself. If Helvig hadn't given the order to capture him, he would have died just to follow you to Valhalla.

All of these reasons were why she knew Herrick was the better of the two of them. Herrick was noble and moral, his loyalty unmatched even if he was as reckless with his life as she was with hers.

And all the while, she was angry with him for getting captured when she had been killed.

She shuddered to think that if Herrick had been successful in his suicide mission, he would still be dead right now.

It was unheard of to have the rune for transformation and reincarnation pulled during a fate telling.

Since Maude had woken from her stasis, she hadn't spent too much time lingering on the information that the Valkyries had reincarnated her.

Though reanimation was more accurate, the thought still rang ridiculously in her mind.

Reincarnation? Impossible.

Except… here she was, even after taking the coward's way out.

She shook her head, banishing the thoughts as quickly as they arrived. Another day. She would deal with this another day.

Embers sparked to life in her fingers the longer her thoughts spiraled into her anger.

Soon, she wouldn't be able to hold her tongue, and she'd lash out.

She knew her patterns well enough now to see that she needed to walk away before she permanently destroyed whatever was left between her and the man who had forced her to feel again .