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On the path back to the cabin, Herrick came across Gunnar leisurely strolling along the quiet path he had taken to the temple. Though he had known that his friend was healing rapidly these days, he still worried about him venturing off on his own.

"Where is Dahlia?" Herrick asked instead of greeting his friend.

"I do not need to be tended to like a sickly child," Gunnar gruffed as he stopped in front of Herrick.

His friend had more color to him every day, his strength growing and his galder returning to him in full force.

Stooping down to the forest floor, Gunnar placed his fingers in the damp soil and closed his eyes.

Herrick watched as his friend took a few steady breaths before a small bud sprouted under his palm.

Gunnar lifted his hand to hover a few inches above the ground before opening his eyes to inspect the small bloom that had grown under his coaxing.

The flower bed that grew quickly under Gunnar's influence sprouted small, pink petals and grew taller before his very eyes until the small bushes of heather lined the pathway. His friend had not even broken a sweat wielding his power like he had only days before.

Herrick tried not to allow the sting of envy to darken his mood further, but it had been too long since he had felt his galder beneath his skin.

The constant flow of water and budding life that seemed to live within him had gone silent under the iron band's restrictions.

He knew the Soothsayer was going to help him, but he grew impatient .

"See? I am doing just fine without having to be watched over constantly," Gunnar continued. "I grow stronger each day, and today, I'd like to train with you."

"It would be my honor to knock you on your ass," Herrick said with a mock bow, shaking his troubles from his mind.

Gunnar, having known him for most of his life, could pick up on the lingering remains of Herrick's dark mood.

"Why are you up so early? I would have thought Maude would keep you both too exhausted to wake before the sun," his friend asked quietly.

Herrick hesitated to answer, but his friend knew what plagued him already.

The benefit of knowing someone so deeply is that they can always tell that something is wrong.

It also meant that hiding turmoil beneath indifference became impossible.

It was incredibly frustrating to Herrick as he tried and failed to find a way to skirt the conversation.

"I'd rather not talk about it right now," he replied instead of confiding in his friend.

Herrick moved to push past Gunnar, but the man stopped him before he could get further than a few steps around him.

"Tough," Gunnar said before grabbing Herrick's arm, dragging him to a fallen log, and forcing him to sit on the soft moss that had grown over the top. "You don't just get over what you went through."

"Gunnar—"

"Shut up," his friend said, standing in front of him as if he were a parent scolding his child.

"I've missed quite a bit, it seems. Dahlia has been kind enough to inform me of some of the details— Liv as well— but I want to hear it from you.

Tell me what happened so you can stop being a shadow of yourself when right now we need you to be strong. "

"What if this is all I am now— a shadow of who I was before?" Herrick shouted, surprised his anger had slipped through as quickly as it did. "What if this is all I want to be now?"

Gunnar only crossed his arms over his chest .

Herrick observed his friend and took note of the changes in his body since the belladonna poisoning had wreaked havoc on him.

Once a formidable opponent, Gunnar now stood thinner than before.

Muscles that had been like iron were now wiry, his face thinner than he had ever seen.

The words rushed out of him before he realized what he was saying—a confession he had not even made to himself yet.

"When we were running from the palace, right after Maude had…

I wasn't in my right mind. I knew we wouldn't get away from the soldiers chasing after us, so I told myself that staying behind would give you all the best chance of escape.

I told myself that my life was forfeit because I didn't want a life without Maude.

Hakon and Liv needed to get you to a healer.

I promised to get Bryn to safety. There were probably a hundred reasons I could come up with in those moments for why I stayed behind, but the truth is, I didn't think I was going to survive. And I was okay with that."

Gunnar listened intently, his light blue eyes never betraying what he thought about what Herrick was saying. His friend's silence spurred him on as the truth continued to spill out of him.

"Then, to wake up in a cell, I felt it was a just punishment from the gods for trying to keep what I could not have.

I lay in that dark hole beneath the palace grounds for weeks, wondering if you were alive, wondering if Hakon and Liv had managed to escape.

I wallowed in my grief, never accepting the events that happened but choosing to drown in them anyway.

I think that kept me sane, as backward as it sounds.

But it kept my grip on reality tight," Herrick whispered.

The walls of the cell seemed to press in on him even as he sat in the open forest, his freedom within grasp despite the cold iron around his throat.

"When Baldr showed up in my cell the first time, I knew that my time was coming to an end.

The 'sessions,' as he called them, were long, but I never knew how long.

I had no way to track the time; I was lost in my pain and my grief, so it didn't really matter at that point.

But I still expected this from Helvig and his minions.

What I hadn't expected was the help. Notes with medicines, food, and even a weapon that came with a warning to be ready, all appearing in my cell with no trace of who left it. "

Gunnar sat next to him on the log, each of them facing the misty forest that extended beyond their line of sight, before he asked, "Did you ever discover who left you these means of survival?"

"No, I didn't," he said quietly. "Now I suspect that it was Baldr, seeing as he is Aeric's spy. Not that it matters— the man's cruelty, no matter how false it was for him, was real to me."

Herrick paused as he tried to reconcile the man who tormented him and the man who also saved him. He took a shaky breath before revealing the worst of his truth to Gunnar.

"The day Hakon showed up outside of my cell, the day I was to be made a spectacle in front of the entire city of Logi, I told myself that if I had the opportunity to run, I would take it. It wouldn't matter to me if I had died trying, but then I saw my brother running toward me…"

Herrick trailed off as he recalled what he had been feeling, the emotion that had plagued him as he lay eyes on his brother rescuing him from the dungeons. Shame washed through him as his stomach churned from what he was about to admit.

"My first reaction when I saw Hakon was disappointment. Of course I'm relieved now, but at first, I was frustrated. His appearance thwarted my last means of joining Maude, no matter how grateful I am now for it."

They sat in silence for a while, the weight of his words starting to feel lighter in his chest.

"What aren't you telling me?" Gunnar finally asked, turning to look at him.

Herrick could not meet his eye.

"Maude was in the hall when I exited the dungeons.

I thought I had died, that the Valkyries had brought me to Valhalla.

But when it became clear that it was reality, that Maude was alive and in my arms, that the woman I was holding was real…

the last thing I expected was anger. I was furious .

Once the shock of seeing her alive wore off, once I had to face the reality of my imprisonment, I resented the fact that I had suffered for so long while Maude had actually survived.

Even now, I'll catch myself resentful and have to remind myself that being kept alive meant finding out Maude was still breathing.

While I'm grateful we've been reunited, it doesn't change what I went through. "

Herrick's breath left him in a large exhale. He expected his friend to spout of something wise and healing but Gunnar only raised his eyebrow and asked, "What else?"

Gods damn his friends impeccable receptiveness to his struggles.

"Baldr burned me during those 'sessions' and after a while I couldn't separate the memory of that pain from the memory of Maude. She runs so hot all the time, how could I not think of her?"

Herrick let his face fall into his hands.

Gunnar was quiet for a while before he finally spoke, "Does Maude know any of this?"

"Of course not."

"That's a mistake," Gunnar said. "Don't give her a reason not to trust you, not when she has trouble doing that to begin with."

"What if I don't trust her?" Herrick asked, the desperation in his voice leaking out despite how he tried to hold on to it.

"Why wouldn't you? Because of what Helvig said about training her to retrieve the dagger for him? I know that you are well aware she had no idea," Gunnar asked, but Herrick quickly cut him off.

"Because she left us. She took the dagger and left us behind. She hides important information from me— things I deserve to know. She didn't tell me her father was actually an Elven King. She does everything on her own; how am I supposed to trust that she'll stay?"

"You mean she left you behind."

"Yes, she left me behind and put her revenge first. How can I be certain she'll stay now?" Herrick shouted as he stood from the log and started to pace. "After everything we went through—"

"We all lost that day, Herrick," Gunnar said roughly, stopping Herrick in his tracks. "We face greater evils now than we did before. Hiding this part of yourself from Maude will only push her away. "