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Ravens mate for life, but you have never been a raven, my love. You are fire and wind and power. You are the pulse that keeps Logi's citizens alive, even if they don't know it yet.

I love you, Brynna Helvig. I'll be saving you a seat in Odin's hall because I know we will meet again one day.

Your raven.

Tears streamed down Bryn's face in a torrential pour. From the first line, she had welled up at the sight of Revna's familiar handwriting.

For weeks, Bryn had been feeling her raven around her: in the breeze that smelled of juniper, in the sunshine that warmed her skin, in the ravens that flew in the forests of Hilgafell. Revna was everywhere. Until she wasn't.

Bryn stopped feeling her presence, stopped feeling that sense of calm that Revna seemed to radiate. Her raven had found peace and moved on, letting go of her mortal life so she could join Odin in his gilded halls. That was when she knew it was time to say goodbye.

So, as Bryn finished the letter, she carved out a piece of her heart that would always belong to Revna before burning her lover's last words and floating the ashes into the late morning sky on a swift breeze.

She thought she would be more heartbroken than she already was, but the action left her with a sense of profound peace.

Maude told her to be brave when it came to the Elven shieldmaiden.

But Liv scared the Hel out of her— the idea of falling for someone else just to lose them again terrified her.

Saying goodbye to her, even knowing she would be sailing for Veter with the rest of Aeric's soldiers, was harder than she expected.

Bryn didn't know what to make of that, but she knew with absolute certainty that when she saw Liv again, she would make her feelings clear.

Maude rolled her neck a few times to loosen the muscles there.

"Again, but this time, try to slow your heart rate until it matches mine. When you get in touch with another's rhythm, it's easier to dive into your water until you detect what they need," Dahlia explained quickly, her face stern as she instructed her on how to tap into healing galder .

If she was even able to do it. Not everyone had the ability, or so the Elven healer had explained.

They were standing in the lower deck, hammocks swaying to either side of them as they made their way to Veter.

She had left Bryn in the sunshine to read Revna's letter and opted not to broadcast her fantastic failures to everyone aboard the longship.

This was her fifth lesson with Dahlia since leaving Nida, and she had made zero progress .

Closing her eyes, Maude placed her hand on the center of Dahlia's chest and felt her heartbeat. Seconds passed as she tried to align her rate with Dahlia's. It was one of the harder things she's ever had to do— so much of her skill with galder had been instinctive.

"This isn't going to work," Maude muttered under her breath.

"It will, just give it time," the healer instructed.

Maude sighed, annoyed at her lack of skill so far. Falling into a meditative state had never been easy for her; she always either fell asleep or grew bored and gave up. But she had asked for these lessons, had found the value in being able to heal someone on short notice. So she kept trying.

The Kolbeck brothers were at the helm of the ship, pouring over navigational charts of the waters surrounding Veter.

They wanted to beach the ship a little further north of the palace and enter through the Lamenting Woods on foot.

They suspected that Helvig wouldn't try to take the Kingdom of Rivers without his navy guarding the ocean border of their capital city.

Maude had listened to all of five minutes before she left them to it.

As her mind drifted to Herrick, she could feel her galder surge in her soul. The different colored threads pulsed in her mind's eye, the dark blue and purple strands for water just within her reach.

"That's it," Dahlia said, her voice sounding far away. "I can feel our hearts matching rhythm; now grab onto your galder and let it pull you into its flow."

She tried to surrender to her water, tried to make herself let go.

The thread was slippery, just out of her reach, like she was trying to grasp at a steady stream of water trickling in front of her.

Just when she was about to give up, she felt a cool touch trace up her spine until two thumbs started to massage the tension out of her neck.

"You're doing so well, minn eldr ," Herrick cooed softly in her ear. "Let the current pull you in. The best way to get swept into the tide of water in your blood is to let go of control."

Behind closed eyes, Maude imagined she was floating on the rough shores of Logi's coast. The sun was warm on her skin, its embrace radiating over her as the cool waters held her up, the ebbing of the current beneath her gentle as it pulled her deeper into the dark waters.

The cool trickle of her water galder snuck up on her.

In slow pushes, the waves of her power broke over the beach of her conscious mind until it begged to be used.

She grasped onto that sensation, sinking into the command as it rushed to surround her.

There was control in the surrender of one's self, she thought idly. Her water galder reminded her of floating in a deep pool of still water— she could kick up and be at the surface whenever she wanted to, but she could also choose to remain suspended.

"Now, Maude," Dahlia coaxed.

At the Elven's prompt, she pushed her awareness into Dahlia's blood until she could feel every path through the Elven's foreign body.

She traced her veins with a mental finger all the way through the four chambers of her heart, through the lungs that inflated, and then finally into her other organs.

"You really need to eat something, the sugar levels in your blood are bordering on cranky," Maude said quietly before withdrawing, grinning at the Elven in front of her.

"Excellent," Dahlia replied, her mirrored grin spreading from cheek to cheek. "And you're right, I am famished."

"There is some bread and fish above that some of the other sailors caught and cooked up," Herrick told her from where he lounged against the wall.

Dahlia nodded her head and left them alone in the low lighting of the crew's quarters.

"I thought you were navigating with Hakon," Maude said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"He can handle it on his own for a while," Herrick replied, his lips tilting up in the corner.

Ever since the iron had been removed from his throat, he had recovered most of his strength and all of his galder , thank the Allfather.

While the need to return to his home and protect it was still present, at this moment, he looked at ease in his skin for the first time since they had rescued him .

Following his lead, Maude leaned against one of the support beams in the middle of the open space, keeping a healthy distance from him.

"And you just came down here to spy on my lessons?" she asked, picking up her boot and resting it on the beam as well, her knee propped up in front of her.

"Something like that."

For a moment, they just stared at each other until Herrick pushed himself off the wall and came to stand in front of Maude. Before she could realize what he was doing, vines wrapped around her wrists as Herrick pulled them up the low ceiling.

"You beast," she seethed as she tried to break free of her bonds. "There are easier ways of getting into my pants than binding me with vines. Just because you've got your galder back, doesn't mean—"

He cut her off with a deep kiss as his hand wrapped around her jaw, tilting her head up until she was exactly where he wanted her.

He kissed her until all she could taste was summer berries exploding on her tongue, muddling her mind like the sweetest of wines until he almost had to hold her up against the beam she was bound in front of.

"Of course there are easier ways," Herrick whispered as his mouth traced over her jaw and down her neck to where her tunic rested on her shoulders. "But this was the only way to get you angry like this. You always turn the most delectable shade of burgundy when you're angry with me."

One of his hands had dove into her hair, tilting her head to the side so he could better nip at the sensitive skin behind her ear. In a last-ditch effort, she tried to bring her knee back up to his groin to get him to back up, but, as usual, he knew her moves well and shoved his thigh between hers.

Her skin heated at the thought of the last time they had been in this position. Back in Logi, beneath the ground in the tunnel Sigurd used to connect his house to the fighting pits, Maude and Herrick had had their first of many battles of wills.

As if he remembered, too, Herrick brought his mouth back up to hers as if he needed to taste her desperation for him.

That was different from the last time, and he took painful measures to remind her of that as his free hand started to pull at the ties that held her vest together until it hung open in front of her.

Slowly but surely, Herrick made his way down her captured body until she was trembling with need.

"Tell me what you want, minn eldr ," Herrick said, his voice huskier than before.

Maude tried to find the words she'd known her entire life, tried to string together a sentence that made sense, but ultimately, she landed on, "I want you ."

It was all she needed to say before Herrick unleashed himself on her.