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Is this what Vilde has been trying to do with the prisoners from Logi? Maude wondered as she instantly cut off the connection with each soldier. As soon as the connection was severed, the galder in her blood that was connecting to theirs grew quiet.

"Maude? Did you hear me?"

Dahlia's voice cut through the haze of all that power leaving her as suddenly as it had appeared.

"What?"

"I asked if you were injured?" Dahlia repeated, her voice calm but her eyes cautious as she approached her.

"No, I'm fine," Maude replied, shaking off the growing sense of anger toward the Elven that didn't belong to her.

She closed her eyes and placed her fingers on her temples, the headache growing behind her temples beginning to throb like the mornings she woke up after drinking too much mead.

Rage, cold and furious, bloomed in her the longer she tried to massage the headache from her temples.

If someone were speaking to her, she couldn't make out the words.

A buzzing had taken up in her ears, the sound drowning out any other noise until she vibrated with it.

Soft, warm hands replaced hers on her forehead.

From either side of her head, a warmth spilled into her that chased the growing frigid wrath that was taking up residence in her mind.

The soothing wave made her knees buckle as relief spilled into her, her hands going to her thighs to keep her up until strong arms enveloped her waist.

"She's almost done, minn eldr ." A voice like raindrops on still water trickled into her ears, cutting the buzzing sound off until calm replaced it. "You're doing so well."

Chills ran down her spine as she arched into the steady presence behind her that she knew as well as her own body.

"She's fighting me, but I almost have her back," Dahlia said between her teeth, her struggle clear in how her hands shook over her skin .

All at once, Maude's mind was her own again.

On stronger legs than before, Maude rose to her full height as she opened her eyes.

Only Dahlia, Bryn, and Herrick stood with her as Hakon and the rest of the Elven soldiers went from soldier to soldier and sliced their throats open.

Blood flowed in fountains of gore to the forest ground, where the trees would inevitably soak up their unceremonious deaths.

The Elven healer looked shaken, her skin paler than her usual sun-kissed bronze.

When Maude opened her mouth to ask what the Hel had just happened, Dahlia only turned away and began helping the other Elven with the final elimination of the threat.

Next, she turned to her sister, expecting her sister to spout off an opinion about what just happened or scold her for being so reckless with her galder that she was close to what appeared a burnout.

Only Bryn had left with Dahlia and went to work silencing the Flame Soldiers.

Something slithered in her gut as she watched each Elven glance at her over their shoulders and how Bryn and Dahlia were working hard to avoid her eye.

Turning to Herrick, the one person who would always tell her the truth, she paused when she saw how he was watching her.

His face was stoic—the blood splatter and sweat mixing on his face stark against his skin as he clenched his square jaw.

The same look he had after his ritual was complete had returned to his golden stare—bright and frozen.

Sure that he knew what she wanted to ask him, Maude waited patiently for the ice to break over his exterior.

But when it finally had, Hakon motioned over to her and Herrick to join him, so rather than say whatever it was he was about to reveal, they joined the Rivers Heir in silence.

As they walked side by side, their effortless dodging of dead or dying soldiers became an unknown dance they each knew well.

The silence between them stretched again.

The slithering sensation in her gut started to make itself known again as her heart began to race.

Fear— that was what Maude was feeling underneath her cool mask that she'd worn for years. Fear for whatever was happening to her because she didn't know how to stop it.

Herrick tried to swallow but found his throat had gone dry after watching Dahlia try to pull Maude back from whatever was possessing her.

He had his suspicions, but none of them were any good.

After Hildr had revealed that the other gods have a chance to interfere with someone's fate, it all became very clear to him why Tyr had appeared so often in his life.

From the stories their nurse used to tell them when they were younglings to the rigid sense of morality he'd felt his entire life, all of it pointed to the god of war and justice.

War was threatening to descend in his lifetime— how appropriate it was that he was General of Rivers.

When he had seen that mural of Tyr in Ljosa, only hours after Maude had destroyed a portion of the city in her rage, he'd felt that otherwordly presence hovering around him.

It was like he'd been guided to that exact spot through no will of his own…

but that of Tyr's. The god of war and justice had lost his hand to Fenrir— a sacrifice to trap the wolf.

Maude's fate telling included gebo — the rune for great sacrifice.

There were no coincidences when it came to the games gods played. What would Herrick have to lose in the name of sacrifice?

And of course, right as he and Maude had reconciled, agreeing to transparency moving forward, he could not tell her what he had seen the night of the ritual.

Warnings from Hildr and Tyr stayed his tongue.

When Dahlia had to pull Maude from her mind attacking itself, Tyr's message had burst to the front of his mind.

You will know what to do when the time is right.

Herrick worried about the day he would discover Tyr's meaning.

His brother had waved them over to a soldier still wrapped in Maude's shadows, the friendly tendrils tightening in malice around the form suspended from the trees above them.

With a nod, Maude unraveled some of the shadows to reveal the man above them was a high-ranking sergeant— his numerous medals pinned to his chest clear that he was considered battle-tried and successful.

"What should we do with this one?" Hakon asked, his tone cold even as his eyes warmed when Dahlia arrived at Herrick's side.

Herrick wasn't sure his brother was aware of how much he revealed in just his gaze— had he forgotten Eydis so quickly already? But he remained silent as he slipped into his role: the General, who was calculating and cold like the ice that lived in his veins.

"Kill him and be done with it," Dahlia offered, the venom in her words surprising him.

Hakon raised an eyebrow, one side of his mouth lifting in the corner.

The Elven healer only held his stare. As they trudged through whatever silent standoff they had with each other, Bryn appeared at Dahlia's side.

Her steps were quiet enough that even Herrick hadn't heard her coming.

He made a mental note not to underestimate the true Heir of Flame's ability to disappear when she wanted to.

"I agree. He's a liability," Bryn said, her voice low.

Sighing when no one offered another suggestion, Maude lifted one hand and waved it to dispel the shadows that held him.

He fell in a crumpled heap— a pile of pale skin and copper hair offset by the swallowing black uniforms Helvig had bedecked his armies in.

Bryn brought her hands up in a swift motion, the air she controlled lifting the sergeant and holding him in place so they could execute him in a way that was deserving of a soldier.

The sergeant remained silent, his eyes hateful as he glared at each of them.

Baring his teeth at them all, the sergeant tipped his head back and offered his throat to them before growling, "The High King is coming for you all.

He is unstoppable now— may the gods spare you because King Helvig will not. "

The last of the Elven who had been working around them joined their semi-circle as the woods darkened.

The end of the day was near— soon, the woods would be plunged into darkness that Herrick wasn't sure he could navigate with such a large group.

There could be more attacks or another group of soldiers lying in wait …

"Wait," Herrick ordered just as Maude had unsheathed the leifr Hela from her hip, the dark metal seeming to pulse at the idea of fresh blood.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, curiosity in her green eyes that were tinged with relief. She did not want to kill this man with this blade.

"Bring him to Veter," he continued, aware of everyone's focus on him. He could only watch Maude. "He'll have information about Helvig's army that we can get quicker than waiting for a scrap of news that arrives too late."

His eyes flashed to Dahlia's, but she kept her chin high as she absorbed his slicing words.

Reluctant admiration swept through him at the Elven's continued strength under his ire.

He knew that what he had suffered under Baldr's torment had nothing to do with her, but he couldn't help but be resentful of her defending the bastard.

"And if you want to live," Herrick said to the sergeant, the cold fury in his voice making the man flinch. "You'll warn us of any more attacks that may befall our group."

The man spit, the projectile landing across his face.

Herrick only smiled, the act making the sergeant's grin falter as he realized that he was not going to explode from the disrespect like Helvig might have.

He felt his mood lighten even as his voice grew darker.

A side to him that had thrashed against its restraints for decades crept to the surface, and Herrick knew that when his smile twisted into something mocking, the sergeant was aware of what he was dealing with.

"We're close to the northern bridge," Hakon offered as he conjured vines from the ground to wrap around the sergeant's wrists. "Only a half hour from where we are now. We can make it into the Kingdom of Rivers before night truly falls."

"Do you hear that, sergeant? Only a half hour until we can have some fun," Herrick cooed at his captive.

Behind him, he could hear Maude let out a humorless laugh. He didn't need to turn to know that she had her mask of cruel indifference on despite the fact that she'd shielded her face within the darkness of the hooded cloak she wore.

Though cruelty was not something Herrick had been versed in before, there was that rage-filled side of him that only Hakon and Gunnar had ever seen.

He'd learned to control his temper, curbed the vicious desire to tear apart his enemies even if it was something their culture encouraged.

Instead, he'd become a man who had complete control of himself— nothing could set him off unless he wanted to be set off, and no one could get under his skin unless he wanted them to.

But the man he'd been when he was imprisoned is not the man who was freed. Baldr may have been the instrument, but Helvig's torture shed the restraints Herrick had placed on himself when he was only eight years old until that raw, malicious side of him was the only thing that was left.