Page 37 of The Viking in the Vault (Galactic Librarians #2)

RAGNAR

T he air grows colder the deeper we go.

Fenrik trots ahead, the rest of our group saying nothing. We are all exhausted—especially Elena, who continues to tell me she’s fine when I ask if she would like to be carried. I’m certain she would benefit from it, but my fenvarra is strong, and will not be carried.

Eventually, she will let me carry her everywhere.

It would be the highest honor.

I watch her as she walks ahead of me, her gloved fingers trailing along the ice walls, her breath misting in the dim light.

She is tired, yes—but still curious, still searching, always seeking the story buried beneath the surface.

My mate is made of stardust and questions, and I can imagine no better match… a miracle of fate.

Fenrik pauses.

We follow his gaze through a narrow channel, where a familiar glint of metal peeks through the frozen mist.

“Do you see that?” Ves asks, glancing over at us.

“Yeah,” Elena whispers. “Is it…is it alive?”

“No, I think it’s a structure,” Kallisto says—then gestures at the channel. “Be careful; we don’t know about the structural integrity on the other side.”

She goes through first, turning sideways to fit, and I watch as she moves into the mist. Ves is close behind her, smaller antlers barely fitting through, while Davina and I hang back, Elena and Fenrik at my side. I’m not sure if Skoll can fit through the gap; our antlers are too large.

Then I see something familiar…and it sparks a memory of when I first woke in this strange world—scrape marks along the upper walls of the narrow space.

Marks from antlers.

“Ragnar!” Kallisto calls back from inside. “I think this is where you woke up!”

Elena looks up at me with wide eyes.

“I know,” I rumble. “I, too, am shocked that I was able to fit through such a small space.”

She blushes, shaking her head. “No, Ragnar…I was actually just going to ask if you’re ready for this.”

I look past her, into the haze where my pod waits—the place where I first opened my eyes in this strange new era, Fenrik my only companion. That moment changed everything; it broke the world I knew, fractured the mission I swore to uphold, and set me on a collision course with her .

With Elena…my fenvarra.

I reach for her hand, feeling her warmth even through our gloves. “I am,” I say, “because you are with me.”

She squeezes my fingers, just once, and then nods. “Let’s go then.”

Fenrik huffs and then goes through, head ducked as he easily slips into the gap.

I follow, angling my body sideways, antlers scraping against the walls.

I grit my teeth as I remember more of these first moments…

sensing that I needed to go this way to save my mate, enduring the discomfort for her sake.

I’m trapped in that narrow space for a moment before I look to the side–and I see Ves extending a hand, ready to pull me through.

I am not alone.

Not just because I have Elena…because she has brought me into her circle of friends.

She is a blessing from Yrsa herself.

I take Ves’s hand.

They grunt, clearly not expecting the force they’ll need to yank me through to the other side, but they brace and tug and ultimately guide me the last few inches through.

When I finally stumble into the chamber beyond, Fenrik is waiting, wagging his tail and pointing toward the glint of metal we saw from the other side.

I already know what it is.

My cryo-pod.

The pod is tilted at a strange angle, still partially encased in ice at its base.

I move toward it, taking in the shimmering runes carved into the sides: blessings and messages from my clan before we left Kanin.

A thin layer of frost now covers the interior, but I can make out the white and pale blue fur left from Fenrik as we slept all those years.

Elena comes up beside me, wide-eyed with wonder.

“This is it?” she asks.

I nod. “This is where I woke.”

She brushes her fingers along the metal, wiping a streak into the frost. “I keep trying to picture it…what it must have been like to open your eyes and find everything gone.”

I do not speak at first; the memory is more painful than I’d expected. I remember the strange sensation of waking, Fenrik whining and nuzzling my cheek, trying to wake me fully. I remember the dread I felt, knowing that something had gone wrong…and then the awareness of her .

That even if something had gone wrong, it was because Yrsa had a different path for me than the one I intended.

“I thought I had failed,” I murmur. “I worried that all I knew was gone.”

Elena turns to me, brow furrowed. “I’m so sorry, Ragnar.”

I meet her eyes. “Don’t be,” I reply, lacing our fingers together. “Now I know I was meant to sleep all those years so I could find you .”

Her breath catches, and she leans slightly closer. A surge of possessive pleasure courses through me, a reminder that I claimed this female last night…that she is mine .

“I’m really glad you woke up,” she whispers.

A sharp bark from Fenrik breaks the moment.

We both turn as he trots toward the far end of the chamber, in the opposite direction from the one I took when I first emerged. There, the frost-covered floor drops away into a dark, wide opening: a chasm cut into the ice, deep and yawning. Mist drifts up from its depths, and below…light.

Something is glowing down there.

Kallisto is already following Fenrik, eyes flickering from the chasm to her comm, where she’s pulled up a map of the Eiskammer. She looks back at us now, frowning. “There’s…it appears that there’s a chamber down there,” she says. “But it isn’t on the map.”

I step closer to the edge, boots crunching in the frost, and peer down into the chasm. The drop is steep, nearly vertical, but not infinite. And below, the glow strengthens…pulsing in rhythmic intervals like a heartbeat. I inhale deeply, scenting what might lay beneath.

And there–something familiar.

Skoll signatures… crew.

“My people are down there,” I say, the words rushing out of me.

Elena gasps. “What? Really?”

“Yes…I must find them.”

I’m already peering into the darkness and mist, sizing the drop. Kallisto frowns, moving toward me like she’ll hold me back. “There’s no safe way down–not without setting up our climbing gear first. You need to?—”

I lift Elena into my arms. Ves lurches toward us as if they believe I’ve suddenly lost my mind. Perhaps I have.

“Ragnar–!” Elena squeaks, her arms looping instinctively around my neck.

“I have you,” I rumble, stepping closer to the edge.

Fenrik, picking up on my cues, is already at the chasm’s mouth. He looks back at me and then leaps into the darkness, and I hear the faint sound of his claws clicking as he touches down. He woofs once from down below, but it doesn’t seem to do much at all to set Elena at ease.

“Ragnar, wait , can we just talk about—” she starts.

But I do not wait.

I leap.

Ves shouts after us; Davina lets out a cry of shock from back toward the passage; Kallisto curses. The air whooshes past us for only a moment before I touch down, bracing both of us against the impact…safe.

“What the fuck, Ragnar?!” Ves is screaming. “Elena? Talk to me!”

“I’m okay,” Elena says, voice thin and reedy. “I think.”

Fenrik is already at our side, licking Elena’s hand to comfort her as I set her gently on her feet. She blinks up at me, stunned, face pale. “Ragnar…you absolute maniac.”

“You are unhurt,” I murmur.

“Physically, sure,” she says. “But psychologically? Please never do that again.”

I cannot help but smile. “If it means reaching my people, I will always jump.”

Elena groans. “You’re lucky you’re hot.”

“I am lucky you love me.”

She blushes, eyes twinkling for a moment…then her eyes slide away from mine toward the room behind me.

It’s easy to forget about the world when I’m with her—but somehow, she keeps pulling me back.

I turn around to take in the space we’ve found ourselves in, mist curling around the edges…and I find the source of the glow. Lights glimmer, effervescent in shades of blue and gold, illuminating a circular room lined with frost-covered bookshelves…and at its center is a large table with a starmap.

“I recognize this place,” I murmur. “I have…been here before.”

Elena’s eyes dart toward me once again. “What is it?” she asks.

“A…” I pause. “It’s a reading room from the first years of Grand Library…one of the ones constructed by Thorne’s cohort. Mine .”

“And the map?” she asks.

I take a hesitant step toward it, reaching out—and it responds to me as if it was made to do so. Perhaps it was, though I do not remember anything this vast outside of Mythara. As I get closer, the table trembles and spires emerge from certain points on the map, making the whole chamber shudder.

“Did you just cause another earthquake?!” Ves calls from overhead. “What’s going on?”

“It wasn’t an earthquake!” Elena shouts back as I continue to examine the table. “There’s some kind of map down here and it’s responding to Ragnar!”

Above us, the scholars go silent. Then Davina speaks up. “Perhaps this is the origin of the seismic activity in the Eiskammer…related to the reading room in Mythara?”

Elena responds, but her words escape me…because I am thoroughly distracted by Fenrik. My skarnhound is sniffing around on the opposite side of the circular table, following a trail. I see what he’s found a moment later: footprints in the frost.

Fresh ones.

There is someone else down here.

And I think I know exactly who it is.