She swallowed, trying to counter the logic. “Fine, you have your deal.”

Vhalla threw open the door to his office, stomping in without permission. By the time the minister closed it behind him, she’d stormed over to the window, gripping the sill with a hand. He stood silently, letting her work though the words.

“You had me bring it here for him?”

“Not for him,” Victor denied.

“No, I heard you, you—you had me find it so he could turn his bloodlust on a whole new continent? A whole new people?” She whirled in place. “What does he want?”

Victor shrugged. “What does any man want when they have tasted power? To rule the world.”

“And he wants me to help him do it,” Vhalla filled in the blank.

“He does.”

“He wants me to open the power of the Crystal Caverns. He wants me to use this.” Vhalla held out the bag. “He wants to make monsters and perform feats of magic men should never perform.”

“He does.” Victor’s cool responses were working her to a fever pitch.

“And you, you bend to his will. You’re going to hand me over to do it for him. To be his thing, his tool, his wretch of death!” she shrieked.

Victor crossed the room and placed an arm around her shoulders, leading her to one of the two chairs that sat opposite his desk. His touch cooled some of the heat in her veins, and she sank into one the chair.

“I wouldn’t.” His palms rested on her shoulders a brief moment before Victor rounded the chair to lean against the desk in front of her, arms folded. “I wouldn’t give you to him.”

“You’re his loyal servant,” she snapped. “You’re just like him, like all of them, looking for power, looking to use me—”

“I am not like him!” Victor slammed his open palm on the desk and leaned forward. “I have watched that man use sorcerers as tools. I have seen him degrade our people for the power that flows through them. I have endured him taking my students and teachers to be nothing more than cutthroats! I have watched him take a library girl and turn her into a “wretch of death” for no other reason than it suited him best.”

For being a Waterrunner, fire was alive in Victor’s usually icy eyes.

“I have balanced protecting my Tower, my sorcerer kin, against his aims and not lost my head in the process. For if I die, there would be no shield for people like us.” Victor sighed, his shoulders slumping.

The minister knelt before her and rested a palm on her knee. She stiffened at the contact; it was part fatherly and part not—combined, it felt entirely wrong. “My dear girl, do you really think I’d let him have you again?”

“So what do you want?” Vhalla asked finally. “What are you risking everything for?”

“I want to protect people like us.” Victor met her eyes. “I want to fight for a world where sorcerers aren’t feared, but revered by Commons for our powers. Where no one would think to use us. Where a sorcerer would never have to hide.”

Vhalla searched his face for a trace of insincerity. Finding none, she asked, “What do you want with the axe?”

“I want to return it to the caverns and see that no one will be able to think of using it again.” Victor’s face was overcome by an intense severity. “Do you trust me on this?”

She ran her fingers over the saddlebag, searching for the buckle on the front, searching her heart for the answer. Did she trust him? If anything, out of everyone, Victor was the one person who’d only helped her at every turn. He healed her after her fall. He stood up for her in her trial. He trusted her with knowledge of the axe, with the task of bringing it to him safely and keeping it from the Emperor or the Knights of Jadar.

Vhalla unlatched the saddlebag as her answer. Victor stared intently as Vhalla produced the legendary crystal axe, Achel.

“ACHEL,” VICTOR BREATHED. “It’s here.”

Vhalla studied the minister’s face as the soft and unnatural glow of the crystal lit his brow. The man shifted his eyes to catch hers, and Vhalla did nothing to hide her study of his person. Victor’s lips curled into a conspiratorial smile.

“I want to know about the caverns.” Her research had only yielded splotchy patches of color. She wanted to paint the picture. She wanted to finally see what everyone else had been looking at all along.

“I bet you do.” Victor peeled himself away from her. He felt twice as tall, suddenly, as he loomed over her. “But first I need to know, what do you want?”

“What do I want?” she repeated, cautiously.

“I told you my dream. I told you the world I’m prepared to fight for. What do you want?”

Rather than speaking the first thing that came into her mind, Vhalla remained silent, introspective. She mulled over the question, letting it settle across her mind and stretch into the cracks where she’d pushed her hopes and dreams into—things that had been too dangerous for her to engage in while she had been property of the Empire.

“I want . . . I want a future again. I want peace. I want freedom. I want to be free of people trying to use me for my magic.”

“So we want the same thing.” Victor beamed. “I’m relieved to know we’re aligned in this.”