Sehra took Vhalla’s hesitation as an invitation to continue. “If the Emperor dies, then you could be with your prince, and our deal could stand.”

“Aldrik would never love someone who killed his family.” Vhalla frowned. “And I thought my dismissal would be clear, this is about more than me and him.”

“And here I thought you would be foolish enough to make a deal for love.” The princess grinned briefly before sobering once more. “You don’t need to swing the axe. Za will.”

“Then why haven’t you already?”

“You would help us escape,” Sehra explained.

Vhalla turned, finally letting out mad laughter as she started for the door. “Princess,” she called, her voice echoing through the empty space, “I realize that you are doing what you must to defend your people. But I have no interest in actually committing one of the crimes the Senate has been trying to pin on me for months.”

“If you do not help us, we will consider you our enemy.”

Vhalla paused with a sigh. “Frankly, I don’t care if I am your enemy.” She met the child princess’s eyes once more. “But if you brought a deal to me that wasn’t rooted in wishful thinking and delusions, I could be willing to help you. I meant what I said today, I hold no ill will toward your people. But I’m tired of senseless bloodshed, and that’s what your resistance would end up bringing.”

The princess didn’t like hearing this, her guard even less. Vhalla didn’t care, the truth wasn’t always easy or beautiful. Often, the only joy Vhalla had found since growing up was in spite of the truth. She left the other two women to their thoughts.

The walk back to the Tower was lonely and cold. Vhalla kept her hands under the heavy cloak, passing back the watch from fingertips to fingertips. She’d learned two things. The first was that the princess and her bodyguard were unsurprisingly mutinous against their new sovereign. The second was that she held a vessel of Aldrik’s magic, strong enough that the princess could sense it with whatever strange magic she wielded.

Now Vhalla was presented with the debate of what to tell Aldrik, if anything. Had he intended to give her a vessel? Should she tell him about Za and Sehra? Certainly he already knew . . .

Vhalla focused on the sloping floor of the Tower, counting the cracks between the stones. She paused as the ghost of light illuminated the otherwise dim hall. Vhalla turned to see a mote of fire shine through the bookshelves of the Tower library, following some late night patron.

She didn’t know if she truly believed in all the utterings of the Goddess. Of fate. Of a grander meaning to the world. But in that moment, it felt like something greater had shown her a light.

The flame reminded her of Aldrik’s, and Vhalla knew that whatever she did next, she had to somehow restore some lines of communication with the man she had once promised to marry. She had things that she needed to say and, if his expression at court was any indication, so did he.

THE MAGIC OF the axe shimmered around her fingertips, and Vhalla focused on it intensely. She delicately pulled and pried, separating the layers of foreign magic entangled around the blade. The more her own power mingled with the axe, the cleaner it became, the waves of power radiating outward.

It had been three days since she decided she needed to speak with Aldrik. Instead of seeking the prince out, she’d spent the majority of her time throwing herself into her work with Victor. It was a cheap diversion from what she really needed to do, but Vhalla could insist to herself the importance of cleansing the axe and destroying it—especially after her conversation with Za and Sehra.

She was so exhausted by the time she called it a day that her body nearly ached from magic depletion. But she wasn’t too tired to miss spending time with her messy-haired friend. So in the late afternoon, Vhalla found herself leaning against the wall of the alcove she shared with Fritz, reading in the Tower library.

Fritz broke the silence with a stretch and a yawn. “Vhal, I’ve been wondering.”

“Wondering what?” Vhalla’s eyes continued to scan the words of the book she was reading.

“What do you do with the minister?”

Vhalla knew the question would come eventually. She should’ve thought of some kind of response before being put on the spot. But she hadn’t, and there she was, struggling to form an answer. Lying would be easiest.

“We’re working on something.”

“What?” Fritz couldn’t just let it be.

“Something involving my magic.”

“So, special Windwalker training?” Fritz hummed.

“Something like that,” Vhalla replied with a nod, flipping the page.

“Do you like it here?” His question surprised her, and the silence prompted him to continue. “In the Tower, do you like being part of the Tower?”

“Where else would I be?” She had nowhere else to go. If she went home, she was likely to bring danger to her father. She was safest in the Tower and could help the most there also. Maybe she’d go home after the axe was destroyed.

Fritz frowned slightly. “You never leave. You’re tired all the time, on edge.”

Vhalla rubbed her eyes, instantly annoyed with her friend for being right.

“You’re almost as bad as you were on the march.”

“I just have some things on my mind.” Vhalla closed her book with a sigh.