I stayed up counting stars, and hungering for you

To find out what the kid was named

And in the lonely dark that always precedes you

I was the secret in your game

We went to Wales, oh

On a sailboat

In a lightning storm

She covered up my face,

Not to hide me up

But to keep me warm

Nina

Nina thought she had known cold before. When she was fifteen she had been deployed on a mission with Zoya and Nadia in the Elbjen— the northernmost mountains which straddled the border between Ravka and the Shu Han. Temperatures there regularly dropped so low that Zoya warned them that they should get up and move about every few minutes or else their blood would crystallise in their veins. Nina had been fairly certain she had only said that to be a thorn in everyone's side. Still, the cold had been numbing; her head ached, her nose turned red and her fingers were so stiff she doubted she would have been able to move them without the aid of her Heartrending. The frozen air in the Elbjen had been tolerable, a passive evil she had been able to cope with.

But the surge of glacial seawater that rushed into the cell was so much worse.

It wasn't a numb ache, it was like falling onto a bed of broken glass, like having thorns shoved under your fingernails. It was a raw, untamable assault on her senses.

She had been holding onto the bars, straining to hear what was going on beyond her cell, or at least hear Helvar's returning footsteps. Her face felt bruised from pressing it so hard against the iron. Then there had come a groan, like the ship was alive. A split second later she realised it was the groaning of bolts. She'd thrown herself back from the door and leapt on top of the rickety bench just as a storm of black water cascaded through.

Now the water was pouring in, flooding up the cell in a swirling mass. A wave of claustrophobia rose up in her as the realisation that she was trapped in the dark belly of an iron prison ship as water quickly filled it.

"Einar!" she shouted to the old man who still cowered in the corner. "Get up here! Quick!" She seized him by his bound wrists and heaved with a gargantuan effort and pulled him up beside her. His arms were pricked with goose pimples and the liver spots on his forearms and hands stood out starkly against his whitening skin, like dead leaves in fresh snow. He watched the flooding with wide, terrified eyes.

"No," he whispered quietly as he swayed beside her on the bench. He closed his eyes tight, wrinkles tensing. "I am at home with Ilsa. Yes, that's it. You could always gut a herring with two swipes. Such pretty hands, Ilsa. I shall hold them soon I think." His voice was clearer than it had been in days, though what he was saying made no sense.

"No, listen to me," Nina cried. "I need you to focus! Einar!" But he seemed quite oblivious to her pleas. On the contrary, his face smoothed as he mouthed his wife's name. It seemed that she would have to solve this alone.

Casting her gaze around wildly, she searched for anything that might prove useful. If only she could find a nail or even a damn hairpin she might be able to pick locks off the cell door and give them a fighting chance at making it to the surface. But what then? Her hands were still so tightly bound that thin droplets of blood oozed from the scabbed chafing.

The cell was depressingly bare. To make matters worse, the water had now gushed high enough to submerge her calves. How much longer could she stand up for until her feet gave out to numbness? Already her skin was burning with icy fire.

Then something snagged her attention. Floating in the dark water, bobbing up and down like a bizarre marine creature, was a bucket. The bucket Helvar had left her. Just a stout, practical thing. Except the metal wire that looped the bucket had torn— no doubt when it had crashed hard against the floor as the ship lurched— and the wire stuck up, its edge razor sharp.

What's more, it looked sharp enough to slice through the rope binding her hands. If she could rid herself of her fetters, she could use her Heartrending to calm her heartbeat, to keep her blood flowing, to survive this storm-tossed wreck.

"Wait here," she said to Einar, who paid her no attention. The water looked dense and bitterly cold. It was bad enough that her legs were submerged to her knees. Submersing her body completely to reach the bucket… Nina muttered a prayer to Sankt Vladimir, the patron saint of the drowned and of unlikely achievement.

With a last deep breath, she plunged into the dark northern water.

For a moment, her vision flared white and she let out a strangled gasp. Air burned her chest like flaming alcohol and for a moment she thought she would surely die.

Get a grip, Zenik, a voice that sounded distinctly like Zoya barked at the back of her mind.

"I can't, I can't, I can't," she tried to say, but the words were slurred. Her head was so cold it was as if all of her thoughts had been frozen into a block of ice.

Yes, you can, said a stronger voice, louder than her own. It sounded familiar yet strange; warm and maternal but yet half-forgotten, the gentle song of a stranger. Her mother's voice. In the orphanage back in Ravka when Nina was little, she had spent many nights straining to hold onto the lull of her mother's words. Over the years the sound had faded and twisted and she could remember one such night sobbing so hard she had received a caning from Matron because she had woken the other girls up with her tears. That had been the night she had realised she had forgotten the sound of her mother's voice.

Now, however, Nina heard it loud and clear in her mind. No, in her heart. The same heart that remained beating. She was alive and she was not ready to say goodbye just yet. There were plenty more waffles to eat and Fjerdans to fight before she could die.

Her will renewed, she pushed through the dark water, gritting her teeth at the pain but not stopping until her hands clasped around the bucket and pulled the rest of the wire from the bucket. Her hands fumbled numbly as she waded back to Einar on the bench. The water was up to his hips now and steadily rising. He seemed oddly serene, watching her with polite interest as she struggled back to him.

The cold was bone deep and she was certain that if they did not act soon she'd die of hypothermia. Steeling her nerves, she pulled herself up beside him, the wire clasped tightly in her fist.

"What's happening?" asked Einar, looking slightly dazed as she trembled— seemingly absently— from the cold.

She looked at him, into the aged lines of his face that spoke of a life on the ancient ice with the wind in his hair and magic in his heart. But his life battling the world was over and it was her turn to face the unforgiving ice. Nina knew she had to fight for him as well as herself, and she knew as certain that waffles were the food of the Saints, that if he died it would be her fault. What was the point of labelling herself a soldier if she could not protect the innocent and fight the tyrants?

"We're going home, darling," she said firmly. Something warm sparked in her chest. Not anything particularly tangible, but something wonderfully familiar, like the press of her silk kefta or the sweetness of sugared plums. It was, for the first time in weeks, hope, glowing in her heart like a candle in a darkened cathedral.

With that, she gathered herself and brought down the jagged wire against the rope, sawing hard. Given her bound hands, the motion was jerky and her wrists ached from the contorted position. But she did not stop even when her hands were screaming at her to stop, she continued. The seawater had risen almost to her shoulders when the twine creaked and snapped. The rope dropped into the water.

It happened in an instant.

A giddying rush of blinding power surged through her, pumping through her body as though she had just downed a bottle of hot brandy. Gasping, she staggered precariously as her magic rushed in a dizzying wave. After weeks of deprivation, it seemed almost too good to be true. Her time without her Heartrending had been like groping blindly in the dark. Now, it was as if the curtains had been drawn and her world was thrown into glorious technicolour as everything slid into wondrous clarity.

Cautiously, she flexed her fingers, searching for—

There it was. A human heartbeat— Einar's to be precise. It beat a stuttering drum.

Then, out of nowhere, out of nothing, there sounded a terrible groan of pressurised steel. From the other end of the room, another tidal wave of cold, black water swept in, raising the water up to their chins.

It punctured Nina's elation like a pin to a balloon and the reality of the situation crashed down upon her.

None too gently, she grabbed the old man's wrists, yanking them above the still rising water. Wire still intact, she began to hack and tear at his bindings. Panic at the choking water fuelled the desperate sawing motions.

The water caressed her cheeks. It stroked her lips like a lover, begging her to open up and take a deep gulp. She threw her head back in a desperate attempt to keep it above water. Her arms burned from trying to cut Einar's restraints and keeping both of their blood circulating.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth—

With a wild jerking slash, the bonds tore and his hands broke free. She held onto his wrists desperately, making sure the blood didn't crystallise in his veins (Zoya's dire forebodings back in the Elbjen had had more of an effect on her than she would care to admit).

"Einar!" she yelled, half choked by the salty water. "Cell lock! You— break— Materialki!"

She made eye contact with the old man, praying to all the saints she could think of that he could see her urgency. Just for a moment, she was sure she saw the flash of the man he had been when they had first met.

As the water rushed over their heads, she thought of Sankta Marya of the Rock, the patron saint of those far from home. She grabbed the old man's withered wrist and placed both her feet against the wall behind them, weightless in the seawater, and pushed off with all her might, diving into the black mass.

The water was dark and the cold was paralytic, but Nina's will to survive burned through the impenetrable blackness, spurring her on.

The momentum propelled her and Einar forward, and they hit the cell bars. Her breath was tight in her chest but she kept her lips firmly shut. She squeezed the old Fabrikator's wrist, hoping beyond hope that he had listened to her in those last moments. For an awful moment, as he floated still beside her, she feared he would let the tide take him. But a moment late, the water rippled beside her as he brought his wrinkled hands to the lock.

Nothing happened.

The breath was burning her lungs! It would not be long until she caved and took a deep breath and choked on salty water—

A remor shuddered through the water followed by a groaning sound made rumbled through the water, shuddering into her bones. It took her a moment to realise that it was Einar; his hands were on the lock and they were manipulating the metal lock, bending and twisting it until—

The click of the lock was dampened by the sea but it sent a rush of relief through her as she yanked the door open. She pushed off once more and pulled Einar with him, ignoring the fire in her chest at the added weight she was dragging with her. Though she was keeping his blood circulating as well as was possible, she was certain that if he remained steeped in this freezing northern water for any longer, his body would break down. She kicked hard and pulled the two of them upwards. They broke the surface and tilted their head back, drinking in the oxygen from the inch of air that had not been submerged. Then, they were back under, kicking for the door and Einar manipulated the metal once more and they emerged into the chamber.

Once again, they broke the surface for a gulp of air.

Nina screamed.

Fear scorched through her and she raised her hands automatically, prepared to fight off whatever sea creature was floating on top of the surface in her periphery. But when she splashed around, readying her magic to crush the heart of any unwitting beast, she realised she was not looking at a monster. Or at least, not a monster in the traditional sense.

The enormous blonde mass limp in the water, she realised, was Helvar.

He was holding onto a wall bracing, head tipped back so his mouth and nose were not submerged, though he did not seem to be fully conscious. His pale hair floated about him, bright and silky like a corona of golden silk against the black water. But a jolt of fear went through her when she caught sight of the splash of red mingling with the pale blonde strands. The magic of her Heartrending sensed it before she became fully aware of what she was seeing. Like calls to like. It was his blood. Her stomach dropped still further as her eyes skated his face; his skin was sickly white, like curdled milk, no doubt from the loss of blood.

In a wild moment of vindictive pleasure, she thought of leaving him here to succumb to the ice and the slow drying of his veins. It painted a gruesome portrait of revenge.

Not even half a second later, she had lashed out swimming towards him, the intrusive thought quite forgotten. Helvar was no damn Saint, but he was just a boy who was hurt. Most likely he had a mother, a father, perhaps siblings who would mourn him. Maybe it was the orphan in her that made her want to keep him safe; enough families had been torn apart by this war. Nina's family had been one of him. She would not be responsible for another, not when he was still so young.

And he helped you, a quiet voice which she did not want to acknowledge said. He brought you water, he saved you from Vidar. You owe him.

Maybe there was a small part of her that knew that perhaps he did have a good heart, however blinded by Fjerdan hate he may be.

"Helvar!" she shouted, grabbing him by the massive shoulders. His muscles tensed at her touch and his eyes flickered half open. Once more, she was momentarily stunned by how blindingly blue his eyes were, even if they were glazed and out of focus.

"Drusje," he muttered, reaching a hand out to her. For a moment, she thought he might try to grab her throat like Vidar did. Instead, his fingers brushed her cheek before dropping back into the water. His touch sent a shiver of electricity across her skin. It's because he's fucking freezing, she told herself firmly, that's all.

Indeed, he was so cold to the touch that Nina thought it impressive that he was still conscious, albeit barely so. Taking a steadying breath in the inch or so of free space, she grabbed hold of him, one of her arms gripping his shoulders. They were broad and powerful, hard sinew and muscle shifting beneath her touch. Trying to ignore this, she placed the other at the back of his head, right to the spot which seeped crimson. Beneath her fingers, she felt a deep gash, the skin roughly torn and raw.

He roared in pain, trying to buck away from her. She clung to him like he was a mad bucking horse.

"Stop it, you great Fjerdan oaf! I'm trying to help you!" Whether it was her shouts or his exhaustion that made him stop jerking, she did not know. "Thank you," she breathed. In trying to cling on to him as he tried to throw her off, she had been forced to press herself close to him; her breasts to his chest, her hips against his, their faces inches apart. Still, Nina had time for bashfulness and in a rapidly sinking ship, she had even less of it. "Here," she said, trying to make her voice calming. She reached into the fabric of his body, between the smooth skin and tense muscle, the chilled flesh and icy blood. Then she found it; his heart. It felt large in the grip of her magic, though she suspected that was because she was so out of practice with her Heartrending.

With a surge of power that flushed her skin and stroked her soul, she strengthened the beat of his heart and pushed the blood more steadily through his veins. He issued a sharp moan and his eyes widened, taking her in properly.

"There," she said with a smile, "that's bett—"

"Get off of me!" he shouted, looking furious.

"I preferred you when you were unconscious," she grumbled. "Much more agreeable. Now, let me do what I have to or you're going to die." The words were bleak, but the gap of air was lessening by the second and there wasn't time for sweet lies.

He looked like he wanted to try to push her away again, but he seemed to realise that there was no time to argue. Though his face was contorted in deep disgust, he allowed her to place her hand over the wound.

"I can't replace the blood loss, but I can stop the bleeding and close the wound. It's not deep enough for internal bleeding… At least I think it isn't." She frowned. "I'm not a Healer and I can't promise there won't be any scarring." Helvar's face paled further, though whether because of her own uncertainty or the open wound, she didn't know. "Deep breath," she said, and pressed her hand over the wound.

A familiar rich, powerful feeling swept up her arm, the hot intimacy of flesh and blood, sweet as honey and as intoxicating as dark cherry wine. It was as if invisible strings tethered her power to his body, sinking into his skin. With a surge of heat, the wound at the back of his head began to seal, the flesh stitching itself back together. It felt odd, Nina thought, to be using her magic to bring together not rent apart. Heartrenders were trained to destroy, though she found some small vestige of satisfaction in this.

Helvar looked down between them, where their bodies were pressed tightly to one another. He looked pained, and she rather suspected that he found the press of their skin, Grisha against Fjerdan, quite as agonising as the gash on his head. Still, he did not try to push her away again.

"I feel… warm," he said, voice scratchy and rough.

"Fjerdan, I am truly divine, but this is not the time—"

"No," he scowled, "I mean physically I feel warm. This is the True Sea, we should be frozen, but I feel warm."

"I'm keeping your blood circulating for you. That's why you feel warm. Try to throw me off again and you'll freeze to death before you drown. Your manners, by the way, are quite awful. I shall have to have some stern words with your mother if we survive this." His body stiffened beneath her and his lips were pressed tightly together. Something dark passed over his face, though he did not say anything. Nina had a feeling what those unsaid words were and despite the blood circulating properly, a coldness shifted through her. She cleared her throat. "You saved me, even if you did not realise it, and now I've saved you, in spite of my better judgement. If either of us want to make it through the night, we have to help each other, understand? Now, truce?"

Helvar opened his mouth, clearly prepared to argue, but his eyes slid to the mass of dark water that seemed to thrum with the threat of icy blood and water-logged. He shut his mouth.

"Truce," he said, barely moving his lips. Maybe he wasn't all bad, but for now he was as much of a miserable bastard as Nina had ever known.

"Wise move, Fjerdan."

He was scrutinising their surroundings, his brow pinched. "Where is the old man? The one you gave the water to?"

Nina's heart seemed to stop. She whipped around, her grip on Matthias vise-like in her sudden panic. It rose in her like nausea, making her neck prickle and the world tilt.

Einar was no longer floating in the water behind her.

In her fear at seeing all the blood in the Fjerdan's golden hair, she had left the old man unattended. She had though he had been right behind her! He had been her responsibility! Hers to keep safe, hers to bring him home, hers to reunite with his wife, his cabbage farm in the southwest, even his little tomcat Kriga. He had been so kind to her in those initial lonely days stuck in the cavernous iron ship. With his kind eyes and lined face, he had been least deserving of the cruel Fjerdan treatment.

He was an innocent, she was a bloodstained soldier, and now, as she grasped wildly in the dark for a heartbeat that was no longer there, she knew that her Saints had been wrong. They had taken the wrong life. The good one. The one which deserved the air she now breathed.

"Drüsje?" he prompted.

Nina looked up at him, not caring if he saw the tears in her eyes. Einar deserved to have at least one person mourn him.

"Gone." Her voice was hollow as her aching heart.

Leaving behind the body had been the worst of it all. Knowing that she was leaving the only comfort she had known in this prison to rot at the bottom of a dark frozen seabed hurt like the twist of a knife in her heart. She thought of his frail body, suspended in the water, thin strands of greying hair swirling around him, his wizened arms thrown wide, as though embracing the darkness.

The morbid images would not stop as she and the Fjerdan began down the dark hall, taking short sharp breaths as they moved further down. She clung to his back, keeping both their circulations flowing as he half swam, half pulled them through the water via the metal pipes in the ceiling.

"We have to move quickly," he had told her. "The ship won't be able to take this kind of pressure for long before the whole thing collapses and we run out of air or are crushed to death." Indeed, the sounds of groaning metal and loosening bolts moaned ominously overhead, like some perverse siren song. They mingled with the terrible screams and distant shouts of the prisoners, the soldiers, and the drowning.

Despite his blood loss, Helvar did not waver in the water. Ever the soldier, he pushed through with broad, deft strokes. His body was tense, every plane of sinew and muscle taut and flexing as he moved. There was a grace to the strong lines of him, Nina thought. She saw why he must be Jarl Brum's favourite; his movements were perfectly controlled, tapered to smooth ambition as he pushed them forwards.

They swam through the dark corridor, down another hall and up a flight of half-submerged steel stairs before coming to another reinforced circular hatch.

He said over his broad shoulder, "This leads to the deck. If we can reach a lifeboat then—"

There was an almighty crash and the ship was thrown clean on it's side. In the sudden motion, Nina was thrown to the wall, landing so hard on her side she felt a rib crack. White stars burst behind her eyes as she opened her mouth to scream in agony.

But icy seawater filled her mouth and she choked. Darkness surrounded her, blacker than night, colder than anything she had known. The intensity of the pain of her broken rib seemed to amplify every other sense, including the pain. Her lungs felt bruised with the effort not to breath and inhale another mouthful of bitter water.

Matthias.

The words glowed in her mind. Find Matthias.

But the water was so black that she could not see a thing. His name flickered and died, leaving her alone in the darkness. She tried to grapple with her own heart, stop its wild beating and regain control of her bloodstream to keep out the burrowing cold. But with the blinding pain and confusion, she could not so much as think, let alone summon her magic.

Which way was up? In the Elbjen they had been warned of avalanches where you could be buried in a flurry of snow, not knowing which way was up and which was down. But this was piercing darkness and she was too disorientated to form a plan.

Was she going to drown here? Doubled over in pain, her lungs about to implode?

The temptation to open her mouth and take a breath, even though she knew no air would greet her, was becoming harder and harder to resist. If you only take one quick gulp…

Strong arms suddenly enclosed her waist and she was pulled back against the chest of an enormous, solid weight. In her befuddled, air-deprived mind, she thought wildly of kelpies and merfolk, come to drag her to the bowels of a watery hell. But when she grabbed onto the forearms of whoever had seized her, she realised they were human, corded with muscle and firm in their hold.

Matthias.

He had hold of her and he was kicking upwards, holding her to him. Though his touch was not hard, the pressure against her ribs was enough to make her want to scream to the Saints and back. They stopped suddenly in the water, no doubt having reached the thick metal hatch. One of arms stayed safe around her waist, holding her up in the icy water while he attempted to open the door. But his movements were not as they had been back in the corridor; they were now jerky and stiff, no longer controlled and practised.

Heat, he needs heat, she thought through her groggy mind. Exhaustion welled deep inside her, inviting her heavy eyelids to droop and her mind to drift. It would be so easy to give in to the ache in her chest and the burn of her lungs…

Helvar's motions were slowing, his grip on her was slackening and she could feel herself being drawn down into the darkness.

Fight it, she told herself, come on, Zenik, fight this now.

With prayers to all the Saints she could think of, she plunged into that well inside of her that held all the living, breathing magic, forged from blood and bone.

There it was. She held onto it and with her remaining strength, focused on moving the blood through the Fjerdan's veins. His body jerked with the sensation and he was still for the briefest moment before he began wrenching at the door with renewed vigour. Around her hips, his hold was sure.

The hatch opened with a grinding sound and they were flying upwards, through the hole, through the flooded deck, up, up, up until they broke the surface.

The two of them heaved in great lungfuls of air, revelling in the crisp night air. Above them, however, storm clouds brewed like stirring tar. They billowed out across the skies, as brutally dense and angry as The Fold. Nina half expected to see skeletal flying beasts like the fabled Volcra burst from the roiling clouds. Rain hammered down from the sky in unforgiving sheets, pummeling against the surface and ricocheting off the floating flotsam and jetsam. The night was so full of noise and chaos that she could hardly hear herself think—

The night was cleaved in two with a jarring bolt of lightning. It illuminated the wreckage of the ship. The deck was flooded and debris swamped the boat. In between the detritus were people; tiny black specks in the night.

And then there were the bodies.

They bobbed on the surface, skin blue and cracked, their tongues lolling grotesquely from unhinged jaws. Nina brought a trembling hand to her mouth and behind her, Matthias muttered a shaky prayer to Djel.

"We have to move, Drüsje," he said. His voice was low, almost soft. Not kind exactly, but like he understood her anguish at seeing such destruction and wished to ease the horror. "If the ship goes down completely, the suction will drag us down with it."

Thunder followed the fork of lightning, the booming clap shuddering in her bones and filling the air. Through the water Matthias swam, his laboured breaths hanging in the air like a web of silver spidersilk. The sounds of the sinking ship mingled with the deafening roar of the storm, providing them cover as they struck out away from the wreckage. She felt his deep breaths rumbling through his chest, felt the strain of his muscles as he swam through the dark. Every few moments, the night was lit by the lightning, throwing the devastation into sharp relief. The imprint of the jagged bolts burned her retina, half blinding her. It was all she could do to cling to Helvar as he battled against the roiling ocean and the unforgiving elements. Joining the rain, the churning sea, the lightning and thunder, was the wind. It was cutting and cold and Nina's Heartrending, though preventing their internal temperatures from dipping into critical territory, was not enough to prevent the sting of frigid wind spiked with seasalt.

She did not know how long they were buffeted through the storm for, but one moment, they were fighting against the rough current, the next Helvar was hauling her by the scruff of her neck into a rocking lifeboat. It was tiny, just big enough for the two of them to fit, though she was almost atop of him. Fjerdan arrogance, no doubt, Nina thought bitterly, they would never think their armoured fleet could be sunk by something as mundane as a storm, so why spend a fortune on lifeboats?

The ocean reared up, almost upending the boat as thunder erupted overhead. Helvar's end of the boat flew up and he fell on top of her. He would have crushed her had he not braced his arms behind her. Even so, her face was half an inch from his neck. From this position she could see the pulse racing in his throat, see the seawater running in rivulets down the column of his strong neck. His body crowded hers and his hair brushed her cheek for just a second before he staggered back.

He was only a few feet away from her, but the storm had picked up even more momentum and he was but a dark, rain-blurred streak in the night.

His mouth opened and he bellowed something, but in the din she couldn't make it out.

"What?" she screamed, gesturing to her ears. "I can't hear you!"

He leaned forward, mouth to her ear and yelled, "Oars!"

Along the sides of the narrow boat were two wooden oars and on the lip of the boat were two metal crescents. Nina grabbed one as Helvar took the other, but when she moved to hook it into place, the strain to her ribs made her cry out and fall back, gasping in pain.

Tears poured down her cheeks and she was too scared and exhausted to wipe them away. She simply clutched her torso and prayed the agony to pass. Lifting her eyes, she saw Helvar seizing the oar and slotting it in himself. He glanced up and for a moment their eyes locked. Understanding, even… perhaps sympathy flashed in his clear blue eyes. When she tried to reach for the oar, biting down on her lip hard enough to bleed, he put one large hand over her knuckles. His hands were rough and strong, yet as they tugged her hand from the oar, they were surprisingly gentle.

He gave her a single nod, picked up both oars, and began to row.

Nina thought about attempting to heal herself now in the boat. But healing was far more intricate than Heartrending, particularly bone repair. The slightest slip and she might tear out her whole rib cage. It was not something she was going to chance on the wild sea. The pain ratcheted higher, mixing with the bruises and cuts she had accumulated during the escape of the prisoner ship. And then there was that bone-deep weariness, the hunger and the need for this nightmare to be over.

Stay awake, a voice like Zoya snapped in her mind, do not leave yourself exposed to the enemy.

Was Helvar still the enemy? The thought didn't sit right, like a stone in her boot. They had saved each other now, a blood debt that neither of them would acknowledge but both knew was there.

People were complicated, Nina decided, a puzzle in need of solving.

With the resolution to unite the pieces of Helvar's enigma, her eyes slid shut as unconsciousness stole over her.