I’d let anger drive me thus far, let my fury at Lang make me strong. But there was nowhere left to go. Nothing left to plan or do but climb aboard. I didn’t need to be strong anymore.

I needed Torden.

The dam broke, and I burst into tears.

Silently, the Beholder crew began to move our things aboard.

Torden drew me into himself with a wretched groan. I held him, memorizing the feel of his fingers on my neck, breathing him in as he kissed my hair.

This was the end. I’d never see him again.

“Selah, won’t you change your mind? Can’t you stay?”

“Your father called me a spy. Will he change his mind?” I took Torden’s hand in one of mine, wiping my eyes with the other. “And what about my father? Could you leave?”

“How can I, with the Imperiya hell-bent on our destruction?” The shape of his mouth was desperate. “Rihttá needs me. Asgard needs me.”

“Exactly,” I whispered. “Except my enemies are already inside the gates.”

I imagined arriving home with an escaped Torden in tow—out of favor in Asgard, useless as an ally. Alessandra and the Council would rip me to shreds.

Torden nodded silently, his hangnails and calluses scratching gently at my palms. I kissed his pale knuckles, freckled and muscled and bruised and kind, so kind.

He pressed something into my left hand. A ring.

The rough rose-gold band was set with stones blue like the sky, like the Bilröst, like his brothers’ eyes. Pain squeezed my heart.

“You’ll want this back.”

“No. This could never belong to anyone else.” He slid the ring onto my finger. “I would still choose you.”

“I—” I bit back another sob, tears spilling from my eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m not one of your valkyrja. This is killing me.”

“You’re more a shield-maiden than you think.”

My crying blunted and broke my words. “I wish I didn’t have to be.”

We remained a bare half inch apart for a few breaths before Torden closed the distance between us, putting his lips to my ear. “You will always be the sun to me. Bright and beautiful and the warmest thing in my world.” He paused. “Be free, elskede.”

Free.

It meant riding like a wild thing over the cliff tops with Anya and the Asgard boys, jumping into the lake when I couldn’t swim. Free meant being unafraid to tell him the truth about Bear, to kiss him by the Bilröst.

It meant wind in my hair. Water in my eyes. Sweat on my skin. Adrenaline in my blood.

I hadn’t been afraid to jump, because he’d been a safe place to land.

I’d changed, because he’d helped me grow.