Page 82 of The Viking in the Vault
“Ragnar?” she whispers. “Do you…do you know this person? Or I guess…did you?”
“Her name was Syf,” I murmur. “She followed me…joined the crew because she thought…”
I shake my head, withdrawing my hand to run my face down my hand. This pod has been here for thousands of years, but for me, it was yesterday—a female who insisted fate didn’t matter, who told me she loved me regardless.
I insisted that my fenvarra was out there, in the stars.
She wouldn’t listen.
“I don’t understand,” Elena says. The others are watching in silence, like some great drama is unfolding before them. I wish they would leave me alone. “Ragnar…talk to me.”
I swallow hard, my fingers curling against the ice. “I told her not to. I told her she would not find what she was looking for.”
Elena hesitates, her breath still uneven from our escape through the tunnels, but she makes the decision to draw closer. I can feel her body heat even through her gear, and her touch…I want it to soothe me.
It doesn’t.
Because I am floating through time.
Staring into Syf’s frozen face, the past and present blur and tangle.
“Whatever happened, it’s not your fault,” Elena whispers.
“I was their captain,” I say. “If she’s here…is the rest of the crew dead, too? Did they crash—and why did I survive?”
Elena flinches, reminding me that I’ve asked a cruel question; I survived because Yrsa deemed it so, because myfenvarra was waiting in the distant future. Now, she’s here…and I am so very ungrateful.
“I uh…” Cosmia cuts in with a quiet voice. “I hate to interrupt, but I don’t want to linger too long if it isn’t safe; do you think that Fenrik can get a scent for other pods?”
Fenrik’s ears twitch at the sound of his name, and he lets out a soft huff, pressing his nose back to the ice. He circles the pod, sniffing intently, his tail lowering in uncertainty. His body language is tense, cautious.
“I don’t know,” I murmur, my voice rough. “If there are others, they could be deeper. Buried.”
Elena pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, watching Fenrik work. She’s trying to keep her emotions in check, but I can feel them shifting beneath the surface.
Dr. Kallisto kneels beside the pod, brushing a gloved hand along the aged metal. “This isn’t just wear from time,” she says, inspecting the structure. “It looks like it sustained damage before it was buried.”
I swallow hard. “A crash.”
Davina frowns. “But how? You said these pods were meant to deploy in emergencies, correct?”
“They were,” I say. “But they weren’t meant to malfunction.”
Elena glances up at me, eyes shadowed. “You think she was awake when it happened?”
I don’t want to answer.
Because I already know.
Skoll stasis pods are not meant to fail. If she died here, frozen in this way…it was not instant.
A sharp chill crawls up my spine.
“We should open it,” Rishik says, adjusting his datapad. “At the very least, we can extract some data, try to piece together what happened.”
A low growl rumbles in my throat before I can stop it. The idea of disturbing Syf’s rest—of prying open the place she spent her last moments—fills me with unease.
Elena notices, her hand brushing lightly over mine, grounding me.
