by Everly Frost
What is the worthy choice?
Amalia’s fingers close around the feather’s soft middle. The moment she touches it, a spark of light shoots from the place where she grips it. She stiffens as if she is in shock, her muscles tensing. Her head snaps back and her wings shudder. She sucks in a breath but not with elation. The blood drains from her face, leaving her deathly pale.
In the same moment, Surt stands, rising to his full height. He is as big as Vlad, a wall of muscle and strength. He lifts his blazing sword and swings it in a straight arc toward her exposed neck.
The flames light up her pale face as her attention snaps to him. Without releasing the feather, her free hand whips into the space between them, grabbing his sword mid-air just before it hits her.
Her fingers close around the blade, blood running down her arm. The silver and copper haze glowing around her indicates she is drawing on all her healing strength to stop the blade from slicing through her hand. She pushes back, the cords in her neck straining, her expression stretched thin with pain.
“Why can’t I have it?” she screams at him. “It is a worthy choice. It is my choice!”
His voice is a booming rumble. “You chose wrong.”
“No!” Her shout rises into a high-pitched scream.
The feather sparks again, a sharp, piercing light that makes me wince. It shoots through Amalia, striking her like lightning. Her arms shake as if she is being tossed in a storm, a ripple passing all the way through her body to her toes and wingtips.
Her wings crumple, her head tips back, and her hand unclenches from the feather. She drops to the floor on top of one of her wings, the other flopping across the ground.
As soon as she lets go of the feather, Surt lowers his sword and steps back, his head bowed once more. He takes two measured paces back to the throne and resumes his seat, leaving Amalia where she lies.
It’s impossible to tell from here whether she is still alive but Amalia has survived for so long that it’s hard to imagine she could be killed so quickly.
Archer tugs on my arm. “What just happened?”
I feel like I’m stating the obvious when all I have are more questions. “She didn’t make the right choice, but I don’t understand why. Why was it wrong?”
Archer says, “Surt didn’t move to strike her until she held the feather. Maybe she held it the wrong way? Maybe she didn’t take it fast enough.” Archer grimaces at her own suggestions, quickly saying, “It has to be more than that.”
We’re clutching at straws. I frown at Surt, wondering if there is something we can’t see from here.
I say, “All we can do is try.”
Archer nods and turns to Cain. He and Slade will come with us, but this is a challenge only Archer and I can face. I give her and Cain as much space as I can while Slade squeezes my hand. “I’ll be right behind you.” His hand tightens on mine. “I will step between you and that blade if I have to, Hunter.”
The determination in his eyes tells me I can’t talk him out of it. I say, “I won’t let it come to that.”
Surt remains silent and still as we approach. Amalia lies to my right, thrown back a few paces from the Valkyrie feather.
When we are within four paces of him, Surt roars, “Hunter Cassidy, daughter of Glass! If you desire the feather, first you must tell me: who are you?”
Before I entered this maze, in fact only a month ago, I would have struggled to answer that question. Now I lift my voice and reply, believing in the truth of my answer. “I am a hunter. Whether I hunt for answers, truth, or blood, I won’t stop until I find what I seek.”
I wait for Surt to rebuke me, but he doesn’t.
His head remains lowered, his dark hair falling over his face. He roars, “Archer Ryan, you are the last of your kind. If you desire the feather, first you must tell me: who are you?”
Archer gives me a smile before she says, “I am a protector. I won’t stop while the ones I love are in danger.”
I say to Surt. “We were supposed to be enemies but now we are friends.”
Surt is silent for a moment. A small smile lifts the corners of his lips, visible through the hair that obscures his face.
He says, “You speak the truth. Only those who know themselves may make a worthy choice.”
I take a step toward him. The way the feathers hang in the air reminds me exactly of the illustration in the Coda and Vade that we spent so long trying to decipher—except that this charred man sits between them instead of the woman holding the babies.
I ask, “Who are you?”
There is silence. It stretches so long that I don’t think he is going to answer.
His voice lowers. “I am Surt. It is my destiny to destroy the world… but for now, I will make do with devouring the hearts of the unworthy. If you wish to take the feathers, you must make a worthy choice or my sword will meet your necks.”
He falls silent.
I eye the flaming sword, the way the fire licks across it. Flecks of ash float around it, settling onto Surt’s bare chest and hair. Even when he stood up to strike Amalia, his hair remained over his face, his features obscured.
I’m no closer to understanding where Amalia went wrong. Maybe it has something to do with knowing our own hearts since he said that only those who know themselves may make a worthy choice, but I don’t think that’s all it is because Amalia’s eventual answer about her inner nature was honest.
I murmur to Archer, “We need to get closer to the feathers, but don’t touch them.”
“Agreed.” She nods and moves to stand beneath the copper feather on Surt’s right. There is no chance of her accidentally touching it. It is high enough in the air that she will need help to reach it.
I focus on the silver one.
The moment I stand beneath it, Surt’s fingers ripple across the handle of his sword. He gave the same reaction when Amalia reached for the feather, which tells me that we’re already making the wrong choice.
Why, why, why?
We’ve fought so hard to get here, fought together, protected each other. I want Archer to be free of the danger that her wings pose for her. I believe she wants me to heal, too. Neither one of us is taking power away from the other.
I reach up, focused on the intricate details on the feather, the tiny swirls on every soft tendril. Unlike our permanent feathers, these birth feathers are soft like a duckling’s. The closer I get to it, the more Surt stirs.
Making sure to keep my hands away from the feather, I lean in a little, peering at it. It reminds me nearly exactly of the feathers in the illustration with the hidden messages in them…
I gasp, jolting backward, my gaze swiftly passing over the feathers, Surt, Archer, and then back to where I stand. There is something wrong with this picture but it is not Surt or the feathers—it’s us.
My hand shoots out. “Archer, stop! Don’t touch that feather.”
She immediately backs away from the Keres feather. I’m relieved when Surt settles back into his chair, his sword remaining where it is.
I meet Archer’s eyes across the short distance between us. “Do you trust me?”
She nods, emphatically. “Without question.”
“Then listen... the message hidden in the Coda said: Trust is shared. Only through trust can truth be revealed.”
William and I had pored over that picture. He had pointed it out to me more than once—we had both puzzled over the way the picture was drawn—because in the illustration, the feathers were on the wrong side: the Valkyrie feather floated beside the Keres baby, and the Keres feather floated beside the Valkyrie.
I say, “We need to take the other one’s feather. We need to trust each other that much. Can you do that?”
A genuine smile breaks across her face. “Can I trust the woman who nearly killed herself while I huddled inside the wings of the man she loves? Hunter, you don’t think of yourself as a protector, but you are. The same way I am also a hunter. Yes, I trust you with my life.”
/> I take a deep breath. My heart is so warm at her complete trust that I don’t feel cold anymore. “Then, let’s cross the floor.”
I take a step just as I sense movement behind me.
Slade shouts my name, his roar echoing around the room.
Sharp pain pierces my back, a burn so sudden and deep that I can’t process it.
A bright blade protrudes from my chest… the tip of a sword.
The tip of my own sword.
It retracts, leaving me to topple.
I try to turn. My right hand seeks something to brace against because the world is tipping, the room is sliding to the side.
Amalia’s wings creak as she rises up behind me. “Thank you for figuring it out for me.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
My knees crumple first and my hip thuds against the stone floor. Slade throws himself across the distance and slides bodily under me, cushioning my head and shoulders before I crack them against the ground.
“Hunter! No!” Slade’s cry reaches me through the scream inside my mind. He presses the wound in my chest, trying to staunch the blood. His other hand cradles my head. “Stay with me!”
I try to speak. “I don’t know… how she…”
I didn’t hear her creep up on me. It tells me how far gone I was already—how dulled my senses already are. I didn’t want to acknowledge that the battle had brought me so much closer to death already.
Slade’s determined eyes zero in on me. We both know I only have a few minutes before my healing power dies with me. If I were human, I would be dead already.
His voice vibrates through me like a call to my soul. “I’m carrying you to that feather. I won’t lose you, Hunter.”
He picks me up, folding me inside his arms where I can see everything that’s going on around me.
Amalia is already most of the way to the feather, using her wings to fly toward it. It doesn’t look like Surt will stop her this time; she isn’t trying to take the wrong feather. The charred man remains as still as stone, the light from his sword flickering across the scene in front of me.
Archer stands her ground beneath the feather, her expression telling me that Amalia will have a fight on her hands if she wants it. Archer doesn’t waste breath with screaming, her expression turning hard and cold as she wields a dagger in each fist.
Amalia attempts to fly over her, her hand outstretched, but Archer launches herself into the air, thrusting both daggers into Amalia’s exposed chest, hooking them between her ribs and dragging her down.
Amalia screams as she is wrenched away from the feather mere seconds before she would have touched it. She curves her wings and tries to pull herself free from Archer, but Archer follows up with a kick against one of the daggers that forces it hard into Amalia’s chest and catapults Amalia back into Cain’s waiting arms.
He grabs her wings where they meet her shoulders, pulling them back, his knee rammed into her lower spine. She shouts again, but this time with rage. Cain tips his balance left and they crash to the ground on their sides.
Amalia rolls away from him, snarling with frustration when she jumps to her feet because she is further away from the feather than she was before.
Cain doesn’t give her time to recover, filling his next fist with power from his assassin’s ring that ripples through Amalia’s wings and singes her Valkyrie feathers. She quickly snaps her wings closed before Archer launches herself across the space, the final bullets in her gun hitting Amalia square in the chest. The barrels click—empty—but she uses them as weapons, striking Amalia hard across the face with them.
Archer and Cain are powerful and coordinated, but even bullets won’t stop Amalia.
She will never stop.
Slade hurries with me toward the feather now that the space around it is clear. I lose sight of Archer and Cain as Slade turns toward the feather.
Fear overtakes me when Surt’s voice blasts the air. “Slade Baines, son of Josiah Baines, you are not pure Valkyrie. If you try to take the feather, my sword will meet your neck.”
Slade pauses only long enough to say, “It is not mine to take. It belongs to Hunter.”
As Slade turns to him, I see the corner of Surt’s mouth twitch upward. “You speak the truth.”
Slade’s arms are strong and sure around me as he releases his wings, preparing to rise to the feather. “Nearly there, Hunter. I’ll lift you up, but you need to raise your hand. You have to take it for yourself—”
“Look out!” Archer’s shout reaches us too late.
An invisible force slams into us, shoving Slade to the side. He bounces against the wall but hangs onto me, rocketing back as another force hits his jaw.
The impact is so rapid that his cheekbone shatters.
My heart stops. I can’t process the damage, the way his eyes dim and his wings drop, the seconds slowing as a scream build inside me. “Slade!”
He drops to his knees, his head falling to my shoulder, hunching over me, still gripping me. “Slade!”
My heart can’t take anymore. He has taken so many hits for me and Archer. Too many hits, putting his body on the line every time, heart and soul, fighting for me even when I didn’t think I was worth fighting for. Even when I was so angry that I didn’t care how many risks I took, Slade was always there for me.
A new anger burns inside me as Amalia materializes beside us. She must have made it past Archer and Cain by blurring while Slade’s back was turned.
She keeps moving at lightning speed. Releasing her wings, Amalia uses Slade’s hunched body as a stepping stool, launching herself off his back and up to the feather.
She sails through the air, and despite my rage there is not a damn thing I can do to stop her.
Her hand closes over it. Power ripples through the feather, a bright spark, but this time Amalia smiles, tipping her head back, her hair cascading down her back.
She sighs. “Finally… it’s mine.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Slade’s arms tighten around me. His head is heavy against my shoulder but he pulls me further toward the floor, hunching over me in a protective curl. I don’t know why he’s pulling me away from the feather…
Then, a presence rears up over us—a menacing form bearing a blazing sword. With a roar, Surt lifts his sword, swinging it in a terrible, flaming arc toward Amalia’s head.
The elation drains from her face a split second before she lets go of the feather and propels herself backward, landing several paces from us. The sword thuds into the wall beneath the feather’s position, right at the height where her neck was located moments ago.
Her mouth opens in a soundless scream, mouthing her shock.
“Why?” she whispers, her murmur turning into a screech of rage. “Why not?”
Surt wrenches his sword from the wall and growls, “The weight of your cruelty tips the scales against you, Amalia Avery, Valkyrie Queen. You are not worthy.”
She wrings her hands, her chest heaving, her teeth grinding so hard that I hear them clack above the sound of the hissing sword. Surt turns his back on her, ambling to the throne where he resumes his seat. Before he falls silent, he says, “Prepare for your end, Amalia Avery.”
Her face contorts. “If I’m going to die… I’m taking you all with me.”
Instead of physically attacking us, she throws her hands out, palms up, into the air.
Archer shouts, “She will take our souls!”
I try to see Slade’s face, needing to know how badly he is hurt. Neither one of us is functioning right now, but we need both powers to stop Amalia. The Valkyrie power can only come from Slade or me—the Keres power can come from the gun or even Cain’s ring. But it has to be done together.
Slade is stirring, healing, but not fast enough. His soul will be Amalia’s in the next moment.
He whispers, “Take it… I’ll be… right behind you…”
His fist bumps the Keres gun resting against his chest. He wants me to use it while I still can.
/>
It’s down to me.
I have seconds to get to my feet.
Except that I’m numb. I can’t feel my arms or my legs anymore. I’ve lost my coordination. I should be dead but my power is fighting to keep me alive.
Both Slade and Cain saw a future without Archer and me in it, but I won’t let their vision of the future come true.
“Cain!” I scream. I don’t know if he understands what I need, but he’s already at my side, pulling me upright. At the same time, Archer reaches for Slade, supporting him.
I grasp at the gun, somehow hooking my finger around the trigger loop so I can pull it out of the harness around Slade’s chest. The moment Cain rises to his feet, holding me in his arms, Archer suddenly drops to the floor behind us, clutching her heart. She gasps for air, landing on her side, pressed against Slade’s legs.
She rasps, “Hurry, Cain! Amalia is holding my soul.”
Cain takes three quick steps with me toward Amalia before he drops too, sending me tumbling across the floor. His hands fist the floor, trying to move, while he gasps for breath.
I hit Amalia’s foot.
The gun clatters onto the stone beside me, my hooked finger not strong enough to hold onto it. It stops just beyond my reach.
Amalia stares down at me, her gaze sweeping the room. “Look at all of you, groveling at my feet.”
I turn my wrist away from the gun to grip her ankle instead, craning my head back to see her. “What have you done?”
She crouches down to me and laughs. “I’m holding onto Cain and Archer’s souls now. I have the power to crush them. I think I’ll make it slow and painful.”
With one hand still extended toward Cain and Archer, she uses her other to stroke my hair. “Will you finally call me Queen, Hunter Cassidy?”
I consider her lustrous eyes, her sweet smile, her deceptive youth. I wonder if calling her Queen will save my friends, but I doubt it.
That’s when a light force tugs at my shoulders, a familiar sensation that once caused me panic but now fills me with hope. At the same time, the gun rises into the air beside us, seemingly of its own accord, positioning itself so that it points directly at Amalia’s heart.