Her voice shook Will’s hold on Immortality and red blood streaked across his chest at her blow. He staggered and I waited for Tyler to swoop in with the killing strike, but he sheathed his sword and took a step back. “This is your battle,” he said.
Will drew in a deep breath and nodded before his armor gleamed again. “My mother died with me,” he said, holding his sword high and a metallic hum sang through the broken woods. “You have stolen her face, and you will pay for that crime.”
Leanne screamed as Will’s sword mercilessly sliced into her chest, splitting her ribcage open. She didn’t have blood anymore, but a thick, black liquid oozed out of her and steamed onto the ground.
Will turned the blade, dismantling the creature further. “With this kill, I become a member of Odin’s army. I have banished the darkness and embraced the light.”
Leanne withered and melted until nothing was left at all. Will’s sword hung limply from his hand. I wished that he would cry or tremble, but he simply stared at the empty place where she’d been.
Tyler rested a hand on his shoulder. “Well done, Brother. It’s time we go home.”
Will broke his gaze from the kill and stared at Tyler. An array of emotions passed over his face.
I turned to Baldr as the scene continued to unfold. “Can they see us?”
He smiled. “No, Sister.” His smile turned to a frown. “Although, with the way you were able to cause flames, I’d say your Frigg powers of bending space and time are coming back to you.” He pointed. “They’re leaving. Watch this.”
I didn’t like the giddy tone of his voice. Tyler and Will followed the path that would lead them out of the woods, but I recognized that shimmer that threatened at their feet.
The Bifrost.
“No!” I screamed and reached for them, but it was too late. Will and Tyler disappeared through the veil and by the look on Baldr’s face, I wasn’t going to like where he’d taken them.
“Where are they?” I demanded.
Baldr laughed and whirled, pointing at the screen behind us. “Look. They’ll come out on the other side.”
With my breath caught in my throat, I watched as the screen came to life with flames and screams. A battle raged and I immediately recognized the scene.
Muspelheim.
Without my help, Freya had failed to keep the volcanic planet out of Baldr’s grasp. An army of shadows descended on my people. Valkyries fell by the hundreds and blood soaked the ground. They were unable to fight against a creature they couldn’t see. These weren’t regular Skuld. Somehow, they were stronger and dark fingers stretched the blazing sky.
Memories burst out of boxes in my brain and I winced as I gripped onto my head. This was one of the last prophecies of how the world ended.
Tyler and Will appeared in a blast of ice and shadows. I knew now why Baldr had wanted such a bounty of Yggdrasil’s sap. This was all about getting to me. He needed enough power to transport two Valiant warriors across time and space with the link offered by the Bifrost. They’d never go willingly, not when they found out I was missing. This was how Baldr was going to get to me... and it was working.
Rage tinted my vision red. They were Valiant, but they were no match for the army that crashed onto the molten sands. Tyler’s black runes became visible as he delved into powers he shouldn’t have. Screeching shadows dove down from the skies and slammed into the pair. Tyler blocked the onslaught with a shield of black ice.
“Oh,” Baldr mused, “looks as though Tyr has a few tricks up his sleeve. Kept a grip on his Heimdall Curse, I see.”
I growled and wrapped my fingers around Baldr’s throat, hating how he smiled at me as if he’d already won. “Why are you doing this?” I demanded. “Did I do something to you? I don’t even remember meeting you.”
He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and squeezed. I’d underestimated his strength and cried out at the power of his grip as he pulled me away. “No, Sister. It’s what you haven’t done for me that makes me enjoy the look on your face.” For a brief moment, the sickening glee disappeared, replaced with anguish. “You’re not the only one who’s loved. You took her from me, and now you’re going to get her back.” He twirled me and held my hands behind my back, forcing me to watch Tyler and Will fight for their lives. “Or you’re going to watch them die.”
Third Law of the Valkyrie
I didn’t know what Baldr wanted or how I was supposed to help him get it, but in that moment all I knew was that Tyler and Will were about to die if I didn’t do something. Tyler was a Valiant and using the shadow that lived inside of him brought him closer to a void he could never return from. I knew it, because it lived inside of me. Ice spread out on his feet, a near-impossible act on the volcanic planet and I rushed to the screen. I took a few short breaths before digging my fingers into it.
Like Dalia had melted her brass, time and space molded around my hands and an invisible force threatened to pull me through. I had to control where I wanted to go and right now, that was home.
Muspelheim was a place I’d spent the majority of my life. I’d found love and loss there, grown to learn who I was and what I was willing to sacrifice for what I believed in. Right now, there were two men who had my heart and I believed in them. I believed in the love that threatened to change me forever. I let it engulf me and the blissful agony of it strapped around my core, molding me from the inside.
My flesh threatened to melt away at the raw, frigid power that wrapped over my form.
“Don’t let it devour you,” Baldr instructed. “Let it in, but hold onto the ember that is your heart. The fires in your soul aren’t the merciless flames of Muspelheim. It’s the love our mother fears that drives you. Use it.” Whatever he wanted, I needed to be alive for it, so I heeded his advice.
I latched onto the fierce love I held for both Tyler and Will. They had both suffered because of me and I wasn’t going to let it end like this. I wasn’t going to fail them so utterly and completely.
A scream erupted from my throat, my own voice mixed with the call of Ragnarök, a creature that devoured worlds. No matter its reputation, I wasn’t going to let it devour me.
Time and space wrapped over me like a cocoon and my lungs constricted, unable to breathe. I focused on the core of my heat even as a blackness deeper than any cold I’d ever experienced threatened to freeze me solid.
Wings sprouted from my back and my skin glazed over with my Valkyrie form. I still couldn’t shed my mortal skin, but that’s because I knew if I did, I’d never get to see Will again. I had to do this without giving up that crucial part of me I’d discovered. Mortality was where I’d found my love for Will and the drive to defy the gods. I couldn’t let it burn away and drift its ash through the cosmos.
Flames ignited and I tumbled out onto the molten planet of Muspelheim. Spear in one hand and the other steadying me against the ground, I sucked in a deep breath. A battle raged around me and ash stung my nose. The air wavered with heat and movement, and even though I should have been terrified, a smile erupted across my face.
I’d done it.
“Val!” Will cried, his words garbled from the icy layer that Tyler held around them like a shield.
Tyler’s eyes went wide, snapping onto me with disbelief swarming over his face. “Aerie?”
I wanted to cry with relief. They were alive. I wasn’t too late.
The creatures they fought off were coming back for another blow and they screeched battle cries through the roiling red clouds.
There was only one way to fight these things. My sisters had already fled, ran back to the Einherjar for a desperate escape. Fools. I couldn’t believe they’d abandon their world.
The dead littered the ground and the dying made it seem like the cracked layers of soil moved. I crouched low, my stomach dropping when I realized that the ground actually was moving. It trembled as if the very core of the planet growled with rage.
I didn’t have time to consider what that meant. A wave of b
lack blotted out the brilliant red hues of Muspelheim’s clouds and I tossed my spear into the sky, filling it with all my guilt and betrayal.
Freya had set me on this course. She’d had a son and never even told me. It felt like entire worlds revolved around me and now they were all about to be destroyed. Before the guilt crushed me, I sent the icy emotion into the sky and watched it crack open space and time, sucking in the threat of screeching creatures until only an unnatural silence remained.
The sky sucked in all light as if I’d opened a vortex. Panic rose in me. The crack I’d created was powered by all of my suffering and guilt. What if that was an endless source of power? What if my guilt had no end?
I rushed to Tyler and Will, Tyler dropping to his knees as the ice finally melted. “No, Aerie,” he breathed, his eyelids fluttering before they closed and he collapsed.
I fell to the ground and coddled his head into my lap. “Tyler?” I cried.
Will gripped my arm. “He’s just passed out,” he assured me, then looked up at the vortex that seemed to grow, taking in it all sound and light. “What is that?”
I wanted to answer him, but I felt like I was being watched. I surveyed the grounds littered with broken bodies, only to sense Baldr’s laugh echoing somewhere in the distance. I frowned when the vortex sucked it up.
The ground shook again, and this time I clutched onto Tyler to keep him off the scalding soil. He was so cold to my touch. I didn’t know if he could take the flames of Muspelheim.
Will’s face gleamed with Immortality and sweat. “Look,” he whispered and nodded at a mountain in the distance that spewed with lava.
Forms moved at its base, staggering towards us until I could make out the army of Valkyries that had risen from the ashes.
I froze when I recognized the one who led them.
“...Sam?”
To be continued in Book 3: Valkyrie Uprising
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