Chapter 14
Chapter 14
S he’s killing me.
And all it took was a touch.
The last of my logical thoughts are cynical. If she can kill with a single touch, then it’s no wonder Graviter has remained at the edge of the clearing. Even now, despite lurching toward me, he hasn’t intervened. But his body is shivering, ripples flowing through his scales, and heatwaves flow across the air above my head.
I’m certain that he wants to help me.
But I chose this path.
I couldn’t let Erik go. And now his sacrifice for me will go to waste.
As death darkens the edges of my vision, I seek Erik’s still body across the short distance between us.
I can’t reach him.
I’ve lost him.
With that final thought, I exhale and stop struggling, sinking into the memories that I can cling to until my final moments. All the good and all the bad.
The way he shouted at me when he was dying.
“You were meant to leave me.”
The way he whispered…
“I wanted to do one good thing.”
“You did,” I say within my mind, unable to utter the words, my vision blurring as the memories take over.
I’m standing opposite Erik on the balcony outside my tower, the wind plucking at my transparent robe, its white sash flying from his fingers, his body pressed to mine while the sky weeps blood onto us.
And now, again, the sky is weeping.
A cold droplet of rain falls onto my cheek, slipping across my skin like an icy finger trailing down my cheek.
I follow it down to the little body held carefully in my arms.
She has the smallest and most perfect fingers and toes, but her tiny lips are turning blue, and her chest is struggling to rise and fall.
She’s too quiet.
She hasn’t cried.
My baby girl has barely taken her first breaths. She’s dying in my arms, and I can’t save her…
With a sudden, startling clarity, I realize that these are not my memories.
Power pushes at my consciousness—my own power—and my left hand twitches around my hammer, the first movement I’ve been able to make.
The darkness clears from the center of my vision, and Glass’s face comes back into focus.
Her brow is deeply furrowed, and beads of sweat rest on her forehead.
Tears stream down her cheeks.
Her sadness pours through me.
The loss of her daughter is raw and recent and overwhelming.
It’s a terrible, horrible pain.
A pain I could use against her.
Strength streams from my heart, down my left arm, and into my hammer, at which power flows from my hammer back into my heart. Strength and power as I finally accept the gift Erik gave me, the hope he forged for me.
Glass’s hand is unbearably tight around my throat, but her wings are fully spread and completely vulnerable, and she doesn’t seem aware that my level of wakefulness has changed.
I’m not about to give her any warning.
My left hand shoots upward as I drive the hammer toward her right wing. I allow the hammer’s handle to slide through my fist, giving me the reach I need to make contact with her silver feathers.
She seems to become aware of the movement too late, her concentration on me simply too complete for her to notice until now.
Her eyes fly wide as she attempts to jolt backward. Her wings begin retracting, but it doesn’t do her any good.
The hammer’s head collides with her feathers, and my power sizzles into them.
But instead of commanding her to break, I let my own grief guide me.
Heal .
Accept the sadness.
Move through it.
You can be whole again.
She gasps, and her gaze flashes from her wing back to me.
Her reflexes were already carrying her away from me, her knee rising from my chest and her wings giving a single sweep, but her gaze remains on me as she lands lightly in the snow opposite me.
Her hand flies to her heart. “What did you do?”
I don’t have time to answer her.
The other two Valkyries have recovered and are charging toward me.
They’ve left their armor in the snow and are now both dressed only in underclothes similar to Glass’s. Their breasts are wrapped in strips of black material while short, tight pants cover their pelvises. Unlike Glass, their stomachs are bare.
They leap toward me, kicking up snow as they move.
“Glass!” Griffin screams, her determined eyes blazing at her sister. “Seize Erik’s soul before it’s lost!”
Glass stumbles back toward Erik, but her knees buckle three paces away from him and she falls to the snow, kneeling in the white powder, her wings dropped at her sides.
Tears flow down her cheeks, falling to the snow.
My hammer remains extended in the air.
I have only seconds to defend myself.
I swing toward the other two Valkyries, seeking any metal on their bodies, but there’s none. They’ve abandoned their weapons, and I’m certain they won’t spread their wings.
As they rush at me, I take note of the way the black-haired Griffin comes directly for me while Glaive circles to my right. I’m certain that Griffin will try to disarm me, while Glaive will seek to use her power on me. Maybe she has to get her hands around my throat like Glass did, but it’s also very possible she can kill me through contact with any part of my body.
I’m still in a crouched position.
Instead of deflecting Griffin, I swing my hammer to the right, away from Griffin’s grasping hands and toward Glaive’s leg.
It’s an awkward move, forcing me to twist at my waist and expose my left side, but it keeps my hammer out of Griffin’s reach.
Power splashes across the air as my hammer moves, my thoughts radiating out from me as I swing.
Be calm.
Glaive leaps out of the way just in time—the force of the hit alone could have broken her leg—and the hammer arcs downward, hitting the ground instead.
Thump!
The impact of the hammer on the snow is far more intense than I was expecting.
Light streams out from the hammer’s head, an explosion of gold and sapphire.
The air thuds .
Snowflakes rise from the ground.
Energy ripples outward.
Both Valkyries are thrown backward, Griffin with her fist still raised where she was about to punch my exposed face, and Glaive where she was already airborne, having leaped upward to evade the hammer’s strike across her legs.
All I can do is grip my hammer’s onyx handle and marvel at the streaks of light radiating out from it through the snowy ground.
Well, what do you know?
Erik truly gave me a hammer like no other.
The hammer should be heavy, but it’s as light as air when I heft it upward and swing it again.
This time, I deliberately aim for the ground between me and the two Valkyries, ramming my hammer down onto the snow just as they’re regaining their footing.
Be calm.
Energy explodes through the ground where the hammer hits, spearing in all directions across the snow like beams of light from a little sun.
The beams reach the side of the cabin, shaking its walls. They hit the oncoming Valkyries, who throw themselves forward, their wings extending and wrapping around themselves as if they think they can cocoon themselves against the vibrations and cut through the wash.
They make it within reaching distance of me before I ram my hammer down into the ground again, its uppermost rune catching my eye.
Be hopeful.
The hammer’s head crashes into the ground. Thump .
Icy powder rises from the surface of the snow, dancing on top of the ground as the vibration continues. Around the clearing, the trees shake, spilling snowflakes from their leaves, only for the ice to dance in the air, riding the vibrations of energy.
In the distance, Graviter Rex leaps upward, beating his wings and rising from the ground. He may as well be a moth in the tumult of energy building around me.
“Asha!” he roars, his voice no more powerful than a whisper. “Stop!”
No.
Somewhere between letting go of Erik and feeling my life stream away from me, I bonded with this hammer.
Maybe it was in knowing that grief doesn’t only belong to me.
Pain comes for us all—even for a powerful Valkyrie who can deliver death with a touch of her hand.
I spin to General Glass, where she has collapsed in the snow. She alone has remained on the ground, her wings now wrapped around herself, her eyes raised to mine.
I speak directly to her when I say, “Erik wanted me to live.” I give her a soft smile. “So I’m going to live.”
I’m going to live with everything he gave me.
I will live with loyalty, strength, perseverance, and hope.
But so will he .
With that thought fixed firmly in my mind, I raise my hammer above my head.
While power builds around me, swirling and intensifying, growing brighter and brighter around my left hand, I fix a single command within my mind.
Then I ram my hammer down onto the snow with all my might and scream, “ Wake up! ”