Chapter 35 #2
“I’m well aware.” It felt as if the gods themselves had struck me.
My legs gave way without warning, folding beneath me, and the world pitched sharply.
The hard bone of my left knee slammed against the ground first, followed by my other leg.
Lux spun around, hands flying out to help me, but she wasn’t fast enough.
Defeated, I let the heels of my palms catch me before I was completely flattened against the ground.
I shoved off the dirt and to my knees. “Hel,” I breathed.
“I know we have to keep moving, but I can’t.
” I swallowed. “I have to stop and drink and let the blood give me strength before I can get up again.” Reaching for the pouch I’d secured into the pack on my back, I waved my free hand for her to keep moving. “I’ll catch up.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not leaving you behind. Silver’s coming.”
“I know, but once I feed—” My voice fell away, swallowed by panic as I palmed the pack where I’d tethered the neck of the leather pouch, dread twisting in my stomach.
“What is it?” she asked, her eyes wide, witnessing my sudden panic.
I ripped the pack off my back and scrambled through the makings of the tent, searching frantically, but no matter how carefully I looked, the pouch of blood was gone. “It’s not here,” I said, my throat tight.
“We didn’t drop it,” she insisted. “I would have seen it. It has to be—”
“The Valkyrie,” I said, my words tight with suspicion. “Did she take it?”
Lux sucked in a quick breath, her voice trembling. “That’s what was in her hand! I saw something with glass. I didn’t think—I’m sorry.”
“Skald, it’s not your fault.” I forced my voice soft, despite the rawness that clawed at my throat, though once my strength began waning, even that small control slipped from me, falling away like charred skin.
I dragged my eyes to Lux, offering a weak, broken smile. “You keep moving.”
“What?” Shock lifted her brows, and for a moment, her disbelief was almost tangible.
I tried again to squeeze my fingers into fists, but it was no use; only one hand still obeyed, and even that would soon follow the others into numbness.
One by one, sensation vanished from my fingers until even my thumb refused to bend, and the weakness compounded relentlessly. I wasn’t making it to Yggdrasil.
The gods had won this battle, but not the war.
Lux was no longer their puppet, and now that awareness had shifted her beliefs, she remembered us…My chest squeezed even if my hand could not. Fuck. It hurt to think we would have to endure this again. But we had found our way back to each other once before. We could do it again.
“Lux.”
“We have to keep moving. Silver is right behind us, and she’ll compel you the moment she sees you.”
“I can’t,” I said, defeated.
“Drak, come on.” She offered me a hand.
“You keep moving.”
“And what will you do? Die?”
A hollow smile curved onto my face. “Not until Silver gets a branch from Yggdrasil.”
“She’ll just use the compulsion to drag you there and then kill you. I’ll be too busy fighting the rest of her army to save you.”
“I know.”
“So that’s it?” Frustration ground through her words. I knew it well. The anger that came with the loss of control. “Are you really giving up after all this time?”
“I’m telling you to stick to the plan.”
“The plan includes you. You have to drink,” she said, yanking the sleeve of her tunic up and baring her tender wrist. “From me.”
“Your blood is poison.”
“But it’s still blood.”
“It is Freya’s tears. They flow through you because you made a sacrifice asking her to free you from your fate in Folkvangr.”
She pursed her lips. “It’s still blood, no?”
I nodded. “It’ll burn, but it’s still blood.”
“So drink. My blood certainly cannot kill you. We know that much. Nothing but a stake from Yggdrasil can do that, and I refuse to let Silver reach the tree before us. If she does, she will find you and destroy you. You can’t die.” Her voice splintered. “Not now.”
It didn’t take a genius to know what she was thinking. Not now that she remembered.
We were finally together. Fucking finally. But the gods would not have it. Freya wanted company in her grief, and Odin just wanted to control Lux and everything in Midgard through her and the other witches.
“I’m sorry if this hurts, but you threatened to kill me once. You can survive a little burning.”
I smiled again, this time not wholly hollow, and used the last bit of strength I had to grab her wrist. I tugged her toward me and let my fangs descend over my bottom lip. In a single breath, I sank them into the thin skin covering her delicate veins.
She didn’t complain, only gasping once before falling silent.
My tongue immediately bubbled with dozens of swelling blisters, and a wretched burn dragged down my throat with every swallow.
Her blood tasted bitter, not sweet like the life flowing through most humans.
Despite the acrid taste and the sweltering pain of it washing over my tongue, the blood left my thighs tingling with energy and the fingers of my lifeless hand finally twitched.
We would keep going together.