4. Maddy

Chapter 4

Maddy

T he silence that settles when Erik leaves is welcome. I move around the space, gathering blankets and water, trying not to look at Kain's face, hard and scarred even in sleep. When I have everything, I slump down on the pallet nearest Kain's. My throat is sore from Branka's nearly lethal grasp, and my muscles ache like I've run for days.

The only candle still lit is on the metal trolley between our pallets, and I rest my head on the pillow and stare at Kain's back in the dim light. His hair, distinctly free of braids of honor, is a tangled mess over his dark skin, which is still bloodstained and covered in patches of his torn leather.

I long to go to him. To take a wet cloth and clean the mess away, to soothe his pains and make him strong again.

I long to touch him, and I don't understand why. I saw exactly what happens when somebody touches his skin.

The image of Branka turning to ash before me fills my head, and I sit up again to take a long swig of my water.

I'm going to have to go through everything that has happened, starting with the awful memory of the gold-fae losing herself to her wolf. If I relive each memory as I store it in the gallery, right from the start, then perhaps things will be clearer. Perhaps I'll be able to form some sort of plan. Or at least know where to go to make one. I need to know whom I can talk to and whom I can't, because all I have right now are unanswered questions, and that's going to drive me crazy.

Start from the start, Maddy. One thing at a time. Make a plan.

I pull my feet up under me, tucking them in, close my eyes, and let myself go to the gallery.

It's a relief to be inside the cool ice walls. I know I'm safe in the healing room. Erik told me as much, and Kain is completely unconscious, so I allow myself all the time I need as the jets of water spurt up around me.

I start with what happened in the training room. I remember in painfully vivid detail the unhinged look in Branka's eyes as she lost control of herself, as she tore into every rook in that room. The sound the fae girl's neck made when she crushed it. The fear and resolve that gripped me when she was ready to choke the life out of me. The feeling when Kain pressed his ungloved hands to her skin, and the horror as I watched her burn to nothing.

Was that why I felt compelled to save Kain's life? Because scant hours before, he had done so for me?

But he told me he had killed her to save her from herself, not to save me. And he had risked nothing himself. For some godsforsaken reason, I risked my own life—practically suicidally—to try to save him.

Maybe my val-tivar made me do it? Maybe she somehow made me run back?

I hope this is true, that she's deep inside me somewhere, and that I wasn't actually willing to die for the fire-fae. Because that makes no sense.

You've been expecting to die every day for over two decades, Maddy. The thought unsettles me, though it is my own, because it is true.

"Expecting" to die is not the same as "ready" to die, though. I've never been ready to die.

What if I don't wake up tomorrow, and I never get to meet my val-tivar —the awesome, fierce, incredible bear I saw today? Would the gods be so cruel as to let me glimpse what I might be capable of, and then take her away?

The loneliness I've felt my whole life and my dependency on my sister for everything might finally be over. I might have a constant companion, a warrior and a protector.

A fierce resolve settles in my stomach as I sit down on the ice floor, pressing my hands to the cold, hard surface.

I will live long enough to meet her.

I have to. And that means I have to find a way to cure the blackouts.

The room around me changes, and a flurry of statues pass before me—memories of anything to do with my blackouts.

My sister and her belief in the tiara comes first, and I watch an hour of different conversations we've had about the missing stones and what the legends say the ice goddess Skadi's tiara is capable of. Then I see a recent memory, of Erik saying that his snake can fix some illnesses of the brain.

Could he help me?

An even more recent memory is next. Kain and I standing in front of the vault door. He is baiting me with the idea that there is something behind that sealed entrance that can fix me. He could be telling the truth.

The last statue holds a memory of my mother, standing with three healers. They all look solemn, and nobody will hold my eye. I'm young, and they are talking about me as though I'm not there, although I am.

"Any of the fainting episodes could be her last," a female says.

My mother nods gravely. "It is as we suspected. How long does she have?"

"It is impossible to tell. She could live a day, or a century."

"Will there be signs that the fatal blackout is different? Anything we can watch for?" I scan my mother's voice for emotion, but it is typically cool. She's a literal queen of ice. Everything she does or says is cool. It doesn't mean she doesn't love me.

"No, Your Majesty. She just"—the older male healer glances toward me, pity in his eyes—"won't wake up."

No more statues come my way, and the room around me shimmers and ripples, settling as the sculpting room again.

I take a few long breaths. "A century," I say aloud. That's what the healer said. "A day, or a century. And that was over twenty-five years ago."

I decided long ago I would not live in fear. I would not wait to die.

But the way I have avoided my deadly reality has been to fill my head with anything else, to never stop and really allow myself think about it, to never give the dread time to take hold. My inability to concentrate, to slow my hyperactive mind, is born of fear. I don't want to think about death, so I never give myself a chance to.

Freydis gave me something to focus on in the form of Skadi's tiara, and it worked. It kept my mind and body busy for years, even if it didn't give me the same hope she felt.

Now, I have even more to focus on. My brain is being filled with genuinely useful information every single day in my classes, and the stakes attached to my being able to concentrate are growing daily too. And I am reacting well to the pressure. I am improving. Because the reward is becoming a Valkyrie.

Who knows what might happen then? Will Sigrun help me? Will she be able to talk to the gods, or the high-fae, and ask them to help?

Even if she can't, surely my chances of surviving are better if I am blessed with the Guardian of the Gods' power?

My fists clench as hope fills me.

I have to survive Featherblade and prove my worth. I have to find a way to become a Valkyrie before I die.

The jets spring to life around me, and I form the next statue with renewed concentration.

It's the conversation I had with Kain, after the deadly glima lesson.

My sore throat constricts as I think back, as I see him say the words to me.

"My revenge belongs to me. It is mine by right, and it will come to fucking pass."

How could I help him? Why did I help him in the first instance?

I relive my refusal to get him into the vault and take a deep breath as the Frost Giant bursts into our conversation.

Kain's speed, the monster's mindless drive to kill, my fear on realizing how useless I really was in battle—all fade away when I relive that final moment. When I see her.

The statue is agiant, fierce bear when it is finished, and I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever created.

It's hard, even in this sanctuary of the gallery, not to feel a wave of panic when I think about her vanishing. I want her back. I need her back.I need to find out about her, who and what she is to me, and how the fates she took out a Frost Giant without possessing me.

Maybe she isn't a val-tivar at all, I think as I stare at the ice likeness. It would make more sense if she isn't. After all, I don't even have any ice magic—how could I have a magical animal?

But… Could a huge bear have randomly turned up to save us and then vanished?

I take a deep breath and recall the feeling when I looked into her eyes. No. I know, for certain, that she is connected to me somehow. Perhaps she is something new?

If she is my val-tivar , then does Featherblade think I am worthy of Valkyrie magic? That makes just as little sense. I am the weakest rook here, and any of the others would have done better against those Giants.

Doubt fills me, and I chew the inside of my cheek.

Maybe that's why she vanished, Maddy. She saw you, and she knew you weren't strong enough.

If that is the case, I will train harder. I will get stronger. I will become worthy of her. And then she'll come back. She has to come back.

The jets around me burst up one more time, andI'm surprised because I thought that that was the end of my statue making.But the memory replaying in my head now is the face of the Frost Giant in the water outside Odin's High Hall. The statue forming before me is holding details, minute details, about the Frost Giant we fought: the way it moved, the noises it made, the features on the face, and the differences between the one Kain and I faced in the Battleyard and the one in the water. Then the memory moves to the Valkyrie conversation about somebody inside Featherblade letting them in.

My mind moves immediately to Inga and Orgid, but how could they possibly circumvent Featherblade's own defenses? They aren't Valkyrie, and they don't have enough magic. It has to have been one of the Valkyrie, as impossible as that seems.

I don't believe it's Kain, no matter what Valdis insinuated, and no matter what Brynhild will probably accuse him of. How could it be? Why would he allow them to chain him to a post if he knew there was going to be an attack?

A tiny bit of doubt creeps through the thought. He's smart, and he's obsessed with his revenge. Could he be capable of a double bluff like that? He's the only one who wishes harm upon Featherblade and its occupants.

His words ring loud in my mind. "I won't lie to you."

He would have made his life a whole lot easier if he had lied to me about hurting people. I would have agreed to help him, and he knows that.

The statue has finished forming, and it is a replica of the second Frost Giant's face. It's beautiful in a monstrous, terrifying kind of way. I'm beginning to believe that it's very possible to find beauty in monsters.

I sigh, long and hard. Somebody inside the canopy has a reason to want Featherblade attacked.

I just pray it isn't Kain.