Chapter Three

Silence falls over the room, broken only by the click of Malachi"s beads against the wall and the way my teeth chatter together. Everyone looks at me and Reaper without looking at us, doing their best to give us a little privacy where there is none to be had.

Eventually, Reaper slides his hand away from my face, resuming his crouch beside the bed. As soon as he"s no longer touching me, I miss the warmth of his skin against mine.

Damrion clears his throat, shooting me an apologetic look. "I wouldn"t ask, but it"s important," he begins. "Do you remember what happened to you? Who took you?"

"I remember." I force the words out, my voice shaky but firm. The memory of that night is branded on my mind as if forged by molten flame. "They…they weren"t human."

"Nei, they were not." Reaper"s eyes burn with deadly malice. "They"re called the Forsaken, little Valkyrie."

"The Forsaken?"

"Soulless monsters who have given themselves over to evil, stealing the souls of the dead," Rissa says, her tone flat.

"That explains so much," I whisper.

"Like what?" Humor reflects in Malachi"s eyes. "The putrid stench of death that surrounds them?"

Reaper shoots him a warning glare, but his question brings a tiny smile to my lips, the first in days. He"s funny.

"Yes, that," I say, earning a chuckle from the irrepressible warrior before I sober again. "They kept talking about souls."

"The Forsaken are perversions of nature." Damrion"s lips twist as if merely discussing them displeases him. "They"re the soul-damned. Humans call them demons, but they came before any religion known to man. They came before humanity. They feed on souls, using them for their dark magic."

"They were evil before evil had a name," Dax supplies, his tone dark. "The only thing they fear is the Light."

"T-the Light?"

"The power of the Valkyrie and the Fae." The Fae with the scar, Adriel, raises his hand. Power gathers around him like a thousand fireflies being pulled inward. A second later, a blazing sword materializes in his hand, made entirely of Light. "This is our power," he says. "We wield Light. So do you."

"I…" My instinct is to shy away from what he"s telling me, to discount it as impossible. Yet, he"s standing in front of me right now, wielding a sword of pure Light. It"s no magic trick, something conjured like a rabbit in a hat. I can want to disbelieve this reality all I want, but that doesn"t make it false.

This is happening, and I"m part of it.

"I"ve never…I can"t wield that."

"It"s not the same for us," Rissa says. "Our power is different. It"s more complicated. They wield Light, but we are Light. When needed, we can call Light to protect us and those who depend on us, but we don"t forge a weapon. We are the weapon."

"Oh," I whisper, swallowing hard as I try to imagine what that looks like. I quickly decide I don"t want to know. I"m not a weapon. I wasn"t born to kill.

"That"s only a small fraction of your power, little Valkyrie," Reaper murmurs as if reading my mind. "The Valkyrie were made for far more than destruction. You are salvation."

I bob my head in a nod, not really sure what to say to that. Thank you? Awesome? Thanks, but no thanks? Nothing really covers the swirl of emotions coursing through me, so I don"t try. I force myself back to the original discussion.

Being kidnapped by the Forsaken seems far safer than this.

"There were five of them," I whisper, my voice trembling. A chill crawls down my spine as the memory of that night floods back with terrifying clarity, suffocating me in fear and helplessness. Each word feels like a razorblade sawing at my throat. "They crept into my room while I slept and plucked me from my bed. I remember the feel of their hands on my body. They were so cold. I tried to fight back, but they overpowered me with ease." Their grip on my body was like steel vises, unrelenting and cruel. "And then they blew something in my face. I tried not to breathe it in, but they held me down until I couldn"t hold my breath any longer. I had to take a breath."

As soon as the sickly-sweet scent filled my lungs, it felt like I was drowning in a sea of darkness. My body grew heavy and uncoordinated. I couldn"t fight back any longer. I couldn"t even move. I just floated, unable to do anything to protect myself.

The room is silent, the images painted by my words hanging heavy in the air.

"When they carried me downstairs, I saw my parents," I manage to choke out, the reality of their death crashing down on me all over again. My parents—my world—ripped from existence within a matter of moments. I reach for the thin necklace clasped around my throat, letting the feel of the delicate chain ground me.

I don"t think they ever stood a chance. My mother lay motionless on the stairs, her body twisted and broken from the ruthless attack. It was as if they killed her right where she stood. My dad, though? He tried to fight. His blood soaked the living room. The metallic scent filled the air, mingling with the sickly-sweet smell of the powder they forced me to inhale. I"ll never forget it. If I live another thousand years, that last image of my parents will haunt my mind every day.

Reaper reaches for my hand again, his fingers wrapping around mine in a comforting grip. I cling to him gratefully, trying desperately to hold it together. I"ve had days to drown in grief, entire tracts of time in that bathroom when I tortured myself with those images, pretending I could change them. But there is no changing the past. There is no bringing back the dead. The best I can hope to do now is keep myself alive. That"s what they would want for me.

"And then?" Malachi asks, concern flickering in his blue eyes.

I bite my lip before forcing myself to continue. "They took me to that house." The one where nightmares became reality. The one where my life stopped making sense. It was my prison, and yet, paradoxically, my sanctuary, too. Because even in the bleakest moments, I wasn"t alone. Somehow, inexplicably, Reaper was there, too, nestled deep in my subconscious.

I don"t understand how that"s possible. I don"t understand how any of this is possible. And yet, he was there. I felt him, as surely as I feel his hand wrapped around mine now. In the darkest moments, when I wanted to give up and sink beneath the water, the thought of him kept me fighting.

"They kept me locked in that bathroom for days," I whisper. "I didn"t understand it then, but I guess they were trying to figure out my power. Ironic considering that I"ve never even heard of this power until now."

Reaper"s grip tightens around mine before he speaks again, his voice seething with barely concealed rage. "They hurt you."

"T-they pushed me beneath the water and held me there until I thought I was going to die. Over and over again, only to haul me out at the last minute. I thought they were going to kill me so many times." My voice cracks as my gaze falls to the blankets. "I wanted them to kill me and get it over with."

"Enough," Reaper growls.

I glance up to find rage swirling through the depths of his amber eyes. I feel the dark emotion snapping in the air around him as if it"s alive. He whips his head in Damrion"s direction.

"She"s said enough. No more."

"I just have one final question for her," Damrion says.

"One and only one," Reaper says, a note of finality ringing in his tone.

A silent understanding flickers between them before the royal warrior nods. He shifts his gaze back to me. Yet again, I"m struck by the unmistakable sense of authority that surrounds him. It"s interesting. He"s very much in charge, and yet, when it comes to me, he defers to Reaper without hesitation. Why?

"Did they take your blood, Valkyrie?" he asks me.

I instinctively curl my hands as if to hide the mostly healed cut across my palm. Reaper notices the motion…the same way I"m sure he"s already noticed the injury.

He knows.

"Y-yes," I whisper, my heart thudding against my breastbone.

A wave of silence crashes through the room. The sheer intensity of it echoes in my ears, loud and ominous. In the thick tension winding its way through the air, I feel Reaper"s hand squeeze mine tighter, his skin rough and warm against mine.

"By the Gods," Adriel swears under his breath.

"What"s wrong?" I ask Reaper. "Why did they need my blood?"

What new horror awaits me now?

It"s not Reaper who answers, but Rissa. "They took mine too," she says quietly, the revelation startling me.

"Why?"

"When the Forsaken destroyed the portal to Valhalla, they destroyed the last remaining piece of the Bifr?st, the bridge between realms," she explains. "Valkyries are the only ones able to travel beyond the Veil without it."

"I don"t understand."

"The Forsaken didn"t just trap the Fae here when they destroyed the portal. They cut the souls off from moving beyond the Veil." Something flashes in her eyes—anger or grief, I"m not sure. But it"s powerful and vast. "And they cut off their only way of reaching those souls. They haven"t been able to reach them for three hundred years. They need our blood to reopen the portal to claim those souls."

A shudder runs through me at her words, the air in the room growing colder. My parents" souls are trapped, along with the soul of everyone else who has died since Valhalla fell.

God. That"s millions.

If the Forsaken use souls for their dark magic, what could they accomplish with millions of them? It"s a terrifying question. The only thing more terrifying is the possibility that we may live long enough to find out.

The silence is an entity of its own, consuming the space around us.

Yet again, Adriel is the one to break it. "They have the blood of one Valkyrie," he says. "They wanted the blood of another. Their portal magic must require more than one." He locks that one black eye on Damrion. "We have to get her out of Eitr. Whether you want to admit it or not, she is a Valkyrie. You can"t deny it after what happened last night."

Damrion"s jaw clenches, frustration rolling from him in a hot wave.

I look at Reaper, hating that I only have half the pieces to this particular puzzle…confident they aren"t talking about me this time. "What happened last night?"

"The Forsaken and their hellhounds attacked Eitr yesterday," he murmurs, his voice pitched low as Adriel and Damrion argue over how to proceed. "A girl in town killed dozens of Forsaken."

"How?"

"We aren"t entirely sure," he admits, shrugging one broad shoulder. "Abigail isn"t entirely sure how she did it, either. She was in the throes of a vision."

"A-Abigail?" Hearing her name pulls up a memory from the dredges of my subconscious. Two of the Forsaken standing over me in the bathroom, talking about a girl—a Seer—hiding in a village in the mountains. Their leader desperately wanted her and was prepared to wage war to get his hands on her.

Her name was Abigail.

"Ja. Abigail. You"ll like her, solsken."

"We can"t just abandon Eitr, Adriel."

"You don"t have a choice."

Everyone in the room turns to look at me. I flinch, unease whispering through me as I stare up at four fearsome warriors and a powerful Valkyrie, licking my lips.

"Speak, little Valkyrie," Reaper encourages me, his voice gentle.

"I-I heard them," I say, my voice a trembling whisper that grows surer with each word. "The Forsaken. They were talking about Abigail, the Seer hiding in a mountain village. Their leader wants her, desperately so." I swallow convulsively. "He"s willing to wage war to get his hands on her."

A heavy silence falls over the room at my words, every eye boring into me as if they might unlock precisely why the Forsaken want her simply with the weight of their gazes. I"d give them those answers if I knew them, but like so much else, all I have are disjointed fragments…the tiny scraps of memory left behind by the poisonous powder the Forsaken drugged me into submission with. Those scraps aren"t nearly enough.

Reaper"s the first to break the silence. "It seems we weren"t wrong, after all. She"s not merely valuable to us. She"s a beacon to the enemy as well."

"Ja," Dax agrees solemnly. "Either she"s Valkyrie, or they know something about her visions that we don"t. She may help us defeat them, or they believe she"s their key to defeating the Valkyrie. If they get their hands on her…"

Adriel turns to Damrion, an unspoken plea in his solitary eye. I don"t think he asks for much. In fact, I get the distinct impression that he"d rather die than ask this particular Fae for anything at all. There"s tension between them, a hurt so ancient I think they"ve lost the start of their personal war to time.

But they carry their grudge anyway, their anger cutting deep. There"s something beyond it though, something they"ve both tried to bury deep. Love, powerful and intense. Once upon a time, perhaps even now, these two loved one another, not as friends, not as one warrior loves another, but in a way that makes my chest ache.

Do they even realize that they feel the same even now? Hidden beneath the layers of pain and grief and animosity, that love still burns bright and hot. I think Adriel, at least, recognizes it. And he can"t forgive himself for feeling it even now. He wants to hate this royal Fae, and he hates that he can"t.

The royal warrior meets his gaze, not speaking.

"You would risk her life to prove me wrong, brother?" Adriel asks, his voice little more than a whisper. "You"d leave her to die too?"

"Nei," Damrion"s sharp retort cuts through the room. "Had I known you were still alive, nothing would have stopped me from coming to pull you from that hell! Nothing!"

Adriel flinches at his hot retort but says nothing.

Damrion bows his head with a sigh, defeated. "We"ll go," he declares, his voice resonating through the room like an unyielding decree. "We leave tomorrow."

Adriel"s shoulders droop, his relief palpable.

"Are you certain?" Malachi asks cautiously. "Without the other warriors, we may well be outnumbered hundreds to one if the Forsaken catch us coming down the mountain."

Adriel"s scarred face twists into a savage, mocking smile. "Afraid, Malachi? We"ve faced worse odds."

Malachi hefts his middle finger into the air in a crude gesture that only makes Adriel chuckle.

"If we go, everyone goes. We will not leave anyone behind."

"You intend to abandon Eitr?" Malachi gapes at their leader as if he"s lost his mind. "You can"t be serious, Damrion."

"Dead serious," Damrion growls. "The enemy was already at the gates. I will not leave our people behind as fodder when they return."

"We"re nearly six hundred strong, including the warriors. We can"t sneak six hundred people out through the back gate without everyone from here to Seattle noticing!"

I struggle to keep up with the rapid back-and-forth of their argument, but my eyelids gradually become weighed down by exhaustion. My mind and body are both drained, worn from the icy chill of the water I was kept in, the cramped and suffocating tub, and the tightness of the ropes that bound me for what seems like an eternity. Bruises dot my skin from the rough handling of the Forsaken. As I attempt to focus on the words of the Fae, my mind begins to drift away, lost in a sea of weariness.

"Enough," Reaper says abruptly. My eyes fly open on a startled gasp to find him watching me, his amber eyes soft and full of fierce devotion. "My Valkyrie is tired. It is time for everyone to leave."

"I"m okay," I lie, my cheeks burning at the thought of him kicking everyone out because of me.

"Nei, you need rest," he says softly, brushing a strand of hair away from my face. "Tomorrow will be a long day."

"We"ll continue this downstairs," Damrion says. "Rest, Tori. You need it."

I nod weakly, unable to argue with the royal warrior.

The room gradually empties as everyone begins to file out, their footsteps echoing on the wooden floor. When Dax and Rissa pass through the door into the hallway, a surge of anxiety shoots through me. I quickly place my hand on Reaper"s arm.

"W-will you stay?" I whisper, feeling the burn of embarrassment climbing up my cheeks. Perhaps I shouldn"t ask. He probably has more important things to do than babysit me just because I don"t want to be alone. I bite my lip, preparing to call back the question.

"You don"t even have to ask," he whispers. "I"m not going anywhere, solsken. I merely intended to close the door."

I relax against the pillows, gratitude rushing through me. "Thank you."

"Never thank me for protecting you," Reaper whispers before leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on my forehead. "Sleep, Tori. And dream of me."

As exhaustion pulls me under, I can"t help but feel safe in his presence. Despite everything that"s happened, I trust him more than anyone else in this strange world.

But as I slip into a dreamless sleep, I can"t help but wonder what new terrors tomorrow will hold. I"ve only been in this world a matter of days, and already I know there"s always something.