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Ales turned to Logan and looked down at the rips from claws on his pants. “Yes, but we can kill it. She can kill it. Your mortal weapons will never deter these creatures.”
“What are they?” Logan asked, sitting across from Ales.
“We call them Raiders, but they are not even the true enemy, just their pets. And they are looking for her.” Ales flashed his eyes to me.
There were things worse than the creatures. What could be darker, filled with more hate than them?
“Why attack soldiers, then?” Logan asked.
“Opportunity. The draw to her aether is strong, but so is the attraction to true warriors. They reap them from a world, like yours, to build their numbers, to build their army, before they destroy it.”
Ales’ words struck deep. So many had been taken because of me. And it was only the beginning.
“How did I keep Logan and Daniel from dying?” I asked.
“You did and you didn’t. You shielded them from death, but in exchange, they owe a debt. You changed them into a Einherjar, a soldier of the Valkyrie army. They are no longer mortal. Like you, they are something else entirely.” Ales paced closer to me.
“What if I don’t want to be a Valkyrie? What if I choose to go home and take a very long nap instead?”
Ales didn’t seem to find any humor in the situation. His stare only hardened as it focused on me. He shook his head. “When a Valkyrie awakens, that mortal dies. Just as you have changed them into Einherjar when you chose to shield them, they will be Einherjar until their last breath. You are the Valkyrie always. Why does the Valkyrie desire to return to the home of the mortal?”
He thinks Charlie is dead?
Oh shit.
Lie!
“I don’t, but her world might need us,” I said.
“It will be safe soon, Valkyrie.”
“How?”
“When you leave it.”
This was way too freaking much. I could handle one of these revelations, but they didn’t seem to stop coming. I was supposed to die when the Valkyrie was born. That’s why it wanted me to find Ales, and protect those men. They thought I was the Valkyrie and She wanted to fight the creatures. She was supposed to fight this war, not Charlie.
That’s a big freaking problem because I am still here, and now we’re leaving!
I glanced at Logan and Danny to see how they were handling this. Both appeared a bit stunned, but not as in shock as I expected. I’d had three years to panic about this, and I was drowning in a sea of information overload. Danny remained still, watching Ales speak. Logan leaned back into the seat, nodding his head, seeming to accept Ales’ words as truth.
Logan occasionally glanced over at me.
Logan finally spoke. “Wait, you said across many worlds. Do you mean you are not from here? That’s what you meant by leave.”
Ales smiled tentatively as he looked at the ocean. “There are many worlds beyond this one. All that I have seen are similar in a way. Most are covered in oceans. Some have many suns and many moons. Every single one I have seen has life, like us.” He looked at his crew.
“Crixus is from this world, but he was born a few millennia before this time. Leo is from another world I have never seen, but he claims he is small amongst his people.”
I smiled at the thought of Leo being small compared to anyone. It was almost inconceivable. Almost.
“So, the Norsemen were right—Valkyries, Valhalla, all of it is real?” I asked. I had been so close. My research hovered over the truth the whole time. But I never could match the markings.
“Some of it was correct. The Valkyries did take some Norsemen on the battlefield to be their Einherjar.” Ales shrugged. “They seemed to enjoy that civilization more than most. They do enjoy a fearless voyager. The Valkyries are older than time itself, and the war is real. It is happening now.”
That’s why the symbols didn’t match. They were not all from this world. It was only part of the language they took from the Valkyries.
Danny leaned forward to join the conversation. “If we are from different worlds, how are we speaking to each other? There must be millions of different languages across the universe. How do we understand each other?”
