AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll cease my vigilance if you let your hair down,” he tossed back at her.
She frowned slightly with incomprehension.
“That is inconvenient,” she said. “My braid keeps it in place.”
Ere resisted the urge to roll his eyes. She was so literal.
“In battle, I can see why keeping flyaway strands in order might be helpful,” he conceded in a serious tone that was dripping with sarcasm she completely missed.
“But, if you’re not planning to drag anyone to the afterlife or engage in bloody skirmishes for the time being, you don’t really need to tie your hair up.”
“That—”
“My point is—” Ere hastened to add, speaking over her.
Loki’s balls! She was so literal!
“—you don’t need your armor and death mask here. You’re scaring these poor village folk. I’d really like to blend in and enjoy some downtime while we’re here,” he said in a rush before she could interrupt.
“No one will offer their hospitality with open arms to a Valkyrie and I’m tainted by association. Can you please just be a woman for a change? Forget the role of death-dealer for a second. Forget the warrior. There must bewomanin there somewhere. I am asking you to find her and bring her out with asmile.”
Ere spread his own lips in an exaggerated grin to demonstrate.
She merely rolled her eyes away.
Confounded female!
They stopped outside of the largest establishment in the village. Likely the wealthiest of the traders and fishermen, or the village elder. Ere planned to finagle their lodgings for the duration of their stay with the man or woman in charge.
Sorin and Kai dismounted and, in wordless accord, led their animals away to the stalls adjoining the longhouse, a few children trailing after them, still enamored of the donkey.
Which gave Ere an idea. He didn’t have valuables to trade, but that hairy beast seemed to be worth more than he originally estimated. Their lodgings and other needs were solved.
He turned to Eir and watched her watch Kai walk away, her gaze intent, with a hint of confusion. As if she didn’t understand why she was staring after the warrior’s broad back, but was helpless to look away.
“So…” Ere started, determined to uncover the soft underbelly of the woman under all those layers of badassery.
Eir didn’t so much as glance his way, face still turned in the direction that Kai had gone, though he could no longer be seen.
“What’s it like to be a Valkyrie?”
She finally, reluctantly, turned to regard him with those cold, rather frightening green eyes. Like shards of glass, sharp and shrewd.
“What is it like to be a dragon?” she asked in turn. “It is simply who we are. We have a role to fulfill, and we do it well.”
“Have you never had the experience where, you’re supposed to mark someone for the afterlife, and you don’t want to? Have you ever regretted sending someone to their death?”
Ere was legitimately curious.
She didn’t even hesitate in her answer, which wasn’t encouraging.
“No. The Norns determine who lives and dies, and at what time would they transition. All mortals die. It is pointless to delay.”
Ere decided to switch tracks. She was a hard nut to crack.
He stalled for time, gathering his thoughts, while he negotiated food, lodgings and supplies with the man of the longhouse. Eir stood beside him, silent and fearsome, attracting the wrong sort of attention.
She stuck out like a sore thumb. Like the grim reaper, with a pervasive, suffocating aura of death. People who came and went in the longhouse gave her a wide berth, shooting her shifty looks and whispering amongst themselves like frightened mice.
