AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But the thing was, they couldn’t make me play by their rules. They didn’t own this situation. I did. And they were going to see what folly it was to cross me.
“I have known all of you for a very long time,” I said. “Most of you, my whole life. And now I ask you one very important question. Do you trust me?” My eyes flicked to Ben. “Or, do you at least trust my character?”
Each one nodded, ever so slightly, not enough to anger their captors, but enough for me to see. Even Ben didn’t hesitate. We may not like each other, but not even he could deny the type of person I was.
“Then I need you to listen to every word I say. I need you to do everything without question—without hesitation. I need you to close your eyes and listen to only my voice.”
They obeyed. The tension in their posture eased, and they hung onto everything I said—everything I was. They may be terrified and confused, but they trusted me now. And I would not fail them.
“Aw, how sweet,” Ingrid cooed. “You want to spare them from knowing your choice.”
“Weak,” Garmr snarled. “You always were, false Valkyrie. It’s why Odin never wanted you. So pathetically created by an inferior god, that you couldn’t even sprout wings until now.”
“If I’m weak and pathetic, I wonder what that makes you, Garmr,” I said in such a cold tone, I wasn’t sure how it was me. “You cling so hard to the machinations of a dead god, spent your whole life of immortality chasing down her reincarnations. And for what? There’s no god left to go back to who will pat you on the head and call you a good boy.”
Garmr snarled, his face twisting with his rage, and his body jerked, desiring to shift.
Ingrid held up a hand to him. “Don’t. She is trying to rile you up while simultaneously stalling. Pick, child, who will live.”
My grip on my axe tightened. She was right, I had been stalling. But it was clear they couldn’t see why. Even though my magic senses told me there was a strange, twisting magic about her, she wasn’t aware of the magic I pushed out, wrapping around buildings and people.
“Choose,” Garmr barked.
“I choose… all of them.”
In a blink, I was no longer in front of them, but behind the hostages, with my axe raised high. I swung it down on the closest person, slamming it into their neck with a sickening crunch of cartilage and bone. My past life steeled me from the sheer horror that was taking a life. She urged me not to hesitate. To fight. To protect.
I did.
My magic flared and weapons materialized, slicing into the other enemies holding my people hostage. The scent of blood filled the air as bodies dropped.
“Run!” I shouted.
My feet dug into the ground and I launched for Garmr, whose honed battle instincts already had him shifting and coming at me. My axe slammed into his muzzle, guns fired, and someone screamed in one of the buildings.
My magic flared, protecting everyone I’d shielded. I prayed Carrie and the others found shelter soon. I felt their retreating bodies, my magic coating them in protection and allowing me to keep tabs on them. It was a sense in the back of my mind, not something I had to actively keep up.
Dad knew magic, but he had excelled in defensive and support-style magic. And I’d taken to it like a Berserker to war. Which was good, because I soon found myself overwhelmed with protecting myself.
Guns fired, and I summed all the magic I could, taking out anyone nearby. Longer-range was more difficult, especially with Garmr coming at me. My mother had retreated, but a twisted, gleeful look plastered her face. There was something very wrong about that woman, and I’d deal with her in a moment.
Garmr snapped his jaws, and I deftly dodged, leaning on all the practice with Kirby and Fen to fight a wolf shifter with everything I was as a Valkyrie. I struck him with my axe, wreathed in golden fire, burning him as much as I sliced up his flesh.
I made sure my strikes counted, not worrying about his immortal healing. My axe, my weapon forged from Randi’s magical staff, carried the properties I needed to hamper or even sever an immortal’s connection to their healing abilities. Even if I didn’t kill them in battle, and their healing finally returned, it would be too late to prevent the scarring.
“False Valkyrie!”Garmr roared.“I will end you! I vowed to see to it Odin’s will be done. I refused to allow such a mockery like yourself to exist. I swore, as long as you drew breath, I couldn’t succumb to my illness.”
He lunged for me again.“I suffered for centuries, plotting your demise. And you had to ruin it all by playing with ancient, forbidden magics. When I learned of your sacrilegious rebirth, I had to end you. I didn’t care how long it took. I’d destroy you, and weaken that pitiful excuse of a god Tyr had become because of you.”
I slammed Garmr with magical projectiles. “Tyr was stronger because of me. I pity you for never knowing such devotion and love.”
Garmr snarled and snapped his teeth, snagging and ripping some of my feathers as I dodged away. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough, or maybe paying enough attention, and a black tendril of magic lashed out at me, striking me hard against my back and wings.
I cried out and whirled around; my eyes widened. Black magic leaked out of Ingrid. The way it moved was all too familiar. It looked too much like the black tendrils of magic I’d seen mixing with my own golden magic.
Blackness veined from Ingrid’s eyes, and an inkiness seeped into her white sclera. It reminded me so much of Randi, it hurt.
No… it can’t be.She couldn’t have magic, too. I couldn’t have inherited some of her magic.
