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"Sorry, but mamma said you have to share," Malachi rumbles with a cheeky grin, plunging his blade through the chest of an armored giant. The steel, like flesh, turns red hot, melting under the intense blast of Light. Malachi plants his foot in the dyingJötunn'schest, kicking him off hislyststål.
"Then I guess it's a good thing there are several hundred of them, isn't it?"
"You go left, I'll go right," Malachi says without missing a beat. "Our brothers can take the middle."
"Nei." Damrion shakes his head, halting my brothers before they can surge forward. "Whatever the Forsaken are doing to the portal, they're doing from Asgard. We need to go through."
"If the portal falls with us on the other side, we'll be cut off from Valhalla," Adriel growls.
"And if we're here when it falls, we fall with Valhalla," Damrion snaps back, his gold eyes hard. "We can't see the prophecy fulfilled if we die."
"And our brothers?" Adriel demands, refusing to back down. "You'd leave them to die in our place?"
"Nei. Dax already sounded the call. They're on the way."
Adriel mutters an oath, anger glittering in his eyes. He knows Damrion is right, though. If our brothers can reach us, they will. If they can't, there is no saving them, no matter what we do.They'll die where they stand, alongside everyJötunn,varulv, and Forsaken still on this side of the portal.
Gods alive. Do theJötunnandvarulveven know what's going to happen to them if the portal falls? Did the Forsaken tell them, or did they keep that secret to themselves?
"He's right, Adriel," Malachi, ever the peacekeeper between the two, says. "We need to stop whatever Gods' forsaken foul magic they're weaving on the portal."
"Gods have mercy on our souls," Adriel spits, the scar bisecting his eye giving the comment a foreboding edge.
"I could use a little help here," Reaper shouts as theJötunnsurge forward again, trying to drive us back into the valley.
We step forward as a unit,lyststålblazing. One after another after another,Jötunnfall beneath our blades. Malachi takes a hammer blow across the back, but it doesn't slow him much. Nothing ever does. Peacekeeper he may be, but in times of war, he's as lethal and unyielding as any Fae.
Eventually, more of the Fae reach us. By the time we make it to the portal, we're over two hundred strong. TheJötunnscatter like mice, fleeing in every direction from the wall of burning steel marching closer and closer.
The once bright, shining surface of the portal ripples as the Forsaken on the other side attack it with their perverse magic. Showers of sparks rain down like tears, as if the portal itself weeps for the fate awaiting Valhalla if it falls.
"Lystståland shields at the ready!" Damrion orders, his voice booming over the Fae. "When we reach the other side, we kill everything in our path or die where we stand."
I grip my sword, prepared for death. I've spent the last three thousand years surrounded by it, defending Valhalla. It's an old, familiar friend. One I welcome whenever it comes.
"Mot døden!" Damrion shouts, lifting his sword over his head.
"Mot døden!" two-hundred Fae roar as one.
We advance, racing toward the portal withlystståland shields at the ready.
Malachi, Damrion, and Reaper plunge through first. Adriel and I are hot on their heels. Fae after Fae pours through the portal behind us. Unlike usual, it doesn't light up. It isn't warm. There is no welcome. It's ice cold and black as midnight, corrupted by whatever magic the Forsakenhave woven over it. Not even the light from mylyststålpierces the pervading darkness.
I gasp as icy fingers rake down my back, chilling me all the way to my soul. They pick me apart fragment by fragment before forcing me back together. It wrestsMagnfrom my control, sending mylyststålspinning back into the elements. My shield dissolves too, leaving me empty-handed and grasping.
The strange sensation ends as quickly as it began.
I stumble out of the portal, shivering.
Light blazes all around me as my brothers reach forMagn, channeling theirlystståland shields back into their hands. I'm a split second behind, prepared to defend my brothers, Valhalla, and the portal with my dying breath.
Except there are no Forsakenhere. And this isn't Asgard. There are no crumbling halls of gold, no once Shining City. Massive trees loom up on every side, plunging high into a star-filled sky. A single moon shines brightly overhead, tufts of cloud floating across an endless expanse of midnight blue. Ice crunches beneath our boots, a thick film of it covering everything.
All around me, my brothers notice the same things, heads whipping this way and that as they try to figure out where we are. I know though. I've seen this realm often enough over the years, the one so much likeÁlfheimr.
Midgard.Earth.
The portal brought us to earth.
