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"Because you weren't wrong." I cross toward her, gently tugging her hands away from her face. "We shouldn't be so willing to allow her to endure such pain. There is no honor in it."
"Then why do it?" she asks, searching my face as if she's genuinely curious. There's no judgement in her question, just a genuine desire to understand.
"It's been three hundred years since the Valkyrie last ferried a soul to Helheim,lyseste ljós," I murmur, linking our fingerstogether. "How many do you think have escaped in that time? How many do you think still roam free?"
"Dax," she whispers, her expression stricken. "Are you saying that every person who has died in the last three hundred years is either roaming, waiting to be ferried to the afterlife, or their souls have been taken by the Forsaken?"
"Ja, Valkyrie. That's precisely what I'm saying. There is no honor in allowing Abigail to carry the weight she carries. But without her visions, we're blind, fighting an enemy we cannot defeat. And the longer we stumble, the longer every soul in the realms is at risk. We stumbled in the dark for three hundred years, trying to do this task alone, and we didn't come anywhere close. With her, we're able to find the Blooded and gather them close. Because of her, we found you." I bring her fingers to my lips, brushing kisses across her knuckles. "The Light has always demanded a high price for its greatest gifts, but we pay it because we must. Because there is no other way. The Forsaken cannot win."
If there's penance to pay later, we'll pay it. However we must. But we do what we do because we have no choice. Is it fair?Nei. Is it right?Nei. Someday, we'll prostrate ourselves at Abigail's feet and beg her forgiveness for failing to keep our oath to protect her. But the Gods sent our greatest weapon against the Forsaken when they sent her. And now, through her, they've sent the world's greatest weapon against the dark.
A warrior's life is one of sacrifice. A Fae's life is one of pain. We know both intimately. Our people are gone,Álfheimrdestroyed. Valhalla lost. And still we stand. Still, we fight. When the war is done and the dust settles, we settle the bill. It's all we can do.
And that has to be enough.
Rissa blows out a breath. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I shouldn't have said what I did down there. I didn't understand."
"You did nothing wrong." I release her hand, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "As Malachi would say, no harm, no foul."
She rewards me with a tiny smile. "He's an interesting Fae."
"Ja. That's one way to put it."
"Are they really your brothers?"
"Nei, not in the way you mean. We do not share common lineage. But we are what humans call a troop, a soldier unit. We've trained together since the day we entered Valhalla."
"About that." She pauses. "Um, you're not dead…right?"
It's my turn to smile. I take her hand, placing it over my heart so she can feel the way it thuds for her. "Nei, Valkyrie. My heart still beats." I pause. "Or perhaps it beats again."
A soft blush suffuses her cheeks as she lays her palm flat against my chest. "Dax, I…"
"I've spent millennia surrounded by death," I whisper, my voice a scrap of sound. "Sometimes, I wondered if my heart beat at all. I felt half-alive for most of that time. That's no longer true, Valkyrie."
"S-since you've been on earth?"
"Since you called my soul." I was born for war. It's all I've ever known. The last three hundred years have been the worst for all of us, I think. We've all felt half alive, cut off from everything we know. Waiting for a war we may not win. Living in peace for the first time in our lives. I hated every moment of it. But for the first time ever, peace doesn't sound so bad.
For the first time ever, I wonder what it would be like to simply lay my weapons down and stop fighting. To spend my life devoted to this woman and her care. Every moment I spend with her, some part of me craves it a little more.
More than our return to Valhalla or an end to the Forsaken and the threat of the dark…I want a future with her. I want her in my arms and in my bed.
"Kiss me, Dax," she pleads quietly. "Kiss me like you did this morning."
I drag her into my arms with a guttural groan, incapable of denying her. My soul is hers, bound to her in every way. There is nothing I wouldn't give her if she asked it of me. No law I would not break, no sin I would not commit.
"Valkyrie," I breathe, my lips inches from hers as I cradle her head in my hand. "Jeg lengter etter deg." It's nothing but the truth. I long for her in ways I cannot put to words. It's soul hunger, wild and fierce. I don't know how to contain it. No Fae has ever had to try. It's been two thousand years since a Fae last took a mate, and one has never laid claim to a Fae warrior's soul. The old ways no longer apply. They died withÁlfheimr.
We make our own rules now.
I brush my lips across Rissa's in soft passes, drawing her closer to me. Her soft body presses against my chest, her warmth searing me. Even now, her power hasn't faded entirely. Her Light still swirls around her, radiant and bright. Everywhere it touches, I tremble, aching for her. Gods, how I ache.
Her lips part on a soft sigh, her eyelids fluttering closed.
"Open your eyes,elskan-ljós." I don't want her hiding from me. When I kiss her, I want her to know it's me. I want those blue eyes locked with mine, staring into my soul.
Her sooty lashes flutter against her alabaster skin. She opens them slowly, focusing on me. Desire swirls through the depths of her eyes, turning the bright blue to dark midnight. I reflect back like a field of stars, painted across her irises.
