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"And if we're too late?" Adriel asks. "If they've already taken her? What then, Damrion? What's your big plan if she's already gone?"
Pure murder flashes in Damrion's gold eyes. "Then Gods have mercy on every Forsaken I come across, for I'll have none."
Adriel grunts but says nothing further.
I leave them to figure out a plan and head upstairs to fill Rissa in on what's happening. I don't relish telling her any of this. There isn't a single piece that won't break her heart. She's as fierce as a storm and still as gentle as a warm rain, so worried about everyone else. Always, she worries about everyone else.
Everything she feared has come to pass, and I can't protect her or her heart from any of it. All I can do is fight, turning my rage on her enemies. She's her own weapon, but I'm another blade in her arsenal, one designed specifically for war. I can't stop what's coming. But I can kill like no other when it arrives.
"Rissa?" I know the moment I step into our room that she isn't inside. It's cold in a way it never is when she's near. I stillcheck anyway, peering into the bathroom to ensure she isn't showering.
Satisfied she isn't inside, I step back out into the hall, checking each room. Worry flickers to life quickly growing to alarm. I undo the mask Damrion asked me to place on the bond to keep her from sensing my emotions…and alarm grows to outright terror.
Wherever she is, she's shut me out. I still sense her, but I feel nothing from her, not a single drop of emotion flows through the bond. It's as if she's cut herself off from everything.
"Rissa!" I shout, racing through the warehouse at full speed. "Rissa!"
Fifteen minutes later, we've checked every inch of the warehouse. She isn't inside. Gods alive. She isn't here.
"She heard us," I whisper, scrubbing my hands down my face. "She heard what we were saying, and she ran." But where? To Eitr to try to save Abigail? To her father's to try to save him and her friends?
"Where would she go?" Reaper asks.
I stare at him, unsure how to answer that question. Unsure what she would have done. She wants to save everyone. It weighs heavily on her.
"She was upset about Abigail the other day."
"Ja. But there's a reason she lied to you about her father, Dax," Damrion says quietly. "Why would she?"
"He tried to murder her when she was a little girl."
"We know that." Malachi shrugs when I look at him. "It was in his record when I went snooping."
"Why did she lie?"
"How should I know?" I growl, pissed that they keep pressing the point. She and I haven't had that conversation yet. She isn't here so I can spank her for lying to me about the sorry son of a…Faen. "I threatened to kill him."
Damrion eyes me placidly.
"She lied to protect me," I mutter, the pieces falling into place. Of course. She wants to protect everyone she loves, and she loves me. If she'd told me the truth, I would have hunted him down and ended his miserable life. She may be Valkyrie, but she's still human enough to believe that souls can be damned for such things. She didn't want to risk mine on someone who had already cost her so much and hurt her so deeply. Someone she still loves, even though it shames her.
Ah, Rissa.
The Norns chose well when they chose her for this task. She is everything the realms every got right.
"So she's at her father's then," Adriel mutters. "Lovely. Three humans and dozens of Forsaken."
"Quit bitching and get ready for war," Damrion snaps. "We have a Valkyrie to save."
Chapter Twelve
Rissa
Ihaven't been homesince the night my father tried to kill me, but it hasn't changed much. It's still the same small house that gave me nightmares for so long. Only, it's older and more worn down now. I don't understand how he lives here, but I've never tried to understand, either. There's nothing about him I want to understand.
Part of me may cling to love for him, but the rest of me fell to apathy for him long, long ago. I no longer fear him. I no longer hate him. Most of me simply feels…nothing for him.
I see none of the Forsaken Damrion warned Dax about as I slowly approach the house, but I know they're here. I feel them watching me like predators stalking prey from the underbrush. I grip myímun-laukrtight, the biggest part of my consciousness hovering in the well that houses my Light. I don't grab it yet, but I'm ready.
