AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Before Ere could ask anything else, the Master faded completely away. In his absence, the giant sandglass that Ere had come to despise appeared, suspended in the air. Slowly, it turned on its head, and the fine sands began to sift.
“Oh, bother,” Ere muttered, a second before he, Sorin and Kai disappeared as well.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
In another part of the Celestial Realm, at the foot of the hundred steps that led up to the Palace, hidden within lush, kaleidoscopic gardens, Seventh Sister twirled a finger idly in the tranquil Mirror Pond as she gazed into its clear, unfathomable depths.
The surface of the Mirror distorted with concentric circles that expanded from her finger before settling once more in crystal clarity.
Except this time, it no longer reflected the cloudless blue skies and bridges of colorful rainbows above them. Instead, it revealed a different place, a different time, like a vignette from the showing of a newly released movie.
Seventh Sister smiled.
Human movies were one of her favorite inventions by that race. She sat back and watched the scene unfold before her, wishing she had some generously buttered theater popcorn…
“Valkyries! To me!”
Eir swung her long spear, Dragonsbane, in a rallying arc above her head as she charged into the thick of battle atop Nightmare.
The moment her black stallion’s hooves connected with ground, his wings tucked away and disappeared. Eir’s sisters did the same right behind her, six Valkyries in all.
Carnage and chaos immediately swarmed them like a fast-moving plague. This battle between human armies must number in the thousands. It was the largest battle in recent memory in which Eir personally participated.
The Norns had already determined which chieftain would be the victor, so the Valkyries’ task was clear. They had no preference who would win; it was all the same.
The Valkyries were here to collect the dead. The warriors they would take to Valhalla or Fólkvangr.
And to demonstrate their prowess in battle, for they loved to fight. Almost as much as they loved the heroes who fought.
Eir was the exception.
She didn’t see the point of falling in love, even briefly, with mortals who would perish in the blink of an eye, as far as demigods were concerned. And her own Kind simply didn’t “love” as a rule.
She charged a bloody swathe through the battlefield, leaving fallen bodies and severed limbs in her wake. Every hundred or so soldiers, she would spot a particularly strong fighter valiantly fending off his foes or bracing for the inevitable end with roaring bravery.
These warriors she chose for Valhalla with a barely-there tap of her spear upon their person. As they fell to their death, the other Valkyries charged in on their winged steeds, gathering the men’s souls as they departed their fleshly husks, one after another, like reaping wheat.
When the battle clamor died down, and the dust settled in the aftermath, Eir scanned the dead-littered field one last time.
He wasn’t here.
Of course, he wasn’t. He always died in his other form, and there was no way anyone could have missed that manifestation.
She didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed.
Every few hundred years, a warrior would appear in this realm. A mighty man. Tall, big, strong. A giant among ants in aura even more so than sheer physicality. His form and face were never the same, but his spirit was always true.
An earth dragon with firestorm eyes.
Those eyes were the only constant aspect of this man, for they were windows to his soul. Somehow, the scars, too, were the same, though Eir had never looked too closely.
She tried not to. It was bad enough that she remembered the man’s eyes. Bad enough that she felt…
Attached.
As if she knew him. She dreamed of him. Her spear was named for him, after all. It was made to mark a dragon.
But not today.
