Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Eyrun arrived a heartbeat later, hand on her own sword.
“The hells are you doing in our territory?” Ven snarled.
Chiyo sniffed the chill air, glancing around warily.
“No need to look around. The threat is directly in front of you.”
“I came to talk,” Chiyo said evenly. “To tell you I didn’t sanction the witches’ actions. And that their new leader—Ditch—wouldn’t have either.”
Ven tilted her head. “Then why attack? To hide your cattle theft?”
“No. Rosewyn wanted to start a conflict. She could have killed you with her opening shot, but she didn’t. She wanted you angry. She wanted you to take the fight to Ditch.”
Eyrun nodded with understanding. “Ah. A chaos connoisseur.”
“Uh, no? She just hates the high priestess and wants help taking her out.”
Ven frowned. “If Rosewyn could’ve killed us, why did she allow Eyrun to bite parts off of her?”
“She allowed herself not to finish you and took her lumps.”
“Hardcore.” Again, Rose, we coulda been best friends. “Why tell us this?”
“Because my fate is tied to the witches.” Some said Chiyo had an illness—strange for an immortal—that only their potions could hold at bay. “A war with Valkyries would destroy their coven. And me with it.” She gestured toward the yard, where warriors had stilled, watching with glowing eyes. Lightning backlit their bodies, a wall of fury.
Even Ven had to admit it: the sight was supernaturally eerie.
Chiyo straightened, trying to look unbothered, but Ven heard her heart pumping harder. “We’ve picked up the intensity coming from this stronghold from miles away,” she said. Then her gaze darted around them again. The growing moon and the slight breeze seemed to put her even more on edge.
Ven’s own uneasiness deepened. Something in the Skein unnerved this fox shifter more than an army of shield-maidens. “What do you sense?”
“Trouble,” Chiyo said simply. “Lots of it, attacking in waves. How can you not feel it?”
Ven’s jaw flexed. I can! “An Accession’s always trouble.”
“Not like this.” Chiyo shook her head, her long hair cascading over her slim, armored shoulders. “Something’s coming. The kind of something you can’t hide from.” Her claw-tipped fingers hovered above her sword.
Ven remembered watching her fight once—elegant, relentless, unflinching. The kind of enemy you’d rather trade war stories with than kill. And Freya help her, Ven felt conflicting urges to do both. “You’ve got your ear to the ground,” Ven said. “What are you hearing?” What are you fearing?
“Not much concrete,” Chiyo admitted. “But the air tastes the same as it did before the Exile: doom flavored. I sought a soothsayer back then, and she warned me, Don’t bother to run. The gods’ reach is long.”
Ven asked, “Do you think that this present doom is as unavoidable as the Exile?”
“I don’t know.”
Chiyo’s freckled nose twitched, and Ven didn’t want to punch it. Strange.
“This feels different. I don’t know why.”
Eyrun crossed her arms. “So what’s your plan?”
Valkyries liked action. Decisive steps.
Dwelling? Never.
“How do I fight an enemy I can’t name?” Chiyo asked. “That’s another reason why I came. You two run the Skein. Help me find what’s stirring.”
“Us?” Eyrun asked innocently. “Because you can’t stray from the Witchwood for long.”
Thinned lips. No reply.
Ven said, “We’ll think about it.” When Chiyo gazed up at the tower where the Coffin Valkyrie slumbered, she narrowed her eyes. “Which soothsayer did you talk to?”
Chiyo’s focus never left the tower.
“You met her?” Ven pressed.
At length, the fox faced Ven with a nod.
Eyrun leaned forward eagerly. “Did she tell you anything else? Oracle-speak? A phrase that didn’t make sense? Tell us everything!”
“She said I’d work with Valkyries someday,” Chiyo said, “and that I was to tell them a certain phrase. I looked it up and found out it means to duck in Old Norse—”
Lightning flared. The air crackled.
Both Ven and Eyrun hit the ground. Ven grabbed the fox by the ankles and snatched her down with them.
A wing talon whistled right where Chiyo’s neck had been.
“Strigoi!” Ven grated, leaping up with her sword.
The first Valkyrie shriek split the night.
War had come to Valhalland.
Chapter 22
Eyrun
As Ven vaulted forward, her sword felling the nearest creatures, Eyrun lunged for Chiyo.
She seized the shifter by the throat, lifting her clean off the ground. “Did you bring these things here?” Strigoi couldn’t fly far, so how in the hells had they made it from the Badlands to Valhalland?
Chiyo tried to shake her head, sword limp at her side. Smart girl, not to swing it.
“The last two attacks, you’ve been nearby! Explain that.”
“Easy, Eyrun!” Ven targeted another strigoi, cleaving it in half, buying precious seconds. “She’s not fighting you.”
Eyrun’s grip only tightened. The urge to pop this shifter’s head clean off sang in her blood. Her nightmare self began to rise…
Confusion crossed Chiyo’s reddening face, followed by resignation. She’d accepted what was coming; the Nachtmerrie was about to make live her worst fear. Eyrun didn’t yet know what that fear was, but it promised to be a doozy.