Corruption, p.11
Corruption, page 11
Magnus in her full Valkyrie form landed next to us. “Shield.” Which meant she was currently protecting us.
That didn’t mean we could afford to stay stationary or catch up. “Glad you’re alive,” I said.
“Same. All of you.” She looked Fen over. “He’s stronger than you realize.”
“Yeah, he is.” Fen’s voice came from inside our heads, as he’d become a large wolf.
“All for you, Fenrir.” It wasn’t like Vidar’s vice was echoing or coming from speakers. He sounded like he personally was speaking from multiple points in the room.
There weren’t any real spots to hide, so I extended my focus to pick out the hotspots of his power, and try to eliminate which weren’t him.
I wasn’t there yet, but I had a good idea. “Fen. North. Fifty meters. Magnus, south south west seventy-five. I’m going east. Frey, if it moves, pin it down.”
We all broke into our separate directions.
It should be an easy fight, four against one, with one of us having centuries of experience, one of us having the ability to put up a magical shield, and me.
Attacks rained in on us from random directions, pelting Magnus’s shield, and occasionally getting through. With our attentions divided, we could head toward each Vidar apparition, but with his ability to vanish and appear in a blink, it didn’t matter.
I struggled to anticipate his every move, teleporting to follow him, but it wasn’t working, and Frey wasn’t having any more success than I did.
Within minutes, it was clear that the four of us were exhausted, and Vidar didn’t show any sign of slowing down.
A ball of flame slammed into Magnus’s chest, knocking her onto her back. She wasn’t moving.
My vision, the prophecy that had played out in my mind, overlapped with reality, and I was already flying toward her. Another fireball knocked me back, and then a series of more, making me stutter in my trip, but not stopping me.
A giant spear of light appeared in the air, sliced through the room, and buried itself in Magnus’s chest, pinning her to the ground.
No. “I need help,” I shouted, and Fen was instantly by my side as I raced to Magnus.
Frey’s magic wasn’t doing a great job of pinning Vidar down, because most of his attacks weren’t coming from him or from his movement.
I reached Magnus’s side, where she lay unmoving.
Frey put up a shield around us.
Hundreds of tiny shards of flame appeared inside, pelting us all, slicing through our skin and leaving ugly streaks of dark red as the onslaught of tiny cuts appeared and healed.
Except Magnus wasn’t healing.
My fear spiked. I pressed my fingers to her throat, looking for a pulse.
The longer she lay there, the more damage she took.
I shook her. Needing her to be okay.
“She’s gone.” Frey’s muttered words were full of disbelief.
“No.” I didn’t believe it, even though I no longer felt her. “She’s not. She can’t be.”
“It’s true.” Vidar’s taunting dug into my thoughts and heart. “Bye-bye, Magnus.”
Rage replaced my disbelief, and a whole new power screamed through my veins. I felt everything about me that was a dragon. I saw flame in my mind, and it appeared in spirals around my arms. Flinging it at every point of attack at once was instinct.
I was in full control of my power. I blinked into sight and out again, working to keep Vidar on his toes rather than trying to anticipate his moves. Each time I appeared, I registered his location, attacked, and moved again. My goal was to hit him so fast he couldn’t recover.
A trick I’d learned from watching him.
Fen matched my pace, though he was leaping rather than teleporting. He hit Vidar when I pulled back. We had him off-guard.
Magnus was gone.
The thought echoed in my mind as I lit into Vidar with unrelenting rage.
She was dead.
It couldn’t be true.
But I could see her body from here. Unmoving. She had no magical signature. She didn’t give off any spark of life.
I appeared in a new spot as Fen leaped to the same point, and we both stumbled. We corrected course within a heartbeat.
The mistake gave Vidar enough time to snap his fingers.
Magnus’s body vanished in a ball of flame. Like that, she was nothing more than an ashen shadow on the blood-stained concrete.
Something echoed off the concrete walls. It was my scream.
I wasn’t lost in the dragon. I knew exactly what I was doing. I summoned every bit of power, from every corner of my mind, body, and the universe, that I could reach, and wrapped Vidar in a ball of flame.
His shout of agony didn’t alleviate my pain, but I didn’t stop until he was gone. Obliterated.
I couldn’t feel him anywhere in the world. Vidar was dead.
But so was Magnus.
I sank to the concrete, not caring that it bit into my knees or that I was human again. She was gone.
I was vaguely aware of someone touching me. I didn’t have the strength to shrug Frey off.
“We need to go,” Fen said.
I traced my fingers above the Magnus-shadow on the ground, not making contact. Not trusting myself to speak or even think.
“I’m sorry.” Frey sounded like he meant it.
Of course he did, but it didn’t matter. Sorry wouldn’t bring back my sister.
The concrete bunker vanished, and we were back in the apartment. I wanted to scream take me back, but what was the point?
She was gone. Like that.
Every member of the TOM board was about to suffer at my hand, in her name. It might not bring her back, but fuck those guys.
Twenty
Freyr
It had taken some strong magic to make sure Dahlia went to sleep. Not that I blamed her for her reaction, but she needed rest. Vengeance worked better when the mind was at its best, and I wouldn’t stop her from what I suspected she was planning.
It wrenched my heart to watch Fen watch Dahlia as she slept. So many thoughts raced through my mind. So many emotions in my heart. I couldn’t begin to name them.
“What now?” I asked softly, letting my unspoken besides the obvious hang between us.
Fen raked his fingers through his hair. “She found it.”
“Found…?” I knew the answer. I needed to hear it anyway.
“Her dragon. She embraced it.” He was stating the obvious rather than answering my question.
But I didn’t blame him either. “The price we paid tonight was too high for this.”
Fen let out a shaky sigh, with a hint of whimper in it. “It was. And there’s no going back. On anything. She’s a part of me now—Dahlia is—as much as you are. There’s also no taking back how much I love her.”
After what happened to heal him, and even what came before now, the words didn’t surprise me, and there was no jealousy. If he had enough love for both of us, I could accept that. “I know, and I don’t suspect I’m that far off.” I loved Dahlia too, and while I wasn’t sure I could give her the eternal promise of my heart yet, if things kept going down this path, it wouldn’t be long until I did. “But this could break her.”
“No.” Fen clenched his jaw. “This will leave deep scars, but she won’t wilt. She realizes now who she is. I just wish…”
That we hadn’t lost Magnus in the process. That it didn’t have to hurt Dahlia so much. I tangled my fingers with his and squeezed. “I do too.”
Twenty-One
Fenrir
Despite being magically induced, Dahlia’s sleep was anything but magical. She spent most of the time whimpering, tossing, and turning.
I stayed next to her, hoping my being nearby would reach some part of her and offer comfort, even in her unconsciousness. As the centuries passed, she’d lose more and more people she cared about, but knowing that wouldn’t help her now.
Besides, she’d learn to distance herself from more and more people. I didn’t look forward to that. The notion that immortality would make her cynical turned my stomach. And Magnus wasn’t just anyone.
When she woke, silent tears streaming down her face and sobs wracking her body, I pulled her into my arms and let her cry until she was spent.
“Come on.” I placed her on her feet.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.” I led her into the bathroom and sat her on the closed toilet seat. When the water running in the sink was a good temperature, I wetted a washcloth, knelt in front of her, and cleaned her face. “Shower later.” I sniffed the air. “Frey’s making breakfast.” He must’ve heard us moving around.
“It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
I drew a thumb over her cheek, marveling at how soft and fragile she was, even now that she was immortal. “Since when does time of day matter when it comes to eating breakfast?”
“Since never. Is she really gone?”
My heart fractured at the forlorn crack in Dahlia’s voice. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
She sniffled and her chin quivered. She drew in a shuddering breath. “We were supposed to grow old together.”
Now seemed like a bad time to point out they weren’t going to grow old anyway. Instead, I settled for taking Dahlia’s hands between mine.
“I understand that it’s not the same.” I leaned in and pressed my forehead to hers. “But I’m hoping you’ll grow old with me. With us. I do love you. In a different way but just as much as I love Frey, and I’m here for you. So is he.”
She leaned more weight against me, and a splash of wetness struck the back of my hand. Tears were sliding down her cheeks again.
“Take as much time as you need,” I said. “Today, and going forward. I’m here to be whatever you need.”
She pulled one hand away to drag the back of her wrist across her face. The gesture didn’t so much dry her skin as spread the misery. “I need Magnus back.”
The one thing I couldn’t do.
“But I love you too,” Dahlia said softly. “Thank you for being here.”
“Always.” At least I could promise that.
When the pain had numbed a little, in a few weeks or a few months, or however long it took, I’d warn her and Frey about the scent in the air. It was similar to moisture right before a storm, but this wasn’t rain, it was death.
The beginning of the end was here. Death meant rebirth, but like now, it also meant pain.
I’d do everything in my power to shield her from this kind of pain again.
Twenty-Two
Dahlia
I stood at the edge of a grove of trees at the foot of Mount Yoshino in Japan. This was one of Magnus’s favorite places.
“Now you can watch the trees bloom every year.” I set a claw-shaped, full-fingered ring at the base of one of the trees, and tucked into a spot where no one would find it but me. Or her. The jewelry was carved from one of my own claws—a replica of one I’d purchased for her a few years back. The original had been made from Artura’s claw and defiled by blood magic that Vidar used to make it powerful.
This one was all me. Imbued with a hint of dragon power and heavy doses of how desperately I missed her.
It had been a couple of weeks, and I still struggled not to cry when I thought about Magnus. There were days when I wanted to curl up in a ball and never move again.
Frey suggested this might help me say goodbye. He and Fen stood a few feet back, watching. Waiting. They’d been so gloriously patient with me. I wanted to stop hurting, just so they could stop worrying, but I didn’t know how.
“I’m really good at summoning my dragon now,” I said to spot where I would’ve scattered Magnus’s ashes if I had any to scatter. “I hate that I can do some of these things because of him, but I’m going to use it to tear down TOM. I’ll destroy every last piece of the empire he helped build.”
I expected an argument to come from behind me, though neither Fen nor Frey had done anything to dissuade the research I’d been doing over the past few weeks. “Fen says I should go full dragon and burn everything down. I don’t think I’d make a good Targaryen, and I don’t want any of the soldiers to suffer. But the gods. The board…”
My plan was coming together nicely. I was using my power, both digital and magical, to follow the tracks of every TOM founder. I was still missing a name or two from my list, but I’d figure out who they were soon enough.
This wouldn’t be a strictly physical war. They’d integrated themselves with this world, and that meant digital destruction. “Kirby promised to help me. And Brit. Starkad. No surprise there. But Fen has some connections who are going to help, too. Same for Aya and even Artura. I know it won’t bring you back, and I have no idea where Valkyries go when they die, but if you can see me from whatever afterlife you’re in, I’d much rather you were here.”
If I said much more, I’d start to bawl again, and my eyes couldn’t take any more of that today. Instant healing didn’t seem to mean shit when it came to trauma.
I tucked away the ring, collected myself, and turned to Fen and Frey. “I need to make one more stop,” I said. “I’ll meet you back at NEON?”
Frey squeezed my hand and kissed me on the cheek.
Fen pressed his lips to mine. “Be safe,” he murmured against my skin.
I nodded and vanished. The instant I reappeared in the apartment I’d shared with Magnus, an intense weight pressed in on my chest, threatening to suffocate me.
We didn’t have much stuff, so there wasn’t much packing to do, but I couldn’t today. This had been ours, and now it was another broken promise about our future.
I wouldn’t be back here anytime soon, either. I wrapped the entire place in a dragon spell, tying the magic to the walls of the apartment, so I wouldn’t need to hold onto it. Now the door would still sit in the mortal world, but the apartment itself would rest in another plane. One where time passed more slowly.
“Your death won’t be in vain,” I said to the empty room, mostly to try to convince myself. At least I could keep one promise—I’d burn it all down to avenge my sister.
If you can’t believe I’d end the book there, make sure you check out SABOTAGE (NEON BOOK 3), for more twisty, turny, spicy gods, shifters, and the women they love.
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If you haven’t read Kirby’s story yet, check out VALKYRIE REBORN. Betrayal stole Kirby’s past, across a dozen lives. Someone will pay the price. The only questions are how and where?
Click here to start reading VALKYRIE REBORN
Allyson Lindt, Corruption
