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Valeen’s vine took her high over the flames and she dove off, cutting her blade across the throat of a goblin. Black blood spewed into the air. She ducked under a blunted sword and shoved her goddess blade into the attacker’s chest. She moved on through goblins, slicing, cutting, hacking. It didn’t require thought, years and years of honing the sword moved her like a methodical dance. Her magic flared out, shadows surrounding her so the enemy could not see her. Her vines shot from the ground like spears, impaling the monsters who had taken her land for their own.

Suddenly Hel was on her right, his blue sword swung out, hacking off two heads. Black blood ran down his cruelly beautiful face. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. His magic allowed him to defy laws, shifting through space, body vanishing and reforming in milliseconds. Goblins around him crumbled to the ground holding their heads while screaming, leg bones snapped and buckled.

Varlett soared over their heads, claws raking across groups, flinging bodies into the air.

Fire all around made the rising heat close to unbearable, but Valeen kept swinging. Vengeance moved her.

This was for her people.

This was for her home.

Even if it was in shambles, one day she would rebuild it.

She only wished it was the council she fought against now, not the goblins who’d merely taken advantage of their barbarism.

Thane came up on her left, shifting and rolling like the wind, two swords cutting through the enemies as if they were not moving. Limbs severed, hitting the ground in thuds, blood ran in rivers. Even if the bodies piled up, the goblins kept coming. Their numbers seemed endless as they poured out of the ruins.

Valeen ducked under a jagged blade. An icy feeling rushed through her veins. A power filled her blood, a charge before thunder.

Hel slammed his fist into the ground and a crack split the earth before him. Goblins screeched as they fell into the abyss. With a spinning kick, Valeen knocked out the legs of the goblin in front of her, then shoved her sword into its sheath and thrust out her palms. She screamed as power roared through her; a great cloud of shadow flooded out, taking the shape of an ocean wave. Its crest rolled over the goblins, sweeping them into the pit.

Hel grabbed Valeen around the waist and shot into the air. The speed made her grip around his neck and wrap her thighs around his hips, hooking her ankles together as they rose higher. But Thane was still down there in the flames and widening crevice. Panicked, she searched the ground and found him. He sprinted over the dead bodies and fire, as if his feet suddenly sprouted wings he bounded up the cliffside to where the others waited.

Their ascent stilled and Hel’s huge white wings slowly beat, keeping them afloat. Blue, red, and orange embers floated into the night sky. Flames caught hold of everything that was. She’d rather what was left of her castle grounds be burned than be home to these creatures. With a clench of Hel’s hand, the crevicechanged directions and began to close. It had been a long time since she’d seen him in combat. He was certainly the god of magic. And this was exactly why he was widely feared.

Once the split in the ground reformed, Hel snapped his fingers, and the flames doused as if a waterfall had washed over the land. The walls to the ruins had fallen, there was nothing left but a pile of stone and blackened vegetation, with cinder scattered over the area.

When they touched down on the clifftop, Piper and Leif stared as if she were a complete stranger. She strode forward, wiping her sleeve across her face to clear the wetness sticking to her skin.

Leif suddenly fell to his knees. “Goddess,” he murmured. “Forgive me, Valeen. I did not—I’ve treated you as if you are one of us. You are not.”

It seemed like it had been forever since she was looked upon with such reverence. The dragons had bowed to her, but this was personal; this was a revelation. A slow smile spread across her lips. “Leif, it’s still me.”

“You have my sword for all my life.” He touched his forehead where his celestial tattoos brandished his skin and then pressed his nose to the ground.

Valeen dropped into a squat and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “And you have mine, Leif.”

He lifted his head, cheeks wet. “My Nana always said the goddesses of the day and night would one day return.” His blue eyes shifted to Katana for a moment. “I never told you this but in my tribe you are the chosen goddesses we prayed to for protection.”

“And your tribe will get their wish. We are going home to Palenor. I will not lose the elves the way I have lost House of Night.”

Pink and salmonstained the horizon as the sun rose. The crisp cool morning air bit against her cheeks. The dew on the blades of grass dampened her boots. Valeen stood just inside the newly finished towering stone wall at the crest of the hill, overlooking the Valley of the Sun. The construction of it had started long before Hel woke up. It was originally to keep out the pale ones. Now they’d need it for their new enemy.

The gold-painted roofs lit up the city at this time of day and would take the breath of even the oldest of elves. It beheld a beauty and splendor rare in the realms. It wasn’t simply appearances. There was a feel here that radiated goodness and hope.

Castle Dredwich stood strong, and beautiful. The flag of Palenor flew at the highest peak. The waterfall roared over the seventy-foot drop into the ravine protecting the castle that had become her place of refuge even if it had once been a prison.

They’d only been gone a day, and it somehow felt like a lifetime. She’d lost and yet gained everything in hours. This was what her castle should look like, solid and immovable. Her people should be bustling about as the elves of Palenor did on the streets below. Soft music drifted over the grasses and flowers, the smell of the bakeries and burning of wood from the nearby smithies carried on the breeze—then it hit her.

These were her people too.

She was as much elf as she was goddess and even if the council had taken a part of her, she would not let them take it all.

Hel seemed to have expected this outcome. As if he’d only gone with her through the portal to appease her, so she could see for herself that the great House of the Goddess of Nightonly existed in their memory now. She’d let hope blind her to what should have been obvious. The council would have never let her territory stand, it was a part of her punishment. They even destroyed one of the moons to show her and everyone that mutiny would not stand. That was how ruthless they were.

There was one good thing in all of this; opening the portal brought her Katana. If all of this had to happen for her sister to return, she would accept the gift from the All Mother and move on from her regrets and from the past.

She would look forward now and hold in her mind her castle restored until it came into reality. This only fueled her more to win this war. To erase the council and anyone else who stood against them.