Page 26 of The Last Valkyrie (Vikingrune Academy #4)

Chapter 26

Ravinica

THANE CANUTE BELLOWED an earth-shattering cry, launching to his feet. He flipped the table as everyone shot up and out so they wouldn’t get hit by flying wood or plates.

Everyone at this table had been trained to act on a moment’s notice. There was only time for a single breath before I was on my feet—

And Korvan grabbed my arm before I could scuttle away.

“Time to go, my dear.”

Still in shock, I instinctively moved to defend myself, throwing his hand off me and facing him.

In the time it took for the table to upend and all the food and bowls to go flying, Korvan had changed .

I was looking at a stranger. Gone was the firmness of his face, the appraising smile when I did a battle maneuver correctly, the stern glower when I failed. Replacing it all was a face black as midnight, silver-black hair down to his shoulders, piercing ruby eyes, and those fucking ears.

“Shapeshifter!” Hallan wailed.

Before I could gasp, Grim shouted, “Ravinica!” and threw himself across the overturned table at this stranger.

But Korvan was no longer there. He had simply vanished, and I wheeled around as Grim took his place next to me—

To find the Swordbaron at the foot of the table, behind Lindi, a blade pointed at her throat.

“NO!” I screamed in a hoarse voice.

The dark elf’s sinister grin grew from ear to ear, making him an unhinged, dark lord of madness. Ma was frozen in shock in front of him, tight as a stretched band with his blade an inch from her neck.

“I’ve sired many spawn, but you’re the only useful one,” Korvan said to me. Close to Ma’s ear, he said, “You were always my favorite human, Lindi.”

Villagers shouted around the table, fleeing in a mad rush, just catching wind of what had happened to Gothi Sigmund.

My jaw dropped at Korvan’s admission.

That’s when I noticed the bent of his handsome jaw—so similar—and the tilt of his brow. The hair . . . silver with streaks of black.

In the past, I had assumed the streaks of black running through my own hair were the human muddling of my elven blood. Then after the Runesphere showed me what I was, I assumed they were remnants of my dragonkin lineage marring the elven part of me.

The truth rushed into me, buckling my knees. If Sven and Grim hadn’t been right next to me to hold me up, I would have collapsed. This man, this human man I had always thought of as a father because I never had one . . . actually is my father.

Thane Canute rushed Korvan, gods be damned if he was holding my mother hostage or not. Magnus and Corym tried to stop him, but the huge one-eyed brute bowled them over with his enormous shield, crackling energy sending my mates flying in different directions.

Korvan snarled, stamped his foot on the ground, and roared at the incoming stampede of steel and flesh, holding Lindi between them. Black wings sprouted from his shoulders, wet and scaled, shimmering in the torchlight. He beat the air once, twice, displacing the wind and momentarily stopping Canute’s heedless charge.

Gods above, a shapeshifter, dark elf, and dragonkin?! What the fuck is this guy?!

“You’re the only one worth keeping, Ravinica,” Korvan shouted, no more than ten feet from me. “ Join me .”

His words wormed their way into my brain like a black widow’s web, the sting of a scorpion to my heart.

I clenched my jaw and fought back with everything I had, closing off the doorway of my mind and stonewalling the mindshaped invasion I recognized from Kelvar the Whisperer’s tactics. “M-Monster! Let my mother go!” I wailed, and started to move toward him while drawing my spear.

He let out a frustrated sound, noticing I had fought him off and he was sorely outnumbered. “Then she’ll have to do well enough.”

Eirik and Damon drew their steel, closer to Korvan than I was.

“Release my mother, foul beast!” Eirik yelled, stepping to the shapeshifter.

Korvan lifted his free hand from around Lindi’s shoulder, and with a simple twist of his wrist both my brothers paused in mid-action like they were frozen.

“No, I think not, younglings,” Korvan said in a silvery-smooth voice. He flicked his hand in our direction, eyes flashing pink, and spoke an order. “ Go. ”

My half-brothers faced our group.

Canute gained his bearings and lunged at the winged creature—

Korvan slammed his wings into that great tower shield and used it as a diving board, sending him fluttering up into the sky with Ma wrapped in his arm. He slapped the air with his wings a few times and gained more height, getting smaller, getting away . . .

With rage and uncontrollable madness spilling a curtain of darkness around me, I summoned my dragon wings and inadvertently pushed my mates away as they sprouted from my back and snapped open.

I hardly knew what to do, but instinctively my body reacted and pushed , launching me up into the air—

Only for a hand to grab my ankles.

Shocked, I looked down as my wings flapped fruitlessly.

Grim was holding onto me, a regretful, pained expression on his face. “Vini, no, please! He’s too powerful for you alone!”

I tried to kick his hands off me, not wanting to listen to my largest mate . . . yet I knew he was right.

Sven yelled, “Rav, your brothers!”

I veered my eyes to where Korvan had been standing, and found Damon and Eirik with their weapons drawn . . .

And their eyes were pitch black.

They looked like fucking aliens from another planet.

“No, oh gods,” I whispered, slamming back to the ground on my feet. “Eirik! Damon!”

From a pocket of the village not far from us, screams erupted. Not the shocked screams of people seeing the Gothi getting his throat slit in front of everyone, but the cries of anguish and fear that came from an attack.

I heard the steel a second later, and saw the first hint of smoke and fire in the purple sky.

“We’re under attack!” screamed one villager.

“What are they?!” yelled another.

Dark shapes spread into the clearing in front of my longhouse, red eyes like predator wolves searing through the dark gloom. Black blades rasped out of scabbards. I noticed a telltale white knot of hair atop one of the figure’s heads.

“Dokkalfar!” Corym wailed.

My elven mate spun and met blades with Gresh’kellen, a heartbeat away from getting skewered by the dark elf emerging from the shadows.

I quickly counted the dancing shapes as they took up arms against me and my families.

All seven of the remaining dark elves from the elf portal were here, in Selby Village, laying waste to the town, its inhabitants, and the men I loved.

I tried to call the power of my dragonkin lineage into my muscles, my bones, my veins, but I couldn’t focus long enough—

Sliding steel met my spear. I twirled the blade away with spinning wrists, dancing backward.

Sven and Grim joined each other to face another foe directly beside us.

Across the overturned table, Hallan drew a sword from his belt, made two quick moves against the dark elf nearest him—

And grunted as his sword swept through air, while the ducking Dokkalfar dragged his blade across my stepfather’s belly.

Hallan stumbled back as his guts spilled out of his stomach, groaning in shock and awe at the steaming pile of innards plopping on the ground in front of him.

He crumpled, first onto his knees, and then face-planting and dying in his own gore and filth.

Rage fueled me, shock steeled me, and I fought the dark elf in front of me with everything I had, a surreal atmosphere taking over.

Sulfuric magic fell into the space from all angles, Arne tossing his ice while Magnus cast runes of fire and wind at the dark elves. The Dokkalfar responded in kind with their tainted, smoky magic.

They had caught us by surprise. We slowly hemmed in to try and fight back-to-back with each other, where we were strongest. The clang of steel ignited across the village, echoing through the red sky.

The elves had set fire to longhouses in the village before ambushing us. The smoke and haze made me cough as I blinked through burning eyelids.

Damon and Eirik charged . . . and the dark elves stepped aside.

Eirik’s blackened eyes fell on his fallen father, he stuttered a step, gasping as his eyes flared to their usual brown hue. It was only a moment’s hesitation, a blink as he tried to fight whatever was warping his mind.

Then, with his eyes blackening, he charged at Grim.

My jaw dropped and I spun away from a dark elf, finding myself face-to-face with Damon.

Except this wasn’t my half-brother. It was a cruel, crude clone of him, wrapped up in evil with Korvan’s dark magic swirling through his mind.

“Damon, please, fight it!”

Gritting his teeth, he attacked me.

I swung my spear against his blade, batting it away, and whipped the back-end to smack him across the arm with the haft. His arm crunched, but he didn’t let out a sound as he stumbled to the side.

Damon was on me a second later, even as I screamed for him to fight whatever dark magic controlled him.

I knew he hated me . . . But it was never like this! This isn’t him!

Our feet moved, flowing into battle stances. My younger brother showed how much he had learned during my year away from him, in the shadows, reeling for revenge.

After poisoning me before our first duel at Vikingrune, I had always wanted a tiebreaker duel with him, to show I was still his big sister and would always best him in fair combat. But my desire for such a brawl had dwindled once I realized how much he truly wanted me dead.

Now he was being forced to act out on it, when we had been so close to at least crossing the bridge of reconciliation and acceptance. To understanding one another, trying to move past it, and become brother and sister like brothers and sisters were meant to be.

The expression on Damon’s face was dark, his eyes black, his nostrils flared in rage. He frothed as he fought, spitting and biting at me, using every maneuver he could to try and close the gap so he could skewer me on his sword.

Nearby, Canute rolled over Eirik as my elder brother fought Grim. The Thane’s shield slammed into Eirik’s side and sent him flying ten feet away with a bong of steel like someone ringing a giant bell.

Grim had no time to thank Canute, sidestepping to swing his war-axe at a dark elf coming at the battlemaster.

The one-eyed Thane drew his maul, and I knew the elves suddenly had their work cut out for them, ambush or not. With Grim settling back-to-back with Canute, the two largest men I’d ever seen were suddenly fighting together, facing outward and ready to take on Hel herself.

Arne and Sven came from the peripheries, desperately trying to aid Grim and Canute as four dark elves fell upon them.

Corym was locked in battle with Gresh’kellen, their blades whirring and spinning, showing martial arts moves I’d only ever seen in movies. They knew each other’s maneuvers so well, I anticipated their fight would last until dawn if someone didn’t stop it first.

I had my work cut out for me with Damon, who I was merely trying to disarm rather than hurt. It was difficult, because his warped mind gave him capabilities he usually didn’t have—he dodged when I should have sank spear into flesh; he moved in anticipation of attacks that always caught him by surprise in the past.

My arms burned, my wings lank at my sides. I didn’t yet know how to utilize them to become assets to my skirmishes—they were only hindrances and obstacles proving to be more annoying than helpful at the moment.

Damon seemed to notice how they flapped and moved behind me, the scales reflecting moonlight and torchfire every few seconds into his black eyes.

With a growl, he lunged.

I stepped to the side, bringing my spear around in anticipation of where he’d be, ready to smack the air out from his lungs—

Burning pain lanced through my body, from some unknown place. Gasping and crying out in pain, I noticed Damon’s blade jabbed into my right wing.

I screamed, useless, collapsing to my knees as unimaginable agony roared through me.

Damon was wordless as he kicked and caught my chest, sending me sprawling onto my back, my wing drawing free from his sword with a tear of flesh and scales.

My heart raced, half-brother standing over me, drawing back his sword—no time for a monologue to tell me how much he hated me, how much I deserved this end, how foolish I was for calling forth wings I knew nothing about.

I weakly lifted my spear in a last desperate attempt.

His sword sprang forward to end me, my life flashing before me as I focused on the cruel point of that blade—

Damon jerked—

A blood-red blade burst through his chest, cracking bone and muscle.

I whimpered reflexively at the sight of my brother looking down at his own caved-in chest, dropping his sword from limp hands, his entire body drawn upright by the force of the sword that had crunched through spine and flesh to impale him.

“No . . .” I mewled, tears burning my eyes.

The blackness went out of Damon’s eyes, turning normal and brown before they shifted to gray, sightless, sad. His face twisted in pain, in confusion. He looked down at me helplessly. “V-Vini?”

Damon sounded like a child then, coming to grips with his fate, as much as I wanted to deny it.

A crimson-haired head emerged around my brother’s shoulder, emotionless, slack, speaking into his ear in little more than a whisper. “I warned you, Halldan. Ever try to hurt my woman again, and I’ll end you.”

Magnus pulled his bloodblade from Damon’s back with a sickening sound, and my brother fell forward next to me.

The bloodrender reached down to help me up, but I could only look up at him in grief and agony, seeing him as a stranger in that moment with the moon silhouetting his gaunt, unnervingly calm face.

“I’ll never be sorry for killing a man trying to harm you, silvermoon, even if you can never forgive me,” Magnus whispered. “I am only sorry for causing you grief.”

I choked back a sob, only nodding, and heard my brother gasp and gurgle next to me.

“Damon!” I yelled. My hands and knees dragged me to him. I grunted and flipped my brother onto his back. His face was a ruination of slack pain, a waxy sheen to his features, and blood spitting up past his lips.

When I glanced up for a moment, I noticed the sounds of battle had ceased. Two dark elves lay dead at the feet of Canute, Grim, Sven, Arne, and Corym. The rest of the Dokkalfar had skittered away into the shadows. My team was ready to pursue them in the darkness once they dispatched of the final foe.

Eirik’s eyes moved from man to man, gripping his sword and spinning it in his hands. He hadn’t yet realized Damon had fallen behind him, next to me.

“Eirik, stop this!” I yelled.

My brother’s head whipped around.

His eyes were black, no whites showing. They glitched out and turned brown, the darkness receding, but when they landed on the crumpled form of Damon next to me, the sheer orbs of darkness took hold of his mind again.

“Please, throw down your sword, E! Don’t do this!”

My brother took one glance at me and Damon, another glance at the five hardened soldiers ready to put a stop to him, and then a final glance at his dead father.

Without another word, the Drengr warrior took off running toward the dark elves.

“ No !” I cried out, but it was like screaming into the ocean. All that answered was an ominous wave of nothingness.

With trembling, bloody hands, I returned my gaze to my brother. Blood bubbled up around his lips. His eyes blinked incessantly, frightened, and I smacked him in the cheek. “Stay awake, you damned bastard!”

Some part of me—some distant, foolish, na?ve, hopeful part of me—thought I could do something about Damon’s fate. Through it all, I thought I could make a difference. Thought I could rescue my brother.

“Damon, I’m on the way!”

I touched his forehead like I had Lady Elayina, closed my eyes, and the world evaporated around me.