Page 33 of The Last Valkyrie (Vikingrune Academy #4)

Chapter 33

Ravinica

I STOOD AT THE TOP of the cliffs overlooking a crowd of onlookers below. I was about fifty feet above their level, at the edge of the rock face, with Dorymir Hall sprawling next to me along the cliff’s side.

My palms were sweaty. Perspiration dotted my brow and underarms. It took everything not to fidget nervously at the sea of craned necks and questioning faces down below. Luckily, from this distance, they looked like mere blots and pale smudges against the setting sun.

The sky was a fiery orange as the sun settled behind the distant horizon, casting a blanket of shadow on the crowd.

Dagny and Randi had done good work, especially considering the little time they’d had to work with. In less than twenty-four hours they had managed to wrangle up at least a hundred students. I assumed they’d targeted the leaders of the initiate and cadet cliques, and word of mouth had spread the news from there.

The news was simple: Ravinica Linmyrr has a surprise for everyone, and you’ll want to see it.

Whether the students loved or hated me—whether they prayed for my success or rubbed their hands gleefully awaiting my downfall—the curiosity of the invitation was impossible to ignore.

I had told my mates the plan last night, in the confines of my longhouse. Sven and Arne thought the idea was daring and majestic, respectively. Magnus and Grim had safety concerns. Corym went immediately to the Ljosalfar to invite some of them, and now I saw a few gold glints of armor and tapered ears among the gathered crowd.

It was impossible not to worry my mates. They knew what I planned could either make or break me, but I had to try.

“So this is what you meant by needing to ‘ do something,’ eh, little menace?” Sven had asked with a cunning smile.

“Yes. Gothi Sigmund is dead. A new chieftain will be elected soon, and I’d like to get ahead of that by trying to bring the students together. We’ve seen how fractured and fragile things are at the academy. People are scared.”

“You think doing this won’t scare them even more? Confuse them, sneak?” Grim had pondered.

“I can’t see a better time to do it, when things are so up in the air like they are now. I have to do this.”

Whoever the new Gothi was going to be, he or she needed to know the students were aligned. More than that, he or she needed to understand we had, essentially, unionized.

“Kelvar asked me to be the Hersirs’ mouthpiece,” I’d said. “I’m only putting that scheme into action.”

Now it was time.

Gripping my hands into fists at my sides, I raised my voice above the gently swaying wind.

“Students, cadets, allies, comrades.” My eyes swiveled from face to face—from the recognizable Vikingruners I’d gone through terms with, to the distant elves I didn’t know. “Soon, we will get news on the direction of our academy. Will we fight and defend ourselves against the dark elves and jotnar? All signs are pointing toward yes. ”

I kept my words purposefully vague, not wanting to spoil the fact that Gothi Sigmund was dead. A new chieftain would be explaining the direction Vikingrune was headed in, I hoped. So it wasn’t exactly a lie. Just a broad understatement.

As my words settled, a low thread of conversation and hushed voices lifted from the crowd. They glanced at one another, clearly wondering what the Hel they were doing out here in the chill twilight right before supper time.

“I know many of my Vikingrune brethren are confused, scared, and angry. You’ve been taught to disregard the elves all your lives, and now you’re dining with them, judging them, and coming to terms with the fact we need them. And don’t get it twisted, friends. We do need them.”

The thread of conversation turned into a grumble. Many students didn’t want to hear that.

“However,” I said, raising a finger and taking a step closer to the precipice, staring down. It was a good thing I didn’t have a fear of heights, because the juxtaposition of where I stood and the drop below would have dizzied me otherwise. “I want it to be known, firsthand from someone who has mingled with the Ljosalfar and Skogalfar: They are not your enemies. We’re going to be tasked with defending our home soon, I have no doubt. We need to form a united front. What the Hersirs don’t say out loud, but should be obvious, is that this place doesn’t run without us !”

I punched my fist into an open palm. A few students cheered and whistled, but it was only a smattering compared to the growing voices of discontent.

“We can question leadership. We can disagree on strategy. What we can’t do is give up on each other before the fighting has even begun. All my human kinfolk here saw what happened on the bloody Selfsky Plains. We saw what happens when we charge headlong into an enemy without knowing what we’re dealing with—without having a contingency plan for when things go wrong. And things went very wrong that day. We all lost someone. Our numbers dwindled, our confidence took a punch to the gut.”

I stood taller, squaring my shoulders, trying to stike something of a fierce pose in the final rays of the waning sun, now setting behind the world. The sky had turned from orange to pink to a bruised purple hue.

“To that end, I would like to show everyone something that I hope will renew your confidence. While the jotnar may have devastating magic and strength we can’t hope to compete against alone, I want you to know we aren’t alone. We have weapons of our own.”

I cocked my head. “And who am I to make that statement? Why am I the one standing up here, chatting your ear off when you could be cozied up in a mess hall with a warm bowl of soup?”

That got a few laughs, but even more stern nods, as if to say, “Yeah, why are you up there and why the fuck am I listening to you?”

I crooked a smile, though I knew no one could see it down below. They’ll be able to see this , though.

“Well,” I said, “I’m the last dragonkin in Midgard.”

I fell into a trance then, closing my eyes and closing off the world from me as the ripple of concerned, confused voices reached my ears.

Over the past week—while the Hersirs dallied, the elves arrived and were treated with disgust, and the cadets trained—I had been practicing for this moment. I had to enter the snowy place in my mind; that liminal space between reality and the dreamgate where I could haul lost souls to their respective resting places.

I’d been to the picturesque wilderness of Folkvang, the golden halls of Valhalla, and even Hel itself.

I trained the thread in my mind to lead me to that golden orb of shining power that controlled my abilities. The same orb, I noticed, which guided me through the portals to get to Alfheim.

I didn’t know its source—if it was the Norns helping me along, or the spirits of the elves lending me guidance, or the authority of the gods. I only knew I had to follow it to summon my power and complete my transformation.

As I sprinted through the snowy valley walls lifting high into the heavens of my mind, I noticed they didn’t close on me this time. I intuitively understood it was because no dying soul waited for me on the other side—I wasn’t in a rush to get over there before they perished.

I reached the end of the valley with my wings intact, and was spit out into the real world, where my scaled dragon wings snapped out from my back, wide and glimmering black and silver in the new moonlight.

Gasps rose from the audience.

Bending my knees, I flared my nostrils and leveled the weight of the wings spread across my back, a span of more than twenty feet reaching out from my sides.

Then I jumped.

A moment of freefall launched my stomach to my throat, that split second of weightlessness making my heart lurch. I beat my wings hard and lifted into the sky, balancing my equilibrium as the wings carried me through the wind. I howled, careening over the students and watching below as their ant-sized heads craned and whipped around to follow me above them.

My wings snapped great gusts of wind, blowing their hair about. I veered down, timing my dive to level out as I reached a place just above them—banking hard when I was ten feet off the ground.

Even with my heart rampaging against my ribcage, it was impossible not to smile at the sheer freedom and audacity I felt at flying .

I was the only human or elf to ever do it.

“Fuck me !” a student wailed as I shot over his head and continued my twirling flight, dive-rolling and pulling up short in the sky.

My wings snapped furiously, catching the wind like sails billowing in the sea. And then I was standing in the air, ten feet out from the edge where I’d given my speech, fifty feet up. Only my gently flapping wings kept me aloft—straight-backed and proud as I hovered over my classmates and comrades.

“ Ser’karioth !” elves muttered in their elegant language, pointing up at me.

Lightbearer, I thought, smiling down at them.

“Valkyrie!” cried a human student.

The uproar was immediate, with just as many confused and scared tones in the cacophony as there were awestruck, optimistic ones.

Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed my mates standing at the cliff’s edge behind me. While I flew around like a crazed moth in the moonlight, they had used the distraction to take their positions side-by-side.

The wall of five men took turns sweeping their hands down at the audience and creating a moment of grandeur to fit the occasion.

“The Ljosalfar stand with Ravinica!” Corym announced, punching a fist proudly.

“The shifters stand with Ravinica!” Sven echoed.

“When the Hersirs fail us, the last valkyrie will lead us!” Grim shouted in his booming voice.

The audience’s mood began to turn, quieting to listen to my mates, and then joining them in their strident cheering. Fists joined the sky as my mates lifted theirs—combative, unifying, defiant fists.

Arne added the next words. “She is one-of-one, and must be protected at all costs! Give her a chance, comrades!”

Magnus spoke last, adding a bit of wryness to the conversation as it went down the line. “From one fucked-up student to another, I stand with Ravinica. You all should too!”

The cheering swelled.

It was hard to keep out the tears. The moment I had been planning for but never knew how to implement—certainly not with dragon wings on my back— was coming to fruition.

It was working.

It may have been a moment of naivety, or self-assuredness I didn’t have any business owning. But things felt right then, with the hundred students below hollering and cheering, finding new vigor and strength in their bones at the sight of my wings.

I wasn’t sure what this meant for the academy as a whole. This was more of a symbolic gesture than anything else, but it was a necessary one, I felt. If the students could look to me as some kind of beacon, maybe in the horrors and midst of combat they’d draw on their inner strength knowing that the last dragonkin, the last valkyrie, fought alongside them.

I had no delusions my wings somehow made me equal to the jotnars’ power or the dark elves’ wickedness. We still had our work cut out for us. It would be a deadly, bloody conflict coming.

Yet our greatest weapon was our togetherness, and if I could stoke the flames of unity by showing the academy we had some aces in the hole of our own . . . then I would gladly take on that mantle.

Joining my comrades, my mates, and my friends, I added to the chorus—and there was music indeed—as I helped lift the song to the heavens while thrusting both my fists above my head.

“Long live Vikingrune Academy!”