Page 38 of The Last Valkyrie (Vikingrune Academy #4)

Chapter 38

Ravinica

FROTHY WHITE WATERFALLS spilled down the planes of my mind. Perhaps it was innuendo for the unhinged night I had with my men, before promptly falling asleep well-fucked and satiated.

In my dream, I looked up at the torrential water from below, getting spattered with drizzle along my front.

More innuendo, surely.

I smiled . . . but the smile fell away as something familiar took over. An odd sensation that I was being watched, even in this strange, peaceful dream set in the middle of nature.

A green jungle surrounded me, the sun shining bright in the sky. Insects clicked and birds flew overhead, and I was reminded of Folkvang, that unbelievable, storybook land the goddess Freyja called home.

Here, nature ruled.

“ Past, present, future, ” a voice said in my head.

I spun away from the waterfalls, my brow furrowing. “Who’s there?”

My voice echoed off the leafy trees and branches around me, no one answering.

“ One is decided, one is happening, and only one is yet to be determined, Ser’karioth. ”

I recognized the voice.

A shape took form in front of me, emerging from the thick tree line, out of the one dark patch the sun couldn’t hit in my dream.

He wore a gray coat of fur, sword strapped to his waist. A burly figure with kind eyes, discerning eyes. Smiling at me, his black-and-gray hair glinted in the sun.

“Swordbaron Korvan?” I croaked.

This was the man who had raised me. Taught me to be a fighter. Not the wicked being I had encountered recently at Selby Village.

Yet everything inside me told me that Korvan’s smile was wrong. Unreal.

I wanted to wake up from the dream now.

“You’re not real,” I said, my voice little more than a whimper. “None of this is.”

“Yet your fate is entirely real, cub.” His voice was how I remembered from my youth: instructive, decent, proud. “As is your mother’s.”

Anger shot through my stomach, flexing my muscles. I raised a fist at him and instinctively looked for my spear on my back, but it wasn’t there.

Fucking Hel , I realized. Nothing was there. I was naked.

With shame and guilt speeding through me, I barred my breasts and took a step away from Korvan.

“You look like her, you know,” he said, eyeing my nude form.

Why does he have to look human and normal when he stares at me like that? I would’ve much rather had the dark elf dragonkin be the figure I saw in my vision. The man I hated.

Loathing filled me. “Shut the fuck up, you monster!”

I wanted to beat my fist into his face—shatter him into a million dreamlike fragments.

“You are the One Who Flew,” Korvan said.

The next moment, with a blink, my wings were out. The waterfalls behind me seemed to grow in volume, as if the Norns were stringing my fate along, guiding me and telling me they were enjoying this new state I’d found myself in.

That’s it , I thought. The Norns.

Urd, Verdandi, Skuld. Past, present, future.

“We could rebuild our bloodline, if you’d only join me in the future ,” he said.

He emphasized the last word interestingly.

It was a clue.

But all I could do was resist the bile rising in my throat, keeping nausea from buckling my knees at his words—his crude suggestion.

The truth dawned on me in his eyes. They looked hopeful , this egotistical, disgusting bastard.

Making an over-the-rainbow gesture with his hand swiping through the air, he said, “Picture it. Dragons could fly the lands of Midgard again. A full thunder of them.”

I understood his purpose now, and why he was holding Lindi over me.

My words came out savagely, a hound’s bark. “You’re my father , you sickening prick!” And he was talking of breeding me to prolong our bloodline ?

He laughed at that, and his face seemed to shimmer like a mirage—like he was having trouble keeping the pale mask of humanity in my dream. His demonic side wanted to break free.

“You humans have a simple understanding of birth and procreation. Think of the power we could share.” His shoulders rose in a shrug. “What else am I to do, when you’re the only one left, Ser’karioth ? You are the last of us, as you so love to tell people. I refuse to allow our blood to die off.”

Korvan gave a bored sigh, looking away. “There was your half-sister, but she never manifested, sadly. Besides”—his gaze narrowed wickedly on me, coupled with a grin—“you made sure to end her.”

No! I wanted to cry out. I could only think of one other half-blood I’d known.

Astrid Dahlmyrr.

It couldn’t be true. There was no way she could have been my half-sister!

And yet, part of me felt the ragged truth at the edges of my conscience. In my dreamland, there were no lies.

Tomekeeper Dahlia had never treated Astrid with respect—barely even acknowledged her existence here at the academy. It wasn’t until Astrid’s death that Dahlia began to act crestfallen that her daughter was gone, and started to make moves against me and my men.

What, did this serial rapist just go around impregnating random powerful women, hoping for the best? Shadowing their minds so they never learn the truth? Waiting for his offspring to come out with pointy ears, silver hair, and for our powers to “manifest” eventually?

If that was the truth, then there was no telling how many others had been impacted by this dangerous man. How many bog-blood half-elves were out there, wondering where they came from.

Yet my dream couldn’t lie . . . and Korvan had said I was the last one standing.

My teeth snapped together, so hard it jarred my brain. I thought they would crack with how intensely I clenched them. “Let. My. Mother. Go!”

He smiled, his mask finally cracking and showing the purple, devilish lips of his true form.

“I will, Ser’karioth. You only need to do what’s right.”

“Right.”

As the words tapered off in my head, I jolted upright in bed. I was covered in a layer of sweat, dripping from my hair, soiling the covers around me.

My bed was empty. I’d overslept, and my mates were gone.

Creeping up from my bed, naked and lost and afraid, I found a handwritten note sitting in plain sight.

My heart hammered, hand trembling as I slowly reached out and expected the worst.

I unfolded the note.

Maple or blueberry syrup on your waffles? Can’t remember.

See you soon, fox.

A great heave blew past my lips, all the nervous, scared energy expunging from my body in one go. The note was unsigned, but I knew the handwriting, and only one of my mates called me “little fox.”

I laughed at myself, scratching the back of my neck. Amused that I’d been so paranoid, when Arne and the others had simply left to get breakfast and bring it back to me in bed.

My nervous chuckling dwindled within seconds as my mind rewound, filtering back and trying to grasp the dream before it could dissipate like all dreams eventually did.

A gasp wrenched through me and I dropped the letter.

Urd, Verdandi, Skuld.

In the present, in reality, it made so much more sense than when I’d been there in my dream.

Somehow, Korvan had visited my sleeping mind, and I didn’t even want to try tackling how he managed that.

The important part was the section of my dream that remained—not about the disgusting invitation for incest, or the crude remarks about Astrid, or Korvan’s diabolical schemes.

“The location,” I hissed.

I knew where I needed to go.

Yet my feet dragged, one steps . . . two steps.

Sorrow filled me as I stared at the door of my longhouse.

“I’m so sorry, guys.”